Assessment time....

Dear people who aren't education students and lecturers, this post is a 1600 word reflective synopsis for assessment 2 of my course ICTs for learning design. Enter at your own peril  ;-)

Introduction

Over the last two months I have been learning about Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for learning design. Navigating this world of blogs, wikis, tubes, podcasts, hyperlinks and glogs, I wondered if a new language had sprung up while I was looking for the lid of my white board marker.  Prensky (2001) would say I am a digital immigrant, born into an analogue world while my future students are digital natives, part of the cultural fabric of the digital age.  Prensky (2005) proposes we either engage our students in their own digital language or risk enraging them.

Students need to be digitally literate to take part effectively in today’s society (Holmes and Gardner 2006).  Studies have found however that they are not necessarily connected to digital technology, that their role as learners has changed little from previous generations, and teachers should be very wary of opinion highlighting the gap between digital natives and digital immigrants (Selwyn 2009).

ICTs may not be a magical recipe to engage all students (Thrupp 2010), however children do have an innate ability to utilise digital technology and to collaborate while doing so (Mitra 2013).  ICTs thereby open up opportunities for multi-faceted pedagogy, effective theoretical based scaffolding and student driven constructivist and connectivist learning. 

However, are ICTs a requirement for effective teaching in the 21^st century?

Cynics claim there is too much focus on digital technology, that content and pedagogy are being forgotten, and multi-modal learning results in cognitive overload (Swisher 2007). These claims are supported by studies, which show ICTs add little to academic achievement.  Other studies however, show that students achieve just as well academically when taught by robots (Carey and Marckoff 2010). Robots are after all highly engaging digital natives.  

The human teacher's advantage for now is we can learn to learn and I for one will be plugging in and holding on tight to this highly engaging, interactive and creative educational platform.

The power of scaffolding

Our first assessment activity was contributing to a wiki examining the issue of mobile phones in the classroom. You can find an outline of learning theories and my reflections on this wiki here.  

Scaffolding required we put on De Bono’s 6 Hats to examine the issue in different ways. This approach coupled with the ‘real-life’ topic ensured we engaged in higher order thinking, analysing and evaluating the issue from all angles until a body of work was formed that reflected our collective public opinion.

This learner-centered approach gave the teacher less direct control over how we learnt while instilling ownership of the activity to us the students (Killan 2003).  It is supported by constructivist learning theory which suggests reality is brought about by social negotiation (Mergel 1998). Students were required to research outside of the wiki forum supporting connectivist theory which states ”learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions” (Siemens 2004).   

While the wiki provided a forum for collaborative and connected learning, it was the scaffolding that brought it to life as an effective TPACK tool.

My blog post 'reflecting on wikis' takes a closer look at the wiki tool for education.

(image from  21stcenturylearning.typepad.com)  (text added on www.gimp.org)

Blogs 

The first group of ICTs we were asked to create included blogs, wikis and websites.  This synopsis expands on my blog experience, however I also created a wiki and drafted a website for a work program.  My previous reflections on blogs can be found here, and those on wikis here.

My blogging experience was daunting to begin with.  I found motivation and purpose through interaction with other students and the public. Weekly instruction and scaffolding ensured that I blogged and stayed on-task.  Other student’s comments and my visits to other blogs helped me analyse and evaluate my work and engage in higher order thinking about content, relevance, ethics and practice.

Blogs are particularly effective for developing students' self-reflection and deep thought process (Reynard 2008).  By writing blogs students can summarise and explain incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy comprehension. By evaluating the comments of others, students are critiquing and judging incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy evaluation (Churches 2013).  Blogging is an effective medium for the Literacy Continuum in the Australian Curriculum (ACCARA 2013) which requires students to “interpret, analyse, evaluate and create texts”.

Blogs are an accessible timeless storage space of information and an effective method of tracking and evaluating learning progress.  For this reason I have been very hesitant to go back and adjust my sometimes sketchy blogging.  

A blog is an available tool rather than a requirement for effective teaching.  Without scaffolding and knowledge content it is merely a very well connected empty page.

(Image from www.handmadeology.com)

Video

Our second group of ICTs included images, audio and video.  I edited an image, created a podcast and a video and reflected on these experiences here. In this synopsis I will add to my discussion about video. 

Video is an accessible, creative and engaging educational tool available on most electronic devices including phones, tablets and music players. It is an effective medium for 21st Century Literacy, the language of the digital native, as it can incorporate a number of different mediums at once. 21^st Century Literacy is defined as “a set of abilities and skills where aural, visual and digital literacy overlap” (NMC 2013). 

Kearney and Schuck (2006) would say video’s ability to communicate 21^st Century Literacy and further to engage in real-life contexts, classify it as an ‘authentic learning’ tool.  Their studies show students ‘find a voice’ through video especially when their peers are the audience. 

As students engage multi-modally they are easier to teach higher order thinking skills (NMC 2013). In a video based task students can create, observe and reflect incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy synthesis, analysis and application. They can evaluate and analyse the videos of others including student peers incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy evaluation.  As students are recording their own material there are fewer opportunities to infringe copyright.  Legal and safe practice when utilising ICTs and the internet in education is critical. I have expanded on this issue here. 

Video is also not a requirement for effective pedagogy in today’s learning environment.  Studies support the notion that multi-media such as video delivers no measurable differences in learning and multiple sources of information can negatively impact learning via excessive cognitive overload (Swisher 2007). It is important therefore that content and pedagogy remain balanced in the TPACK mix to ensure that video based learning activities are not focused just on using the video equipment (Kearney and Schuck 2006).

Glogs

For our third group for ICTs we looked at presentation tools including PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster.  I have prior experience with PowerPoint so I experimented with Prezi and created a glog.  My blog reflections and examples of these tools can be found here.  In this synopsis I will expand on my glogging experience. 

Glogs are another effective tool for communicating 21^st Century Literacy with a multi-model capacity to display information.  They encourage problem-based learning and real-life application via design and informational structural requirements as prescribed by productive pedagogies. 

While glogs can include most forms of multi media they are predominantly visual.  The base canvas is essentially a poster which is brought to life with 'point and click'.  Glogs offer students experimentation with many colorful pictorial design elements to present their topic.  Effective scaffolding could to be tuned towards visual learning with text, audio and video supporting more complicated images.  Activities might include such things as movie and music reviews and news reports supported by scaffolding tools such as PMIs, SWOT or De Bono’s Hats to ensure higher order thinking.

Most students are visual learners (Felder and Solomon).  Glogs can be a busy format which can lead to visual overload.  It is therefore important to maintain coherence and curriculum relevance when blogging (Swisher 2007).  Effective scaffolding and targeted content knowledge are again the keys to ensuring positive academic outcomes are achieved rather than just a lot of messy colorful fun.

 (image from evolvenashville.com )

Running Map

Our fourth and final ICT tool was one we could choose ourselves.  I chose MapPedometer software which maps routes and measures distance and elevation for runners. I have discussed this software here.

This tool showed me it is sometimes better for effective pedagogy and scaffolding if the boundaries of the software are clearly defined i.e. the purpose is clear and it is does not offer too many features. There is less opportunity for students to go off-task as the operations of the program are focused.  Productive Pedagogies prescribes that deep thinking and understanding comes when students can maintain focus and a connection to a topic.  Focus further assists in avoiding cognitive overload (Swisher 2007).  

MapPedometer stills allows for the application of just about any KLA and content topic as it’s core functions of measuring and route planning can be applied to any global location and many different activities.

Conclusion

The opinion that ICTs are a requirement for teaching in the 21^st century is not supported by conclusive theoretical evidence. It is important therefore to keep a balanced and objective approach to the digital revolution and how it effects the role of educators. While studies show that multi-modal learning offered by ICTs does engage the 21^st century leaner, there is also evidence that too many learning options can result in negative academic outcomes and cognitive overload.  Further studies show that children are not culturally connected to ICTs i.e. there is no such thing as a digital native.

The digital age has however helped bring the benefits of student-driven social constructivist and connectivist approaches to the forefront of learning theory. ICTs encourage learning in global forums that are created, managed and monitored by students.  Common and prior knowledge can be collated, assessed, applied, analysed and developed into a collective body of work that reflects social opinion.

ICTs enable students to plan, organize, compare, reflect and evaluate in ways that would make Bloom’s head spin, promoting higher order thinking forums that could never be achieved in an analogue classroom. Analysis techniques such as De Bono’s Hats, PMI and SWOT can scaffold ICT based learning to ensure engagement in content is across a varied and broad approach that doesn’t just rely on opinion.

While the requirement of ICTs for effective teaching may be questionable, the value of these digital tools for effective teaching is very clear.  The answer perhaps lies in ensuring that effective pedagogy and content knowledge remain the ‘meat and veges’ of the TPACK meal. They will however need to keep pace and evolve with the digital revolution to ensure that learning is the focus of educational programs and not these highly inventive and engaging digital tools. Only this might keep the classroom managing technology and not the other way around.

References

ACCARA (2013). "Literacy: Organising Elements." from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au.

           

Carey, B. and J. Marckoff (2010). Students, Meet Your New Teacher, Mr Robot. New York Times. New York, New York Times.

           

Felder, R. M. and B. A. Solomon Learning Styles and Strategies. 

           

Holmes, B. and J. Gardner (2006). E-Learning concepts and practice. California, Sage Publications.

           

Kearney, M. and S. Schuck (2006). "Spotlight on authentic learning: Student developed digital video projects." Australasian Journal of Education Technology 22(2): 189-208.

           

Killan, R. (2003). Effective Teaching Strategies: Lessons from Research and Practice South Melbourne, Thomson Social Science Press.

           

Mergel, B. (1998). Instructional Design & Learning. Educational Communications and Technology, University of Saskatchewan.

           

Mitra, S. (2013). Build a School in the Cloud. TED Talks. TED.

           

NMC (2013). "A Global Imperative: The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit."

           

Prensky, M. (2001). "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants." On the Horizon 9(5).

           

Prensky, M. (2005). Engage Me or Enrage Me: What Today's Learners Demand. Educause.

           

Selwyn, N. (2009) The Digital Native - Myth and Reality. 

           

Siemens, G. (2004) Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. 

           

Swisher, D. (2007). Does Multimedia Truly Enhance Learning?: Moving Beyond the Visual Media Bandwagon toward instructional effectiveness. Kansas.

           

Thrupp, R.-M. (2010). ICT Created Diversity in the Classroom: The Contemporary Learner. ACE2010: Digital Diversity Conference, ACE2010: Digital Diversity Conference.