Reflective Synopsis: the final chapter
Throughout my E learning journey I have felt many things, frustration, excitement, satisfaction and total helplessness but through all these emotions I have powered on and have come out the other side enlightened and pleased with the results I have achieved. ICT is fast becoming the way of the future. Over the decades it has become clearer that ICT is the new and improved way of teaching and communicating with students. Teaching students about technology is now vitally important, not only do their future careers depend on such skills but also we have to prepare them for the change in our society, things such as banking, shopping, real estate and ways of communication. (Abbott, 2001) Helping our students to freely communicate with one another is important to the local and global society. With web pages such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter it is rapidly becoming the new way of communication. While these websites have some positive attributes there are many downsides of our students using them. Some of there include; becoming socially challenged, cyber bulling, viewing things that are not appropriate for their age and spelling and grammar errors. Fortunately most schools have a block on all of these websites and students cannot access them at school. (Lecky-Thompson, 2009)
The Australian Government has noticed the rapid growth of technology within the country and is helping education move and adapt to this specific need within education. (Smart Clssroom Bytes, 2008) Along with these adaptations, Education Queensland has created several policies to guide schools in the safety and well being of the students. It is important for teachers to be aware of the possible dangers of technology in the classroom and the internet; such as copyright, cyber bulling and inappropriate websites. (Policies, Standards and Legisltion, 2004)
ICT is not a new phenomenon but not old, technology will continue to advance and evolve; there will always be something new to learn and a new upgrade to download. I believe that as important as learning about new technology is, students still benefit from face to face teacher student time and making the lesson about the learning not just about how awesome the technology is.
Throughout this synopsis I will be discussing the tools that I have explored throughout my blog as well as some teaching tools that I found useful.
Blogs are a practical tool to use in the learning place. Not only does blogging give peers the opportunity to collaborate over the internet but also have contact with teachers’ as well. Allowing students to blog about their thoughts, questions, answers and also comment on their peers’ blogs motivates students to get involved with their learning and also reflect on their peers’ blogs. As a learning manager we can also use blogs as a way of assessing students through many ways such as; a journal, information diary, reflective writing and collaboration with other students on particular topics. A blog is also useful to measure how interested the students are in the topic and how much they like using the blog. (About blogs, 2010) The availability and ease of using a blog makes creating blogs a viable classroom activity and a means for teachers to communicate with other teachers over a certain year level.
Blogging online is like having an in class discussion over the internet as students collaborate with one another and discuss their diverse ideas with different members of the class. Blogging can also help to build different relationships throughout the class, student, student relationships as well as teacher, student relationships. However some teachers may question, how will blogging enhance learning? These five steps will enhance learning through blogging; establishment, introspection, reflective monologues, reflective dialogue and knowledge artefact. Once students have completed these five steps they will be able to understand the broad reach of blogs as both writers and readers. Their writing will become powerfully opinionated and display critical thinking and display qualities of reflective leaning. (Bartlett-Bragg, 2003)
The second tool I found useful is the MobaPhoto. Not only is this tool easy to use but also free to download. It allows you to create professional looking photo galleries for WebPages. Student will be able to download the freeware and select photos of their choice and crop, resize, correct red eye, edit colour to display on their blogs.
Thirdly I really loved the concept mapping tool Text2MindMap. Concept mapping has been used as an effective way of note taking. For years mind mapping had been drawn in a workbook or on the whiteboard, now as we are in a more digital age, mind mapping has been transferred onto the computer. Students are now able to brainstorm digitally as an individual or collaboratively. The use of concept mapping online can be assisted with colours, images, codes and multi dimensional approaches to help memory. The program I used whilst trialling concept mapping was Text2MindMap and I especially liked the way I was able to colour code each piece to help build my understanding of the concept. To help students engage in higher order thinking and to remain open minded about a topic teachers should introduce mind mapping. It enables students to create a visual representation of the relationships between their ideas and information that connects to it. Between 80 and 90 percent of information we take in is visual, the brain makes sense of the world by discerning and creating patterns; in the same way, learning happens when students perceive and construct patterns. (Mind Mapping, 2007) Mind mapping can be used in the learning environment at any point to help students expand their ideas. For example it can help students access and record prior knowledge, record new knowledge, organise and develop their ideas or summarise a lesson.
My favourite tool I explored for my blog was Movie Maker. I especially love Movie Maker because it is a useful tool to use in the upper school. My year 7’s love using movie maker they would create video montages of themselves and their friends, upload their favourite songs and edit their pictures to have different effects. I also introduced MobaPhoto to them, I showed them how to edit their pictures and they also used those specific pictures in their Movie Maker video.
Lastly, the Weebly website, this tool is free and easy to create and get started. I believe if I had pursued with my Weebly account that I would have enjoyed participating in creating it and making it a good recourse for assignments.
Many teachers have already started to create their virtual classroom through Weebly. My mentor teacher had a Weebly account and although she didn’t use it as she would have like to she often said what a good recourse it would be to have all the class information on it for the parents to view. Newsletters, homework, excursions, school rules, email accounts linked, and the list goes on. The teacher could also upload a YouTube clip onto the website for homework as well as posting and collecting assessment tasks on the Website. (Classroom 2.0, 2009) Although a virtual classroom is a great recourse but in my opinion compared to a traditional classroom it does not offer face to face parent teacher contact, however Weebly would be easier for the teacher and less time consuming, it does not offer the assurance of knowing the teacher on a personal level.
We can all agree that ICT can motivate, engage, help develop communication skills and save time. We have looked at the four main tools that have been discussed throughout this blog and Managing e-Learning, by looking at all this information I believe that teachers need to embrace ICT as it is rapidly becoming the way of the world but also maintain a healthy balance between a virtual reality and actual reality. Teachers are being offered great recourses to aid them with their teaching and learning so it’s time we make the most of what being offered and see how far technology can go.
References
Abbott, C. (2001). ICT: Changing Education. NYC: Routledge Falmer.
About blogs. (2010). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from the Learning Place: http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/communication/blogs/aboutblogs.html
Bartlett-Bragg, A. (2003). Blogging to learn. Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Classroom 2.0. (2009). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from Forum : http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/new-weebly-for-education
Lecky-Thompson, G. (2009, May 30). Facebook: Good or Bad for Communication. Retrieved August 25, 2010, from suite101.com: http://social-networking-tagging.suite101.com/article.cfm/facebook_good_or_bad_for_communication
Mind Mapping. (2007). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from University of Minnesota: http://dmc.umn.edu/activities/mindmap/
Policies, Standards and Legisltion. (2004). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from Department of Education and Training: http://education.qld.gov.au/web/schools/policy.html
Smart Clssroom Bytes. (2008, August). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from Department of Education and Training: http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/pdf/scbyte-elearning.pdf
Throughout my E learning journey I have felt many things, frustration, excitement, satisfaction and total helplessness but through all these emotions I have powered on and have come out the other side enlightened and pleased with the results I have achieved. ICT is fast becoming the way of the future. Over the decades it has become clearer that ICT is the new and improved way of teaching and communicating with students. Teaching students about technology is now vitally important, not only do their future careers depend on such skills but also we have to prepare them for the change in our society, things such as banking, shopping, real estate and ways of communication. (Abbott, 2001) Helping our students to freely communicate with one another is important to the local and global society. With web pages such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter it is rapidly becoming the new way of communication. While these websites have some positive attributes there are many downsides of our students using them. Some of there include; becoming socially challenged, cyber bulling, viewing things that are not appropriate for their age and spelling and grammar errors. Fortunately most schools have a block on all of these websites and students cannot access them at school. (Lecky-Thompson, 2009)
The Australian Government has noticed the rapid growth of technology within the country and is helping education move and adapt to this specific need within education. (Smart Clssroom Bytes, 2008) Along with these adaptations, Education Queensland has created several policies to guide schools in the safety and well being of the students. It is important for teachers to be aware of the possible dangers of technology in the classroom and the internet; such as copyright, cyber bulling and inappropriate websites. (Policies, Standards and Legisltion, 2004)
ICT is not a new phenomenon but not old, technology will continue to advance and evolve; there will always be something new to learn and a new upgrade to download. I believe that as important as learning about new technology is, students still benefit from face to face teacher student time and making the lesson about the learning not just about how awesome the technology is.
Throughout this synopsis I will be discussing the tools that I have explored throughout my blog as well as some teaching tools that I found useful.
Blogs are a practical tool to use in the learning place. Not only does blogging give peers the opportunity to collaborate over the internet but also have contact with teachers’ as well. Allowing students to blog about their thoughts, questions, answers and also comment on their peers’ blogs motivates students to get involved with their learning and also reflect on their peers’ blogs. As a learning manager we can also use blogs as a way of assessing students through many ways such as; a journal, information diary, reflective writing and collaboration with other students on particular topics. A blog is also useful to measure how interested the students are in the topic and how much they like using the blog. (About blogs, 2010) The availability and ease of using a blog makes creating blogs a viable classroom activity and a means for teachers to communicate with other teachers over a certain year level.
Blogging online is like having an in class discussion over the internet as students collaborate with one another and discuss their diverse ideas with different members of the class. Blogging can also help to build different relationships throughout the class, student, student relationships as well as teacher, student relationships. However some teachers may question, how will blogging enhance learning? These five steps will enhance learning through blogging; establishment, introspection, reflective monologues, reflective dialogue and knowledge artefact. Once students have completed these five steps they will be able to understand the broad reach of blogs as both writers and readers. Their writing will become powerfully opinionated and display critical thinking and display qualities of reflective leaning. (Bartlett-Bragg, 2003)
The second tool I found useful is the MobaPhoto. Not only is this tool easy to use but also free to download. It allows you to create professional looking photo galleries for WebPages. Student will be able to download the freeware and select photos of their choice and crop, resize, correct red eye, edit colour to display on their blogs.
Thirdly I really loved the concept mapping tool Text2MindMap. Concept mapping has been used as an effective way of note taking. For years mind mapping had been drawn in a workbook or on the whiteboard, now as we are in a more digital age, mind mapping has been transferred onto the computer. Students are now able to brainstorm digitally as an individual or collaboratively. The use of concept mapping online can be assisted with colours, images, codes and multi dimensional approaches to help memory. The program I used whilst trialling concept mapping was Text2MindMap and I especially liked the way I was able to colour code each piece to help build my understanding of the concept. To help students engage in higher order thinking and to remain open minded about a topic teachers should introduce mind mapping. It enables students to create a visual representation of the relationships between their ideas and information that connects to it. Between 80 and 90 percent of information we take in is visual, the brain makes sense of the world by discerning and creating patterns; in the same way, learning happens when students perceive and construct patterns. (Mind Mapping, 2007) Mind mapping can be used in the learning environment at any point to help students expand their ideas. For example it can help students access and record prior knowledge, record new knowledge, organise and develop their ideas or summarise a lesson.
My favourite tool I explored for my blog was Movie Maker. I especially love Movie Maker because it is a useful tool to use in the upper school. My year 7’s love using movie maker they would create video montages of themselves and their friends, upload their favourite songs and edit their pictures to have different effects. I also introduced MobaPhoto to them, I showed them how to edit their pictures and they also used those specific pictures in their Movie Maker video.
Lastly, the Weebly website, this tool is free and easy to create and get started. I believe if I had pursued with my Weebly account that I would have enjoyed participating in creating it and making it a good recourse for assignments.
Many teachers have already started to create their virtual classroom through Weebly. My mentor teacher had a Weebly account and although she didn’t use it as she would have like to she often said what a good recourse it would be to have all the class information on it for the parents to view. Newsletters, homework, excursions, school rules, email accounts linked, and the list goes on. The teacher could also upload a YouTube clip onto the website for homework as well as posting and collecting assessment tasks on the Website. (Classroom 2.0, 2009) Although a virtual classroom is a great recourse but in my opinion compared to a traditional classroom it does not offer face to face parent teacher contact, however Weebly would be easier for the teacher and less time consuming, it does not offer the assurance of knowing the teacher on a personal level.
We can all agree that ICT can motivate, engage, help develop communication skills and save time. We have looked at the four main tools that have been discussed throughout this blog and Managing e-Learning, by looking at all this information I believe that teachers need to embrace ICT as it is rapidly becoming the way of the world but also maintain a healthy balance between a virtual reality and actual reality. Teachers are being offered great recourses to aid them with their teaching and learning so it’s time we make the most of what being offered and see how far technology can go.
References
Abbott, C. (2001). ICT: Changing Education. NYC: Routledge Falmer.
About blogs. (2010). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from the Learning Place: http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/communication/blogs/aboutblogs.html
Bartlett-Bragg, A. (2003). Blogging to learn. Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Classroom 2.0. (2009). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from Forum : http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/new-weebly-for-education
Lecky-Thompson, G. (2009, May 30). Facebook: Good or Bad for Communication. Retrieved August 25, 2010, from suite101.com: http://social-networking-tagging.suite101.com/article.cfm/facebook_good_or_bad_for_communication
Mind Mapping. (2007). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from University of Minnesota: http://dmc.umn.edu/activities/mindmap/
Policies, Standards and Legisltion. (2004). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from Department of Education and Training: http://education.qld.gov.au/web/schools/policy.html
Smart Clssroom Bytes. (2008, August). Retrieved August 25, 2010, from Department of Education and Training: http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/pdf/scbyte-elearning.pdf
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