Interactive whiteboards - value for money?

An interactive whiteboard (IWB) is a touch sensitive whiteboard connected to a computer and projector. The projector shows the computer screen and the board allows you to interact with the software directly using a special pen. You may understand this better after watching the short video. If used properly with training this is an amazing resource, if used poorly, it can simply be an expensive projector.

Before I talk about the issues of acceptance and training, I will critique its uses in the classroom. Interactive websites like www.tutpup.com ('where you can compete in fun, educational games against other kids from all over the World') can be introduced before the students are seated at computers. New learning experiences can be introduced in an active, engaging and collaborate way. Students are often keen to jump up and take part in the technology and tap, drag or colour. The introduction video shows how to shade and draw a figure. This pedagogical strategy helps a wider range of learning types - visual, verbal and kinaesthetic for example and highlight misconceptions, and allow for reflection. You can monitor their understanding of the task and concepts and guide their deeper learning accordingly.

The internet provides an extensive resource for endless tasks when using searches. Students can control the learning path as a group with guidence and take control of their learnng.

If you use a blog, wiki, slideshow or eportfolio on the IWB to introduce or use during the learning experience, the information and work can be accessed and added to from the classroom, library or home. Topic revision and missed lessons are at a touch of a button and parents and other teachers can observe with ease. Of course internet connection can be an issue for home.

Software provided with the IWB can include interactive programs covering the Key Learning Areas. Applications can be purchased, for example Scholastic have a huge range. You can download flipcharts (interactive software) prepared by other teachers and create your own. This however ca be time consuming to start, but can be used and reviewed as you progress.

So, does all of the above give you value for money? If used in conjunction with other digital technologies and allows an authentic collaborative base for learning with clear outcomes that can be shared with an audience, then yes. This comment is made without knowledge of actual cost, just from research. If the IWB is only used as a projector and the learning remains teacher-centred, then there is no value for money. This leads me to issues concerning teachers engaging with IWB. Resistance to change, no time, poor technology infrastructure, low levels of support, and training can be big hurdles when introducing and using this technology. There has to be professional development with continuous support to help teachers accept and grasp the IWB. Joining an online Community Practice and working with your peers is essential.

IWB can have the capacity to re-motivate teachers (BECTA 2005) and increase the achievement of stated learning outcomes (Hedberg 2007). I see IWB as a way of bringing the world into the classroom and allowing the students to interact, problem solve and create amazing learning experiences. As a teacher and knowledge manager, I hope to continue to discover and evaluate changing technologies along my lifelong learning journey.

Happy learning
Johanna

References
Hedberg, John and Freebody, Kelly 2007. Towards a disruptive pedagogy:Classroom practices that combine interactive whiteboards with TFL digital content. School of Education, Maquarie University and The University of Melbourne.

Integration of ICTs into the classroom is happening...

How inspiring is it to see what you are learning about integrating ICTs into the classroom, making the learning experience authentic? I find this video from Edutopia enlightening. There are so many ways to get the students involved in their own learning and use real data. Not all schools would have such a selection of technology, but the pedagogical strategies are the same.

Notice the comments from the students about feeling part of the class, enjoying working together. It's the applying, evaluating, creating and 'doing' that prepares students for their lifelong learning journey.

This is just a short entry today, I think the video says more than I can today.

Cheers
Johanna

Podcasts - learn to be word smart.

After a long morning of searching for different and exciting ICT based learning experiences I can give to my students when I start my professional placement next week, I came across podcasts. Almost saying 'good old podcasts' as they have been around for a while now in ICT terms. Having only really used them on the Radio National website (will work my way up to triple J one day), I have always enjoyed them as a resource.

Having read Carolyne's blog (another GDLT student) concerning access to technology I consider podcasting quite accessible. You do need a computer of course, microphone and speakers and the correct software. A connection to the Internet is a bonus as you can publish on the school Wiki or web page, or even blog. Going back, a podcast is an audio recording. A bit like the 1980s when we used to record our voice on tape players (seemed advanced then), but this time on the computer.

How could you use this in the classroom? How can you encourage those shy or slow readers to excel? Have them read aloud and be published on the class Wiki. Even mum and dad can listen to them. What about those confident readers ahead of the rest? Record a book for those keeping up to listen to as they read. Of course feedback is continuous allowing improvement from formative assessment and deeper learning. This authentic base gives the students challenges and motivation.

Though it's not just literacy and intrinsic motivation here. Students can podcast their own school news, project related interviews, results of collaborative projects, revision and even weekly summaries on what they have learnt. My favourite is story writing. Write their own stories in a group, develop the characters, then record it with different voices and sound effects. Of course this can be reviewed by all, even by children in other countries on the world wide web.

All of this learning must take place in a comfortable environment. There are a number of strategies to help students develop a positive attitude and perception about the classroom environment and the classroom tasks in Dimension of Leaning 1 (Marzano, R & Pickering, D.1997). Importantly to "feel accepted by teachers and peers and experience a sense of comfort and order". Tasks must be clear, understood and have all the necessary resources available. The task must be interesting and within reach, followed by positive feedback. These are a few of the ideas Marzano and Pickering have to support learning.

Teachers can use podcasts too. Introducing or revising a topic, student listening and recording with a picture or graphic, are the obvious, I hope to discover many more. Here are a couple of resources worth looking at:

www.downs.kent.sch.uk

http://epnweb.org

The Downs Primary School web page is inspiring!

For recording your podcasts, a widely used free download is Audacity. Not forgetting the RSS feed if you are publishing to inform the members (school and parents) when a new podcast is up (Google Feedburner, for example).

I look forward to trying this all out!

Happy podcasting,

Johanna
References
Marzano, R & Pickering, D. (1997). Dimensions of Learning: teacher's manual (2nd ed.). Alexandria : ASCD.
www.edutopia.org/podcasting

The Power of PowerPoint

Get a Voki now!

Do Our Oceans Need Saving

View more presentations from johannapettett.

Over the years since the creation of PowerPoint and other slide presentations I have seen a variety of presentations. Sadly most of them were cluttered, have unclear fonts and colours and have too many bullet points. How many times have you sat through a presentation that would have been interesting without the slides, yet you became uninterested and drift away to that beach location in your head because the slides were so intense! Having used PowerPoint before and having learnt some tips such as 'no more than three bullet points per slide', I find myself using pictures and photographs more than words. This works well if the teacher is introducing the topic, maybe a little teacher centred, but the following activities make up for this as does the discussion during the slide show with the learners.

The slide show I made did take some time, but more so the lesson idea and development than the actual slide building. I have chosen to grab your attention with the Voki, then have a brainstorming session about the problems of pollution, then the authentic collaborative work of the learners begins. Four groups with six advisers from the community need to work together to solve the problem. The same advisers would get together first to complete a task(s) to prepare them for their role. Then they would return to their groups to debate, problem solve, evaluate and eventually complete a report on their finding on their allocated Wiki page. The Wiki forum may be used for these advisers to stay in touch to continually exchange ideas. The report on the Wiki page would be in a template, then peer review is encouraged, leading to the final video or audio slide show presentation (which ever they choose as a group).

If you know your students learning preferences the first group tasks for the same advisers may be organised using multiple intelligences (Gardner 1993).



Having six advisers I would choose activities like mind-mapping, creation of newspaper report, create a timeline for cause and effect, discuss and record their personal feelings, organise a simulation and plan how to save the world! Can you work out which intelligence and advisor matches which task?

When the students use slide show presentations to present or solve problems there is an attraction for the visual and logical learners and, looking at Dimension of Learning 2 - Acquire and Integrate knowledge (Marzano, R & Pickering, D.1997), would help to organise declarative knowledge (what you know) and shape procedural knowledge (what you can do).

PowerPoint can be used to address students on a blog or Wiki, to provide information or ask questions. If clutter and tiny fonts can be avoided, then the multimedia aspect used with an authentic base, has to be a good tool to use in education.

Cheers
Johanna

References
Russell-Bowie, D. (2009). MMADD about the arts!: An Introduction to Primary Arts Education (2nd ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW, AUST: Pearson.
Marzano, R & Pickering, D. (1997). Dimensions of Learning: teacher's manual (2nd ed.). Alexandria : ASCD.

Vox (latin for voice) + Loki (pranskter character in Norse Mythology) = Voki

Courtesy of Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwi/ / CC BY 2.0

A Voki is a talking avatar, a graphical representation of the creator. This may be an animal, cartoon person or even an adapted photograph. The Voki I choice has some resemblance to me (not a lot), but can certainly give you some clue of my personality. I have used it to welcome you to my blog and encourage comments. This gives a human element to my presentation and hopefully engages you to go further and read some of my entries.

Could talking avatars be used in the classroom to engage learners in real life problem solving projects? Could the introduction of a course with a speaking avatar engage the audio/visual/kinaesthetic learners? Or could it frustrate some learners if the voice isn't clear and is slightly comical?

The Voki I made was simple enough and could be accessible and fun to a range of ages. If you take it as face value as just an audio visual tool then according to Dale's (1960) Learning Pyramid, average retention of learning would be 20%. If used in an active, real life student centred, collaborative problem solving experience with a real audience and clear outcomes, the talking avatar becomes a tool to use immediately and to teach others - Dale's (1960) Learning Pyramid retention 90%.

Students may use this tool at the start of term to introduce themselves and their interests. This then could be added to a Wiki and incorporated with information (digital stories) about their home town and country. This may be linked to a foreign school to learn about their environment and how they live. Speaking avatars can be converted into different languages allowing easy communication and lots of language learning opportunities.

Children who have English as a Second Language (ESL) may find this tool invaluable for practice, communication and presentation of work. This can be done initially by typing in the sentence (encouraging literacy), then eventually recording their own voice. This is the same for those with Special Needs or even just the shy ones.

Of course it can be used for learning Languages Other Than English (LOTE) in a similar way. Not only do you have to get the grammar correct as you type in, but the pronunciation is given as a reward. Then you record your version and see if it sounds the same. You can even test it out on each other in a group setting to see if anyone understands what you are saying, ie. translate each other's speaking avatars and give feedback to improve. This encourages critical and deeper learning.

There are many authentic uses for speaking avatars, the last one I will comment about is for story telling. Given the task to create a character for your story using the Voki for example, and have them introduce it, is a great way to kick start a range of learners, particularly those with writers block! This can be incorporated into a Wiki and developed in a number of ways depending on what the students want to do!

I find this technology amazing coming from a computer free classroom of the 1980s! For a country where one in four people are born overseas and a huge number of different languages spoken at home other than English, this tool is fantastic. Not forgetting the attention of those gamers we call our children!

What do you think?

Cheers
Johanna

Mahara (Electronic Portfolio) - assessment tool OF learning or FOR learning?

Mahara is a digitised portfolio that allows you to put together artifacts including web logs, resources and examples of work, accomplishments and your resume using a multimedia base. Mahara allows you to control view access, receive messages and form groups. Therefore allowing on-line communities, networking and feedback when required. At it’s lowest use it can be a digital scrapbook or Curriculum Vitae - at it’s best it can represent our learning journey showing where we have been, where we are, and therefore where we need to go next as lifelong learners.

“Digital representation of self on characteristics of interest to a community” (Acker, 05)

For teachers, Mahara can provide a space to declare your teaching philosophy, courses taught (with resources attached), lesson plans and professional history. Due to the networking nature of eportfolios your peers can view your experiences and comment accordingly giving helpful feedback that allows you to revise your lessons or resources. This pedagogical revision can go around in a cycle to allow continual professional development (lifelong learning) and keep the three ‘R’s’ going - Representation, Reflection and Revision.

Mahara can be used by the teacher as a resource in the classroom giving students a choice of skill level entry (what does my student already know? LMQ1, Lynch 03), a choice of where to go (where does the learner need/want to be? LMQ2, Lynch 03) and a choice of multimedia styles (how does my leaner best learn? LMQ3, Lynch 03). The resource should have a grounding in a real life scenario, include collaborative work and peer feedback to encourage formative assessment, and therefore critical thinking and work enhancement.

When eportfolios are used as an outcome for students, this is where the question of assessment comes. If the portfolio is prescribed by the teacher, the artifacts included are set in content and time frame, the outcome scored on a rubric without reflection (summative assessment) then the learning experience is not learner centred and the assessment tool is OF learning. Assignments like these may be rushed through and little learning takes place. Yes, the students learn how to mechanically operate the Mahara software, but motivation is low.

If the portfolio task and artifacts produced are chosen by the learner, the time limit runs over a term or year, there is continual feedback and review with peers and teacher (formative assessment) and there is a chosen audience for the project - the experience becomes learner-centred, intrinsically motivated and can provide a resource for continual growth - lifelong learning. This is assessment FOR learning.

Mahara is an amazing digital tool that can encourage critical, creative and self-regulated thinking (Dimension 5 Dimensions of Learning, Marzano et al, 97) if used as a learner-centred tool.

“If we can begin to consider that the primary purpose for the portfolio is to provide a vehicle for each child to grow met cognitively and to demonstrate competence in telling the story of learning, the door is open for the child to assume ownership (Hebert, 01)” ((Barrett, 04 p2)

Of course Mahara is not the only digital portfolio available, but is designed with education in mind. To enable the positive use of such systems in the classroom and outside, we need a culture change. To progress we need strong training for all Learning Managers to understand the use and potential of eportfolios. The issues around setting standards to allow transfer between providers to be coordinated, clear understanding around intellectual property rights and a correct understanding about copyright and privacy settings.

This culture shift would be beneficial with achange in education itself to give the learner control of their learning and to develop the skills for those future jobs that haven’t even been made yet.

Warm Regards
Johanna

References:
Lorenzo and Ittelson (2005) “An Overview of E-Portfolios” http://www.educause.edu/ELI/AnOverviewofEPortfolios/156761

Acker, S. (2005), “Overcoming Obstacles to Authentic E-Portfolio Assessment,” Campus Technology Newsletter: Technology-Enabled Teaching/eLearning Dialogue.
www.campus-technology.com/news

H. Barrett (04), “Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning”.
http://electronicportfolios.org/digistory/epstory.html

Marzano, R.L., % Pickering, D. J. (1997). Dimensions of Learning: A Teacher’s manual. Aurora, CO: McREL

Smith, R., Lynch, D. & Mienczakowski, J. (2003). "The bachelor of learning management (BLM) and education capability", Change: Transformations in Education, (6)(2): 23--37

Learning Outcomes and ICT

As Learning Managers the Learning Outcomes must be clear at the start and met at the end of the learning experience. To determine these outcomes we must examine what the students already know, need/want to know and how best they learn (Lynch, 2003). Once decided, to create the outcomes we will first look at Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956).

Bloom identified three types of learning domains including mental knowledge (cognitive), manual/physical skills (psychomotor) and attitude/emotion (affective), then developed categories to assess them in (excluding manual/physical skills, but later models have been developed). The mental knowledge domain categories can be linked with ICT strategies quite clearly. As you go down the table the thinking deepens.

Knowledge	Define, describe and reproduce - Web searches, presentation software, electronic encyclopaedia
Understanding	Meaning, distinguishes, explains and extends – web pages - publishing
Application	Solving, predicting and preparing - Programming, design software, Computer Aided Design (Google SketchUp) , GPS
Analysis	To retrieve, analyse, interpret and apply real information – interactive whiteboards, databases, GIS, data visualisation
Synthesis	To construct a pattern, create and share multimedia information online - Wikis (interactive publishing), social bookmarking, podcasts and embedded multimedia
Evaluation	To make judgements, collaborate and communicate real world learning experiences - forums, blogs, RSS feeds and virtual reality, eportfolios

There is a place for ICT at all levels. As you use the shared web technologies the knowledge based learning becomes deeper. This is because forums, blogs and wikis, for example, encourage idea exchange, debate and problem solving.

‘Dickson (2004) declared that the debate process assessed the student's ability to write effectively, work in teams, and analyse arguments, all of which can improve the ability to think critically. Critical thinking that includes debate also allows for collaboration. Collaborative teams can achieve higher levels of thinking through the use of persuasive evidence. This collaboration allows individuals to retain information longer and the opportunity to engage in discussion and shared learning (Gokhale, 1995).’ (Scott, 2009, p41)

Another perspective on learning outcomes comes from the authors of Dimensions of Learning on my previous blog, Marzano and Pickering (1997). Looking at Bloom’s Taxonomy you can see overlaps in the types of learning, particularly the mental knowledge and manual/physical skills domains. Marzano and Pickering combine the knowledge and skills learning by developing declarative (what the learner knows) and procedural (what the learner is able to do) knowledge. This makes planning for learning outcomes straight forward and ICT friendly. The attitude/emotion learning domain is covered by Dimensions of Learning 1 (attitudes and perceptions) and 5 (Habits of Mind) discussed in the above embed presentation.

The direct correlation between deeper thinking and shared ICTs is apparent from this discussion. Using ICT in the classroom allows all types of learners to engage in an active real life learning experience. This will improve motivation and engagement in the classroom. This means busy kids guiding their own learning and the Learning Manager facilitating the learning experience.

Warm Regards
Johanna

References
Clark, 1999, Learning Domains or Bloom's Taxonomy (http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html
Sophia Scott, 2009 - Perceptions of Students' Learning Critical Thinking through Debate in a Technology Classroom: A Case Study. Journal of Technology Studies, Vol. 34 Issue 1, p39-44.
Scot Aldred, 2010 - Course Coordinator, ICTs for Learning CQUniversity.