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.