Synopsis

Right now, at this moment, I am realising that I started looking at the course material for ICT exactly eight weeks ago. I find this difficult to believe when I think about the huge amount of material covered! If someone had told me three months ago, that in three months' time I will have created an e-portfolio, a blog, embedded into my blog a voki that I have created, a link for a wiki put together by me, a photo from Flickr, another photo which I have taken and cropped before reducing its size in Picnik, and a You Tube video (I'm out of breath after all this), I would never have believed this person. However, all of this did happen and much more! What an exciting yet challenging 'ride' this has been!

The change that has happened in me makes me think of the vast changes in the world, though on a much larger scale and over a far longer period of time, from a largely industrial economy to an economy that has become more and more knowledge-based. Along with this, continuous changes in education have been unavoidable.

Let's go back to the late 1960s and all through the 1970s, the time when I went to school. See Going back, Primary School.

When I went to high school, lessons were often delivered such that teachers stood in front and wrote on the board the work that we had to do, or they would tell us the pages in the textbooks, on which were the tasks that we were to complete. This was teacher-centred learning and, according to Heath, Mode 1 knowledge, which is transmitted in a more conventional, theoretical way. Please read High School and Reflection on High School.

Teaching in schools has undergone vast changes in the last forty years. The old ways don't seem to be successful anymore. Today's children are different. From a very early age they are exposed to modern technologies. There seem to be a lot of students with behavioral problems.

We, as budding teachers, need to take the students' interests and learning styles into account, thus designing student-centred lessons, see Reflection. We need to engage students, and keep them engaged. How do we do this? By creating learning experiences that have a real-life purpose as Kearsley and Shneiderman's Engagement Theory, Relate-Create-Donate, implies. Students collaborate on projects that they can relate to before creating solutions to these problems. Finally the children donate their solutions to the community. Please read the second half of Reflection on High School. This is Mode 2 knowledge (Heath), a more practical, procedural approach. An appropriate example of this type of learning and teaching was most of my undergraduate degree. Find out more by clicking on the following two links Music Degree and Reflection on Music Degree.

In order to prepare children for success in our Knowledge Economy, we, as budding teachers, are not so much the ones transmitting knowledge to students, but rather learning managers, who design strategies that teach students how and where knowledge is produced, accessed and how it is put into practice.

Today we have at our disposal an ever-increasing plethora of modern technologies, which are ideal for student use in the classroom and at home and, in fact, anywhere.

I shall begin with blogs. What a fantastic way for students to keep a journal, making regular entries of the material they have learned during a unit of work. Wikis are collaboration tools that are accessible by many, but can be added to only by the ones who have permission. Small groups of students, or a whole class could make a wiki on a particular topic with the different students adding their bits. Thinking about vokis, I can just imagine the fun children would have creating their very own talking voki avatars! Students can then embed their wikis and vokis into their blogs. For more details please read my entry entitled Using Blogs, Wikis and Vokis in Schools.

Please hear my green-eyed talking dog and check out my wiki by clicking on the following link Blogs, Wikis and Vokis. While in my wiki, take a look at the photo I took during the dust storm last year (it may take a while to download, but it is worth waiting for) and the You Tube video showing the total solar eclipse from the 1st of August 2009.

Mahara is a networking tool and an e-portfolio. Used as the latter, students could, from a young age until the end of year 12, keep work samples in this portfolio, and have, on leaving school, a collection of their work all in one place. For more details click on Mahara.

Then there are power point presentations. Well, I had never created one before, and worst luck I didn't have enough time to explore this wonderful tool further; however, I did come up with a reasonable presentation on bees, which, along with ways to use this great tool used in classrooms, can be located in PowerPoint.

For some reason I had always been a little bit afraid when doing new things on computers. It was mainly a fear of doing something wrong, something that cannot be undone. And this is how I felt when I began establishing both my Flickr and my Piknic accounts, but guess what, nothing did go wrong! Actually, I found the photo activities reasonably easy, had fun doing them and I am beginning to loose my fear! For more about these activities and to view the photos, click on Photo Activities.

What a great idea to use You Tube videos as learning and teaching tools! Please view the You Tube video I embedded into my blog and read about suggested uses in my posting entitled You Tube.

Both Google Earth and Wikipedia are excellent research tools for students to do their own research. Please find more details in Google Earth and Wikipedia.

I am a little frustrated that, due to a lack of time, I haven't been able to complete all of the designed tasks; however, I enjoyed this 'ride', which has resulted in a vast expansion of my knowledge of learning design, understanding of ICTs and computer skills. See In Survival Mode.

On a final note, the world is ever changing, now at a faster pace than ever before, and so are ICTs. It is our responsibility, as teachers, to keep up with the latest, to check what else is out there, and to ask ourselves the question: can the latest technologies be used in schools? If the answer is 'yes', let's make use of them. I look forward to that which is to come!

In Survival Mode

Getting my head around these wonderful technologies has taken me a little, no, a lot(!) more time than I had ever expected, and than the university has specified. In these last few months I learned more about IT than I had in all those years leading up to the beginning of this course! I find ICT truly fascinating but at the same time extremely challenging, especially when a rather simple task takes me hours to accomplish!

In order to 'survive' I did not complete all of the tasks. It was all getting too much for me and I stopped posting to the forums and therefore didn't advertise my blog sufficiently, and I didn't advertise my wiki or my power point presentation as it was designed in the course material. I didn't make a narration audio file for a power point presentation, explore and talk about about royalty free music, spend much time reading the blogs of my peers, post comments to their blogs or receive comments, and I didn't reference as accurately as I usually do (I chose to spend my time on the things I wanted or needed to learn instead!).

In one sense I feel as though I have failed because I didn't do everything that was asked of me, yet in another sense I can proudly say that I have mastered most of the tasks and in the process vastly broadened my understanding of ICTs. I can't wait to use in schools what I have learned, and to explore ICTs further once I have the time to do so.

Google Earth and Wikipedia

I had fun 'Travelling' in Google Earth! I can see this to be a fantastic tool for students to research different parts of the world. When opening the program, a virtual globe comes into view, and by entering a place name, students are able to 'fly' to the part of the earth they want to research, be it a town, a state, a country, a river or a mountain range, and view it from close-up. Students can also view places of interest as photos by clicking on 'Street View'. Even old imagery can be viewed, and this feature would be great in history lessons. Any of these images can then be printed or shared with others via email. On this free version the sky, the moon and mars can also be explored.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. Anyone can edit it; however, there are strict guidelines in order to make sure the information remains accurate. Wikipedia is easily accessible and therefore ideal for quick research.

In order to prepare children to become successful in our Knowledge Economy, we, as budding teachers, are not so much the knowledge transmitters, but rather learning managers, the ones managing knowledge, designing strategies to teach students how and where knowledge is produced, accessed and how it is put into practice. Both Google Earth and Wikipedia are research tools that students can use to gain information themselves, and it is our job to guide students to this information.

You Tube

In this GDLT I am focusing on primary teaching. However, since I love teaching Strings Instrumental Music, and since I will most likely continue to do so once I have completed my diploma, I have included this video of Pachabel's Canon in D, a well-known piece of music often played at weddings and funerals.



I would play this version to string students at a high school, talk about period instruments and ask the students to listen and see if they can tell the difference between each violinist's part, and if they can figure out what the cellist plays. Following this introduction the students would learn to play the Canon in D.

Instrumental music is very hands-on at any time. This exercise would add another dimension in that students get to listen to and see professionals play on period instruments, and they would learn a little about the Baroque period.

There are many other ways You Tube videos can be used in schools e.g. they can be embedded into blogs and wikis. Apart from that there are countless You Tube videos on many topics, and many particular events or phenomena can be viewed, such as a solar or lunar eclipse in a space unit. I have included a You Tube video showing the total solar eclipse from the 1st of August, 2009, into my wiki. The URL for my wiki can be found in the posting entitled 'Blogs, Wikis and Vokis', posted 04.04.10.

Photo Activities

At first I established a Flickr account and uploaded some digital photos into Flickr.

I then looked for and found a photo I liked, downloaded it onto my computer before posting it to my blog. It is entitled
'Redoubt... before the eruption'


I uploaded 'Harbour in the Morning', which I took at the end of last year on a morning stroll in Port Douglas, from my computer into Picnik. I cropped it slightly and then reduced the size from 3648 by 2736 pixels to 500 by 389 pixels, or from 5.37 MB to 118 KB. This is a huge reduction, obviously at the expense of quality; however, the great advantage is that it can be uploaded much quicker. I then saved it to my computer and posted it to my blog.

'Harbour in the Morning'



Photos are another wonderful tool for teacher and student use alike. Children can obtain photos from Flickr or use their own or anyone's (with permission) photos. They can then easily reduce the pixels and embed them into their blogs or wikis or use them to make conventional assignments more attractive.

There is a great photo, which I took last year during the dust storm, in my wiki (please find URL in 'Blogs, Wikis and Vokis', posted 04.04.10). This picture takes a little while to download as I haven't reduced the pixels (at that time I didn't know, yet, how to do this); however, this picture is worth waiting for.

PowerPoint

Oops, I completely missed the (power) point! I was so excited about learning how to create a power point presentation - I had never done this before - and then putting it into practice, that I didn't read the bits where it says that the focus would be on power point as a teacher-based presentation, and that I was to create a presentation for one of my classes. Oh dear! Now I ended up with the presentation 'Facts about Bees' which I would expect a student in year three or four to make and use as visuals for an oral presentation.

Facts About Bees

View more presentations from Beeke Smith.

Actually, I think I would be able to use this presentation as a teaching tool. I could show it to students as a guide for that which I expect of them. Yes, I think this would work. Phew, I got out of this one!

This is a rather simple power point presentation. I look forward to having the time to learn more about the great features that power point has to offer.

Power point is a great tool for teachers when presenting new topics, or as a step-by-step guide. If attractively created, these presentations are excellent for keeping students visually engaged.

I can see much potential for children using power point for creating their own projects. Even poor spellers or children with messy handwriting should be able to come up with really neat presentations.

Power point presentations are often made up of dot-points, which make them great for student's oral presentations. The audience's visual attention is likely to be divided between the screen and sometimes nervous presenters, which could make them feel more at ease.

Mahara

I was fortunate to have created a NetSpot account and to have had a little play with Mahara during residential school, but oh, do I find this program a challenge! I don't know how many hours I spent watching those You Tube videos (the most painful thing was waiting for them to download!) again and again, while at the same time doing the steps in Mahara. I have created a bit of a view with which I am nowhere near happy, however, I think I know now how to change that; but I also know that I still have much to learn.

Mahara seems to be a very comprehensive tool. It is a networking system and an electronic portfolio, excellent for keeping one's resume and all those other documents, all in one place. A whole lot of different types of files can be stored in Mahara, and they can be made available in separate views for different audiences.

I can see potential use of it in schools, perhaps not so much by the younger children, but definitely by students from grade 3 or 4 onwards. Setting it up would be a good learning experience in itself and I imagine students would enjoy the process. Children could use Mahara to store their work in. This would be an incentive to produce work of a high standard. A view of a selection of their work including word documents, power point presentations, photos and wikis can be made available to others. I can just imagine the joy on grandparent's faces when viewing high quality work in their little darling's e-portfolios.