Reflective Synopsis

A few weeks ago, I started on my Managing e.Learning Journey. In this course I was asked to read and engage with the coursework provided on the Central Queensland University’s moodle website and interact with the links about the technologies we were learning about. Each week I was introduced to various new technologies and had a play around with them before posting my thoughts and how I would introduce them into my classes on my blog. Each new technology brought exciting ways to engage the students and now I have the knowledge and confidence that I will be able to implement technology in my future classrooms to make the learning effective and engaging.




I am currently studying my Bachelor of Learning Management Early Childhood, which means my students will be from prep to year three. The technologies that I would implement within these classrooms would most likely be Digital Storytelling, Imcompetech, Google Earth, YouTube, Interactive Whiteboards, Flickr, PowerPoint's and Voki. The use of the technologies mentioned would be ranging from individual experiences to small or whole class experiences, for example YouTube is a fantastic resource where teachers are able to access a range of different videos to help engage the students by using visual aides, refer to my blog post YouTube. Also Voki's can be used to introduce and explain different tasks to individual students without a teacher being present, this gives the teacher more time to help other students that need help. The technologies mentioned will help teachers and students to effectively engage, inquire, create, communicate and operate information and communication technologies (ICT’s) and reach the outcomes associated with ICT’s. With the introduction of these technologies to the classroom teachers start to meet the needs of today’s students (digital natives) and relates learning experiences to the Learning Engagement Theory.



The technologies mentioned above would be used to enhance the learning environments in a teacher and student centred approach to learning. Both teacher and student are able to work together as a whole or in small groups or individually with these technologies to gain an understanding of how each different technology works and how to incorporate them into the learning in an engaging manner. The implementation of these technologies in classrooms would make all teaching, not just my own, more effective as learning experiences can be made up prior to the lesson and reach more children than a normal lecture. Referring to the Learning Pyramid (Central Queensland University Moodle site, 2010), it shows that the average retention rate of children is increased with the audio-visual aides increases by 20% and is further increased with practice by doing to 75%.



Each technology can be implemented into each year level in the primary school setting; in my future role as a learning manager it will be my responsibility to organize and maintain learning experiences that will engage the children within my specific year levels. When implementing learning experiences that involve students researching or using technology that requires Internet usage I will implement whole class discussions on netiquette and Internet safety as well as monitor the students with what they are doing. This will be valuable for the students learning and safety awareness development.



This course was really engaging and interesting to participate in. However personally I would only use YouTube for personal entertainment. I really enjoyed the aspects of blogging, as I was able to write down how I would implement the technologies within my future classrooms and relating back to the Learning Engagement Theory. I also really enjoyed how my peers would comment and leave suggestions for me on the specific blog post; this helped me to gather others understanding and knowledge of the same technologies . I would then go and read their blog post, which not only let me get an insight into how they would incorporate the technologies within their classrooms but also how they relate them back to the Learning Engagement Theory. I was also able to leave my comments on their posts to input my understanding and knowledge. For instance, I was unable to load a slide show into SlideShare (as my computer does not have Internet usage and I did not have a slide show available), but I was able to log onto another’s blog (see blog comment references, Blog 1) and view what they did. This allowed me to gather an understanding of how SlideShare worked and I was really impressed by some of my peers comments on this as the slide show was reaching out to a small child. I found the comments left on my blogs to be helpful and useful in gaining feedback on how I was making progress within the coursework and my understandings of the technologies and pedagogy discussed within the course.



I also found Google Reader to be helpful, as when I logged into the program I was able to view the new post that my peers had posted. Not only was I able to subscribe to a number of my peers blogs, but when I followed a certain blog through Blogger it was automatically listed in Google Reader and I was able to get an update of their new posts. This would be really helpful to a teacher when an assessment task is to do with blogs, they would be able to subscribe or follow all their students blogs. Then log on and read through on Google Reader, which would make it easier to assess what the students are doing rather than have them write or email you their links.


Today in the 21st Century, we are faced with Digital Native students, so to engage our students we need to be continually developing our understanding and usage of the technologies available. This means for me as a Learning Manager in the 21st Century, I will need to continue my development, understanding and knowledge of recent technologies to successfully apply e.Learning within an educational setting to engage my students and allow them to learn successfully.

 
 
Reference List
 
Kearsley, G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A Framework for technology-based teaching and learning. URL : http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm
 
Aldred. S & Central Queensland University (CQU). (2010). FAHE11001- Managing E-Learning: Moodle Site Term 1 2010. Rockhampton, QLD, Australia
 
The Abilene Christian Universtiy Adams Centre for Teacher Excellence. (2000). Why use Active Learning: Dales Cone. Active Learning Online. URL: http://www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/whyuseal2.htm
 
Prensky. M. (2001). Digital Navives, Digital Immigrants. URL: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
 
 
Appendix - Blog Comment List
 
Blog 1
Coreena Byrnes, Key note for Blogs
Blog 2
Coreena Byrnes, Voki
 
URL: http://coreenabyrnes.blogspot.com
 
Blog 3
Peter Spencer, Imcompetech
 
URL: http://mylearningjourneyteachingforthefuture.blogspot.com
 
Blog 4
Amanda, YouTube
Blog 5
Amanda, Voki's
 
URL: http://amandagilley.blogspot.com

Digital Storytelling

Dgital storytelling - is a new way of telling storys. Awhile back students would get up in front of the class after going on holidays and talk about what they did, teachers now can make it more interesting and get their students to over the first week get together and organise a digital story of what they did on their holidays.

This also allows students and teachers to become more creative in ways of assessment; teachers can get their students to creatively do a digital story on many different aspects like:
Personal Narrative
A work of fiction
A Book review, A Bookfomercial, A Book Trailer or a Book Talk
A documentary
A Persuasive/Public Service Announcement
Clay or Stop Animation
A new ending to a well known story
The True Story behind the story (in the fashion of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!)
Teach a Unit of Instruction
An Interview
A Poem - Use this Fill in the Blank poem creator, then create your digital story based on the poem.
A Photo Field Trip
A Rebus Story
A Class (or individual) Show and Tell

"Digital Storytelling" URL: http://old.lubbockisd.org/sfirenza/storytelling/

And using digital storytelling uses the following skills:

Writing Skills
Construct a story
Sequence and Summarize
Edit and Proofread
Use descriptive words
Use words to create imagery
Speaking and Visual Skills

Show clear expression and enunciation
Learn projecting and phrasing
Communicate ideas
Engage the audience
Match images with voice
Match music with script


Technical Skills
Implement DS software
Use a digital camera/video camera
Scan pictures and objects
Record voice and music
Import Internet Images

Personal Development Skills
Enhance self-confidence
Build community
Establish observational skills
Develop social skills


Dyck, Brenda. "Digital Storytelling: Igniting New Life into Writing." Classroom Connect Newsletter (2005): 16-17.

Relate : the children relate the topics back to something that they are interested in
Create : the children and the teacher come together in the planning of the digital storytelling; planning a storyboard so the digital story would make sense. Then the students are able create their digital story through the many medias online.
Donate : the students are then asked to show their digital story to the class and/or parents.

Googel Earth/ Wikipedia/ Slide Share/ Music on the Web

Google Earth
I was unable to download this as my C drive is full (gotta love technology), however I do remember having had played around with this before. I personally used it to look up a house that I was considering renting at the time. Google Earth allowed me to know exactly where it was in realation to the landmarks around which in time made it easier for me to find the house. This would be great to use in a class room when looking at the places we live - each child would be given a chance to type in their home address and show us around their place. This could then go on to explore different types of houses and different types of land (residential vs a property. one story vs two story). This could then be related into where different animals live and the children could then explore the different places animals are found.

Wikipedia
After a bit of a play around in wiki, I forgot that it was an encyclopedia and was trying to search all sorts of things and not coming up with much. But the children would be able to type in their topic, Australia for example and it comes up with history, culture, basically a wide variety of different things for them to explore and understand.

SlideShare
This sounds like an excellent tool, this would be great for teachers to use to update a slideshow they wish to show to their class and also make it available to them afterwards on an online blog. Although I did not have a slideshow to upload and have a play around with, this sounds like a great tool.

Music on the Web
Love this. Its great. The main thing that stuck out to me was that you could search by genre and feelings. This would work great in a childcare setting as you can/could download peaceful music to allow them to go to sleep. Thats my childcare roots showing. Although I am coming up blanks on how to encorporate this into younger school at the moment, I do have an idea that children would be able to download music and do a performance to it wether it be for a music subject or just a normal oral presentation.

YouTube

This video helps students to count to 10, giving them a visual and an audio elements to help them to understand.



This could be used as a lead up into the start of focused number teachings, this would allow the students to get an idea of what each number looks like before being taught it or can act as a refresher for others.



However in my placement today I had the pleasure of sitting in on my years 1's in there music lesson (a treat as they only usually do art and HPE on wednesdays) and in this lesson the teacher used a video to show the students different dance moves. After watching the video twice Miss then split the class up into smaller groups and gave them a specific dance move to do when they hear the specific music. Miss had also downloaded a track with the relevant music on it and once she pressed play the students where to dance along only doing the dance moves once they heard their music. They absolutely loved it.

Picnik

A good way for people to upload and change around their photot, i could not however save them onto my computer or load to my flickr account, i think the reasoning behind this is my computer needs to be cleaned out.

Ways for this to be used in classrooms:
Ideal way for children to learn how to change their photos - children could bring in photos of a holiday, load them onto picnik play around with the settings (ie add stickers, frames) and then load them the holidays story to the class blog.
Relate - the class can plan and create their class blog by adding to it every week about the focus topic
Create - the children are creating their own blog post, adding pictures of their holidays
Donate - children are able to access this website from where ever to show all family members.

Yellow Flowers

Yellow Flowers
Originally uploaded by twmjedi

Flickr would be such a good resource to tap into. This would allow others to tap into photos and videos that others have taken rather than the generic ones you find on the web.

Teachers would be able to tag certain images into categories and add a description on how they implemented this in their classrooms.

For example, the class may go on a nature walk which the teacher films. then the teacher takes photos of the work planned from that nature work. this can all be then uploaded in on to flickr with the tags yr1 nature, nature, education etc.

By doing this, teachers would get ideas from others and be able to utilise the untapped resource that is someone elses head.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.