Reflective Synopsis

The world we live in today is rapidly changing due to the growth in information communication technologies (ICTs) across our globe. Countries are now operating as part of international economies and at any point in the day millions of people can be found accessing information, purchasing goods and communicating with others via the World Wide Web - a reality our previous ancestors would not have deemed possible! These changes have sparked massive reforms in the area of education, with educational experts, teachers and governments realising the need to bring technology into the 21st century classroom. As Prensky (2005) argues, technology engages students in meaningful learning and thus teachers need to be altering their pedagogical, technological and organisational methods to facilitate the use of ICT with their learners (Vassiliou, 2012). Not only does working with technology engage students, but it encourages them to exercise critical thinking skills, collaborate with others, problem-solve and think creatively as they make decisions about how to obtain, use and present information (ED.gov, n.d.). Hence, when teachers make the shift to e-learning in their classroom, they are equipping their students with the 'digital fluency' they need to operate successfully in society, as well as numerous lifelong learning skills that will be required for the workforce (Vassiliou, 2012).

Taking these points into account, this reflective synopsis aims to reveal the important considerations teachers must make when incorporating ICTs within the classroom setting, such as working legally, safely and ethically online, promoting the collaborative construction of knowledge and the use of higher order thinking skills, and ensuring appropriate pedagogy is applied to facilitate the use of technology with students. An exploration of four effective digital tools for the classroom will also be undertaken to provide a practical context for the above considerations.

Working legally, safely and ethically online

The internet provides a fantastic platform for teachers and students to take part in meaningful, engaging learning. However, there are also many risks that come with working online, including copyright laws, inappropriate materials such as pornography, privacy issues, stranger danger and cyber bullying (Fasso, 2012). Anyone who has worked with children knows that they are not born with a clear sense of right and wrong. They need to be taught what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, and this is the same when it comes to children understanding how to work legally, safely and ethically online. Teachers must actively model to students what the correct behaviours for working online are and take the time to explain concepts such as acknowledging sources of information and not providing personal details (full name, phone number, address) on online spaces such as blogs, wikis and websites (Johnson, 1999, p. 2).

Please see my blog post on working legally, safely and ethically online for further insight into this important consideration. I have included details about teacher expectations in regard to providing safe online environments for students, as well as practical ways educators can teach their children about appropriate online behaviour.

Promoting the collaborative construction of knowledge and the use of higher order thinking skills

The incorporation of ICT tools into the classroom enables teachers to create learning environments where students can work collaboratively to construct ideas, opinions and new understandings about a concept. The notion of working with others to build knowledge links directly to Vygotsky's learning theory of social constructivism, which highlights that interaction with others is vital for enabling learners to reach new levels of comprehension (Towards Learning Creatively, n.d., p. 3). This can be clearly seen in the digital tools of wikis, blogs and glogs, where students are able to comment on each others' work, upload information to be used by their peers and even peer edit information that has been produced by their classmates.

In week two of our e-learning course our class was involved in a wiki-based activity which required us to provide our thoughts on whether mobile phones should be used in the classroom (view the wiki here). This was scaffolded using the 'De Bono's Six Thinking Hats' and required the class to answer a series of critical thinking questions addressing the focus topic. Through offering my own opinions and reflecting on the arguments my peers provided, my initial stance on the use of mobile phones was completely altered. Not only was I able to construct new knowledge from the understandings of my peers, but I successfully used higher order thinking skills to reach my conclusions as a result of the activity being carefully scaffolded.

This leads to the third consideration for incorporating ICTs in the classroom - their use must be scaffolded effectively to ensure student learning is higher order. For example, if the mobile phones activity above merely required us to go onto the wiki and post whatever ideas we had about the topic, the learning achieved would not have been nearly as meaningful or constructive. Students need directional scaffolds (eg: headings, focus questions), particularly when working with ICTs, to help them focus their ideas and get the most out of the learning. As Yelland and Masters (2007, as cited in Campbell, 1999, p. 92-93) conclude "Teachers who effectively scaffold ensure that students are afforded the opportunity to maximise their potential and use higher-order thinking skills to solve problems".

Please see my blog post on Using Wikispaces to read more about how this digital tool helps to scaffold higher order thinking and facilitate collaboration.

The importance of using appropriate pedagogy when teaching and learning through digital technologies

As revealed above, digital technologies have clear benefits for enhancing student learning. However, if e-learning is to be in any way effective, teachers must know the subject matter they need to teach, know the best digital tools for teaching that subject matter and know the pedagogies (ways of teaching) that best support learning in the particular subject area (Fasso, 2012). This is the basis of the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge) learning framework. TPACK provides teachers with a common-sense approach to effective learning design, emphasising that good learning experiences incorporate solid content knowledge, solid pedagogical knowledge and solid technological knowledge. Please see my blog post on TPACK for a deeper analysis of this teaching and learning framework, as well as a lesson idea that shows how TPACK works to scaffold higher order learning experiences.

Now that we have investigated some of the key considerations teachers must make when planning digital learning experiences, I am going to reflect upon four of the most effective digital tools I have explored throughout this course and their teaching and learning implications for the classroom.

Wikis

A wiki is an online work space which allows individuals or groups of people to upload text, videos, images and audio to one location. The uploaded information can then be accessed by anyone who is a member of the wiki and people can comment on the ideas or work of group members. I have personally used wikis a number of times throughout my university course as a tool for collaborating with peers to complete assignments. My fellow group members and I would each take a part of the assignment to complete, and once we had written our section of information or found some great research we would upload it to the wiki. The rest of the group could then either edit our work or provide comments about whether our research was on the right track (now that's social constructivism in action!). In the primary classroom context, wikis do not just have to be used as a tool for collaborating over assessment tasks. Teachers could set up a classroom wiki where students upload words they found in their daily reading that they did not know the meaning of, along with its correct definition. At the end of each week or term the teacher could copy the student definitions from the wiki and make a vocabulary list chart to display in the classroom. For effective learning to take place using wikis, teachers must provide students with a clear purpose for why they are using it as a learning tool (scaffolding). Otherwise, students may misuse the wiki as a place to upload meaningless and off-task information. Please see my blog post about wikis which contains a PMI of the benefits and limitations of this tool, as well as additional practical ideas for using wikis in the classroom.

Digital Videos

The world today is a visually stimulating place. We find images and video footage on our internet screens, television screens and in our favourite magazines. For our students to function successfully in society, they need to be able to interpret these visual medias and make meaning from them. Having students create digital videos is an effective way of not only developing digital and visual literacy skills, but also higher order thinking skills. This is because students are required to decide on how to make images, footage, music, text and audio work together to create a video that successfully conveys meaning. Furthermore, when students collaborate to produce digital videos they are exercising the ability to work as a team and communicate with others. Using digital videos as a way of teaching a concept can also be deemed as effective, because videos convey information through a variety of ways (visual, auditory, text etc). This would ensure the majority of learners in my class could access important information in their preferred learning style, and all at the same time! (Please see my blog post on the importance of teachers knowing their students learning styles and how ICTs can help teachers cater for them - Learning Styles).

Prior to undertaking this course I had not had a lot of experience with using digital videos in both a personal context or as part of classroom learning. However, now that I have discovered the lifelong learning skills that can be developed from engaging with such a digital tool, there is no doubt in my mind that I will be using videoing with my future students! Please see my blog post on digital videos to see a PMI of this digital tool's benefits and limitations, as well as some innovative ways of using digital videoing to support learning in both upper and lower primary classrooms - Digital Videos.

Glogster

Creative thinking is one of the key capabilities the Australian Curriculum states students need to be developing as a result of learning across all KLAs (ACARA, n.d.). The digital tool of Glogster is an online poster-making/scrapbooking tool that does just this - it provides students with a means of presenting information in a creative way and can be used to facilitate learning in any KLA. To make a 'glog', learners upload images, text, audio files or video files onto their main poster background and then arrange those pieces of information in whatever fashion they like. This is certainly an alternative to the cardboard poster idea, with teachers not having to provide a plethora of stationery items for students to work with. Furthermore, a glog can serve as a fantastic organisational tool for learners who struggle to coordinate their ideas when completing lengthy assignments. Students could simply upload all of their ideas/research onto a glog, sort through those ideas to see what ones best address the task and then delete the research that is no longer needed. This leaves them with a clear scaffold for completing their assignment.

The use of Glogster as a learning tool must be carefully scaffolded by teachers, as it would be very easy for the design element of this program to take precedence over learning in the hands of students without clear direction. The possibilities for using Glogster are truly endless, but one idea I came up with was for a lower primary classroom (Prep to Year 1). To help young learners explore the idea of 'self', the teacher could have them create a glog poster of all of the things they like and what makes them who they are (Eg: Riding a bike, watermelon, singing , red hair etc.). As the learners are very young, the teacher would need to provide explicit teaching about how to use the program. However, it is certainly a digital tool they would be a able to use independently with a little practise. Please see my blog post on Glogster to see a PMI of further benefits and limitations to this tool, as well as additional practical ideas for incorporating glogs into classroom learning.

Google Earth

In a world where technology has made it possible to interact with others on a global scale, it is vital that students are equipped with the skills they need to operate as global citizens. What are these skills? Two that stand out are having an understanding of the location of different places on Earth and what those places look like geographically (landscape, city size etc.). Google Earth is an online software application powered by Google which allows users to view satellite images of anywhere on the earth. Consequently, this enables students to develop an understanding of both the location and geographical makeup of certain areas. This is not its only function however! Google Earth can aid learning in a number of KLAs, one being Maths. The program contains a 'ruler' tool which allows the user to measure the width, height and length of certain objects on the earth (eg: a house), thus providing students with an engaging way of exploring and practising measurement. Learners could work in groups to zoom in on a satellite image of familiar places, such as the school oval, and use the ruler tool to determine its dimensions. One drawback of Google Earth is that it usually requires fast internet connection to ensure it successfully operates. This is something teachers would need to look into before attempting to use it with a class of students. Please see my blog post on Google Earth for a PMI of further benefits and limitations to this tool, as well as a number of practical ways to use Google Earth for learning in different KLAs.

Through participating in this e-learning course my eyes have been opened to a number of digital tools that can be used to facilitate meaningful learning across all KLAs. Digital tools such as wikis, videos, glogs and Google Earth have the power to develop higher order thinking skills, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, contextualised learning and an awareness of how to work legally, safely and ethically online. These are the reasons why I will endeavour to use such powerful technologies in my future classrooms. The world our students are growing up in is one that is driven by technology, and thus my role as a teacher must be to embrace the use of ICTs within the classroom. Not only as an effort to ensure my students are engaged in classroom learning, but to ensure they have the digital fluency to successfully operate in society.

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References:

1. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).(n.d.). The Australian curriculum: General capabilities: Critical and creative thinking. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/Critical-and-creative-thinking/Introduction/Critical-and-creative-thinking-across-the-curriculum

2. Campbell, C. (1999). The role of the internet in the primary school classroom: From a learning and teaching perspective. Retrieved from http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=edu_books

3. Fasso, W. (2012). The TPACK framework. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses, FAHE11001 Managing E-Learning, http://e-courses.cqu.edu.au

4. Fasso, W. (2012). Working legally, safely and ethically online: The issues. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses, FAHE11001 Managing E-Learning, http://e-courses.cqu.edu.au

5. Johnson, D. (1999). Handout for teaching students right from wrong in the digital age. Retrieved from http://www.janinelim.com/bc/4thur/ethics.pdf

6. Prensky, M. (2005). "Engage me or enrage me": What today's learners demand. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf

7. Towards Learning Creatively (TLC). (n.d.). Link to learning and teaching theories: Social development and peer assessment. Retrieved from http://www.creativeassessment.org.uk/asstheory/documents/LinktoLearningandTeaching Theoriespracticalthree.pdf

8. U.S. Department of Education (Ed.gov). (n.d). Effects of technology on classrooms and students. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/effectsstudents.html

9. Vassiliou, A. (2012, June 3). Opening up education for new technologies - Changing teaching and learning through ICT [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.neurope.eu/blog/opening-education-new-technologies-changing-teaching-and- learning-through-ict

Image Acknowledgement:

Teacher and Students at Computer - http://newsletter.schoolbox.com/2011/12/14/get-out-the-pre-holiday-wiggles-aka-keeping-your-students-attention-in-december/