Sunday, 26 May 2013

Digital Storytelling as an Educational Tool


I recently stumbled upon some very, very interesting websites which featured some amazing digital stories, which got me thinking; how can I use this as a learning tool, if at all? This led to me stumbling upon an intriguing article written by Bernard Robin, which outlined the benefits of digital storytelling in the classroom. Robin describes digitally storytelling as creating a story utilising the technologies and capabilities a computer (or other technological device) has to offer, such as the incorporation of video, audio and even interactivity. Benefits of digital storytelling include their cheap production cost (once created, they can be distributed for free online rather than having to pay for printing) and the ability to create a very powerful story in a relatively small amount of time. Because of the ability to create these stories with software either standard on computers or with free downloadable software, anyone with access to a computer can easily create a simple digital story with just a few photos and some text. 





Robin also points out that the incorporation of audio and visual stimulation (through video/images) allows students to retain the information better, due to a reduced “cognitive overload” on the brain (Rudnicki et al, page 3). Robin includes images detailing the construction of a digital story, which can be found at the end of this post. Robin goes on to say that digital stories are effective at engaging students and promoting student discussion, and that the creation of digital stories can provide digital, global, technological, visual and information literacy skills, all of which are vital to living and working in the 21st century (Howell, 2012; Scardamalia et al, 2010). Creating digital stories may even give students experience in criticising the work of themselves and others, and may provide students with an environment rich in social learning and emotional intelligence (Robin, 2008). Robin paints digital stories as being quite versatile methods of teaching, and having found some very cool, interactive digital stories myself, I can see their potential uses in the classroom. Why have kids read Shakespeare when they can also hear, see and even interact with Shakespeare? Digital stories take the learning out of the boring, pen and paper learning space and place the learning environment in a digital setting, where students are much more comfortable (63% of the teenage population use the internet every day, and 73% use social media (1)). Digital stories could even be viewed on mobile devices, allowing students to access them anywhere, anytime, like at breakfast or before bed. 


References:


Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century Classroom – Bernard. R. Robin, 2008

New Assessment and Environments for Knowledge Building  - Scardamalia et al, 2010

Teaching With ICT, Jennifer Howell , Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, 2012


 The Buzz Continues...The Diffusion of Digital Storytelling across disciplines and colleges at the University of Houston – A.Rudnicki, A.Cozart, A.Ganesh, C.Markello, S.Marsh, S.McNeil, H.Mullins, D.Smith, B.Robin










Educational Assessment Using Information and Communication Technologies


The increasing digitalisation of the world is causing technology to seep into new areas of society every day; one such area being education. A lot of talk goes on about providing students with the latest and greatest technology in order to enhance their learning, but what about teachers? How much technology is available to them? Is technology going to make the assessment and marking of student performance easier? Can different assessment methods help engage students? These are the questions I want to answer. Recent articles indicate that while it is great that the curriculum and the technologies employed in education may be changing, said changes may be mute if methods of assessment do not change as well (Redecker & Johannessen, 2013). In the same article, Redecker & Johannessen provide the SAM-R learning assessment model, which outlines the various stages of technology based assessment strategies ranging from very basic marking systems (like the current systems used to mark National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numercay(NAPLAN) tests, where answer sheets are passed through a machine which identifies correct answers) to intricate, complicated systems which provide the student with individually tailored feedback and advice to both student and teacher. Embedded assessment is also brought up as a viable option for assessing students, as it is constantly evaluating and directing student activity in the selected digital environment students use to learn. Unfortunately, the article fails to mention specific software and programs which could perform such evaluation of student material. The article also notes that students are more motivated and perform better when computer based testing is used, but it fails to mention the parameters of such tests (if access to the internet is available during testing, students could simply search for the answers online, in which case only basic computer knowledge is needed, not the knowledge being examined) and whether such parameters might affect student performance or motivation. While I agree with programs that can effectively assess student work, Redecker & Johannessen do mention that the accuracy of these tests is not guaranteed, which makes them more of a liability than a better way of doing things (paying for assessment software when I may also have to review the results myself? No thanks!). 





                               Hopefully this timeline will prove to be accurate in years to come.


Another article provides some much simpler, much more guaranteed ways of assessing students. In Assessment for Teaching Today, Kent &Campbell outline interesting ways current, widely available technology might be utilised to assess students. It describes getting students to create blogs, where they can provide their thoughts and ideas on a topic, share research or answer a series of set questions, all of which can then be reviewed and assessed by the teacher (or perhaps by the student cohort in a collaborative learning environment as mentioned in a previous post). It also outlines the potential uses social networking sites as tools of student assessment. Twitter, for example, can be used to ask students questions or provide hints for research topics – even when students are not at school (why not tweet a question to be answered while students eat breakfast, or travel to and from school?). The beautiful thing with digital assessment is that it can take learning out of the classroom and into the pockets of students (Wylie) and it is a familiar thing to them – students will to it better and enjoy it because it isn't foreign to them (I think the number of students who solve math equations or analyse 19th century poetry in their spare time is far fewer than the number who actively social network and use the internet in their spare time). Learner response systems are also brought up – teachers can ask questions and have the whole class answer instantly, without having to ask a handful of students what they believe the answer to be. The use of learner response systems such as Top Hat Monocle also lets teachers know how various students are handling the course content, so any additional help can be provided if necessary. Overall, I find the use of assessment using information and communication technologies and exciting concept, as it has the ability to take learning to students wherever they are, and lets teachers browse the net while they mark student blogs or wiki’s (and who doesn't love browsing the internet?).

References:


Changing Assessment —Towards a New Assessment Paradigm Using ICT - Christine Redecker & Øystein Johannessen (2013)

Mobile learning technologies for 21st century classrooms – Jonathan Wylie
Assessment for Teaching Today- Peter Kent and Chris Campbell, Macmillan Education Australia, 2013

Image; Changing Assessment —Towards a New Assessment Paradigm Using ICT - Christine Redecker & Øystein Johannessen (2013)

Collaborating in the Classroom - The use of Wiki's as an Educational Tool


Collaboration in the classroom is, in my eyes, a very important part of education. Students collaborating to complete work paves the way for good cooperation and team-work skills later in life, and opens up students to a diverse range of opinions on the topic they are studying, allowing for a better understanding and (for me at least) better engagement.  Sing (et al) recognises a recent shift toward a much more group-based working society, and goes on to say that collaborative learning in the classroom is necessary to develop the skills and knowledge needed to navigate through 21st century society effectively. Sing et al describes collaborative learning as learning that occurs with social interaction as a way to better understand the curriculum being taught or to create assessment items of a higher standard than usual. Collaborative learning strikes a chord with me; senior maths and chemistry involved a lot of collaborative learning due to the teaching styles employed, and it worked quite well for me.





 Sing et al provides a good example of a situation where collaborative learning is an effective way to solve problem. Once presented with the problem, students discuss the task, developing an ‘ownership’ of the task and further developing their own ideas and opinions toward the problem along the way. Once this sense of ownership has been formed, students share their ideas, further refining their own knowledge on the topic at hand as they gather each other’s differing viewpoints and understanding of the task. The sharing of ideas can then leads to students exploring further into the task via experimentation, research or other means, ultimately resulting in a level of understanding much deeper than if they had attempted the problem themselves. This is a fantastic description of collaborative learning, but I think it is better said later on in the article, when Sing et al draw on Vygotsky’s theory of social interaction in learning. In essence, the key concept in collaborative learning is that students develop a better understanding of a topic than if they to work on their own, due to having to process the knowledge, thoughts and opinions of others on said topic. Collaborative learning is by all means a fantastic way of educating classes, but it is noted in Sing’s work that it does have its shortcomings. If the class is full of very introverted students, minimal discussion may occur, destroying the very basis on which collaborative learning is built. A simple way around this issue (and a simple way of extending collaborative learning to the home) is with the use of ‘wiki’s’. Wiki’s are essentially a very simple way of collaborating online – individuals (be it the general public or a select group) can work together to produce articles, add in their own parts and edit mistakes others have made, all while remaining anonymous (which for shy students, may be all that is needed for them to collaborate, as it removes the fear of being ridiculed or ignored by the group). In a classroom setting, teacher and student alike are able to track the development of a group task as it goes on. Rather than the teacher and students marking a draft of the full article before assessment, all members of the classroom (including the teacher) can make suggested changes to the article as it is constructed (Duffy et al, 2006). Duffy also specifically mentions the collaboration possible when using wiki’s, noting, as Sing et al did, the need for sound communication skills in modern society and in the workforce. The use wiki’s in education allows for easy item assessment, as the teacher can view who made what contributions, identifying whether students are contributing enough (or perhaps too much). Wiki’s provide a digital approach to collaborative work in an increasingly digital world, and allows for the anytime, anywhere creation of a group item which is of high quality.



                                                           How Collaborative Learning might utilise technology available in smartphones.

References:

The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of Possibilities. In Proceedings Online Learning and Teaching Conference - Duffy, Peter and Bruns, Axel, 2006, pages 31-38, Brisbane

Advancing Collaborative Learning with ICT – Chai CHing Sing, Lim Wei-Ying, So Hyo-Jeong, Cheah Horn Mun, 2011


Mobile Learning in The Classroom


Recently I read some articles about mobile learning using Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and they provided some interesting ways mobile learning might be used in and out of the classroom. Marc Prensky (quoted in Wylie) states that the present day pedagogy is not suitable for present day students because of a lack of ICT, and I believe this to be the case.





The world around us is becoming increasingly digitalised (Howell, 2012) - 20 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to write this blog - and yet our education system has stayed much the same (Scardamalia et al 2010). This is an issue, as the education system should be changing to reflect 21st century ideals which revolve around the use of technology (Scardamalia et al 2010). Scardamalia then goes on to say that teachers and the pedagogy they use must also change in order to properly utilize technology in the classroom, a point I agree with (I would have used an Interactive Whiteboard like a normal whiteboard before learning of its interactive functionality). But perhaps by changing the equipment used in classrooms, the teaching style will adapt naturally. Some effort to integrate ICT into classrooms has been made, with the Victorian government trialing iPads in high schools (2). The trial found that when using the technology, students were more engaged with the course content and that it enhanced student collaboration (an interesting topic in itself).  Wylie notes the use of Kindles instead of heavy textbooks to be an appealing prospect, and I can appreciate the difference it may make to students lives (I am currently the proud owner of four weighty textbooks myself). But rather than use a kindle to just read books digitally as Wylie said, why not get rid of notepads too? With the implementation of iPads as in some Victorian schools, kids can read the textbook and make their own notes in the ‘book’ as they go along, without having to worry about receiving a fine for vandalising school property (if it is loaned) or reducing the books resale price. Tablet devices like the iPad often feature internet capability, allowing students to use interactive websites on their devices as a way to better engage them. Many things are possible with the use of tablet devices, like making learning an all the time, any time, familiar experience, rather than the six hour days currently spent by students where they are forcefully disconnected from potentially useful social technology due it being a distraction (Wylie). As a pre-service teacher, the concept of children completing small tasks before school while they eat breakfast or after school as they travel home or to extra-curricular activities excites me. Utilizing readily available technology (83% of teens and 31% of Australian children own mobile phones (1)) to make learning a constant process is intriguing to say the least, as it might help to make learning an interesting activity that can occur anywhere, rather than just in the boring confines of a school classroom.



 References:

Mobile Learning Technologies for 21st Century Classrooms- Jonathan Wylie

NEW ASSESSMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTS FOR KNOWLEDGE BUILDING - Marlene Scardamalia, John Bransford, Bob Kozma, and Edys Quellmalz - 2010

Teaching With ICT, - Jennifer Howell, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, 2012


(2) - http://www.ipadsforeducation.vic.edu.au/ipad-student-trial/ipads-in-schools

Images;



Social Constructivism

Social Constructivism is an interesting topic for me, for a few reasons. The first is its freedom in comparison to the traditional ‘sit down, shut up, listen’ teaching style I had for some of my classes throughout my schooling experience. Social Constructivism is comprised of three main aspects – student interaction, a more knowledgeable individual (usually a teacher) and for learning to occur in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Howell, 2012). The ZPD can be defined as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p86, referenced in Mcleod, 2012). For students to be kept in the ZPD, the tasks assigned to them should be very difficult to complete when attempted individually, but much simpler when performed with an appropriately minimal amount of guidance. The theory (as developed by Lev Vygotsky) then goes to say that once the previously difficult task has been completed with an appropriately trivial amount of guidance, it will be quite easy to complete in the future. I find this concept very interesting, as it is essentially how I learned senior mathematics – my teacher which would provide very subtle hints to difficult maths problems which allowed me and my classmates to quickly complete to given task while we interacted with each other allowing steps we may not have been able to complete individually to be worked through and better understood. All this occurred without a teacher handing out detentions for communicating with friends, which made the lessons more interesting as we were still socialising and interacting as we would have outside the classroom (even if were talking about math rather than sports). The fantastic thing about social construction is its ability to be applied to a wide variety of content, and the fact it can be utilised in many ways; McLeod (2010) provides a fantastic example of social constructivism in learning to play tennis, I learnt basic calculus through social constructivism and tasks such as learning computer skills or producing digital stories (Howell, 2012) can also be exploited by social constructivism. In previous posts I talked about the increasing use of technology in everyday life and the necessity to introduce such technology into the classroom. Howell lists many aspects of the digital world as being easily taught through the use of social constructivism. Social constructivism doesn’t even have to occur in the classroom – with the integration of modern, everyday technology, students can access their ‘more knowledgeable other’ via text message or a social networking site, allowing them to complete difficult tasks at home, in their own time. Students experiencing trouble embedding a Youtube link in their blog about cell division? They can simply contact a friend or teacher for that extra bit of assistance to help them embed the video and finish the task, without having been babied the whole way.



References:
Teaching With ICT -  Jennifer Howell, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, 2012

Zone of Proximal Development – Saul McLeod, 2012


Image; http://sabb46.edublogs.org/files/2011/01/contructivistcartoon-2d5vhhy.png

Trends in Educational ICT


Society’s trend toward the increased use of technology in our everyday lives intrigues me, and it makes me wonder; if society is changing so rapidly, are our classrooms? Here is a video that shows what education in the 21st century could look like. Does your classroom/your child's classroom look like the 21st century learning environments in this video? For a vast majority of you, the answer will (unfortunately) be no.




Society is becoming increasingly digitalised (Howell, 2012; Scardamalia et al, 2010) whether we like it or not. In her book, Teaching With ICT, Jennifer Howell outlines the changing policies of various nations around the world in regards to the implementation of technology into the education system. Australian education policy now says students should have the skills to properly utilize technology, as well as have sound literacy and numeracy skills if they are to be successful learners (Melbourne Declaration, Page 8, Quoted Howell, 2012). Howell then goes on to note Australia’s intention to implement a National Broadband Network, provide secondary school students with personal computers, provide better professional development for teachers (regarding the use of technology in the classroom) and offer better online resources and tools for student and teacher alike. Other countries have introduced similar education policy changes, with many, (including Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States of America), (Howell, 2012) also aiming to make digital technologies a core part of their educational practices. Howell indicates that such changes have been spurred on by the digitalisation of the world, and that the education system must prepare students for this changing world. I believe the increased implementation of technology in classrooms can only be a good thing, especially as technology is such a huge part of everyday life. Throughout my schooling life I used a great deal of technology to aid my results – if a teacher didn’t explain something in a way I understood, the internet became my best friend as I was able to learn the content at my own pace, in a manner that made sense to me. Howells book also includes a small case study on the use of Interactive Whiteboards (IWB’s) in the classroom. Interestingly enough, the study showed that as well as engaging students more than a conventional lesson, it made lesson planning much faster for staff, and allowed for smoother lessons, with students easily transitioning from one activity to the next. It also mentioned the use of a ‘spider chart’ with an IWB, in which students could first make note of their current knowledge on a topic in their notebooks, before using the IWB to share their knowledge, collaborating and correcting each other as they went (essentially creating a more user-directed learning experience, one which I find much more engaging). As well as making note of the potential uses of ICT in schools and how education policies are adapting to our changing society, Howell also provides methods of creating and developing an effective digital pedagogy, an important addition, as ultimately, it is the teachers ability to use this new technology that is going to make the biggest impact on the 21st century classroom. Here is a word cloud and a few pod casts about technology and where it may be heading in the world of education.

Wordle: Educatoion in ICT


References:

Jennifer Howell – Teaching With ICT, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, 2012

Scardamalia et al – New Assessments and Environments for Knowledge Building - 2010