Connectivism

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I can see that Siemans' connectivism learning theory could be the proverbial "fox in the hen house" for many educational academics. Let us consider Ken Robinson's theory that our current systems of learning and teaching have been created by academics to produce more acadamics, in other words, the more knowledge you can contain the more valuable you can become. If this had been the educational modus operandi for the past several hundred years, then to now teach people how to find information as they need it and retain only the essentials, does appear to fly in the face of educational history! Personally, when I see how much the average primary school teacher is expected to deliver to each student in their classroom, it does rather boggle the mind and make me consider the validity of Siemans' theory. With information so readily available online now, shouldn't an educators focus be on information literacy and how to discern the validity of information rather than on its retention? These are not questions for the future, they need to be answered now.

Mind Mapping

The range of free Web 2.0 tools out there never ceases to amaze me!  Mind mapping tools are no exception to the rule and extends now to iPads and iPods. I really like the tool Poplet as it is available online and as an app. While some people really run with this way of learning, I have never been a fan, but I really do see the benefit  I'm determined to give it a try and see how what affect it had upon my learningstyle...

Shift Happens

While going through the readings in this course, I have been reflecting on how much our outlook on education has changed. When you condsider that the children of today, as adults, will probably be working in jobs that haven't been thought of today, it can become quite mind boggling.  Here is a clip that went viral in 2007 and has been reworked several times since.  Even though it was created in the United States and uses their statistics, it can be transposed into Australian society. As educators, it should provoke some very interesting points for discussion.

Reflection on Prensky's ideas

Image from: Blaugh.com

While I am not convinced that "different kinds of experiences lead to different kinds of brains", as Prensky notes in his articles,I feel that it could be argued that exposure to different mediums, experiences and stimuli all could lead to different expectations for the students of today. To me, it is these expectations that make the real difference in today's students.

Whether it is different brains or different expectations, learners today are not the passive recipients that they once were.  Attentions spans are harder to keep and engagement of learners appears to be the real challenge for educators rather than just the content of the curriculum.  While not necessarily demanding technology, different interfaces to hold the students attention are required. After an hour on his first day, a prep student at the school where I work said to his teacher,"This playing stuff is ok, but where are the iPads?"

Reading to students, group rotations, singing are all still engaging activities, but now ICT activities should also be employed to enrich and extend the learning experience by holding the attention of the student longer and reinforcing the teaching delivery.

Perhaps it is not so much 'enraging' the student that we should fear, but the possibility of boring him/her to the point of disengagement from the learning process.

Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

My Results for the Multiple Intelligence quiz: http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/ict/multiple_int/questions/questions.cfm

According to the results from the online Felder and Solomon questionnaire, it would appear that my learning styles are reflective (like to work alone), intuitive (like innovation, dislike repetition), verbal (like written or spoken word) and global (like the big picture).  While this does appear to be accurate, I know that sometimes other methods can work just as well for me!

This demonstrates that as a learner, I should respond to a variety of styles. Given a class full of 25 (or more!) students, logic dictates that there could be the whole range of learning styles represented there.  To maximise and facilitate the learning experience a range of resources and tools should be offered in each lesson plan.  Profiling of student will help determine the learning styles of your students. Many online questionnaires are available, but remember they need to be tailored to suit the age of your student.  Personally, I have seen the MI Smarts one used effectively at the school where I work and think it suited to primary school age children.

ICT can be used very effectively to meet the whole spectrum of learning styles in any class.  With the range of Web 2.0 tools freely available these days for downloading and embedding, a multitude of learning style can easily be covered.  For example, if a school is using a learning management system such as Moodle, blogs and wikis can easily be created for students, suiting the learning style of the verbal learners (self smart). Visual learners (picture smart) can use  tools such as Mind Mapping tools or avatar creating tools like Voki. And the list could continue for all other styles of learning.

There are even enormous numbers of website, blogs and wikis dedicated to helping teachers find tools specific to learning styles such as Tools 4 U 2 Use.  I am not saying that any one blog, website or guru will have all the answers for your classroom (only you will know what works and what doesn't), but most are free, easy to use and feed back from other teaching professionals who have used them certainly will help you!

Voki

Voki is a Web 2.0 application can be used by students to create avatars.  Many teachers use avatars with their student in public online environments for reasons of privacy and anonymity. These avatars can then be uploaded to wikis, blogs, emails or websites.  They can be fabulous tools for listening and speaking exercises where students can use their creativity to create characters to tell their stories.  Dramatic skills can also be exercised by allowing students to pretend that they are someone else:


Created by me with Voki

Voki can also be a very engaging way for a teacher to deliver instructions for students, as Wendy has so capably demonstrated in our learning materials!

How to use Voki

Lesson plans for Voki

Lesson plans for Voki

Infographics

While thinking about one of posts on the forum, I started looking at the qualities of leadership that are required by a teacher.  Here is a great infographic that I feel demonstrates these qualities:

CMOE

Infographics are used extensively these days in the classroom to demonstrate key ideas to students.  Like many Web 2.0 technologies they are freely available for you to create, download and upload to blogs, portals, websites, etc.  This one was created on a site called Visual.ly.  Click on the hyperlink to check it out.


Here is a link to a blog that lists what they consider the ten best:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-tools-for-creating-infographics-visualizations

Meta-Language

Many of us find the terms and meta-language in our course alien and a little frightening.  ICT (Information and Communication Technology) can be particularly daunting as it all moves so fast.  I'll use Ronnie Corbet as an example:

As a librarian, I regularly advise people to use glossaries to help them keep up with changing and challenging terminology.  Here are a couple that you may find useful:

PCNET Glossary
Education Queensland Glossary

Changing Education Paradigms

I shared a Ken Robinson video with some of you at residential school and has since noticed that it is actually used in the ICTs for Learning Design course.  Ken Robinson has some very interesting ideas on the future of education, arguing that traditional education was something created by academics to produce more academics.  No offence to academics, but that paradigm doesn't leave much scope for the rest of us, so surely, a new approach is required.  Have a look at the clip below.  Please note, that this is an animated version of the lecture so the needs of the visual learner, as well as the auditory learner will be met.  If you are a kinesthetic learning, just jump up and down while you watch it....

GDLT

Hi, I'm Lyn Giebels and I am currently enrolled in the Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching (GDLT) at Central Queensland University. As part of one of my courses, ICTs for Learning Designs, I am required to produce a blog. And what is the use of a blog if it is not for an actual purpose! As I work as a librarian in a Queenland primary school, I thought that I might use this blog as a way of sharing the resources that I come across that I feel may be of interest to fellow students either in my course or other pre-service teaching. I will say at the outset that I am not an expert.... but the resources I will showcase are those recommended by professional educators and have demonstrated merit as educational tools. The resouces I will primarily focus on will be IT tools and, of course, books. As a librarian, I feel that literature is still a great way to introduce, enhance and expand on an infinite number of topics.