Each learner in a teacher’s class has a unique combination of prior experience, prior knowledge, perceptions and attitudes, learning style, intelligence, personality and temperament. Catering for each individual is an ongoing challenge for teachers. When teachers of today grew up they had “less rich in media, less rich in communication, and much less rich in creative opportunities for students outside of school”. (Prensky, 2010)“Today’s average graduates have spent over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it...students’ brains have changed...whether or not this is literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed”.(Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, 2001) As Teachers we have to accommodate for this change that the media, communication and creative opportunities have had on students today.
When it comes to ICT’s a lot of them are on the internet, students can work on them from home and interact with each other and the public. Therefore there are a lot of safety factors that are need to be considered. Before any student starts using a computer and internet there are rules and policies that teachers have go through to help keep the students aware that danger does not always happen in the physical world but also the cyber world. Reading the policy statement from the Governor Stirling Senior High School (GSSHS), the policy goes through using the internet, emails, computers, copy right, Your rights-cyber safety and cyber bullying. The first four things just go into what you should and should not do, for example “treat the computers carefully and look after them” or “users will not access site that contain pornography, unethical or illegal solicitation, racism, etc.”. The last two policy statements go into a lot more depth compared with the first four because it is the dangerous parts, and what can effect or even destroy lives. It is hard for students to know if nobody tells them, and no one should have to learn the hard way, especially children. These two sections go through how to be safe in the cyber world e.g “people on the internet may not be who they say they are – people can hide their identities and pretend to be someone they are not”. The second section is about cyber bullying, what it involves, how to recognise it and what you should do if it is happening to you. This is a policy I believe that covers everything that I would go over with my students, here is a link http://www.govo.wa.edu.au/policy-operations/computer-internet-policy.html so you can have a further look at it.
Students have computer games, email, internet, mobile phones, and other information communication technology (ICT) engaging them in all parts of their life, it’s something they struggle live without, why should school be any different? Throughout the Managing E-Learning course I have learnt about ICT’s for the classroom to help engage and develop students. For this reflective synopsis we were asked to choose an ICT for each ICT group and investigate it more extensity, I chose to look into a wiki, prezi, video, and Google maps. Before I go into how they individually enhance, support and transform learning I will go over the core themes that I found between all four.
Firstly I found all of the ICT’s will:
·
Engage
These ICT’s will help engage students; students in the 21st century most students know about a lot of digital tools and want to learn more all the time. This is one of the big reasons that they are engaged and the second would be it is different to some teaching styles, there are a lot of teachers that do not use ITC’s, so when students find out that they are using computers in maths for example they get excited and listen so much better, this is because they are engaged. As teacher what we have to be careful of is making sure we teach the content of the subject and not just the program.
· Support - Gardner's Multiple Intelligences
These ICT’s help support students in so many different ways for example if they have bad hand writing they can type want they want out, students that find it hard to work from a text book will it easier to work from these ICT or students can express the creativity and/or their preferred learning style much easier with these ICT’s. They can also help support and bring in different intelligences pointed out by Howard Gardner. Howards Gardner has seven different intelligences are 1. Linguistic, 2. Logical/Mathematical, 3. Musical, 4. Bodily/Kinaesthetic, 5. Spatial, 6. Interpersonal and, 7. Intrapersonal. I believe that I could support all intelligences with these ICT’s.
· Higher-order thinking
These ICT’s bring out a lot of higher-order thinking, “Higher-order thinking requires students to manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation.” (Queensland Government, 2004). The higher-order thinking skill is not only our job as teachers to help develop but also a crucial skill to live.
· Learning the program
Learning these ICT’s I found it takes some time especially prezi and video, I think one big problem with would be the time to teach these ICT’s to students. Yes I know there are probably some that would learn just as or even faster than I would but some would take longer and I have found that when teaching you just do not have the time to teach students these programs.
· Constructivism theory
These ICT’s help build a constructivism classroom, the basics of constructivism theory is students “Construct own understanding and knowledge of the world” and are “always guided by the teacher to construct there knowledge instead of mechanically ingesting knowledge from textbooks” (Class, Constructivism 2011) . The way the ICT’s help build a constructivism environment is by being an extension to the teachers’ abilities, not the guide itself, which helps create opportunities for the students to gain their own understanding and guided. By using ICT’s it does not make it constructive classroom, students can be non-constructive but used in the right way ICT’s can help build constructive minds.
·
Connects
These ICT’s help connect students to the world, students can do work on a wiki and people can look at it. The same goes with prezi’s and if they upload their videos to YouTube or something similar. Scribble maps do not help connect but Google maps can be accessed anywhere in the world. If students unload their stuff to the internet it may impact someone else or even teach someone else.
Wiki
A wiki is very similar to a work desk, what I mean by that is, it is a place that you can put all your information and/or things that relate to what you are working on but the difference is that it is online and only changes that can be made is by the creators. In most situations wikis are used for group work which makes it so that you can work online with at any time and all your information stays online, to see my beliefs about how well it works and uses for maths and manual arts you can view my blog entry “Wiki”. I have explained all the links to theory above but this tool can also help out with frameworks for example with the Dimension of learning framework, Marzano and Pickering state that student need opportunities to work with peers. A wiki does just that, students are going to need to be able to work with each other, it is something everyone has to do in their life.
Prezi
Nearly every student in the western world knows what a PowerPoint is; the easiest way to describe a prezi would be it is a fancy PowerPoint. (To have a look a prezi and the information that I have concluded about them click here). I believe a prezi can replace a PowerPoint, not entirely but it just about can. I think one big difference would be the creativeness that can be behind creating a prezi, you can do a lot of stuff and students can express themselves in their own way, I believe that this is important and prezis let them do this. I think the reason why it has not replaced it though would be because the licences cost a fair bit and I think it is easier to learn PowerPoint.
Video
To students making a video would be extremely fun because they watch T.V. or YouTube and they jump at the chance to be a part of something like that. As a maths, manual arts teacher I would use videos as a tool to record journals and teaching. One of the best things about teaching with videos are you can re-watch them if you miss something and you can reuse them next year.(To have a look a video and the information that I have concluded about them click here).
Google Maps – Scribble Maps
I had a lot of fun learning about scribble maps it was the only ICT in this synopsis that I had not heard of. The main use of scribble maps in my teaching areas would be using it to work out a lot of different maths problems I cannot find to many uses for it in manual arts. (To have a look a Google maps – scribbles maps and the information that I have concluded about them click here).
In conclusion students of the 21st century uses ICT’s in every part of their life and teaching them should not be any different. ICT’s enhance your teaching style as long as you put in the effort to learn them yourself. I would recommend to any teacher the use of ICT’s I helps engage, support, higher-order thinking and many different learning theories.
Reference List
Class, Students from Managing E-Learning. Constructivism. 12 07 2011. http://fahe11001mackay.wikispaces.com/Constructivism.
Class, Students from Managing E-Learning. Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. 12 07 2011. http://fahe11001mackay.wikispaces.com/Gardner%27s+Multiple+Intelligences.
Governor Stirling Senior High School. Computer & Internet Policy. 03 2011. http://www.govo.wa.edu.au/policy-operations/computer-internet-policy.html.
Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (1997). Dimensions of Learning - Teacher's Manual.Alexandria:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Prensky, M. (2010). "Engage me or enrage me" WHAT TODAY’S LEARNERS DEMAND.Retrieved
August 23, 2010, from EDUCAUSE:http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved August 23, 2010, from Marc
%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Queensland Government. (2004). Higher-order thinking. Retrieved August 23, 2010, from
Queensland Government, Department of Education and Training:
http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/newbasics/html/pedagogies/intellect/int1a.html
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