Week 6 - Mobile phones, iPads and iPods in the classroom

This week's reflection is based on the use of iPads, iPods and smart phones in the classroom. The great thing about these devices are the many apps that you can download to assist children with their learning. The apps that are accessible can help students from the lower years in primary all the way up the higher grades. Some of the best features of using a smartphone in the classroom are the icons that are already present when you purchase the phone, such as a calculator, calender, voice recorder and camera, all of which can assist with children's learning.

I would use a smartphone in the classroom to capture a film, done by the students. During my time at university, I have created 3 short films with other students as part of a group presentation. The experience was fun, engaging and the learning journey overall was a great opportunity to work with other members and see how they perceived the task that was given. There are many apps available like Splice that can assist in the processing of the movie. Whether the film is designed for a science experiment or an English interpretation of a narrative, this feature to the smartphone can be used and utilised within the classroom, to create a more engaging and fun approach to learning.

Images were retrieved from: http://langwitches.org/blog/

Reflective Synopsis

As technology grows, the need for e-learning becomes even more vital, to cater to these 21st century students. Using ICT's in the classroom has many challenges, but has the opportunity to prepare all students for the future and the forever changing of technology. Over the past 6 weeks, I have been engaged with different web tools. The learning done on my behalf has opened my eyes to what is available to myself and my future students, the benefits and also the negatives, how these tools can be incorporated into the classroom, the safe and ethical practices to ensure the learning environment is safe, and how online learning can enhance through collaboration of other students in the classroom and also the world.

The first week I engaged in wiki activity, which you can find here.
One of my peers began her reflection with this statement "George Siemens proposed connectivism and he stated that it is important to identify how and where to find knowledge than it is to know" (Eloise's E-learning Blog)
This was the first time I had been engaged with a wiki and found it fascinating the sharing of knowledge, building ideas and realising how you felt on the topic. This type of online, collaborative learning I could have benefited from in my school years. This process can help learners from seeing other student's points of view and then self-reflect themselves, which in turn the students are at the analysing and evaluating stage in Bloom's Taxonomy.

The 1st group of tools explored in the second week were blogs, wikis and weebly. I was fortunate enough to have had feedback from one of my peers here, which lead me to the idea of exploring more on the idea of Edublog, which seemed to be a safer environment, as Edublog is only accessible to the creator (teacher), students and parents. Creating a weebly made me realise just how easy it is to make your own website, which in turn meant the students could do the same. The implications with all 3 of these tools is how safe are they? These tools can be accessed by anyone, which leads me to believe the teacher needs to research on an online tool that is of similar structure, like Edublog. There can be other difficulties also using these tools, it can be a matter of students being patience with technology, as it does not always work out well. Greener (2009 p.4 of 8) explains that for teachers to be supportive in student's online learning, they need to be willing to role model how to deal with effectively using technology in the classroom, this can be a factor in developing student efficacy.

 The second group of tools were resizing images, audio and video. From my reflection on my blog here, it clearly shows I had a lot of trouble with the audio, trying to embed the voki on my blog. It seems this week I learnt the most, realising that these online tools, although can be very effective in the classroom, it does not always work out the way you want. I had put a lot of time trying to make the tools work, I felt as though I could not possibly teach this to my future students. However, I came to the conclusion that the students could benefit from my experience. It is not that I have to be completely competent in online tools, it is the guidance and opportunity I can give, to create planned learning experiences that are more student centred. Singh, O'Donahue and Worton (2005 p.4 of 14) states "e-learning is construed in a variety of contexts such as distant learning, online learning and networked learning" (Wilson 2001). All of which can benefit students using the learning theory social constructivism and connectivism.

Shulman (1986) first sparked the idea that teachers need to possess two types of knowledge, content of a particular subject and knowledge of the curricular development. This framework is the basis for Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK). TPACK is the knowledge on how to use technology in a pedagogically sound manner for the learning of a specific content (Moodle). In the web tools 3 and 4 it seemed the learning on my behalf was more on how you could use these types of tools in the classroom. Prezi, PowerPoint and Glogster all have similarities in how to present information to the students. For future practice the students can be engaged in visual representations, using any of the three tools mentioned. Using PowerPoint for flash cards, Glogster to record homework updates each week, and Prezi to show a student's family tree which relates to the Foundation, History in accordance with the Australian Curriculum.

The last group of tools I explored was Google Earth, however I found the reading of other student's blogs much more fascinating than my own findings. Another of my peers used Dipity and just based on the reflection I was able to process how I could incorporate it into my classroom. Dipity could be used in a Year 1 History class in accordance with ACARA (2013 p.2 of 23):

How the present, past and future are signified by terms indicating time such as ‘a long time ago’, ‘then and now’, ‘now and then’, ‘old and new’, and ‘tomorrow’ as well as by dates and changes that may have personal significance, such as birthdays, celebrations and seasons ACHHK029.

This would make a great project for helping students to determine the difference between the past, present and future, based on the timeline that was created here.

In conclusion, e-learning has its challenges which the teacher and students can learn together. Creating learning experiences that cater to each individual and are more student centred can enhance the learning of all students. The significance of my learning throughout the 6 weeks has helped me realise how I can incorporate the web tools in the classroom, the safe and ethical practices that need to be in place and the higher order thinking that all students can engage in if given the opportunity to explore each of the online tools.

Reference List

Alicia's Learning Blog - Retrieved from: http://aliciaslearningblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/group-four-technologies-dipity.html

Australian Curriculum, Assessment, Reporting and Authority (ACARA) History (2013). Retrieved from:
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/History/Curriculum/F-10

Eloise’s e-learning blog – Retrieved from: http://eloisedeacon.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/week-3-reflection.html

Greener, Susan (2009) e-modelling – Helping learners to develop sound e-learning behaviours, retrieved from: http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.cqu.edu.au/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=47831008-ace3-4dfa-96eb-5b18e7e7047a%40sessionmgr4003&hid=105

Singh, Gurmak., O’Donahue, John., and Worton, Harvey (2005). A study into the effects of eLearning on higher education. Retrieved from: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=jutlp

Week 5 - Google Earth

This week I decided to focus on using Google Earth as my nominated tool for animation and simulation. Google Earth is a website that lets you see into the world through imagery. It is very easy to use, you just need to type in a place or more specifically an address and Google Earth will show you images of the place. This can help the students see the world and feel as though you are standing in that particular place.

Positives:

• Students can feel connected to places through Google Earth, rather than images off the internet.
• There are possibilities of connecting with another school in a different part of the world and use Google Earth to visit their place and for them to see ours.
• It is very user friendly and the images are very clear.
• It is readily accessible from your desktop once the software is downloaded and is also free.
• It presents a lot of information in a geographical context.
• It can be an excellent research tool for students to describe a particular place.

 Negatives:

•  Students may limit themselves to only using Google Earth and not use other resources in geographical projects.
• The teacher will need to be well educated into using the different aspects to Google Earth.
• There is not much information on the places being searched, mainly just imagery.
• It can be quite difficult to navigate once you are on the ground level and could find yourself getting lost.

Week 5 - PowerPoint

I decided to use a PowerPoint that I have already created and share it with slideshare. A very easy place to share your PowerPoints and very easy to embed onto a blog as the code came up almost automatically after clicking on the save and continue button. There are many technical aspects to a PowerPoint that I did not know about. After reading through the reading materials and watching the engagement activity video I can now see how PowerPoint can be used in much more than just presenting. You can create various slides with images, sound and video that can be very simple and child friendly. One of the great aspects of a PowerPoint is after all of the slides have been created it can be turned into a movie which the children would find fascinating. To think that they could make their own movie! I would use the PowerPoint in the classroom as a flip chart. Whether there are images with questions and the children need to drag and drop the correct icon in a box, or move a certain image into the correct place. It could be used individually or as a whole class warm-up. Creating a PowerPoint is not very time consuming and can be handy to have as activities for the children that have finished their work early or for the students that have deserved some computer time and possibly to help the students that need more time in a certain area.

Week 5 - Glogster

Above is my first glog creation. The process was more time consuming than the other two tools in Group 3. The tutorial helped me out with embedding it onto my blog which I have found the most difficult with the blog. It was fairly easy to create and embed images and videos from YouTube. It seemed as though there was plenty of advertising on the pages leading up to creating my glog and on the glog homepage itself. If you are willing to pay the money then you can create glogs for your classroom that is kept for private use. On my glog I decided to focus on Mathematics, Year 2, gathering information and creating block graphs. This is how I would set up the homepage of the glog for parents to help as well. There is a video embedded on the page for parents to view on the steps in creating a block graph. That way they are encouraged to help out their son/daughter with some ideas on what other sources of information we could gather to create another block graph. Glogster could definitely work in a classroom environment. The teacher would need to first spend time creating the page, all of the student's pages and changing their passwords if necessary. Compared to the other two tools it would be more time consuming but it could be more beneficial once it has been set up. Children are able to post their work on the own page within the classroom. The teacher will be able to keep track of each student's glog, their progress throughout the year, who needs to be extended and who needs more work on the topic. The great thing about glogster is it could be used by more than one classroom, teachers will be able to collaborate ideas towards the glog as a team project for their students.

Week 5 - Prezi

Well I can definitely say that this week has been a whole lot better using the multimedia tool Prezi! It was very quick and easy to get started. I just needed to sign up using my email address and could get started right away. The video tutorials helped me create my first prezi with ease. I went onto my Facebook and saved a few pictures of my family and created the presentation within 15 minutes. Very easy to create and embed the link onto my blog. Here is the prezi I created about my family.
http://prezi.com/oihcnszsduey/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Prezi is a great tool for teachers to use for creating quick presentations to the students. It can also be a way for students to create their own presentations. Students can create their own narratives using prezi, rather than typing up a story on word. Each slide can contain an image with some text, whether the images are found on the internet or the students art work is scanned to the computer and embedded that way. Parents/Caregivers will be able to access the story online, they can also save it as a pdf file and print it out for safe keeping. The students will be more engaged using prezi rather than typing up the text on word, they will be able to see their story come to life, making their story even more meaningful to the students.

Substitution:
Prezi can be used in the classroom to show the students how a narrative is structured. The first slide can go into more detail on the orientation of a narrative, then the next slide on the complication and then on the resolution.

Augmentation:
The children can now start to think about some ideas on what their narrative will be about. Viewing narrative stories on Prezi and begin writing down all of their ideas for their very own story, choose a layout and images to use as well.

Modification:
After viewing narratives on Prezi, the students can now start editing the stories and even change the characters, the setting and the mood. The students can begin to start predicting what might happen in each event, based on the title and images.

Redefinition:
Now the children can put all of their ideas and planning into creating their own narrative using prezi.com. By now through each stage they would of been able to gather enough information on how a narrative is structured and many ideas on what their story could be about.

Week 4 - Podcasting and using audio

This was my least favourite this week! I first used Audioboo but I couldn't find a way to link it to my wiki or my blog! Then I tried to create a voki for the first time. I recorded my voice and created my character and then clicked publish. I was able to save the voice recording but there was no embedding code to post it on my blog and I was unable to email the link either? I have spent far too much time stressing about how to use this type of technology this week. I understand how it can benefit learners but there needs to be more of an explanation on how to actually use the software that is recommended in order for us to create them. I have found the downfalls in using multimedia and that is there is far too many complications with most of them.


This is the transcript I used when trying to create my voki:

This week’s engagement activity was to record a short audio clip, I decided to create a voki, for the first time. Podcasting in education gives children the opportunities to express themselves using multimedia. A podcast is an audio recording that can be uploaded, saved and accessed online. It can also be embedded onto a blog. There can be safety precautions as a podcast can be accessed by anyone. The best way to ensure your recorded files are readily accessible is to also download them and save them to your desktop.