An eReflection.

A small “e” at the start of any word indicates that the process or item happens electronically or online.  Jay Cross is the man credited with first using the term eLearning online in 1998 (Mason & Rennie, 2006).  He states one common error is that people think placing educational material online is eLearning.  eLearning still requires human interaction between teachers and students both face to face and online (Cross, 2009).

eLearning is the explicit teaching of ICTs, digital literacy, uploading and downloading data to and from websites, and the use of technological devices and methods.  While most primary school children are digital natives we cannot expect them to have an innate ability to use technology.  Simply placing a computer in a classroom does not constitute eLearning (Howell, 2012).

In one of my first blogs I posted a picture of two boys playing with sticks. My philosophy leans towards tactile experiences more than sliding fingers across glass.  Dina Strasser commented that students who are constantly connected end up disconnected (Ferriter, & Garry, 2010, p. 3).

So where does this leave me?  Can a leaves and twigs person engage digital natives?  Can I hide my “go outside” messages online?  What I found most interesting about my blogs is that I concentrated more on increasing my own learning rather than finding ways to heckle eLearning.  Each time I looked at a new tool I considered how could it be used effectively.  With Glogster, my least favourite tool, I applied de Bono’s six thinking hats to be less emotional and more analytical.

Working safely, ethically and legally online.

While working on my blog I found anonymity in the Internet.  I consider myself an honest person but think nothing of taking a few photos from Google Images to feed into my blogs and PowerPoints.   Citing the author is one suggestion,  however, digital authors deserve traffic to their work.  One method I discovered from Smartcopying is to provide links for students rather than copying the material.  This is a practice I will do in the future.  I see this as good pedagogy too because students will have to do some of their own research on the linked page instead of being spoon-fed.   The use of Creative Commons is one way to work ethically and to teach students the value of working collaboratively for the enrichment of society.

Collaborative construction of knowledge.

The collaboration through this course was overt and covert.  I was able to read other students’ work if I was uncertain how to approach a certain topic.  As an online course I found email to be most effective for collaborating with my peers.  My view of collaboration is very limited to group work, which can be very trying. Vygotsky stated that learning is socially constructed (Snowmen, 2009) and collaboration is certainly a social event.  I often wonder how we can truly assess that all members of a group have achieved learning.

When I found this video, I realised that collaboration can lead to great things...

Wikis are seen as a tool for teaching collaboration (Wilber, 2010, p. 70).  Perhaps the most famous wiki site is Wikipedia.  However, not everything in Wikipedia is accurate.  This is part of teaching digital literacy.  Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s accurate (Winch et al., 2010).  I worry though that we may be creating a generation of children who are unable to work on their own.  Larry Winget says that teamwork doesn’t work because someone on the team doesn’t work.  This is where teachers need to employ a range of strategies so that children are able to work in groups and individually.

Digital frameworks.

I thought that pedagogy that worked in the real classroom would be sufficient for the digital classroom.  While many teaching strategies do work regardless of the vehicle of delivery, I found that the digital classroom requires the educator to possess additional skills and view content in different ways.   Educators need to know about the technology, appropriate pedagogy and content before effective eLearning can take place (Mishra, & Koehler, 2006).  This is highlighted in the AITSL Graduate Standards for Teachers.  The SAMR model, developed by Dr Ruben Puentedura, is an effective pedagogical tool to analyse the need and purpose of technology in the classroom.  Analysing ICT with SAMR evaluates if the technology is merely replacing pen and paper or if it scaffolding students in creating new tasks previously inconceivable.   This removes the error of using technology just for the sake of it.  Like all learning, digital learning has to be authentic and purposeful (Schrock, 2013).

Final thoughts.

I am aware that ICTs are an integral part of modern society and young children are adroit users and consumers of technology (Solomon & Schrum, 2010).  My future practice will treat technology the same as all resources, that is, it shall only be used when it is the most appropriate and engaging resource for the given content.   Though technology is everywhere we still live in a 3D world and children need to have all their senses engaged while learning (Marzano & Pickering, 2007).   I want children to know what it means to create rather than just consume internet content.  Students need to be taught how to be critical so they do not add to the sea of medicroity that exists online.  As an educator I will increase my knowledge so that I can expose students to a range of creative digital tools. 

References.

Cross, J. (2009) eLearning is not a big cost-cutter.  Retrieved from http://www.jaycross.com/wp/?s=eLearning

Ferriter, W. M., & Garry, A. (2010). Teaching the iGeneration: 5 easy ways to introduce essential skills with web 2.0 tools. Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press.

Howell, J. (2012). Teaching with ICT: digital pedagogies for collaboration and creativity. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press.

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. (with Arrendondo, D. E., Paynter, D. E., Blackburn, G. J., Brandt, R. S., Moffet, C. A., Pollock, J. E., & Whistler, J. S.). (1997). Dimensions of learning: teachers’ manual.  (2^nd ed.). Alexandra, VA: ASCD.

Mason, R., & Rennie, F. (2006). Elearning: the key concepts. New York, NY : Routledge.

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2006) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge.  Teachers College Record Volume 108, Number 6, June 2006, pp. 1017–1054.

Schrock, K. (2013) Authentic learning for students.  Retrieved from www.schrockguide.net/authentic-learning.html 

Snowman, J., Dobozy, E., Scevak, J., Bryer, F., & Bartlett, B. (2009). Psychology applied to teaching. Milton, Qld.: John Wiley & Sons Australia.

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2010). Web 2.0 how-to for educators. Moorabin, Vic.: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Wilber, D. J. (2010). iWrite: Using blogs, wikis, and digital stories in the English classroom. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Winch, G., Ross Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy. Reading, writing and children’s literacy. (4th ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Group 4 - Animations.

I chose to look at Text2Mindmap.  This reminds me of the visual thesaurus that I often use.  I recommend it to help children see the connection between synonyms.  The search word was display and if you click on any of the synonyms, its synonyms will appear and the web continues to expand.  Click on the photo below to see this product in use.  It allows a free trial. 

This is the simple mind map that I created from Text2Mindmap:

Some paper mind maps can get very messy.  If you run out of room and need to start again, the whole thing becomes a very laborious.  With this website, students are able to see the mind map almost instantaneously and make adjustments as they need to.  Concept maps are a great way for students to retain declarative knowledge (Marzano & Pickering, 1997).  I would use a digital mind map once students have annotated their paper mind map to the point where it is becoming difficult to read.

SAMR
Substitution	Students record mind map as they would on paper.
Augmentation	Students edit mind map as new information comes to light.  This is done in real time.
Modification	Students define the levels in the mind map by colour.
Redefinition	Students’ mind maps are layered to look for patterns and differences.  Mind maps are published to a public forum for discussion.

References:

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. (with Arrendondo, D. E., Paynter, D. E., Blackburn, G. J., Brandt, R. S., Moffet, C. A., Pollock, J. E., & Whistler, J. S.). (1997). Dimensions of learning: teacher's manual. (2nd ed.). Alexandra, VA: ASCD

Happy Birthday Zoe

There's this girl that I knowy
Her name is Zoe
Her idea of Nirvana
Is a nice ripe banana.

Presenting the present presentation.

 Powerpoint.

In my last prac I used PowerPoint as a Big Book so that all the preps could see the pictures and words clearly.  I wrote the story myself, pulled photos off Google Images and lumped it all together on the big screen.  This is the only time that the story will see the light of day and I doubt Preps care where the pictures came from.  For this reason I did not acknowledge the source of the photos.  My moral compass doesn't define this as a breach of copyright.  I did not gain financially from the venture and the owner of the photos did not lose anything.  I'm not sure what the law would say.

Used correctly, I think PowerPoints (PPT) are a great way to share key ideas and or images with a class.  I feel sorry for children having to peer at a normal sized story book while the teacher reads the book.  Again, there are copyright issues to consider if transferring a book to a PPT.  

PPTs are a great tool for children to investigate.  It works offline, is fairly stock standard with word processing programs, there is a Mac and PC version and children can save their data to a USB stick and work from various computers.  PowerPoint can be used as fancy scrapbooking or as sophisticated as a virtual museum (Keeler, n.d.).  There is the option to go from basic black on white to fluro flashing fonts.   For these reasons, PowerPoint would be how I would introduce presentation tools in the classroom.

I appreciate the idea of 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 size font (Kawasaki, 2005).  I like PPTs to be simple and I always choose black writing on a white background.  I have red and green colour deficiency and sometimes I have troubles seeing certain font colours on certain backgrounds.

The following PPT is one that I made for SOSE last year.   While it lacks the sophistication of a Virtual Museum (Keeler, n.d.) it is clear and crisp.  The purpose of this PPT was for students to be given an overview of a topic and to be able to click on links to help activate their thinking on the topic.  It was designed to be read by students independently.  Perhaps that is another use for PPTs, leaving instructions for students to follow.

I've embedded the PPT in my wiki so I know that the links in the PPT will work.  Click on the teabags to find out more.  My goal for the week is to investigate Slideshare in more detail and see if that would have been a better option.

Prezi.

Or as I like to call it, PowerPoint on a roller coaster.  I suffer from motion sickness and don't always enjoy watching Prezis.  I don't think people use it to its full potential so what we really see is a PowerPoint with fancy transitions.  I see Prezi as a way to challenge the more computer literate of the class or for the students who want to have a more visual representation of the links or journey within a concept.  Prezi would enhance learning as there is already a template in place but students can make decisions on how to place their information.  Students would learn that communication is sometimes non-linear and semiotic (Winch, et al., 2010).

I'm not overly competent on Prezi yet and this reminds me of something our art lecturer said.  Teachers often don't teach art because they are not confident at art (Dinham, 2011).  Teachers need to be aware that their skill level, confidence and knowledge base can influence what tools they do or do not teach/utilise in the classroom.

The following prezi was made for this course.  I fell in the trap of choosing the pirate theme because I wanted it to look like a journey.  When I had finished making the Prezi I realised that the theme was out of place.   I see this as one of the dangers of presentation tools, people spend more on prettiness rather than content.

Glogster.

Glogster?  What is that?  Bear with me while I do a quick bit of research.

Off to a flying start...

After spending some time trying to add graphics and text I put this in the "I'll get my kids to teach me how to use it."  This is scrap-booking on a screen.  Screen-booking.  I may have just coined a new word.  You heard it here first.

This is where I have to think beyond my needs.  As I said in PowerPoint I like black on white.  I don't usually jazz up my presentations in many ways.  Glogster reminds me of a single page website where all the information has to be put onto one page.  I see a danger of a page filled with animations, banners, pictures, videos and a bazillion different fonts.  But I assume that in time these would fade away and the glogs would become more content driven.

This is the least favourite of the presentation tools mentioned in this blog so I'm going to apply De Bono's 6 Thinking Hats to help me understand it better.

Hat	Response
Black – Judgement	Not all children enjoy making things pretty.  Requires a flair for visual arts.  Glogs may be overpopulated with images, animations and videos.  Requires internet access
Blue - Process	Is this a replacement of the “poster assignment” where children are marked partly on presentation and partly on content?
Green – Creativity	Students learn how to use non-linguistic cues, semiotic cues and non-linear literacy to convey information.
Red – Emotion	It doesn’t appeal to me but this may change once I become more confident and knowledgeable with the website.
Yellow - Positive	Students learn to convey information in one page.  Students increase their digital literacy skills.  Students are able to work in groups or individually.  Everyone has access to the same website allowing for equity.
White – Facts	Technology is everywhere and children need to develop computer skills.  Glogster can be as simple or as compex as the child wants.

References:

Dinham, J. (2011). Delivering authentic arts education. South Melbourne, VIC: CENGAGE Learning.
 

Kayasaki, G. (2005).  Retrieved from
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html

Keeler, C. (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://christykeeler.com/EducationalVirtualMuseums.html

Winch, G., Ross Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy. Reading, writing and children’s literacy. (4th ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Sharing the love...

This week I thought I'd look at reposting something that someone else put on the web.  At the bottom of most articles/videos is an array of icons so you can share other people's work to various forms of social media.  I don't even know what all of them mean.

Reposting is something I never do as I already believe the internet is a sea of mediocrity and we don't need to clutter it with something that someone has already posted.


This is different though - this was made by my friends Zoe and Michelle

and I'm in it.

Week 4 - Supersize me please.

We bought a Mac because of the one cast metal case - perfect for travelling.  One day we found our then 4 year old standing on the Mac to get a little bit higher - both survived the experience.  Macs are designed to make life simpler.  If I want to resize a photo I let technology do it for me.  I remember on the PC having to go through a few complex steps but not anymore.

Here is a photo of a good looking rooster that I know.

This photo measures in at a whopping 9.7MB.  Is that equal to a phone book, The Encyclopaedia Britannica or some other tome?  It's hard to say.  I found conflicting information on the internet about how much text 9.7MB is equal to.

After playing with the photo in iPhoto, the generic photo program that comes with Mac, I was able to drop the photo down to 66KB.  While he's still a good catch the photo has become pixellated, that is we can start to see the individual pixels that make up this picture. 

One way to get around this problem is to display the 66KB photo as a thumbnail.  Here the photo looks sharp again.

I have seen pixellated photos used deliberately, such as wall hangings, and accidentally, such as small images put into PowerPoint presentations.  The latter look unprofessional and generally have a watermark in them showing that the person has just ripped them off Google Images.  If teachers are going to use photos they should take the time to source sharp images that are the correct size.  Just as you wouldn't give students a poorly handwritten handout, why use dodgy images?

Voki.

I haven't used Voki in the classroom yet and I'm not sure about its application.  I prefer face to face contact and I would probably record myself somewhere in costume rather than use Lee's (Australia) voice.

The process was very simple to do and the price was right.  I would have to put on the six thinking hats to help me get past my dislike of things being over animated and two dimensional.  Perhaps this would be a good tool for students to use to help them become more creative.  I once saw a talk on Moodle which was all Voki and it was very difficult to watch.  For this reason I would only use it for short bursts, perhaps just to give some simple instructions.

Video.

As a family, we've uploaded several videos to YouTube over the past three years.  Some for travelling and some just for fun.  We found the iPod fantastic for this as we could film something and it would send it straight to YouTube without us having to do any fiddling.

My kids asked about stop-motion photography such as Sean the Sheep and many other children's show.  Thinking of the "give a man to fish..." quote I decided to show them how to fish.  We made our own stop-motion video.  This was edited with iMovie, the standard film editing software that comes with the Mac.

In regards to media, I like the idea of children creating more than they consume.  I think making movies is an important part of (digital) literacy and all children should be taught how to create entertainment, whether it's an app, storybook, movie, film clip etc, it doesn't really matter so long as they are creating something and going through that process of editing and improving.

As I said with Voki, I would feel more comfortable recording myself, or someone else, in character presenting the information I wanted the class to know.  I feel it would be more engaging if students saw familiar faces on the screen then some animation.  Perhaps it would change to teacher/student relationship if they saw certain teachers in costume or disguise.  I would use film for students who are generally shy in front of the class.  This way they can record in private and still present in public.  I would also use this method when it wasn't necessary for the class to see the presentation - then I could mark at my leisure.  Other benefits of film is incorporating people or places not part of the school

YouTube has several features for any unauthorised use of music.  One option is that the video is not played.  Our friends in Germany cannot watch one of our movies due to the music we added to it.  Another option is the video is played but the sound is muted automatically.  Most common is the popup ad that usually happens about ten seconds into the video.  This is denoted by a yellow mark in the time bar at the bottom of the video.

Copying files, photos, videos off the internet is quite simple and there are many free sites that will help you remove the music from YouTube clips.  I think students need to be made aware that just because the item doesn't come from a shop, someone still spent time and energy to create a product and we should not take as we please.  Stealing is stealing.

Many schools now ask parents to sign media release forms and having children on publicly accessible videos is something that the school would have to specify in their media release forms.

Substitution	Students substitute a class presentation/performance with the inclusion of a PowerPoint in their presentation/performance.
Augmentation	Students record their presentation and include some visual or audible effects.  This may include transitions and/or music.
Modification	Video is published to public forum, such as YouTube, where viewers are able to comment on the product.
Redifinition	Students use NearPod to create interactive presentation as well as elements of iMovie.