Assessment 2- Final Blog Posting.

REFLECTIVE SYNOPSIS

Digital Pedagogy is defined by Education Queensland (EQ), as the convergence of technical skills, pedagogical practices and understanding of curriculum design appropriate for digital learners. EQ also states that pedagogy used effectively supports, enhances, enables and transforms teaching and learning to provide rich, diverse and flexible learning opportunities for digital generations.  This is a classic example of classrooms these days moving from the days of pen and paper to the present with interactive white boards, internet access, laptops and ipads. In order for students to be taught new technology, teachers must understand and have the knowledge to use such devices.

Information communication technologies (ICT) can be taught across the board to all year levels in Queensland schools, however as year levels increase so do the student’s knowledge base of technology. An analysis of 4 digital tools have been conducted to demonstrate ways they can be enhance, support and transform student’s learning  in the classroom. These tools can be modified to suit grade 3 upwards in primary school. The higher grades will learn a lot more from the more advanced tasked, whilst the younger grades can use the simplified tasks.

Four technologies have been revised, within the four groups a single digital tool has be evaluated and researched to determine why it is the most relevant and resourceful to use in the classroom.

Group one of technologies; online spaces, web, blogs and wikis, I have chosen to explore blogs as it was a part of my assessment. Blogs are a great online space for both teachers and students to enhance their knowledge.  Teachers can use their online space for meeting other teachers, networking between colleagues to source new ideas in the classroom and to revise what worked and what didn’t in the classroom. Older Students can use blogs for a variety of tasks as well. They can be instructed to reflect in their own words what they have learnt through a period of time whether it be a single lesson or a whole term. For a display of how a student has created and used their blog to demonstrate what they have learnt over a period of time please refer to the previous blogs. Pupils can also share what they have learnt with what students that may have had trouble learning the same material. Another positive with blogs is it gives those children who may not be as outspoken to write down and share their thoughts in a different manner where they may express more than if they were presenting to a class.  This enhances children’s learning by allowing them to be more creative as it is similar to the pen and paper technique.

Schools and teachers have to be very careful when using resources that are protected with copyright. For copyright reasons there are special statutory licences and education exceptions in the Copyright Act which enable teachers to copy and communicate material on a wiki or blog. Students rely on provisions known as ‘fair dealing exceptions’ when copying and communicating material for class and homework tasks (MCEETYA, 2008).

The second group of technologies includes images, video and audio tools and I chose to use digital images. This type of technology can be used for different ages across Primary school. For the younger grades we could take photos with the schools digital camera of class mates, funny photos and friend’s groups and then with the images, upload them into the computer and print them out and put them up around the classroom. If students don’t know how to do so I will print out versions of the instruction manual and then students can read that and then work it out. This encourages group work and also teaches the children to use their initiative by reading instructions. Having photos around the class is a great way for children to feel as part of a team and to feel ‘at home’ in the classroom.

Another way that images can be added into the learning framework for the older grades is in a science class. If the unit of work is on nature, the children can be permitted to walk around the school yard and take photos of plants, flowers and leaves, when back in the classroom they can print out the images and write a report on the type of plant they took a photo of. This will support different learning styles as it’s a great task for visual learners as they can have physically have the image in front of them to write about and for kinasethic learners they have taken the photo and seen the plant so they will be assisted also.

Both these task can also promote higher order thinking by myself (as the teacher) asking them questions about the photos.  A suggestion by Harved (n.d), was to use questions relating to the images at the beginning of a new unit to motivate student’s interest.  So by asking the children what sort of plant did the leaf come from may encourage students to apply their knowledge to the topic.

Legally I will have to send a permission slip out to parents asking for permission to take photos of their children for school activities. Also, as the teacher it is my responsibility to ensure that the cameras are being used for the purpose only and not for immature behaviour.

When designing effective pedagogical strategies that both engage and challenge learning a lot has to be taken into account. The third group- learning tools included PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster- I chose PowerPoint. Microsoft PowerPoint is an excellent way for children to create a way to learn materials. Children today are very technologically advanced and new ways to keep them engaged are forever being discovered. PowerPoint and slide presentations hold students attention through using video, graphics and music/voice.

PowerPoint is also a great resource for teachers as presentations can be saved on a file-sharing system or flash drive. This can allow teachers to share the workload in creating them but also share the presentation with many classes.  Furthermore, if a teacher plans a lesson using PowerPoint on a particular day that half the class is away for sporting trials the students don’t have to miss out because the slideshow can be shown a second time if the teacher still carries out the lesson as planned.  Furthermore, if the teacher becomes ill and a relief teacher fills in for the day, a simple USB drive can be given to the fill in teacher who then can successfully present the lesson rather than them having to research the topic at the last minute. Another positive when discussing PowerPoint is that photos from an excursion, pictures from the internet and home video can all be collaborated into a single presentation, therefore allowing the children to become more eager to participate within the class (refer to my previous blog for a thinking routine of this topic).

As a way to integrate PowerPoint into the classroom students can be asked to create an informative PowerPoint presentation on a country of their choice. The presentation must have information such as capital city, main source of economic growth, size, the ocean that the country is surrounded by, icons and other interesting facts. The students must then do a two minute speech on their country. This will engage a whole classroom as students will be comparing their country to the students that is presenting their country. The students will be presenting this part of the class which allows the students to have a chance to listen to peers instead of their teacher.

Finally- Group four technologies - animations and simulations and open ended exploration. I am looking at Google Earth. Google Earth is another technology that I would use in the classroom. For subjects such as history and geography for the older grades in Primary school this program will be a great way to teach children locations of countries and oceans. Also, this can be used to teach them directions such as north and south. Google Earth also has functions such as street names and zooms. For a classroom activity I can use mapping where children need to write down directions to a familiar shopping centre or park and then as a whole class we can follow the streets that lead to the target .Another activity could be to get the children to pick a nearby town or suburb and write directions how to get there from the classroom (please refer to my previous blog for an image of a zoomed in location, the Gladstone Marina).

In conclusion, blogs, images, PowerPoint and Google Earth are great to use in the classroom for primary school age children. When used correctly and legally safe they engage children when being taught the skill and at the same time allow children to re-use the skill the have learnt outside the classroom in society.

References

Education Queensland. (2008). eLearning for smart classrooms. Retrieved April 4, 2011, from http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/pdf/scbyte-elearning.pdf

Smartcopying, (2008). Teachers and students using a wiki or blog. Retrieved April 14, 2011 from http:www.smartcopying.edu.au/swc/go/pid/948

Visual Thinking. (n.d) See Think Wonder Routine. Retrieved April 12, 2011-, from http://www.pz.harvard.edu/vt/Thinkinghtmlfiles/03ThinkingRountines/03cCorerountine