Week 5 - PowerPoint and Google Earth

PowerPoint:

This week I was able to have a look at some multimedia resources that are used for presentation – PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster. I have selected PowerPoint to review further. Again I feel that this form of teaching/learning medium will be used more at the primary school level (especially the lower lever primary which I will be focused on during my first prac).

I know that PowerPoint is by no means a new technology. It was around way back when I was at school! But clearly our knowledge and understanding of how to use PowerPoint to present information has advanced since then. PowerPoint presentations are now not simple slides of dot points. PowerPoint presentations now offer an opportunity to incorporate visual, text and audio – creating an opportunity for ‘higher order thinking.’ (CISCO Systems (2008) accessed from: http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf).

I had a quick practice using PowerPoint and prepared a really simple 'dummy' word additional problem PowerPoint for Grade 1. I have uploaded it to my Wiki at - http://gracegannonict.wikispaces.com/space/content. I was able to include some visuals, text and audio with relative easy – don’t get me wrong, it’s no masterpiece by any means of the imagination, but it works for the purpose and the intended audience.

I will no doubt use PowerPoint as part of the pedagogy not only for teaching with but hopefully to get students to create their own PowerPoint presentations.

PowerPoint is definitely not a high tech tool or overly exciting. But for the purposes of lower level primary school students, I think it’s an appropriate tool.  

Google Earth:

I love it. This tool was something I relied on almost every day as a Town Planner. It’s easy to use and fun to play with.  I can image using Google Earth to play games like – ‘where in the world is____?’ ‘Can you find _____?’ or ‘How far away from the school is _______.’ Students could even create their own questions and answers for other students.

There are great websites that provide lengthy lists of ideas for implementing Google Earth into the classroom. Most of the ideas listed are more suited to high school students, rather than primary school. Nonetheless, some of these websites include:

• Google Earth - http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/GeogP/gearthplan/.
• Google Earth for Educators at: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/education/.
• Professional Learning Board – Teacher Continuing Learning online at: https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/google-earth-in-the-classroom/.

Week 4 - Visual Images

This week I found out that my first Embedded Professional Learning (EPL) experience (aka prac) will be with a Prep class! So I’m now trying to get my head around how I can incorporate ICTs into my pedagogy for a prep class............

Of the multimedia devices focused on this week - images, videos and audio – I have decided to look more closely at images. Why?? Whilst I think all of the devices should be implemented into the learning process, I think that at the primary school level visual images is perhaps the most used device.

 Some interesting facts relating to visual learning:

(source: ‘The Visual Teaching Alliance’ at http://www.visualteachingalliance.com/).

So in order to reach the majority of my students my pedagogy needs to include a significant amount of visual material. Of course using visual images to explain and demonstrate work to students is a useful method of teaching. However my pedagogy aims at maximizing students using visual images to ‘Create’ their own visual images.

The Queensland Government – Smart Classrooms website at http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/working-digitally/index.html provides great practical examples of how students can creatively incorporate visual images in the classroom, some of the examples include: 

• Practising – use digital audio to record and practice oral presentations
• Digital storytelling – use a series of photos with digital camera and ’Paint’ to create a digital story.
• Narrating – use digital camera to capture images and use the photos to tell a narrative story.

Another great website for examples of how to incorporate multimedia in the classroom is ’20 Ways to Use Multimedia in the Classroom’ prepared by SONY: see  http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/education/sellsheets/academic_20ways.pdf. As the website was developed by SONY there is some product bias, but still some great ideas.

A White Paper titled ‘Multimodal Learning Through Media – What Researchers Say’ produced by CISCO Systems (2008) suggests that the most effective use of multimedia devices is adding visual, verbal, audio and text into a combined teaching strategy as it produces greater opportunities for ‘higher order thinking.’ (source: CISCO Systems (2008) accessed from: http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf).

Following that line of thinking, and focusing on lower primary school aged students an example of incorporating visual images, that combines verbal, audio and text could be a PowerPoint presentation. For example I could prepare a PowerPoint presentation for step by step demonstrations of maths problems using images and narration whist making comments and asking questions and the class worked through the problem.

week 3 - a final note

As a final note, I can see how I could follow Bloom’s revised Taxonomy and the TPACK model to incorporate on-line technology into my pedagogy – some technologies more than others. 

Personally I feel that if I can use on-line tools to: better help my students engage and collaborate; learn not only from, but with, the technology; and produce creative, high level thinking to produce outcomes, then I will have successfully used ICTs to meet my own aspirations as a teacher...I just hope we don't take the use of ICTs as a tool for learning too far!!!

Week 3 - websites

Hells Bells!! Now I have my own website - http://ictsatschool.weebly.com/ - who would have thought?!

In setting up my website I was in charge of what content I wanted to add, what it would look like, what links to add, etc. I knew no one else could comment on it, change it, or delete it. And whilst I had all this freedom I am still to figure out what I want to use it for...I’m not particularly interested in having my own website for any personal reason so without any need assessment wise I’m not sure how much I will use it.

Nonetheless, I can see how I could use a website as a teacher to connect students to endless amounts for information and resources relating to course content. A personally constructed website will be able to ensure that what my students are learning/being exposed to is directly related to what is being taught.

For completeness the following SWOT on websites for learning/teaching is provided:

STRENGTHS Endless amounts of information – access to world wide web Great to learn from Available anytime/anywhere Cannot be changed/amended etc. Good for linking to blogs etc Good teacher tool for showing examples, information etc Reliable resources	WEAKNESSES Limited, if any, collaboration or interaction Relies on the author covering unbiased content etc Relies on having a computer and internet which not all students have access too = disadvantaged students
OPPORTUNITIES Teachers can display exactly what they want students to learn Provides great information/resource for students	THREATS Information can be incorrect, misleading etc. students need to be able to determine what information is reliable or not Security issues with having children’s profiles on the web

Week 3 - Wiki

Yeah - my wiki is up and running.

So what is a wiki – my own short answer is that it is a on-line tool for multiple author participation and can be edited/changed/deleted by anyone.

In this course I have already been involved in a number of wikis – a wiki debate on mobile phones in the classroom (week 2 blog); practice quiz; and the creation of my own wiki (http://gracegannonict.wikispaces.com/).

To put my wiki to the test my first post asked for some help (collaboration) with filling out SWOT’s for the use of blogs, wikis, and website in the classroom so that I could use them for my blog posts. In theory this would have been a great collaboration and production method. But because I have a limit of 5 members I could only ‘invite’ a limited number of people – and no one responded – fail! Not to worry, real world collaboration in the classroom didn't fail me and our discussion at this week’s class helped me fill in some of the following SWOT table. 

STRENGTHS Student collaboration – each student contributing Constantly being updated Available anytime/anywhere Teacher can ensure all students are on the right track / otherwise direct them back to the main ideas Easy to use

WEAKNESSES Very little authorship control Students work can be deleted/changed etc Can be hard to see any real outcomes other than personal updates/responses (lack of need for factual information and research) Requires very clear instructions as to what is appropriate Comments could be offensive/cause intimidation Not everyone is able to, or prefers using on-line mediums and having other read their opinions Information posted can be incorrect, misleading etc. Relies on having a computer and internet which not all students have access too = disadvantaged students No spell check

OPPORTUNITIES Great tool to learn with – technology, writing, etc. Anytime/anywhere tool Individual creativity Collaboration Can choose who makes changes etc

THREATS Students work can be deleted/changed etc Information posted can be incorrect, misleading etc. Runs the risk of being used solely as a tool for individual entertainment rather than a learning tool Security issues with having children’s profiles on the web

Personally I don’t know how much emphasis I will put onto using wiki as an on-line learning tool into my pedagogy. Not really sold on the idea of student’s work, or my own work, being edited and even deleted without consultation.  

Week 3 - blog about blogs

Blogs, blogs, blogs, blogs.....they are consuming my world at the moment. To boot, this blog is actually a blog about blogs!! In particular, looking at the ways I can effectively incorporate the use of blogs as an on-line tool into my own pedagogy.

I’m not going to go into any detail on describing what a blog is as it is pretty evident given we are using a blog now that you are aware of how they work. What I am going to focus on is how blogs can be used for learning.

To begin the thinking process I comprised the following SWOT. Some of the points also came from ideas of other class members during our last class. I also tried to seek comments from other via my wiki but this didn't quite work out (read my next blog for more comments on that process).

STRENGTHS Single authorship/ownership – reflects own ideas and allows for individual creativity Student collaboration Available anytime/anywhere Parents can see how and what their children are learning Teacher feedback Teacher can ensure all students are on the right track / otherwise direct them back to the main ideas Easy to use

WEAKNESSES Time consuming for both students and teacher Can be hard to see any real outcomes other than personal updates/responses (lack of need for factual information and research) Requires very clear instructions as to what is appropriate Runs the risk of being used solely as a tool for individual entertainment rather than a learning tool Comments could be offensive/cause intimidation Not everyone is able to, or prefers using blogs and having other read their opinions Information posted can be incorrect, misleading etc. Relies on having a computer and internet which not all students have access too = disadvantaged students

OPPORTUNITIES Great tool to learn with – technology, writing, etc. Anytime/anywhere tool Individual creativity Collaboration and production Connections with the world

THREATS Information posted can be incorrect, misleading etc. Negative comments posted by other children Parents making comments on own child’s blogs or other children’s blogs Runs the risk of being used solely as a tool for individual entertainment rather than a learning tool Security issues with having children’s profiles on the web

I now draw on the assessment work I am doing as part of this course using blogs as a way of thinking about how blogs could be used for learning.   From the perspective of a learner I note that the assessment required that I set up my own blog and then use it to respond to weekly course activity questions. We are then encouraged to review and comment on other student’s blogs. Students are then given feedback from our lecturer.

Looking at the approach from a teacher’s perspective I think I can see how the use of the blog as a tool for learning may have been constructed. That is, it appears to me that the course purposely began with scaffolding - providing various manuals on the various ICTs that the course will cover, including how to create and use blogs, wikis etc. The course content was then broken down into sub-topics with specific blog activities relating to each - thus the teacher was guiding the learner/making sure the learner was focused on the important information. Throughout the course learners have been provided practical examples and ideas on how to complete blog activities, yet ensured that the end product was learner derived (or centered . I think this is an effective approach for ensuring creative, learner centered  individual output as well as student collaboration. It also means that our lecturer can scaffold effectively, provide feedback, and provides as bases for assessing students work. 

Looking back on my notes  I can see how the TPACK and Bloom’s revised Taxonomy could have been used to construct this course and its use of blogs and how I would be able to incorporate blogging into my own pedagogy.

As the unit notes suggests, the important element to the success of the blog, as a tool used in this course, is that the blog itself was used as a tool not only to learn from, but also to learn with. As a pre-teacher I can now see from this practical experience how blogs can work, despite the weaknesses and threats, into my pedagogy.

To finish I was also interested to find that the Bloom’s (revised) Digital Taxonomy now includes blogging as an appropriate verb to fulfill both the Creativity and Evaluation levels of learning – see http://www.techlearning.com/printablearticle/8670

Productive Pedagogy, Wiki, and TPACK – sounding like a real ICT student now...

This blogging thing is very different to the report writing that I am used to, but alas I think I am getting the hang of it! And given the very welcomed comments on my first blog I am going to try and change the style of narrative – rather than provide a straight forward summary of the each weeks topics, I am going to try and focus on providing an overview how I as a teacher feel about the concepts and ideas and how I would go about incorporating them into by teaching approach.

Learning sequence against the productive pedagogy:

So this week I had a go at preparing a learning sequence against the productive pedagogy. See below (the hardest part for me this week was to learn how to do a ‘screen shot’ – especially because last week’s attempt failed but hey I’m learning).

 

As you can see I chose the topic ‘human endevour’ which comes from the Australian Curriculum Science KLA for year 3.

The thinking behind this learning sequence is to provide a pedagogy that is teacher established and scaffolded, but importantly allows for student centred content with a great deal of ‘social support’/ interaction between students.  I believe that the learning sequence is a ‘higher order,’ ‘problem based’ activity which also emphasises ‘connectedness to the world’, ‘background knowledge,’ ‘active citizenship,’ and ‘group identity’ understanding. The assessment of understanding not only looks at  content matter but also the students ability to use the ‘Bubbl.us’ program which will then be used as a visual aid for their group presentations to the class.

I also hope that the activity is engaging and that it opens the minds of the students to the affects of the science of human endeavour and innovation and how much of an impact it can have from a local to global scale. 

TPACK 101:

 

 

Technology + Pedagogical + Content + Knowledge

= TPACK

= The process of integrating knowledge of content into our classrooms using technology.

 

 

 

 

 

Wiki discussion on the use of mobile phones in the classroom:

Another week of firsts for me - I commented on my first ever wiki!!!

Having taken part in the discussions I can see how the activity followed a TPACK process  - we did indeed use technology to show understanding of not only the content (which was also relevant to technology), but also our understanding of the use of wiki as a technology. However I feel that the activity could have promoted a more ‘higher order thinking’, ‘problem solving’ process which could have began with the collective discussion on the topic of mobile phones in the classroom, yet then go further to ask learners to maybe create their own TPACK pedagogical framework using the mobile phone as the technology – thus coming up with their own P,C and K.

What would your pedagogical framework look like?