They’re committed to improving opportunities and pathways for all students, but the strategy outlined by the Queensland Department of Education and the Arts aims to capture girls’ interest in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Hayley acknowledges that while it’s important to engage all students in ICT, this strategy endeavours to encourage girls to explore new technologies, thus building confidence in the field. It may be subject to gender stereotypes – the ICT industry is one predominantly male oriented, a figure the Queensland Department of Education is trying to change. The 2005 – 2008 Girls and ICT Strategy provides ‘tips, tricks and project ideas’ that can act as a springboard for teachers to engage girls in ICT through all phases of learning.
Hayley has found a YouTube video that highlights the opportunities that are available to a student when interest and confidence is created and sustained in its use.
Video Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhzRSGVBWh4
The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an organisation that is dedicated to pushing the use of new media and technology, so states the video on the Learning and Physical Challenges Education Program forum. The NMC has gone beyond the 2nd dimension, creating an interactive 3D campus within the virtual world of Second Life. This ‘world’ encourages the sharing of new ideas and knowledge between users which can be beneficial outcome from accessing the online campus that NMC has developed. When convening in this virtual 3D world, people are exposed to ‘insightful interaction, collaboration, learning and experimentation’ which not only allows them to develop their skills of using new media but also gives them an opportunity to critically reflect upon issues prevalent within the Second World community. The NMC provides its users with a platform to interact in a shared space in real time, thus a richer, creative interaction is available than that on the 2D web. This Second Life can become people’s lives, which provides benefits, but also runs the risk of engaging the individual to the point where they become detached from reality, preferring their virtual life than partaking in their own life. Immersing students in a virtual world that may overcome their learning and physical challenges can help to solve real world issues, but is the risk of the students disengaging from their reality one that’s too great to implement this new media within students’ learning environment?
Almost everybody knows how to use the internet these days, granted some more than others, but we don’t always use it in the most effective means possible. By the time I begin full time teaching, students, if they don’t already, will have years of experience using the internet and search engines like ‘Google’. The article by Robert Parkes looks at WebDilemmas as an exciting new alternative to WebQuests. WebQuests have become almost a fixture in online teaching, being around for ten years, they have provided a great variety of online tasks. But amid their benefits, WebQuests can be very time consuming especially if you don’t have a lot of access to technology. This is where WebDilemmas come into the fore, allowing teachers to incorporate online tasks with the benefit of promoting higher order thinking in students. Following the “Think-Pair-Share” process, WebDilemmas expose students to intellectual challenge, social support or assisted practice, and engagement. These online learning sites allows students to access information from internet sites chosen by their teacher, so not to waste time on ‘fruitless’ search engines. This information gets students to THINK about a particular topic, considering either the affirmative or negative side to a real world problem that has significance beyond the classroom. From this students PAIR up and discuss what they’ve learnt to make a conclusion to the topic, which is then SHARED amongst the class. The use of WebDilemmas, as opposed to WebQuests or search engines, has become a prominent online learning tool that allows the teacher to scaffold the lesson which ensures that the overall aim of the lesson is achieved.
Creating an online discussion space for students provides an environment to which students can contribute in their own time. This is one of the benefits tendered by Graeme Salter in his paper on online discussion groups, and a reason as to why they are emerging so readily from primary school classrooms. Students are being introduced to this interactive means of communicating on a more equal footing, significantly increasing the ability for those students who wouldn’t usually participate, to contribute to discussions. Students can read things as many times they need to and spend time to draft their responses. This enables their participation in a class discussion, where they may not usually contribute as they hadn’t had time to thoroughly process the discussion topic and formulate a response. Writing for a ‘real’ audience, as opposed to just writing for their teacher provides motivation for students to critically reflect on the issue, developing responses that are more well thought out and better articulated. The discussion groups is a good online tool that encourages students to state their position on a topic, but further the students’ thinking on a topic by asking them to support their statement with reasoning. While students are able to include well developed responses, the online discussion space lacks the capacity to enable students to react to visual cues – students’ can’t read others’ body language, paralinguistic characteristics and environmental factors as they are filtered out. The paper goes beyond listing the pros and cons for using online discussion groups, to provide pragmatic strategies on implementing them in the classroom and utilising them to their potential, making the paper an invaluable resource for those thinking about using them within the classroom.
Computer games and school education. These two aren’t concepts often linked but that’s what Keri Facer’s article is determined to change. There has always been debate about whether computer games should be included in the primary classroom; after all, what benefits do they provide? Dubbed in the article as being “the most powerful learning technology of our age”, computer games are interactive and require skills and understanding far beyond those learnt in a classroom. Games are incredibly social activities and develop hand-eye coordination; management of complex variables; interpersonal communication; literacy; and problem solving skills. And what’s more, the children love playing them.
With all the positive reasons to include computer games, the age old issue must be raised – that the amount of violence in computer games can’t be beneficial to children. Although the idea that one violent computer game will turn children into serial killers has lost validity, is it still of concern. Jana’s blog on this article provides some perspective on the topic, affirming that, while there is violence, children are learning “attack strategies”. She also believes that the teacher is able to use their discretion to monitor the games being brought into the classroom, ensuring that those used are appropriate and relevant to the children’s education.
The new programs that are available for use in the classroom, such as Sim City and DoomEd, are fun and interactive ways for students to learn the curriculum content. The games are offering real challenges and the students are using their knowledge and skills to overcome them. I think that they have potential to provide a new dimension to students’ learning.
Mrs Cassidy, a year one teacher, has successfully incorporated technology into her classroom and had such positive results. The students are excited and engaged in what they’re learning and the parents can observe their child’s progress. Introducing blogs and wikis into the classroom allows students the opportunity to develop their technological skills by completing what would usually be done with paper and pencil, to be published on the internet. This provides students with motivation to think about and plan what they write as they know people will be reading it – and that’s the greatest benefit to using blogs. These year one students are blog buddies with students around the world, in particular a class from New Zealand. Not only does this provide an audience for the students to write for, it opens up their classroom to the world. This allows them to experience and learn about another culture that they could only otherwise read about. Responding on others’ blogs, but particularly getting a comment on their own blog is the most exciting aspect of this tool, especially when is it from the global audience.
The parents are also noticing the benefits of using technology in the classroom. Logging on each day and viewing their child’s work allows parents to see the improvement, especially to students’ writing skills. Not only do parents enjoy looking at the blogs, their child loves coming home and showing them what they’ve done.
Mrs Cassidy admits that it’s not an easy task getting the technology set up in the classroom, but assures us that we don’t have to be too technologically advanced to get it started. The use of blogging is exciting and rewarding when students’ work is viewed by so many people, making the initial move towards technology one very worthwhile.
Some teachers find it difficult to navigate their way around a computer while their students are fluent in using digital media. The article “Listen to the Natives” suggests that the teachers should be seeking students’ assistance to keep up in order to keep the students engaged in learning. But the teachers who require students’ support may find it difficult to ask. Today’s students have grown up using a variety of technology and continue to develop their skills as they learn through discovery, teaching themselves. Involving students in the development of technology based learning can result in students finding inventive ways to include digital media within the classroom – digital tools becoming like extensions of the students themselves, the article purports. Sharing their knowledge of technology, the article suggests that students can become a teacher’s best resource, advising on which technology teachers should use in classrooms to ensure learning tools are being used in the most effective means possible. Teacher-student collaboration can capitalise on individual student’s digital skills and knowledge, student’s benefiting as they can incorporate these into the current curriculum. Listening to the students, valuing and including their ideas within the classroom creates a meaningful learning experience. The students know what they’re doing in regards to digital media; teachers should be encouraged to utilise the students’ knowledge to integrate these tools into the classroom.
The “three Rs” that are reading, writing and arithmetic have been updated in this article, and the “three Xs” are set to take over. Whilst invaluable, the three Rs are no longer a student’s only means to success within the classroom. The three Xs – eXploring, eXpressing and eXchanging – address the skills that are becoming omnipresent in modern day life and this includes the classroom. Students are expected to become proficient in using these skills through development on the internet. Exploring, the first X, provides students with the opportunity to discover the online environment, allowing them to gain confidence in using the internet as a learning tool. Allowing students to express their ideas and discoveries through the internet connects them to world beyond the classroom. The internet becomes a creative outlet for students to develop skills as they use digital media as a form of self expression. The final X, exchanging, is an important aspect of building students’ online learning skills. Through the sharing of ideas, students are able to collaborate and interact with peers, within their classroom and throughout the world. This aspect of the three Xs ensures that the individual is actively involved in their own learning, while encouraging teamwork through the sharing of ideas and creations. While the three Xs are important skills for the technological future, it’s important that learning the traditional three Rs is not compromised. Incorporating the three Rs into the digital era and the development of students’ three Xs, will ensure a generation of children that are confident and capable, allowing them to succeed within the ever changing world.
Podcasts are the new way to inspire learning, so states the article on podcasting in education. The more I read about the topic of podcasts, the more I agree. With so many uses for podcasts within the primary classroom why wouldn’t they be adopted by schools? Implementing podcasting within the class program is an exciting new way for students to get motivated to engage in their class work. Using them as a means of exploring and discovering information as well as presenting what they’ve learnt adds interest to what could be a potentially dull topic. Podcasts are a step away from the traditional, allowing students to get creative with their learning. Adapting this tool can reveal a new realm of information to be explored, but it also provides an outlet for students to share their work. Allowing students to display their learning with others not only in their community, but prospectively the world, contributes to their engagement in what they’re doing. It’s fun and exciting yet so simple to use, replacing traditional assignments done on paper with a digital alternative. Not only good for students, teachers can find pragmatic uses for podcasting, such as communicating with parents and wider community groups. Podcasting allows students to connect with what they’re learning about, learning creatively with tools that are continually becoming more prominent. It would be a shame for students and teachers to have podcasting omitted from the primary classrooms.
From reading the article on educational blogging, the use of blogs within the classroom became a viable prospect. After all, the benefits the students and teachers gain, expressed by the article, seem too advantageous to not incorporate blogging in the classroom. The opportunity of using the internet and blogging to present your ideas to the world is one that most students would seize, it being a novel alternative to writing in their exercise books. The article is determined to promote the use of blogging and rightly so. It is a valuable tool with numerous benefits that many attest to. Using blogging as an educational tool acts as a motivating factor in getting students to want to read and write, and after all what teacher doesn’t want their students to enjoy reading and writing? But is it really pragmatic to assume that all the students’ hesitations towards classroom literacy to be solved by incorporating educational blogging within the classroom?
