Reflective Synopsis

In today’s world technology is everywhere in the home, in the workplace and in the classroom so as a learning manager it is important to be able to use all of this technology in order to give your students the advantage of all the available technologies. Throughout the duration of this course I have had the opportunity to become more familiar with ICT’s that may be seen in the classroom such as websites, wiki’s, blogs and internet quizzes such as the learning styles and multiple intelligences quizzes. These are things that I have had either no or very little previous experience with before this course.

I am not sure whether I would classify myself as digital native or a digital immigrant according to Prenskys (2001) two categories of a digital user as I grew up with the technology of the internet and laptops however I there are quite a lot of things to do with technology that I am unaware of that I still need to become familiar with.

Through this course my knowledge of ICT’s was limited however with help from fellow university students and my own experimentation I feel that my knowledge has expanded quite a bit. It has been quite an up and down journey through ICT’s. In the beginning it was all exciting and engaging trying something new but getting further into it problems do begin to develop that take time and effort to overcome. Problems such as developing the wiki where it became difficult to create a wiki account without which I could not create a wiki. Fortunately after several attempts and verbal threats against the computer I was finally able to get the wiki up and running.

Prensky (2001) also discuss the fact that teachers can no longer assume that what has worked with students in the past will work for students today. ‘Digital Native’ students may not respond to teaching methods used by ‘Digital Immigrant’ learning managers either because they do not want to or because they simply cannot because of their learning in their formative years before school. Needing information faster, networking, parallel learning, multi-tasking (eg listening to music while working) etc. this is something I can relate to coming through school with teachers whom would be considered to be ‘Digital Immigrants’ would expect students to sit there and go through and listen to the teacher read through the textbook they saw no need to engage their students and could not understand why students would simply tune out what they failed to understand is that today’s students have been conditioned to having they attention earned by musicians, movie star etc. and students need to be engaged for them to feel that school is worth their time and effort.

What can they be used for?

ICT’s can be used for all sorts of things and subjects as they can include a wide variety of reasons and contexts for example a blog can be a very effective tool to use for student journaling. ICT’s can be used as a teaching tool or as an assessment item.
The main tools I looked at through the course of this subject is blogs, interactive whiteboards, wikis, powerpoint and concept maps developed through sites such as bubblus.com

While doing the blog was an interesting experience seeing what sort of things could be included in a post e.g. images, YouTube clips, hyperlinks etc I found that it was something that had to be constantly maintained otherwise it just sits there and did nothing. Although another interesting thing about blogs was the ability to interact with other peoples blog and being able to comment and discuss topics of interest to you that are on the blog’s of others. Topics that I had not thought to put on my own blog such as why we should not rely on technology which were really interesting and glad I read as I had not thought of some of the reasons mentioned by others.


Interactive Whiteboard are very useful ICT tool however there is quite a lot of setting up that has to go into an interactive whiteboard even before the installation as it is a large piece of equipment that involves a number of components such as the projection screen, projector and a computer set up and there are a number of considerations when setting up the board such as can you connect it to the internet, where on the wall to set up the projection screen even how high up on the wall it can go have to will have to consider the height of the teacher and the height of students and find a compromise. For a more indepth review see
Interactive Whiteboard

PowerPoint have been around for quite a while now and I would have thought that I was already relatively well versed in the language that is PowerPoint however with further investigation I have come to the realisation that my knowledge of PowerPoint was just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things that can be used in a PowerPoint presentation to make it exciting and engaging however if features are overused can make them confusing and ineffective due to overload. There are many ways that PowerPoint can be overloaded as described in PowerPoint



Concept maps have been around for as long as I can remember throughout my own school life however new technologies are available in order to make it more engaging and more effective in today’s classrooms. Website such as bubblus have created a 21st century version of the concept map. This is written about in more detail on my blog Concept Maps

Are they effective?

The use of ICT’s is only effective if they are used in a way that is engaging, necessary and essential to the learning taking place. Creating a digital learning environment is effective if the ICT being used is integral to the learning being undertaken. A lot of the time it is not the ICT that is ineffective it is the way that learning managers use them in their practice. A lot of the time you will see learning managers use an ICT as an easy way out for an activity or use an ICT for the sake of using an ICT. The effectiveness of ICT’s depends on a number of factors first of which is the learning managers choice of ICT for the situation in which they are going to be used in as well as the learners the ICT will be used by whether they will be engaged by the ICT and whether they will be able to understand how to use it.

What are the downfalls?

The downfalls of using ICT’s in the classroom are the same as downfalls of most technologies technical faults, shorts, program glitches or overloads, incompatible software or just plain lack of knowledge of the program. This is especially true of technologies that require the internet to function insufficient internet speed outdated versions of flash player, constant dropping connection and the biggest fault of all having no internet to connect to in the first place.

Another downfall of technology is our developing dependence on it. Becoming more reliant on programs to do the thinking for us for example already having the answers and already having activities already set up or teaching the skills only through ICT making it so children can not do it without the assistance of ICT’s or other technologies. I have a personal experience with this with something as simple as learners reliance on calculators. When I was growing up my teachers taught us maths using our brains instead of calculators however I knew some people only a couple of years younger than me and my part time job while going through this course is at a supermarket and almost every day there is someone who makes a mistake in their typing and have to make a mental calculation to fix their mistake but can not do it because they do not have the skills to do it in their head. A problem outlined by a simple question what are you going to do if you don’t have the technology?
Should they be used in the classroom?

ICT’s should be used by all means in the classroom as long as they are used to enrich student learning not as a way to put in less effort in the organisation of the lesson. When we start using ICT’s as an easy plan lesson rather than an engaging and relevant learning experience than it should not be used in the classroom. If there is an advantage to using an ICT over a more ‘old school’ method then I do not see why it should not be used however the same can be said for the reverse. If what the class could benefit from is a book over programs than that is what should be used. It is all about how we use what is available to us and what the situation calls for. Do not use and ICT simply for the sake of using an ICT.
There are many reasons as to why ICT’s will be used in the classroom such as the push to use ICT’s by employing and governing bodies as well as parents even curriculum documents make it necessary to use ICT’s in the classroom. However I feel that there needs to be a rounded curriculum to suit your learners and have them prepared for all situations that they may come across in life so that means 'old school' and 21st century ICT's.



References

Prensky (2001) Digital Native, Digital Immigrant, MCB University Press
Prensky (2005) Engage Me or Enrage Me, What Today’s Learners Demand, Educause Review.

Powerpoints

PowerPoint has been around for a few years now and is the program of choice for most people to present their information whether it be in the classroom or in the boardroom. In the classroom PowerPoint if used effectively can be used to reach both auditory and visual learners and now that there is interactive PowerPoint's can also reach kinaesthetic learners. PowerPoint can have numerous things that can be added in a presentation such as graphs, animation, hyperlinks, videos etc. These things are all great to present the information in various ways depending on the type of information that the presenter is wanting to get across.

However as not technology is foolproof there are ways to damage the effectiveness of PowerPoint. The above YouTube clip is by Don McMillan and is a hilarious explaination of how death by PowerPoint can occur.

Interactive Whiteboards

Interactive whiteboards have been praised for being the best in the latest ICT technology to improve the classroom of the 21st Century. They are interactive, they project onto a screen that can be zoomed in and can access the internet and various other programs. In that sense interactive whiteboards are brilliant if you have an arsenal of great programs or knowledge and access to online resources eg games, websites etc.

I have used an interactive whiteboard in the classroom as an activity as well as in conjunction with an activity and have found them to be useful tools you can have a number of documents set up on the computer before the start of the lesson instead of having to rub things off of the board or running out of room on the board you can simply save it and bring it up later even in a later lesson if you are continuing on from a previous lesson. It is also good to use if you have a sheet to go through with the students if you have it saved onto a USB stick or on the computer you can blow it up on the projector and explain the sheet or go through the answers together.

On the other hand there are some technical difficulties that can be experiences with the interactive whiteboard that would not be otherwise with a regular whiteboard for example no lesson I have ever seen had to be cut short because the only two whiteboard pens you have ran out of ink. There are also the issues of using the interactive whiteboards within early childhood as most interactive whiteboards are installed to the height of the teacher which is fine when you are dealing with high school students who are around the same height however when you have a class of grade one students who are the same height as your hip it becomes a bit more difficult for them to interact.

Other problems include possibility of teachers becoming too reliant on the interactive whiteboard and forget about the other ways to teach students effectively. If using the Interactive Whiteboard is not done in an effective and engaging way it is just a waste of time and effort. There is no point to using a fancy ICT if it is not going to be used effectively in your teaching practice.

Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligencies

No two students will learn in the exact same way. As a learning manager we must be able to adapt our teachings to various styles and intelligences. The above pictures are examples of ways to test multiple intelligences and learning styles which can be completed in a few short minutes to provide you with a diagram of individual learning styles and intelligences which you can refer to when deciding aspects of your planning for example if half of the class are auditory (verbal) learners and half are visual (written) it would be a good idea to have both aspects in your teaching practice.

On the other hand this is simply an online test and as hard as we try not all learners will take it seriously and answer randomly (or if they're cheeky in a pattern) so you will have to also rely on your personal experience with your students to understand what why they learn best and what areas they excel in.

In short these are handy tools and can be used say at the start of the year to give you a basic idea but they can not be all that you rely on to profile your students you must also make the effort to learn about them yourself not through some generic test.

Concept Maps

Concept maps are a great tool to use for things such as brainstorming however like all things it all depends on how you use them. Concept maps are a great tool for diagnostic and formative assessment. When done correctly it is a great way to link ideas and to gain an understanding of students prior knowledge and to gain an understanding about what students have learnt.

On the other hand there are ways in which the completion of a concept map can result in a tangled mess of bubbles and incoherent bullet points. One way to get around this is to complete a concept map using ICT's.

Concept maps are a great way to organise thinking and doing it through sites such as bubbl.us are a good way to firstly make sure they are saved in a place where they won't fade with age or rip like paper does and secondly it also allows for editing, rearranging and removal of elements which is not possible on paper. The above concept map was completed on bubbl.us and is just a small sample of what is possible using ICT's instead of paper to create concept maps.

The concept map expands as far as needed instead of being just confined to the size of the piece paper used and can be put onto a projector that allows for all students to see everything not just those in the front half of the room. However if a hardcopy is desired they can be printed off onto paper and can be shrunk to fit a desired page size which could very well be photocopied for each student to have a copy.

Blogs

I have never in my life had a blog before this course as I always thought they were just for people to write about their lives and feelings or use it as a way to show their songs and poetry. However I have recently discovered that they can be used for educational purposes and as a way to share knowledge and professional ideas with peers and collegues as well as students.

A blog is the term given to a web log. These can contain a variety of things such as texts, videos, images, links to other sites etc and some of which can be very useful but do we really want to use them as a tool in our practices as learning managers. I think that it would all depend upon a number of variables the first being the preferences of the learning manager in particular, the second being the blog that is being used. The most important thing is that students are learning it could be the most awesome blog on the planet but if the students are not learning anything from it than it is simply an awesome waste of time.

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

Hi,
My name is Stepfanie and I am in the third year of studying a Bachelor of Learning Management Early Childhood degree (Teaching 0-yr7) in Gladstone QLD. The purpose of this blog is to explore the use of IT in teaching practices. What are some of the tools? What do they do? Are they worthwhile to include in your practice? Follow along as we delve into the world of technology in education and find the tools that can help us to create an environment that is both educational and living in the 21st century.