Open Plan School..

The visit to Albany Senior High School the other day was quite stimulating. It was good to hear things happening. However, it could have been better if the trip was possible when the 'action' was still on (It was quiet during our visit; it's the exam time, isn't it?) More questions keep emerging after the actual trip.

A search to see if this was the first of its kind, Google gave me a few thousand hits and discussion of issues. One such was the discussion on hearing difficulty tied to the accoustics of these new schools. Portugal came with the idea of the OPen Plan School much earler and there is a lot of discussion going on as to the success or failure of these 'innovations'. Someone calls it 'old wine in a new bottle'. In some other discussion these new schools were compared to post World War schools where the need for such school was driven by country's economic conditions. Sokmeone else called it 'Lurching from Fad to Fad' and the article argued that it wouldn't work in an elementary level. It in fact created pandemoneum apparently. It wasn’t long before distraught teachers appeared in droves at principals’ doors pleading for walls or partitions to deaden the sound, lessen the confusion and lower the stress level of teaching young children in this mass of humanity.

Another article discusses the variety of activities that could happen in an open learning space: a girl is curled up with a book in one corner; in another corner a small group of boys concentrate on the brief outline of the day's science project that the teacher is chalking up on a portable board; a dozen children sit in carrles, earphones in place, listening to the recordings of their lessons they missed; in the centre of the space, six boys and girls work round a table discussing the newspaper clippings and so on.

The heterogenity in the tools used, platforms used, software used, learning styles, units of learning, learning intentions - how does it work that they 'pass' or 'fail' a course and an industry can view all these results with some uniformity.

a creative vision...

It is not the technology that inspires or even transforms education - it is the teacher. Someone explained it this way: using a chisel or a paintbrush is not in itself inspirational or transformational. It is the skilled hands of the sculptor or the painter that changes a lump of stone or a bare wall into the work of art. Similarly, computers, social media, any web tools we get our hands on, can only be used in this way if the practitioner has a creative vision. The video of 'Hole in the Wall' we watched in the class the other day reinforced this thought in me much more.

The need to repurpose education in the face of a changing world offers those working with technologies to support and enhance learning a range of opportunities previously unknown. The range of technologies is bewildering with social and mobile technologies, personal web-based tools and corporate systems all having things to offer. However who chooses the systems in any given context is also changing fast, with agendas like life-long learning and work-based learning introducing ever more stakeholders into the learning experience, and individuals being increasingly able to "opt-out" of using institutional systems.
How will institutions cope with this "new world" where not everything is under the control of the institution and increasingly both staff and students can "do their own thing"? A conflict of control between the individual and the institutional is growing, and the danger of innovation being stifled by the drive for "School regulations" is very real. The answer will be found in policies - but what policies are needed and who will frame them?
Reference:
Hole in the Wall (Full Report from TED): http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Teaching in the Context of ICT

Page 35 of the New Zealand Curriculum describes teaching as a process of inquiry.In this ongoing, cyclical process, teachers constantly ask themselves where their students are in their learning, how they can help them progress, and how their teaching impacts on the students’ learning

Focus Inquiry

Teachers identify the outcomes they want their students to achieve. They consider how their students are doing in relation to those outcomes, and they ask what their students need to learn next in order to achieve them. The following questions may be pertinent -

1. How will I know the learner?
2. How will I assess prior knowledge?
3. What knowledge is important?
4. What is important given where my students are at?

Teaching Inquiry

Takes place both during and after teaching as teachers monitor their students’ progress towards the identified outcomes and reflect on what this tells them. Teachers use this new information to decide what to do next to ensure continued improvement in student achievement and in their own practice. It is, therefore, important to ask -

1. What strategies (evidence- based) are most likely to help my students learn this?

Learning inquiry

The teacher investigates the success of the teaching in terms of the prioritised outcomes, using a range of assessment approaches. They do this both while learning activities are in progress and also as longer-term sequences or units of work come to an end. They then analyse and interpret the information to consider what they should do next. The questions are -

1. What data could be collected?
2. What tools could be used to do this?
3. What happened as a result of the teaching?
4. What do I need to change?
5. What are the next steps for learning?

The Internet: Paradise Lost or Paradise Found?

Successful Practices

The Internet has and will continue to change the way teachers and students go about the business of education. Educators who are willing to take the time to explore this new technology will find that it offers an almost unlimited amount of opportunity for learning. Creative teachers from around the world are banding together to utilize the educational resources of the Internet and we are looking for others to participate.

A number of teachers around the country have been using the Internet in their classrooms for many years. These pioneer Internet-using educators have had the opportunity to experiment with a number of techniques and creative teaching methods that tap into the educational potential of the Internet. Educators who are just beginning to explore the possibility of using the Internet in the curriculum can benefit from the experience of these teachers.

1. Some educators and organizations have established web sites that offer useful resources for Internet novices as well as experienced online educators interested in integrating the Internet into their curriculum. These sites contain useful tips designed to help teachers take advantage of the information found on the Internet, project ideas, project groups and organized lists of curriculum based web sites grouped by topic. These comprehensive collections of links are excellent places to find relevant and appropriate curriculum materials on the World Wide Web.
2. There is no escaping the fact that the teacher needs to put a considerable amount of time into researching and bookmarking appropriate web sites that their students will visit. Finding curriculum sites in advance saves hours of wasted class time. Students can go directly to the bookmarked sites; there is no time wasted stumbling through search engines looking for web sites that may or may not be relevant to the subject being researched. Some teachers create their own web pages that contain relevant curriculum links that their students can access in the classroom and at home. Students with Internet access at home can visit the school web site and their teacher's link page. Research can continue at home without interruption.
3. Veteran Internet-using teachers have learned that instructors need to carefully structure lessons that involve the use of the Internet. Students using the Internet need to approach the task with a purpose. Allowing students to mindlessly surf the web is a waste of precious instructional time and increases the possibility that students will encounter a web site containing inappropriate or objectionable material. By contrast, well planned lessons that include outlines, questions sheets and note-taking activities help students to collect enormous amounts of information. The manner in which the teacher organizes the research is critical to the success of the lesson.
4. As mentioned previously, publishing student work is an excellent use of the Internet. Students can create web sites that allow them to share their knowledge with others. Other learners can then visit the web site and learn from the students that created the sites. An exciting way to get started having students create websites is to participate in one of the many Internet contests that occur annually. The contests are designed to encourage groups of students to create interactive web sites that serve as educational resources for the world. The Global Schoolhouse is a teacher resource site that serves as a clearinghouse for these well-run and popular Internet competitions.
5. Teachers interested in integrating the benefits of the Internet into their curriculum should proceed cautiously and methodically. We need to set small goals and take steps to reach those goals. Teachers need to develop a basic foundation of personal computer skills before they attempt some of the more advanced Internet-related activities. A teacher who has personally never used the Internet is not in a position to begin creating web pages with students on the first day of class. With a little experience however, he or she can take small, controlled steps to visit curriculm-related sites with their students. Once there, they will expand their knowledge of Monet, Helen Keller, Mars or tessellations.

We share food and knowledge

There are many established theories and models we could use to explain learning and a few specialised theories about how learning can be enhanced and extended through electronic media. But if we want to gain a better understanding of learning within various e-learning contexts, we need to get our hands dirty at the interface of e-learning to begin to understand some of the complexities becuase some of the rules of traditional learning are changed or extended. The new phenomena causes us, teachers, to modify our expectations and opinions of how students learn within electronic environments, or cause students to behave in ways that would not be possible or even acceptable in traditional settings.

George Siemens and Stephen Downes present us with connectivism - in their own words, a 'theory for the digital age'. It's not what you know, Siemens argues, but who you know that's important. Others like Scott Wilson say that Personal Learning Environments are a counter proposition to the institutional content management system (VLE), while still others are theorising about what PLEs can possibly look like (me included). Then there are those such as Marc Prensky, Dave White and Mark Bullen who lock horns and argue whether today's learners are respectively, digital natives and immigrants, residents and visitors, or none of the above.

My own teaching experience has led me to theorise why certain things happen. I have seen several things happen that are departures from traditional learning behaviours. Students who previously collaborated willingly on a single piece of work for example, may decide to be more protective of their ideas and work when it's placed in a shared online space such as a wiki. Some students lose all their inhibitions when they post content onto Facebook or Myspace. People who are quite vocal in traditional classroom situations suddenly have a crisis of confidence in an online setting.  And yet the literature suggests that there are no significant differences between traditional and online forms of learning. e-Pedagogy is not an easy field to understand, but it is on the increase, and we only need new theories to help us understand.

Role Assumed by ICT Educators in Practice...

Epsom Girls Grammar recruited a Director for school's E-Learning. Having attended a briefing by the incumbent, I started wondering her actual role. In fact it occurs to me that every teacher needs to assume the responsibilities that this school is trying to fossilize in this new role.

Until now, the regular use of ICT in education in Secondary Schools appears to be low, despite the availability of technology relatively cheaply  (Strudler, Falba, & Hearrington, 2005; Tondeur, Van Keer, van Braak, & Valcke, 2008). In this regard, research indicates that there is a gap between the educational change required by means of ICT implementation and the actual use of ICT in schools (Tondeur, van Braak, & Valcke, 2007). To realise the potential of ICT, schools need to realise the complexity of its implementation especially in way of innovation and change (Lai, Trewern, & Pratt, 2002; Tearle, 2004). Also, as Strudler, Falba, and Hearrington (2001) emphasise, educational change with ICT is in continuous progress and demands ongoing coordination and support.

This means that schools need ICT teachers who can guide and support the school in implementing ICT into education (Watson, 2006). School technicians cannot fulfil this role nor does a director. Obviously the responsibility is assigned to the ICT educators (e.g., Lai et al., 2002; Strudler, 1994). The ICT educators, therefore, play an important role in the integration and management of ICT in schools (Lai et al., 2002; Marcovitz, 2000).

Over the last few decades, the role of the ICT educator has changed considerably. In the nineteen-eighties they mainly dealt with practical problems associated with the installation and use of computers (Moursund, 1992). Nowadays, besides this role, the ICT educator is assumed to take on many different responsibilities which Moursund (1992) divides into two categories: planning and implementation. Planning includes tasks such as facilitating changes in the curriculum and making sure that there are means available to implement the curriculum. Implementation means that the ICT educator facilitates innovation: they maintain the hardware and the software; offers training to the teachers, administrative staff and parents; develops curricula; and provides technical support (Moursund, 1992). Additionally, they define the ICT educator as a change agent, someone who facilitates the change in ICT use at schools.

digital brainstorming...

I am going to use 'Inspiration' next week to teach my students mind-mapping. It is called 'brain-storming' here in this school. What is in a name? As part of research I found quite a few strategies. Just sharing them with you all....

• Time Travel. How would you deal with this if you were in a different time period? 10 years ago? 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? How about in the future? 10 years later? 100 years later? 1,000 years later? 10,000 years later?

• Teleportation: What if you were facing this problem in a different place? Different country? Different geographic region? Different universe? Different plane of existence? How would you handle it?
• Attribute change. How would you think about this if you were a different gender? Age? Race? Intellect? Height? Weight? Nationality? Your Sanity? With each attribute change, you become exposed to a new spectrum of thinking you were subconsciously closed off from.
• Role-storming. What would you do if you were someone else? Your parent? Your teacher? Your manager? Your partner? Your best friend? Your enemy? Etc?
• Iconic Figures. This is a spinoff of rolestorming. What if you were an iconic figure of the past?  Albert Einstein? Thomas Edison? Mother Theresa? Princess Diana? Winston Churchill? Adolf Hitler? How about the present? Barack Obama? Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Steven Spielberg? Etc? How would you think about your situation?
• Superpowers. This is another spinoff of role-storming. What if you suddenly have superpowers? Superman? Spiderman? Wonderwoman? X-Men? The Hulk? One of the Fantastic Four? What would you do?
• Gap Filling. Identify your current spot – Point A – and your end goal – Point B. What is the gap that exists between A and B? What are all the things you need to fill up this gap? List them down and find out what it takes to get them.
• Group Ideation. Have a group brainstorming session! Get a group of people and start ideating together. More brains are better than one! Let the creative juices flow together!

• Mind Map. Great tool to work out as many ideas as you can in hierarchical tree and cluster format. Start off with your goal in the center, branch out into the major sub-topics, continue to branch out into as many sub-sub-topics as needed. Source Forge is a great open-source mindmapping software that I can recommend.
• Medici Effect. Medici Effect refers to how ideas in seemingly unrelated topics/fields intersect. Put your goal alongside similar goals in different areas/contexts and identify parallel themes/solutions. For example, if your goal is to be an award winning artist, look at award winning musicians, educators, game developers, computer makers, businessmen, etc. Are there any commonalities that lie among all of them that you can apply to your situation? What worked for each of them that you can adopt?
• SWOT Analysis. Do a SWOT of your situation – What are the Strengths? Weaknesses? Opportunities? Threats? The analysis will open you up to ideas you may not be aware before.
• Brain Writing. Get a group of people and have them write their ideas on their own sheet of paper. After 10 minutes, rotate the sheets to different people and build off what the others wrote on their paper. Continue until everyone has written on everyone else’s sheet.
• Trigger Method. Brainstorm on as many ideas as possible. Then select the best ones and brainstorm on those ideas as ‘triggers’ for more ideas. Repeat until you find the best solution.
• Variable Brainstorming. First, identify the variable in the end outcome you look to achieve. For example, if your goal is to achieve X visitors to your website, the variable is # of visitors. Second, list down all the possibilities for that variable. Different variations of visitors are gender/age/race/nationality/occupation/interests/etc. Think about the question with each different variable. For example, for Genre: How can you get more females to your website? How can you get more males to your website? For age: How can you get more teenagers to your website? How can you get more adults to your website? And so on.
• Niche. This is the next level of variable brainstorming method. From the variations of the variable you have listed, mix and match them in different ways and brainstorm against those niches. For example, how can you get more male teenagers to your website? (Gender & Age) How can you get more female students to your website? (Nationality, Gender & Age)
• Challenger. List down all the assumptions in your situation and challenge them. For example, your goal is to brainstorm on a list of ideas for your romance novel which you want to get published. There are several assumptions you are operating in here. (1) Genre to write: Romance. Why must it be that romance? Can it be a different genre? Another assumption is for a novel. (2) Length of the story: Novel. Why must it be a novel? Can it be a short story? A series of books? (3) Medium: Book. Why must be it a book? Can it be an ebook? Mp3? Video? And so on.
• Escape Thinking. This is a variation of Challenger method. Look at the assumptions behind the goal you are trying to achieve, then flip that assumption around and look at your goal from that new angle. For example, you want to earn more income from selling books. Your assumption may be ‘People buy books for themselves’. Flip the assumption around such that ‘People do NOT buy books for reading’. What will this lead to? You may end up with people buy books as gifts, for collection purposes, etc. Another assumption may be ‘People read books’. The flip side of this assumption may be people look at books (drawings). Escaping from these assumptions will bring you to a different realm of thought on how to achieve your goal.
• Reverse Thinking. Think about what everyone will typically do in your situation. Then do the opposite.

• Counteraction Busting. What counteracting forces are you facing in your scenario? For example, if you want to increase traffic to your website, two counteracting forces may be the number of ads you put and the page views of your site. The more ads you put, the more users will likely be annoyed and surf away. What can you do such that the counteraction no longer exists or the counteraction is no longer an issue? Some solutions may be (1) Get ads that are closely related to the theme of your site (2) Get contextual ads that are part of your content rather than separate, and so on.
• Resource Availability. What if money, time, people, supplies are not issues at all? What if you can ask for whatever you want and have it happen? What will you do?
• Drivers Analysis. What are the forces that help drive you forward in your situation? What are the forces that are acting against you? Think about how you can magnify the former and reduce/eliminate the latter.
• Exaggeration. Exaggerate your goal and see how you will deal with it now. Enlarge it: What if it is 10 times its current size? 100 times? 1000 times? Shrink it: What if it is 1/10 its current size? 1/100? 1/1000? Multiply it: What if you have 10 of these goals now? 100? 1000?
• Get Random Input. Get a random stimuli and try to see how you can fit it into your situation. Get a random word/image from a dictionary/webpage/book/magazine/newspaper/TV/etc, a random object from your room/house/workplace/neighborhood/etc and so on.
• Meditation: Focus on your key question such as ‘How can I solve XX problem?’ or ‘How can I achieve XX goal?’ and meditate on it in a quiet place. Have a pen and paper in front of you so you can write immediately whatever comes to mind. Do this for 30 minutes or as long as it takes.

• Write a list of 101 ideas. Open your word processor and write a laundry list of at least 101 ideas to deal with your situation. Go wild and write whatever you can think of without restricting yourself. Do not stop until you have at least 101.

Long reading, isn't it?

beyond 'chalk and talk'

I have created two in-class exercises in which small groups of students make Mind Maps. At the start of the class session, I provide a brief introduction to Mind Maps by outlining the basic principles and showing some examples from Buzan and Buzan (1993). I then describe the topic for their Mind Map, and divide the students into groups of three and provide them with a large sheet of paper, a handful of colored markers, and a number of small post-it notes.

Because brainstorming is a critical component of creating a Mind Map, the groups are instructed to brainstorm as their first step. Small post-it notes are quite useful at this stage because the groups can write ideas on the post-it notes and then shuffle them as many times as necessary to create effective categorizations. The creation of Mind Maps in small groups instead of by individual students facilitates a deeper analysis of the topic through brainstorming. Moreover, small group activities allow students to voice their ideas, support their ideas with evidence, listen to other points of view, and gain confidence (Meyers and Jones 1993).

Each group of students has approximately one hour to construct a Mind Map. When completed, the Mind Maps are attached to a classroom bulletin board, and we have a quick poster session so everyone can review all of the Mind Maps. The remainder of the class time is devoted to a discussion of the major themes and different categorizations for the problem at hand.

During the exercise, it is important for the instructor to circulate among the groups to help those groups that are having trouble getting started and those that need prompting to broaden their thinking. Because Mind Maps are generally not familiar to most students, the groups also benefit from encouragement to incorporate color and small pictures as organizational aids and prompts. Once started, however, some groups also need to be redirected away from elaborate drawings toward more substance. This is an informal method of continuous feedback (Huba and Freed 2000). Circulating among the groups also gives the instructor a chance to interact with the students in a more personal manner than a traditional chalk-and-talk lecture affords. Lastly, the Mind Map exercise was not graded and lacked formal mechanisms to ensure participation of all group members. Moving from group to group during the exercise allows the instructor to observe the extent of participation and to get the more passive group members to be more active. For example, I frequently address questions specifically to the passive group members and then turn their answers into concrete action steps on the Mind Maps.

In my course, the topic for one of the Mind Map exercises is the bargaining environment, which is the range of factors that influence labor and management negotiators and that determine bargaining power. To make the exercise more concrete, I create three newspaper-type articles written as if they were providing a preview of the upcoming negotiations between a specific local union and the copper company Phelps Dodge. The articles are for 1954, 1967, and 1983-time periods in which the bargaining environment was very different.

Each team of students is assigned a specific year, and their task is to create a Mind Map of the bargaining environment for the negotiations with Phelps Dodge for that specific year on the basis of the newspaper-type article. The central image of the Mind Map represents the local union. Major branches might include economic, political, legal, and technological categories. Within the economic branch, students could then identify labor market and product market factors, various other subcategories, and more specific factors (e.g., the unemployment rate).

The other Mind Map exercise in my course involves the effects of labor unions. This exercise occurs near the end of the course so it can facilitate student reflection on the entire course. The central image in this Mind Map represents unionism, and the various branches identify categories and examples of the effects of unions. One branch might be macroeconomic effects, which could include effects on unemployment and inflation, and another branch might be workplace effects, which could include effects on wages, adjustment costs, and productivity. One of the Mind Maps created by a student group on this topic is presented in Figure 3. The effects of labor unions are broadly grouped into five categories and various subcategories branch off from each of them. In a relatively short period of time, the group was able to analyze, categorize, and display many important dimensions of a wide-ranging topic.

Although my specific exercises are for a labor relations course, there are applications in traditional economics classes when the problem at hand involves categorization and is amenable to being captured by a traditional outline. For example, consider the topic of elementary supply and demand in a principles course. A Mind Map is not appropriate for replacing the usual graphical analysis introducing supply and demand. However, if an instructor wants students to think carefully about the determinants of supply and demand for a specific product, after seeing the traditional graphical analysis, then the creation of a Mind Map that outlines broad categories and then specific examples within different categories is a possible tool for serving this goal (Figure 1).

Other applications are possible. The sources of economic growth could be categorized through a Mind Map in a macroeconomics course. The varied consequences of policy interventions could be outlined in a Mind Map exercise in a wide range of courses. For example, the creation of a Mind Map of the effects of minimum wage legislation could be a useful exercise in a labor economics course. Other examples might include violations of the classical regression assumptions, sources of income inequality, determinants of migration, or types of trade barriers. In short, the outline structure of a Mind Map is appropriate for problems in economics courses in which a traditional outline is used; it is not intended as a substitute for other problems in which other methods, such as graphs or equations, best capture the problem. The Mind Map exercise is also intended to promote the reflection and application components of learning, not initial instruction. In the case of supply and demand, for example, a Mind Map exercise is a vehicle for students to reflect on the concepts of supply and demand by thinking of various influences; I am not suggesting that it is an effective way to initially teach students the meaning of these concepts.

new paradigm of teaching...

Digital teaching is rapidly being accepted as one of the criteria of a progressive, innovative, and leading higher educational institution. Of course ,the internet enabled technologies have created a new paradigm of learning which can allow teachers and students to teach and learn collaboratively via web-designed activities.

Despite the existence of the varied number of significant challenges, digital teaching has an important role in the enhancement and development of students’ critical thinking. The academic institutions that wish to develop e-learning initiatives must be receptive to implementing effective ICT strategies to support  student learning.

• managing self
• relating to others
• participating and contributing
• thinking
• using language, symbols, and texts (Ministry of Education, 2006, pages 11–12).


A 'cut-and-paste culture' has been on a rampant increase. Google and its relatives give us the ease with which any of us can locate and save information. August 1, 2010 — New York Times sounds the alarm in "Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age"

Research identifies effective teaching as the most significant within-school factor that contributes to
student achievement (Alton-Lee, 2003). Effective teaching for all students through e-learning will depend on teachers:
• having the opportunity to explore ICT and to become confident and capable users of it;
• being supported by leaders at all levels of the system;
• having access to a wide range of relevant, high-quality educational content.

e-Learning can contribute directly to the development of all of these competencies, and increasingly, these competencies are applied in ICT-rich contexts for all students. Today’s students have grown up with computers, video games, email, the Internet, and cell phones. Such technologies have always been a part of their lives (New Media Consortium, 2005). They are as comfortable with these kinds of technology as previous generations were with radio and television.

 

wiki potential...

I think the picture above is a good metaphor in understanding the student collaborative projects. I have used wikis for for project-based learning in the IT programme that I am currently teaching. Of course, the advantage of Wikis in collaborative projects is that they are online. Students with access to the Internet outside of school could work together to complete projects without having to be in school. The challenges, however, I found was in defining roles and clearly defining the activity, along with assessments because I think they are crucial to the success of collaborative learning projects using this strategy.

Another interesting use of Wikis is for the demonstration of students' Knowledge. Students provide information on the Wiki to demonstrate what they have learned. One page is designated for each letter of the alphabet and students submit written work and pictures (citing sources) to explain what they just learned in, say, any subject area that teacher specifies.

To begin with, I used Wiki as a Filing Cabinet. I used it to store files, images, videos, and other information in a special teacher access controlled area of the classroom Wiki. One advantage is that I could enter the information anytime and from anywhere using the Internet. This is great for weekends or over the summer when I could not have access to the intranet of the college. Other examples of information that can be stored in a teacher’s Wiki filing cabinet are information for upcoming newsletters, artifacts of student work, drafts of projects being developed, everyday life in the classroom for a scrapbook, and backup resources.

collaborative learning...

The other day I was on a tour with my AT as part of her Dean-ing (My AT is also a Dean) visiting every class checking to see if any student has a cell phone on them. If found our 'mission' was to confiscate them. What an irony, I thought. The intent of my practicum was to actually experiment, use and promote these technologies for the purpose of thier multi-dimensional learning. Here I am doing the opposite.
Internet enabled computers offer students the opportunity to engage in peer-to-peer communication via email, chat rooms, bulletin boards and instant messaging (Demb, et al. 2004). In addition, mobile communication that includes multimedia messaging, web access, email and voice/text messaging, provides short learning activities that are attractive to students and foster collaboration (Shih & Mills, 2007). Gay, Stefanone, Grace-Martin and Hembrooke (2001) suggest that within a collaborative learning environment, students working in groups recognise and use social communication for the exchange of information, and I have noticed that even before teachers formally start using these technologies in their teaching certain groups of students effectively use them for collaborative learning. Of course, thanks to the wireless connections, they increase the ability for students to collaborate whenever and wherever they want. Probably teachers need to legitimise the use of these technologies currently hiding in the students pockets.

ubiquitous communication....

Having seen students visiting my AT to hand-in all sorts of letters (letters of apology, permission, parent approval etc) I asked my AT if email is used for student-teacher-parent communication at all. The answer was surprising. My AT questioned the legitimacy of Email which do not carry pen-stroked signatures.

Several studies quoting students report that using email to communicate with teachersis generally more preferred(Mitra & Steffensmeier, 2000), and that with email, they communicate with teachers more often and more freely (Arend, 2004). Traditional office hours are being replaced with email communication (Dickson & Segars, 1999; Reynolds, 2003), as students can ask brief questions of teachers without having to meet in person. This asynchronous communication allows for greater flexibility for students and teachers, and also provides teachers with an electronic record of student advising and counselling (Partee, 1996). Brown and Pettito (2003) suggest that email is becoming ubiquitous in that, “a majority of academic communities are presuming that students and faculty communicate via email” (p. 26).

How far removed is the practice from thoery....

networked class rooms....

Regarding the use of computers in secondary schools, there are a number of aspects to consider including general use, communication, student attitudes toward learning, student achievement, and distractions.
The study of McVay, Snyder and Graetz (2005) finds that students use computers an average of five hours per day, with 36% of that time being spent on academic activities. Studies examined how students use computers for learning:

1.      16% of overall computer use involved typing papers and notes (Demb, Erickson and Hawkins-Wilding, 2004)

2.      Other work such as writing papers, using software programs, searching the Internet, and completing group projects constitute the major bulk of computer use (Arend, 2004)

The use of these communication tools (recreational computer activity) can also be potentially detrimental in the classroom.

1.      Recreational email and instant messaging are among the primary uses of students in the classrooms (Grace-Martin and Gay, 2001)

2.      Recreational use of email and instant messaging in class can be distracting to students (Crook & Barrowcliff, 2001).

3.      12% of students used their computers in the class for non-learning purposes such as web surfing or social emailing (Barak, et al.(2006).

4.      The ratio of work: play is found to be 30%:70% (Crook & Barrowcliff, 2001)

Are the teachers equipped to provide learning activities that are both challenging as well as recreational is the question often asked without showing the teachers the way out.

Words...the stumbling blocks

Many subject areas, as I see, have specialised vocabularies which learners will have to understand and be able to use and ICT is no exception. In many cases this will involve explicitly introducing new vocabularly and providing a range of activities so that learners can practice their new vocabulary which ideally should include learning the correct pronunciation of those new words.

In addtion, the current practicum invilves dealing with students who are new immigrants as well as refugees. This means 30% my class comprises of students from non-English background. Some of the following activities seemed to be helping:

• allows the learner to create and integrate a new mental map of the subject area
• involve visual elements to demonstrate the new words
• involve audio elements to practise pronunciation, rythym, intonation and stress of new words
• may include interactive activities to make learning the vocabulary more engaging, for example, crosswords, matching, cloze, quizzes, labelling diagrams
• opportunities to use online glossaries and dictionaries for learners to re-inforce vocabularly at any time during their learning, Google translater is most frequently used.

Ideally learning new words (concepts) should occur within the context of other learning which means  that the learners will be able to see or hear the new words being used in authentic contexts. This is found to make the vocabulary of immediate interest and relevance to the learner. And the ICT integration suggests the following design steps:

• Select the vocabulary items that need to be learnt and practised.
• Select graphics, photos and audio to support the vocabulary.
• Design the activities which will explicitly practise the words
• Prepare the activities using appropriate ICT tool.
• Upload the vocabulary activities to the web, either on a stand alone website or into a Learning Management System.
• Integrate the activities into a complete learning sequence.
• Prepare supporting resources for learners on how to use the vocabulary activities.

Yet. I find this involves a lot of bending of the school's ICT policy. I am fiercely supported by my AT. Sill I find that the management is sitting on their hands. However, I find numbers of tools and resources available the moment the green signal is given:

• Hot Potatoes - http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/index.php
• Audacity - a free audio editor. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about.php
• Dictionary.com - http://dictionary.reference.com/
• Case Study - http://netspot.com.au/gtcasestudy/gippstage_06.htm
• Glossarist - http://www.glossarist.com/
• Using Glossaries in Moodle - http://docs.moodle.org/en/Glossary with instructions at http://docs.moodle.org/en/Adding/editing_a_glossary

Co-construction: two ways

What does research say...

1. “Allowing students to have a sense of ownership and control over ‘what is learned, how it is learned and when it is learned’ has been shown to be a powerful motivating factor… Co-construction is at the heart of customized learning. Students and teachers work together.” Mason Durie, Students First – Secondary Futures
2. “Learners actively construct knowledge by confronting and solving problems. Each learner brings his or her own expertise and shares it with others at the same time as developing new expertise, and so the process of construction is an interactive one. Cultural and social meanings are expressed and constructed.” McNaughton (1995), Describing co-construction theory

One thing I noticed during my practicum is that students also carry knowledge from other subject areas. This means working together with other subject teachers. Team teaching some concepts with an art, business, English, or science teacher could provide students a great variety and an authentic experience. This could be effectively carried out by arranging students go into the other teacher’s classroom for a change of atmosphere or inviting the other teacher into the classroom or even tailoring the project content to the content being covered by subject-area teachers.

The school I am currently in is a decile 3 school and only ICT classrooms have computer access. Nevertheless, we are working together with social studies faculty to support them with ICT integrated activities. Students are so very engaged to design a PowerPoint presentation. They make use of the knowledge they gather from their social studies classroom and couple it with the design issues taught in an ICT class to produce a presentation for an Observatory about the Celestial bodies starting with the Solar System.

some useful scenarios???

Scenario 1: Teacher moving about the room when students are working on computers -challenging, checking, monitoring, assisting and intervening or supporting as necessary.

Scenario 2: Moving the furniture around to match the landscape to the activity.

Scenario 3: Teacher scanning the room with frequency to figure out where to move next but will also use eyeballing and eye contact to make some of those movements less necessary as many students respond well to such gestures.

Scenario 4: Teacher announcing any shift of activity with enough time so that students can wrap up what they are doing. "In two minutes I will be asking you to turn around and join me for the next activity."

Scenario 5: Teacher asking students to "shut screens" when a single computer shared by a pair or trio works better than one-on-one. Sometimes a group discussion is best served by cooling computers down.

Scenario 6: Teacher calling for complete attention prior to demonstrating a series of instructions. "I need 100 per cent eye contact now."

Scenario 7: Teacher holding conferences with individual students and teams, guiding, suggesting, encouraging and supporting their work in various ways.

Scenario 8: Teacher devoting energy and time to assessment, most of it informal, asking how things are going and what needs to be adjusted.

I tried to be the student where these scenarios are practiced, and I found it stifling. Any comments please?

importance of strategy

The main goal of this blog was to stress the importance of facilitating thinking strategically among the students. There can be different types and a numbers of tools used during any one lesson. The ICT classroom where I am currently doing my practicum, students enjoy a one-to-one desktop computer to do their work. Just because a teacher works in a one-to-one school or classroom does not mean that every learning experience should make use of any or all of those computers. There should, I understand, be times when all the computers should be set aside as the group explores an important topic or issue. At other times each student may be working independently and separately on a computer or a paper pencil tool. We sometimes ask students to work in pairs and trios — sometimes in quartets and sextets. There are no set rules or tools to dictate what works best - working smarter is what needs to be developed, I guess.

social learning

...by nature we are social beings, and I think Web2.0 is just enabling something that we actually like to do. Social learning has been around for a long time. Albert Bandura was one of the first writers way back in the 70s (Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall).

Networks I think are a really valuable development that the web-based software is enabling. These connections that we have with people can be constantly shifting as our need or focus changes and can take our students much further than just our classroom or institutional boundaries. For example, all of a sudden we can now choose a topic and communicate on a world-wide basis either with experts, other practitioners – really anyone – and that’s very engaging and enriching from a learning perspective.

Otherwise you normally get  essays and things back that are basically regurgitated what you have already told them. But, as a teacher I am interested in knowing what they think. With the effective use of social networks, it is certainly posible to have a peek view of their thinking - or kick thier thinking off.



Also communities are a little bit more closed – with like-minded people there is this danger of echo-chambers. If I’m in a group with like-minded people, we just keep talking about things that we already know and we already like (Txting, for example). That doesn’t leave us open to a lot of examination from those arguing against us. But this may not be the case with social software such as Facebook or Twitter, for example.You can hang out with other practitioners who may not necessarily agree to what we think or do is wonderful.

I’d like to see students more in these loosely-formed networks where people can come in and offer critique – not criticism – but informed critique, and we get some rich debate happening around issues rather than the more closed behavioural thing within a community of practice that we used to see. The learner’s ability to then comfortably mix in these environments seems really empowering for them as well. They don’t seem to hesitate and I think you will see the younger ones as very natural communicators.

digital students speak...

The New York Times reported in July of 2010 disappointing results across a number of projects that hoped laptops would improve the academic success of the disadvantaged students who were the focus of the programs. "Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality by RANDALL STROSS - published: July 10, 2010. Yet these students say otherwise....