my digital video

My semester statement

Introduction

To use technology effectively, teacher should help students to learn meaningfully (Jonassen, 2008) (blogpost- meaningful learning)), learn by making (Paper, 1991) and must to go beyond their particular disciplines, technologies and pedagogical techniques to achieve the technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) (Punya, 2009) (blogpost- TPACK). During this semester I have acquired new knowledge on how to achieve these demanding goals by using e-portfolios (Barret, 2004), blogs, podcasts (Sprague, 2008), digital stories (Hoffenberg, 2001), k-6 softwares (Squires 1994) and wikis (Lamb,2004)(blogpost-wiki wiki) have used in my practicum and referred to in my blog posts in the goal of merging technology, pedagogy and content knowledge in my future career. In this summary, I will first present how I used technology in my practicum, and secondly, offer an overview of what interested me the most in how to use technology in our classroom. 

I) Practicum and meaningful learning

Applying and experimenting theories learnt during the first part of the semester was one of our objectives during this practicum. In the intention to help my students to learn meaningfully, I engaged them in intentional, active and cooperative learning processes (Jonassen, 2008). In fact, with the use of some e-learning resources (blogpost- Prac) and the interactive white board (blogpost- Prac) students were actively engaged in my activities, had a clear goal to achieve and used peer learning.

II) How to use technology in our classroom 

a)    Technology: values, ethics and moral

A new awareness about values, ethics and moral (blogpost - Values, ethics and moral) necessary whilst using technology in education was brought to my attention during this semester. Firstly, educators need to have a notion of values - whilst being personal they play an outstanding role in education. Secondly, ethics are well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe by society on what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, and specific virtues. There are there to address educators’ behaviour. Thirdly, moral is a global vision of standards of right or wrongs. Good educators should have those qualities: They should have personal values, they should be aware of what is appropriate and they should be concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action.

b)    Technology: Constructionism

Papert (1991) explains that students learn when they are engaged in constructing a public entity – “learning by making”. Constructionism emphasizes the significance of the publication and sharing of students’ end products as a key factor that motivates their learning. By using various softwares in class, we uncovered various ways to get students motivated by sharing their work and fulfill the five characteristics of meaningful learning. Here are a few of these softwares and their use in the primary classrooms.

Conclusion

Technology is an ever-evolving world that teachers have to keep up with. Having discovered so many simple ways to integrate technology in the classroom has showed me that educators have to include this powerful motivational tool to achieve a meaningful learning. These days technology has a few short terms objectives- as improving existing school practices and introducing very elementary forms of technological literacy in school (Papert, 2004) (blogpost - changing schools). But should technology be more that just improving what educators are already doing? Should it be changing the system? Will I use it to change the system? I will soon discover the answer.

References:

-     Papert, S. (2004). Technology in schools: To support the system or render it obsolete. Milken Family Foundation.

-     Hoffenberg, H., & Handler, M. (2001). Digital video goes to school. Learning & Leading with Technology, 29(2), 10-15.

-     Barrett, H. (2004). Electronic portfolios as digital stories of deep learning. Accessed Dec 18, 2008 from http://electronicportfolios.org/digistory/epstory.html  

-     Jonassen, D. et al (2008). What is meaningful learning? In D. Jonassen et al.(Eds).Meaningful learning with technology. 3rd Edtn. pp1-12. Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, N.J.

-     Papert, S. (1991). Situating Constructionism. In I. Harel & S. Papert (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 1-11). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Company.

-     Sprague, D. & Pixley, C. (2008) Podcasts in Education: Let their voices be heard. Computers in the Schools. 25(3-4), 226-23

-     Squires, D. & McDougall, A. (1994). A perspectives interactions paradigm for studying educational software. In D. Squires & A. McDougall (Eds.) Choosing and using educational software: A teacher’s guide. (pp. 65-71). London: Falmer Press

-     Mishra, P. & Koehler, M. J. (2009). Too cool for school?  No way! Learning & Leading With Technology, 36(7), 14-18.

-     Lamb, B (2004). Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, Ready or Not. EDUCAUSE Review, 39 (5), 36–48. Last accessed 17th August 2008 from: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/WideOpenSpacesWikisReadyo/40498?time=1218970952

TPACK

Class+ reading 

After having read the article Too cool for school. No way! Using the TPACK Framework- You can have your hot tools and teach with them, too (Punya, 2009) and having heard the literature circle presentation I had a deeper understanding of what TPACK meant. It means that if educators are to use the "cool tools" that technology offer, they require a specific kind of knowledge that we call technological pedagogical and content knowledge. Teachers should go beyond their particular disciplines, technologies, and pedagogical techniques and try to achieve the knowledge specified by the TPACK framework. 

In session 10, we also talked about an interesting way to store students' work: E-portfolio. There are two main types of educational e-portfolios: Firstly, a reflection type where entries are done over time and usually wrote in the present tense. Secondly, a showcase type that would be used to document the achievement over time. It is really a website that enables users to collate digital evidence of their learning. Our lecturer gave us a fantastic idea to create a portfolio with our students where they would put their best work each week to be able to show it to their parents or simply to celebrate their best work. I truly think that it would be something that I would experiment with my own class. 

references: 
- Mishra, P. & Koehler, M. J. (2009). Too cool for school?  No way! Learning & Leading 
With Technology, 36(7), 14-18.  

- http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://grcc.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/tpack-contexts.jpg&imgrefurl=http://grcc.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/applying-the-blackboard-lms-to-tpack/&usg=__2TkPdp2aTgw2ZBSBMkrMt4Fnh3s=&h=1650&w=1635&sz=649&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=dBUjp5DQe8y9rM:&tbnh=153&tbnw=152&ei=_AnyTYP2AYLovQOdh7SeBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DTPACK%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1187%26bih%3D634%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=505&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&tx=68&ty=54&biw=1187&bih=634

Social networking

class

Technology can be used the wrong way when dealing with social networking:  to bully or find personal information. Teachers as well as students need to be careful with how they use technology for their personal life.

Firstly, teachers should be careful with the information they put on social websites- e.g. Facebook, Myspace, etc. In session 9, our teacher asked us to type our name in a "google search". Naively I thought that nothing would come up, however, a perfect stranger could know most of my life. Similarly, with "google images" most of my Facebook's images came up and also my friend's. It was also brought to our attention that our private settings on any social website should be as private as possible. Future employers, future students or even parents could do a simple google search to know more about our private life...

Secondly, students can also misuse technology by using it for the wrong purpose or not thoughtfully. For instance, cyber bullying is "the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others" (wikipeida). But students also need to be aware of other problems created by technology: which images can be displayed on Internet, which information can they put online etc. Those issue was discussed in class and a few solutions were suggested. For example,  the cyber smart  website is a great way e-learning resource to make the students aware of possible problems related to technology. Also, budd;e  is another resource that can be used to tech students to choose a good password, which photos are private or which ones can be publicly exposed, or which personal information should stay private...

http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/flickrCC/index.php?terms=social+networking&edit=yes&page=1

Changing schools

reading+class

We all agree that technology is a great learning tool- the key word here is tool.

Some good points were given by Beth's blog- Changing schools to avoid the misuse of technology by educators during their lecture circle presentation. They were presenting the journal article on how to support the system or render it obsolete by Milken Family Foundation (2004). A smart illustration of how the benefits of technology can be wrongly used was made - a stagecoach was drawn and the following question was raised: How do we make it faster? A few answers were proposed: more horses, a smoother road, less weight or even a rocket attached to the stagecoach. While the suggestions were made, more details were added to the drawing. It was drawn to our attention that all of these suggestions would fail- new technologies can not be attached to the old ones. This was a brilliant metaphor of what we can not do with technology. We need to use technology to support our students' learning..

In fact, Papert (2004) sees the goals of technology in school is to improve existing school practices, including the teaching of current content and to iintroduce a very elementary form of ‘computer literacy’ or ‘technological fluency’ in the form of vocational knowledge.

Resources:

- Papert, S. (2004). Technology in schools: To support the system or render it obsolete. Milken Family Foundation.

- http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/flickrCC/index.php?terms=stagecoach&edit=yes&page=1

Hole in the wall

class

How much impact can technology have on children's learning when they can not access it? The answer is none. Do they still know how to use it? The answer is surprisingly yes...

A study was done in India called "Hole in the wall" where computers were placed in walls and children could access it when/ how they wanted. They could choose to surf on the web, play educational games or write down their thoughts. The video shows children rushing after school to have a play on the computers or children that didn't go to school that could have access to technology. Incredible proof of intelligence were proven - a kid managed to take a screen shot of the screen saver and save it as the current screen saver to trick other children into thinking that the computer was broken. Moreover, even thought some kids didn't know a word of English they were still able to navigate on the computer without any problems.

This experiment was the inspiration for the creation of " Slumdog millionaire", this magical film that invite us to discover the adventures of two little indian boys. It also proves the amazing effect of peer learning, as the kids were learning how to use technology by observing older peers. Moreover, it shows how technology can be easily won over by young kids. Technology can't be financially accessible by everyone, but can still have an effect on children's learning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRb7_ffl2D0

Values, ethics and morality

class

In session 9, questions were raised about what values, ethics and moral mean. Finding the differences between those three words was proven to be tricky but we came up, as a group, with those definitions. Firstly, values are personal; they vary with our upbringing, our faith or our culture. Secondly, ethics are an agreed value system put into action; they state what is appropriate in society. Moreover, they are there to address behaviour. Thirdly, moral is, in my view, a global vision of standards of right or wrongs. Good educators should have those qualities: They should have personal values, they should be aware of what is appropriate and they should be concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action.

A case study was presented to us: A primary school teacher, during her free time, made some inappropriate pictures for a car advertisement. She was asked to leave the school as a result. Is that fair? Should she had had a sense of ethics and be aware that this behaviour wasn't an agreed value system for a teacher? I would agree with that, it was not ethical. But i don't agree with the decision made by the school. Teachers have humans right like all others humans. Article 3 (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948)  states that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". Furthermore, the declaration states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks" (1948). Therefore, I don't completely understand how this teacher could have been fired even thought I understand that it was morally and ethically wrong.

A further explanation of "duty of care" was given to us. As teachers, we need to avoid foreseeable risks. The following case study was analysed: a field trip is organised next to a lake with 20 students, what should you do, as a teacher, to avoid foreseeable risks? Some ideas were raised as: having enough teachers to supervise the entire group, educating the students beforehand of the possible risks, applying strict rules and more importantly having at least 2 teachers trained for CPR. This anagram was explained for us to remember the steps to ensure the security of our students: PIES. "P" for policy - are there policies in place? 'I' for  infrastructure - what have you done in your school to protect your students. "E" for  education - what do the students know about the safety. "S" for standards - which sorts of quality control do you have in your school?

An interesting point was made about values and moral. If you work in a school that has a few financial difficulties and is not able to provide the money to buy enough softwares for all your students. There are 20 students and enough money to buy 3 softwares. What do you do? Do you copy the software and go against the law? Or deprive the students of this software for financial reasons? My first instinct was: Even though I know it is against the law, the kids come first, I would copy it. But after reflection, I realised that there were lots of options to get around it: find a free similar software, take turns on the computers, ask for the permission to copy it, etc.

To sum up, this session raised some very important and serious issues about moral, values and ethics in education. It developed my understanding and awareness of what can, or is, accepted in today's Australian society for primary school teachers.

Thanks Flickr cc:  http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/flickrCC/index.php?terms=moral&edit=yes&page=1

Technology and its ethical and social issues

(class)

After our session 8, I started to think about social and ethical issues that arise when using technology in the classroom. She started her lecture with a simple example: a group of school girls using computers given by the school during the school holidays to bully one of their classmate. Who is liable? The school or the parents?

A class discussion brought us to the conclusion that the school was liable. Why? Because teachers should educate children about cyberbulling, because they used the school's computers, because the whole school was implicated. We also agreed that the parents had their part in the drama. Students probably signed a contract where parents had to give their approval for their child to use the school computers. In conclusion we learnt that as teachers we have a duty of care when we use technology in our classroom.

I understood why so many websites were blocked in my prac school. Because not only Facebook or other websites that we don't want primary school students to used were blocked, but nearly everything that included a world that should be seen by primary school students. For example, a search on butterflies was resumed to 2 pages as the other ones were blocked because the word butterfly can also be used by big companies.Moreover, a website that I wanted to use that is referred to in the federation of education was blocked for some mysterious reasons. At first I was surprised, why overprotect students that will obviously go back home and see those things by watching TV or by other devices. But now I understand that it's to protect the students as well as the school.

I also learnt what digital divide means. Some of my classmates came up with some interesting ideas about what it could mean: different identities, a division between older people and young people, etc. The one that interested me the most was how students within a classroom have different access to technology, for financial reasons or others. It never occurred to me that students could have a computer but could also have 5 brothers that had to use the computer for work or other reasons. The following question was raised: Should teachers give more time/technological equipment to students that don't have access to technology at home. We all came up with some solutions which included special workshops after school, different tasks for different levels (like literature groups).

In conclusion, this session opened my eyes on some interesting problems that I have never really thought about and how carefully we should handle technology to use it in the best possible way...

http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/flickrCC/index.php?terms=digital divide&page=3&edit=yes&com=no

Prac

How wonderful can a IWB be?
(practicum)

I just finished my prac and I had a Year 1/2 class. I had a fantastic cooperative teacher that was happy to share her teaching techniques and knowledge with me. I had a wonderful experience but did I incorporate technology in my lessons?

The answer is yes and as much as I could. As wonderful as my cooperative teacher could be, she was an older lady and was not confident with technology. The huge interactive white board (IWB) in her classroom was left untouched most of her lessons and her lesson in the computer room was mostly researching information on Internet. This meant that as soon as I started using it, students were very excited and motivated to participate in the activity. I used some PowerPoint slide to introduce some of my Maths lessons. With the help of PowerPoint 2011 I could create very interactive slides using different colours, images and information. Moreover, I was using the IWB program to create fun activities where students could actively participate in the lesson. Furthermore, I used the IWB to show videos to illustrate my instructions. For instance, during a visual art lesson on Eric Carle, while the students were creating their artwork, a video of Eric Carle's art techniques were shown on the IWB. This simple illustration helped the students to remember the simple steps to create their artwork.

I also used a website presented by one of my classmate. It was a wonderful website on the use of adjectives and adverbs that make a doll sentence more lively. As the students were changing the sentence, the image illustrating it was changing as well. Even though my class was a Year 1/2 and the activity was more directed towards a year 3 class, I chose to use it as a simple introduction to adjectives and their use. I showed the students a demonstration of how the website works in class using the IWB and wanted them to play with the website on their own in the computer room. After having all the students really excited at the idea of using the website, I brought them to the computer room. Students could wait to start, logged in, looked for the website, found it and....The website was BLOCKED! That really disappointed everyone, but super Miss R. (me) found a simple solution to the problem: We will all use the website on the IWB in the classroom. In the end, the activity worked even better! the students were helping each other, harder words could be explained and students actively participate. At the end of the lesson, I took a few minutes to review what was done and what was learnt. They all came up with wonderful explanations. A big success. Here is the website. Use it with your students, but check first if it's not blocked (I still wonder why it was blocked!)

I think I made as much use of technology as I could in my prac... If i had a bit more time i would have been interested to create a blog with my students for them to write down their learning experiences as i really think that it is a wonderful way to realize what have been learnt or not understood. I simply fell in love with the IWB for its numerous qualities (and also with my gorgeous students)!

Thanks flickrcc: http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/flickrCC/index.php?terms=IWB&edit=yes&page=1