Assessment 2: Reflective synopsis - Analysis of Digital Technologies

Introduction

This post is a reflective synopsis of a series of analyses of selected learning technologies. The post begins with a brief discussion of my teaching context and the characteristics of a contemporary effective learner in order to contextualise the use of the digital tools examined in this blog post. This is followed by a description of my (emerging) personal framework for e-learning design. The first reflections and conclusions are based on participating in two learning activities: Mobile Phones Wiki; and Learning Theories Quiz Wiki. The next four reflections are a synthesis of the exploration of four groups of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the selection of one tool from each group to support learning in my teaching context.  Each reflection is organised around three main components: my exploration of the tools; learning theories and thinking routines (scaffolding activities); and application to my teaching context.  These reflections are followed by a brief discussion of the legal, safe and ethical guidelines that should be employed when using digital tools in a school environment. This blog post concludes with a discussion on the implications for my praxis. The reflections and conclusions are based on a series of blog posts at http://joluck.blogspot.com.au/


Teaching Context, Contemporary Learners and Digital Pedagogies

Mishra and Koehler (2008, p. 2) argue that designing “solutions that honour the complexities of the situations and the contexts presented by learners and classrooms” is an important factor in successful e-learning design. At this point in time, I have very limited knowledge about the context within which I will be teaching. All I know is that my teaching areas are Information Technology (IT) and Mathematics and my first prac experience will be teaching year 8 & 9 students at an all girls school. My engagement with the digital tools for e-learning design is constrained by this limited knowledge. Until I fully understand my teaching context and my learners I will not be able to effectively integrate the technologies I am reflecting on in this synopsis into my teaching praxis.

I have examined the complicated nature of modern schools and classrooms and what is meant by the concept of a contemporary effective learner in this ICTs in Queensland Classrooms in the 21st Century blog post. This post highlights the complexity of teaching in modern classrooms and that I have much to learn from my mentor teachers while I am on prac. The reflections in this blog post about the uses of digital technologies for teaching contemporary learners will be a work in progress for many years to come.

Personal Framework for e-Learning Design

Please read my Personal Framework for e-Learning Design blog post where I reflect on what I have learnt in this course and how it will influence the ways that I use digital pedagogies in my teaching.

Working with Wikis There were two wiki exercises undertaken in week 2. The first was based on developing a group discussion on the use of mobile phones in the classroom. The second was participating in a discussion about learning theories and using ICTs in education. The mobile phone wiki exercise used de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats to scaffold the discussions. Each coloured hat representing a different perspective was given a separate space and students colour-coded their entries, creating an organised space for collaboration. This learning activity supported the constructivist theory of learning, as ideas were gathered from a group of students.  Within the wiki, students were able to build on each others’ comments and suggestions to interpret and evaluate the use of mobile phones in the classroom demonstrating how Wikis could be used as a constructivist collaborative learning tool. ­The scaffolding ensured that the students’ varied perspectives were presented rather than just description or opinion, which moved us to use our higher order thinking skills (HOTS). I know that I was pushed into my Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) during this exercise.


The learning theory quiz was the second wiki activity completed in week 2. For this activity we were asked to self-select into smaller groups and post our thoughts on how best to answer four multiple choice questions (MCQ) on the topic of learning theories and using ICTs in education. There was little scaffolding in this exercise and some people chose to insert their comments into the MCQs themselves and others wrote their thoughts and responses underneath the relevant MCQ. Some people used coloured font and their initials to indicate their comments and others just wrote theirs using the default font. I found this a little frustrating as I was late in completing this task and in the first six quizzes I looked at I found it hard to work out what words represented the original questions and what were added by other people. Being a sequential and sensing learner I had difficulty coping with this activity. As these MCQs were also preparation for completing assessment item 1 I felt I had to know the correct answers so pragmatically I cut and pasted the MCQs and my responses into an email and sent them to Wendy asking for feedback on my comments. I could not cope with this collaborative confusion!!! For more detail on my personal reflection, what I learned from participating in both these wiki activities and how I would apply wikis and deBono’s Six Thinking Hats in my teaching context please read my Working with Wikis blog post.

Though I recognize the value of using wikis for collaborative learning the activities we undertook were not completed without encountering some problems. These problems highlighted the possibilities of technology producing adverse effects on learning. For example, there were two problems that I observed: the instructions were unclear and ambiguous; and the students’ limited knowledge of the technology and its affordances. I have explained the confusing instructions in the Working with Wikis blog post. These problems had a negative impact on the attitudes and perceptions of many students, and as Marzano & Pickering (1997, p. 13) suggest, when attitudes and perceptions are negative, learning suffers. The limited experience among students of how to use a Wiki through collaborative authoring led most students to adopt approaches to the task that limited the benefits of the technology. For example, many people, myself included, wrote our initials/names next to our postings so that readers would be aware that we had participated in the activity. Furthermore, instead of editing and adding to what others had written (collaborative authoring) many of us just added an extra paragraph to what was already written. There was also little evidence of Connectivism at work as people contributed their own thoughts but did not link them to other sources on the Internet and elsewhere. Read more on Connectivism in my blog post.

Group 1 - Blogs, Wikis and Websites

In Week 3 I explored how the Group 1 Tools could support digital pedagogies (see my Blogs, Wikis and Websites blog post). Without a complete understanding of my teaching context it is difficult to argue for the use of one technology over the other two. I can imagine using all three as they each have affordances that would be appropriate for differing contexts. All three tools have the capability to demonstrate Connectivism in action for the students. Connectivism is based on the proposition that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections. Blogs, Wikis and Websites all have the affordance of helping the students learning constructing and traversing those networks of connections all over the world (Siemens, 2004).

The Group 1 tool that I currently feel most comfortable about using in my teaching is Blogs. A Blog, or Web Log, is a website that is commonly maintained by a single-author (but can be many authors) and usually contains regular entries of personal commentary on news items (ABC blogs) or other subjects (for example, parenting). Some people use blogs as personal, online diaries. Blogs can contain materials such as images, audio or video and link to other blogs or websites. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Interactivity of blogs is afforded through the ability of readers to leave comments on a blog post. This allows a dialogue to occur between individuals. The ability to leave comments and make hyperlinks on other students’ posts encourages self-learning as it creates a learning community that goes beyond the classroom (Downes, 2004). If using them for teaching Blogs are owned by the students. They have full control over the content and therefore ideas expressed in their blogs. I have critically reflected on my experiences with using blogs using a PMI tool and examined their affordances as teaching tools in my Blog post for Week 3.

One thing I would like to add to the reflection on Blogs is that when using Blogs in class or for my own use in the future I will move to the WordPress platform. I found the editor in Blogger to be problematic and unforgiving at times. I have experimented with WordPress and I think it would be a better tool to use in my personal reflection and my teaching.

One teaching strategy that I would implement when using Blogs for teaching is to encourage the students to work with a small group of Blog Buddies. Being overwhelmed by the expectation to read more than 100 student blogs in EDED20491, I invited five of my fellow students to be my Blog Buddies. The Blog Buddies post has been the most read and heavily commented post on my blog to date.

Other Group 1 tools that I explored were Wiki’s and Websites. I did not choose Wikis because at the present time I don’t feel confident in setting up a Wiki to use in a secondary school class. As discussed in the preceding section of this post I had mixed feelings about the use of Wikis in EDED20491. I do however engage with Wikis on almost a daily basis through Wikipedia. I have set up my own Wiki site and I plan to encourage my fellow students to add to so that we can use it as a resource for the use of ICTs in Education while we are student teachers. My critical reflection of my experiences in setting up a wiki and how I would employ it in my teaching is available on my Wikispace site.  

I can foresee that I will use Websites in my praxis but more as a tool to store teaching materials for my students than getting students to create their own websites. As discussed in my blog post where I evaluated Websites, I see value in using websites as a ‘hub’ to store and link to interactive activities for the students to complete. Having said that I think getting students to create their own websites would be a fantastic way to get them working at the higher end of Bloom’s Taxonomy where they would be their designing, developing, and creating skills to produce a new product from their original ideas.

Group 2 – Images, Audio and Video

We were tasked with examining the Group 2 Tools in week 4.  I have compared these three tools in a reflective blog post on digital images, audio and video. I also wrote three separate blog posts, Images, Audio and Video where I explored each of these digital tools, reflected on their ease of use and discussed the implications for my learners. Each post used a SWOT analysis to scaffold the analysis and each post includes a brief discussion of the ways each tool could be used purposefully in my teaching context.

I was asked to select one tool to further explore. As with the reflection on the Group 1 tools I found that without understanding my teaching context it is difficult to argue for the use of one technology over the other two. I can imagine using all three for differing teaching contexts. Nevertheless, the Group 2 tool that I selected for further exploration was Images. At first you might think that the images is the ‘least sexy’ option of the three tools. But I chose Images because pictures and graphics are easy to create or obtain and you can make them animated and clickable (interactive). You do not have use static images. I also believe in the less is more principle. Images (if they have been made smaller with a tool such as Mobaphoto) require less bandwidth and the tools to take images (devices with cameras) are more freely available. In addition, there are many sites on the web where you can obtain free images that you can use on a non-profit webpage—with due acknowledgement.

Images have a range of uses in education. They can be used as a topic for analysis, they can be used to illustrate a point. They can make teaching materials more engaging. If the Images are used in conjunction with a tool like Glogsters they can be made clickable and as such they can be used for interactive activities with the students. The uses of Images in education are endless and subject to the teacher’s and students’ creativity. When using photos of students care should be taken if the photos are placed on a webpage that is accessible to people outside the school, either obtain parental permission for the release of the photos or blur their faces.

Group 3 – Presentation Tools

The Group 3 tools investigated in Week 5 were all presentation tools: PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster. To choose one of these tools to over the other two was a difficult decision without a comprehensive understanding of my teaching context. I know that all three tools will be useful additions to my technology toolkit. I have explored each of these tools and critically evaluated them for teaching purposes using a PMI tool in my PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster blog posts.

Though I love Prezi and was completely rapt in Glogster (a tool I had not used before) I believe that I have to select PowerPoint as the tool that will probably be of most use to me in the classroom. I can imagine using it more for preparing my teaching materials than I will the other presentation tools. PowerPoint has the ability to make it interactive so if I design a task well enough I will be able to use PowerPoint in a manner that encourages students to use their HOTS (Bloom’s Taxonomy). I can also picture that PowerPoint is a tool that I can get the students to use themselves to create learning artefacts. The ability to add images, audio and video to PowerPoints mean that the students can use their creativity skills (HOTS) when designing PowerPoint presentations.

There are three reasons why I believe PowerPoint will be used by me in my teaching more than Prezis and Glogsters. Firstly, because I am a PC user and am familiar with MS-Office I find it easy to use PowerPoint as the menus are similar in all the MS-Office Suite of programs, hence using PowerPoints will save me time. Secondly, PowerPoint has an advantage because of its widespread availability. If the school is PC-based then they will most likely have MS-Office on all computers. Even if the students do not have access to PowerPoint at home they would still be able to download a free reader to be able to play PowerPoints at home. The third reason is because you do not need access to the Internet to use PowerPoint. To use Prezi to create presentations you need to be online unless you pay to use the software. Similarly Glogsters need access to the Internet to be created and used. You can read more about my comparison of the three presentation tools in my Presentation Tools blog post.

Group 4 – Word Clouds

The Group 4 tool I explored was Word Clouds or Tag Clouds which are weighted lists used as a visual representation of text data. In my Word Cloud blog post I explain how Word clouds are simple tools that could be used to great effect in my teaching and provide several examples of how I could get students to construct them in the classroom. Word Clouds could be used for a simple analysis of a block of text and to give feedback to students about their writing. As Word Cloud tools create infographics which visualise data they can be used as a tool in scaffolding student learning. Word Clouds could be used to motivate students to using their HOTS (analysing, evaluating and creating skill levels in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy). I tried several of the free tools for creating Word Clouds. My recommendation would be to use Tagxedo as it provided more options in the look and feel of the graphic image produced including making the Word Clouds appear in a shape of your choosing.

Gary Holmes made a comment on my Word Cloud blog post where he described the ideas I presented as “very timely…[at] my recent meeting with the assistant regional director in this EQ region. He really pushed the need for schools to focus on vocabulary and stated the link to research suggesting this was a way to improve our student performance data”. Hence, Word Clouds could also be used to create meta data about student learning and their achievements.

Legal, Safe and Ethical Guidelines

It is essential that as a teacher I create a safe, legal and ethical environment for my students to work within digital spaces. This will be achieved by me modeling good practice as I have done in all my blog posts and in the artefacts that I have created in this course. I have acknowledged my sources, cited people’s words using the APA referencing style and not breached any copyright laws. When writing my blog posts, the discussion forums and commenting on other students’ blog posts I have used language that is polite, encouraging and supportive of other peoples’ ideas. When teaching I will explicitly teach these skills to my students. In addition, I will set up safe environments for the students to work within and will teach them skills such as the THINK strategy so they can self-manage working in a safe environment. I have posted a blog entry where I critically reflected on creating a Legal, Safe and Ethical Environment for Online Learning. This blog also includes a list of resources that I can use when teaching.

Implications for my Praxis

One aspect of embedding ICTs in my teaching that concerns me is the amount of time it takes to do it well. There is extra time required in the preparation of teaching materials and ensuring the technology in the classroom is working, the time it takes to execute the lesson and the time it takes to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. In addition, there is the extra time needed outside of class to monitor work and provide feedback. When on prac I will be engaging my mentor teachers in discussions on what resources they use and how they manage their time when working in digital environments. I have also reflected on other aspects of teaching with ICTs in my Incorporating Digital Technologies into my Teaching blog post.

When reflecting on what I have achieved in this course over the last five weeks I can relate to opinions expressed in a recent blog post by Mark Fijor a Technology Facilitator in a primary school in Chicago entitled The Ugly Truth of Technology Integration. Fijor (2013) argues that “integrating any technology into the classroom can be messy, clumsy, challenging and downright frustrating” (n.p., emphasis in original). His blog post describes how when presenting new tools and concepts to teachers the presenters often leave out the stories of the struggles and learning that occurred when working out how to use the tool for “fear of not appearing as an expert” (n.p.). Fijor (2013) asserts that using the TPACK model provides a mechanism to provide educators with the essential knowledge needed to integrate a tool into the classroom. Fijor (2013) provides a list of questions that educators need to be able to answer before integrating a new technology into their classroom. As well as being a very helpful list of questions this blog post also actively demonstrated to me how TPACK can be used to increase the likelihood of success when integrating a new technology into the classroom. This connects with Mishra & Koehler’s (2008) description of an expert teacher as someone who is able to “flexibly navigate the space defined by the three elements of content, pedagogy, and technology and the complex interactions among these elements in specific contexts” (p. 10).

Mishra and Koehler (2008) describe an expert teacher has someone who has a “deep, pragmatic, and nuanced understanding of teaching with technology” that enables them to effectively solve the wicked problem of using ICTs in their teaching (p. 2). Through preparing for and writing this assessment item I have identified a number of future tasks that I need to complete:

1. Develop effective methods of using TPACK to determine the most appropriate technologies and pedagogies to teach content knowledge in my teaching areas of Information Technology and Mathematics.

2. Spend more time thinking about learning theories and thinking routines and relating them to my teaching.

3. Learn more about my teaching context.

4. Adopt a more exploratory approach to my use of digital tools in my teaching.

5. Learn how to use a Promethean Interactive White Board.

6. Explore what is meant by ‘Differentation’ in school and how I can employ digital tools to support differentiation in students.

7. Explore the use of videoconferencing such as Blackboard Collaborate as a tool for learning.

The last point I would like to make is that a bit of humour will always help to create a positive climate in the classroom for teaching. This French advertisement illustrates that technology will not completely replace paper...enjoy!

(Source: http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2013/03/14/radvertising-french-toilet-paper-ad-is-solid-gold-video/)

References

De Bono, E. (n.d.). Six Thinking Hats. Retrieved April 11, 2013, from http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/6hats.htm 

Downes, Stephen (2004, September-October). Educational Blogging. Educause Review.  Pp. 14-26. Retrieved March 19, 2013, from: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0450.pdf

Education Queensland. (2013). Contemporary Effective Learner  Retrieved April 8, 2013 From https://staff.learningplace.eq.edu.au 

Fijor, M. (2013, March 18). The Ugly Truth of Technology Integration. Retrieved April 6, 2013 from http://www.newschooltechnology.org/2013/03/the-ugly-truth-of-edtech/  

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (1997). Dimensions of Learning (2nd ed., p. 352). Aurora, CO: McREL.

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2008). Introducing technological pedagogical content knowledge. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (New York, New York) (pp. 1-16). Retrieved March 14, 2011, from
http://punya.educ.msu.edu/presentations/AERA2008/MishraKoehler_AERA2008.pdf.

Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivisim: A learning Theory for the Digital Age. April 4 Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

Wikipedia (n.d.). Various definitions Retrieved March-April, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/