E Learning Journey Synopsis

Mrs Daisy's Managing E Learning Synopsis

I am a digital immigrant. How do I know this? I was born in 1972, I am a proud member of generation X however as a developing teacher of Generation Y and New Millennial students, most of whom are as Prensky describes digital natives, I cannot in good conscious stick my head in the sand and say “Oh it’s okay I learned primarily with books and paper so can they!” This synopsis supports my journey into the world my students and my own children already inhabit.

Having been charged with the task of researching digital tools that as a classroom teacher I feel would best support my learners I discovered that I had already started my immigration process to digital residency. This inspired me to continue my journey and to experiment and reflect on some tools I had never used or even seen before to enable me to gain a better digital pedagogy for myself before I could begin to improve the established skill set of my native students.

Queensland Education defines “Digital Pedagogy as the convergence of technical skills, pedagogical practices and understanding of curriculum design appropriate for digital learners. Digital Pedagogy used effectively supports, enhances, enables and transforms teaching and learning to provide rich, diverse and flexible learning opportunities for a digital generation.”

Upon discovering this website 21st Century Schools I am ready to enhance my digital pedagogy and embrace these definitions of my role, the century I am working in and the learners I will encounter:

“*Teacher - From primary role as a dispenser of information to orchestrator of learning and helping students turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom.

*The 21st century will require knowledge generation, not just information delivery, and schools will need to create a “culture of inquiry”.

*Learner -Today we must see learners in a new context:
First – we must maintain student interest by helping them see how what they are learning prepares them for life in the real world.
Second – we must instil curiosity, which is fundamental to lifelong learning.
Third – we must be flexible in how we teach.
Fourth – we must excite learners to become even more resourceful so that they will continue to learn outside the formal school day.”

In this synopsis and reflections on the tools I feel would work well in the classroom, I will refer back to these four ways of seeing learners to ensure the tools actually support their learning and foster a culture of inquiry.

1: Tools that aide students to access and gain information : You Tube
This what the You Tube website says about You Tube
YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original-content creators and advertisers, large and small.
You Tube as a broadcasting medium is one that I was familiar with before I started my BLM course but only as one of entertainment. It wasn’t until I was in the classroom situation having to produce lessons that were engaging and not just “ chalk and talk that I discovered it has so many educational benefits. For myself as stated in my blog Week 5- You Tube, I used a You Tube clip to educate myself further about Wikis.
As an example of its use in the classroom, recently in a unit about Antarctica with my current class I showed 2 You Tube clips about an expedition of students to Antarctica. The awe and wonderment, the questions, the excitement that these 2 clips garnered from my students was inspiring. I now have 27 students all excited about protecting Antarctica and desperate to visit themselves one day.
The comments from Juliet and Ornella on my blog regarding my You Tube reflection showed that so many of us view You Tube as entertainment but as I have reflected it can be used by students to gain and access information in an engaging way. Information presented often in easy to understand language and presented by experts. It is also a tool that they can go home and share with their families thus covering the fourth context for learners – we must excite learners to become even more resourceful so that they will continue to learn outside the formal school day.

2: Consolidate and Refine Information: Bubblus.com
Marzano(2006) Dimensions of Learning Framework suggests that using a graphic organiser to assist students to acquire and integrate knowledge ensures their ability to store it and use it at a later stage in their learning journey.
Concepts maps are an organisational tool that is valued by both teachers and learners however if we are going to accommodate our digital natives and scaffold their learning in ways that they immediately connect with, it makes sense to use a 21st Century method.
Brady(2006) suggests that concept maps enable students to understand essential components of a topic or concept they can be more complex the higher the school grade and thinking process you wish your students to use.From life cycles to planning an investigation or project to be collaborated on , the possibilities are endless and bubbl us does this electronically so that not only is it a great visual learning tool but can be saved to a student’s USB or class computer to be added to during later sessions. In my blog Week 1 Concept Maps I created one of my own and as commented on by Red Zebra, she too felt the tool would be great in the classroom.
I think this tool satisfies student context 2 – we must instil curiosity, which is fundamental to lifelong learning, as concept maps enable students to think outside the square and let their imaginations take them much further simply by adding their ideas in bubbles.

3: Transform information to develop new understandings: Learning Objects and Weebly.com
If my role as a teacher as defined by 21st Century schools is to be the orchestrator of learning and the person that enables them to transform information into knowledge then reflection on the myriad of tools I have been introduced to on this course leads me to choose Websites such as Weebly.com and Learning objects. I have specifically chosen to use these 2 tools together as I feel they really can work hand in hand. They also match nicely to the third learner context - we must be flexible in how we teach.
In my Blog E -Learning update I referred to the fact that I had created a Weebly website for my class on the Eureka Stockade. The difference in the students learning and engagement was astounding they weren’t using work sheets they were analysing and synthesising and applying the information gathered from the website. I reflected on it using a SWOT and spoke of my experience on using websites in Week 2 – Weebly.
I used the website as the learning platform, for the students to link to a learning object from the learning federation , use Google maps and watch videos directly from the website. So rather than having the students trawl around the internet locating information I had done that work for them and structured the site so that all their information they needed would be relevant, safe and useful to their final task of a Swot Analysis.
The site was built around the use of particular learning object again I have reflected on the use of this tool in Week 6-Learning Objects. Thanks to a comment left by Phillipa I discovered a fantastic paper on the benefit of using Learning objects by the British Journal of Educational Technology. My reflection on scaffolding learning objects was supported by this paper it states “ when students explore new media environments, ‘there are things that students do not know, and that they need to be taught ... this occurs both through the direct provision of information by the teacher, and through research on the part of the students’ (Vol 41 No 2 2010 227–241). These tools I will continue to explore and use as the results of this particular lesson were outstanding the participation, the questions and end results of the SWOT Analysis were fantastic. For a digital immigrant I connected with the natives!

4. Present Knowledge to an Audience: Podcast/Movie Maker and Wikis
Using the First learner context – we must maintain student interest by helping them see how what they are learning prepares them for life in the real world. I have chosen 3 tools that would meet these needs and enable students to present knowledge to an audience.
Movie maker and Podcast to me are tools that would marry nicely with a virtual classroom. Being able to broadcast students work whether it be artwork, drama presentation, reciting their own poems or sharing a recent excursion with parents. I have used Movie Maker with my own daughter and seen it used in classrooms and am confident it is a tool that I would use with my own students as discussed. Podcasting was a new tool for me. I had never tried a podcasting tool before so was interested to find out more I did however have great difficulty creating one of my own. I have seen this tool in action in my current practical placement and I think it is a great tool , I will just need to work on my own pedagogy when it comes to creating them! My blogs on Week 4 -Podcast and Week 5 –Movie Maker support my comments and the conversations and comments from my colleagues regarding these tools helped me to see their benefits and to persevere with them.
A quick word on Wikis I have not had a great deal of experience with this tool but having looked at its uses and thought about the benefits of it as a collaborative project tool. Marzano’s Dimensions of Learning, Einsberg’s The Big 6 and Kearsley and Shneiderman’s Engagement Theory all strongly emphasise the benefits of collaboration in learning and as orchestrators of our learner’s quest of lifelong learning there are few jobs that do not require some type of collaboration so Wikis are perfect platform to instil this skill. My Blog in Week 2 Wikis and my You tube blog, discussed earlier, show my own pedagogical journey with this tool.

So In conclusion my digital immigrant passport has been stamped with a number of visits to digital tools that I had used and many I had not. There really is so many to choose from but the tools I have really connected with here in my synopsis are ones that will be in my digital tool box and hopefully lead me to residency status soon.



For comments on my colleagues amazing journeys please see the list on my Blog titled: "Mrs Daisy's comments on my colleagues blogs"



Reference List

Brady, L. (2006). A Collaborative View of Learning. In L. Brady, Collaborative Learning in Action (p. 67). Frenchs Forest, Australia: Pearson Education Australia.
DETA. (n.d.). Smart Classrooms. Retrieved from Queensland Education: http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/pdf/scbyte-elearning.pdf
Einsberg, M. (2001, November 19). Big 6 skills. Retrieved from The Big 6: http://www.big6.com/2001/11/19/a-big6%E2%84%A2-skills-overview/
Kearsley, G and Snheiderman, B (1999, May 04). Enagement Theory. Retrieved from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm
Lowe, Kat, Lee,L ,Shibeci,R, Cummings,R , Phillips,R,and Lake,D (2010 Vol4 no 2). Learning objects and engagement of students in Australiand and New Zealand Schools. Brisitsh Journal of Educational Technology , 230.
Marzano, R. J. (2006). Dimensions of Learning. Heatherton,VIC,Australia: Hawker Brownlow education.
Possibiliites for 21st Century Education. (2008). Retrieved from 21st Century Schools: http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm
Tube, Y. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from You tube: http://www.youtube.com/t/about





(image courtesy of clip art)