“The truth is out there (deep space) or under there (deep sea) if only the seeker is prepared to dive or fly enough” (O’Donnell, 2006, p. 14). However, the truth is also ‘across’ there if they are prepared to travel. All of this is what I want my learners to do through using Digital Technologies in the classroom.
I have chosen five tools from across the technologies investigated which I feel are very useful in teaching and these are: Blogging, Glogster, Podcast, VoiceThread and Text2Map. I must also investigate how they can support, enhance and transform students’ knowledge in teaching. Finally, I must consider safe, legal and ethical practise when I use these tools in the classroom.
Firstly, a Blog is a type of website where items are posted in chronological order with newest at the top. It also combines text, images and links to other media. It would appeal to a variety of learners because it combines all these technologies in one space. It is an excellent communication tool and is used worldwide.
Duffy and Bruns (2006, p.33) put forward the ideas that Blogging enhances learning as it provides a platform with a multitude of technologies and when it is fully utilised this way it appeals to different styles of learning. It also supports learning by allowing students to comment, collaborate, reflect, review and develop. They also believe that it promotes critical, analytical, creative and associational thinking. These types of thinking processes all break down learning in different ways to transform an element of truth or knowledge out it.
From our First Assessment in this course we could see that Blogging works well within Blooms Digital Taxonomy and Engaged Learning Theory as it supports learning through the lower order thinking processes to the higher order thinking. I would use the Blog as a teacher’s tool of communication to the class.
Blogging is a social communication tool and everyone can view it, so in an educational setting safe practise is very important. You can go into settings/permissions to make it private by only allowing certain email addresses to view. If you choose not to do this then students should limit their personal details in the profile area. Photos which are used in the Blog should be your own or from a reliable source with Creative Commons like Flickr. Embedded Tools should be checked carefully for content as well as any sources linked with them.
Now we move onto Podcasting, which can be simple audio or enhanced with pictures or a video podcast. A simple audio podcast embedded in another ICT Tool such as Blogs, Wiki’s or Web is effective, but it will only appeal to limited type of learners. An enhanced or video podcast is much more stimulating and will appeal to a larger group of learners. Example of Podcast in Blog
Enhanced podcasts for children in primary school would be an excellent opportunity for them to be given a topic where they have to draw a picture, photograph and upload it, and then record a comment about it. It can become a collaborative effort with teams of children creating story boards for their group’s part of the whole story. Multiple skills are used here since they can learn how to photograph, upload the photo and work with podcast software. It can be a literacy lesson and an ICT lesson together, so learning is enhanced and supported by incorporating this tool. Learning is transformed in the collaboration process and the final product placed on the teacher’s wiki, blog or web page.
Safe practise in podcasts – if external podcasts are used to support a lesson than the content needs to be checked carefully and the question asked - is it from a reliable source? Also, if there are links to other podcasts are they appropriate? Finally, does the school internet policy cover podcasts? Careful consideration must be taken.
Another effective digital tool for teaching is Glogster. The Glogster website (Glogster EDU, 2011) describes how its product can be “created using a very easy to understand, drag and drop interface that is relevant, enjoyable and scalable for students of all ages and learning styles. A Glog is an interactive visual platform in which users create a ‘poster or web page’ containing multimedia elements including: text, audio, video, images, graphics, drawings, and data.” A Glog is constructivism in nature and once again is another tool which sits well with Blooms Digital Taxonomy.
According to Brenda Dyck (2009),“ Glogster goes beyond being just another scrapbbooky" tool -- it introduces students to 3-D communication skills, requiring them to merge the left and right sides of the brain as they seek to communicate and evaluate both information and meaning. The visual, audio, and textual capacity of Glogster not only will appeal to digital learners, it has the potential to support the visual literacy skills that are becoming essential skill sets for 21st century learners.”
Glogster is another platform which provides knowledge and information which appeals to a diverse range of learners. The Glogster website (Glogster EDU, 2011) describes its benefits as it “provides learners options for demonstrating what they know” and it can “tap into learners’ interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation. It encourages “creativity, innovation communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving and decision making and digital citizenship.”
A teacher can use this tool to have students do book and research reports, presentations, homework and other tasks. Example of Glogster in Blog
Safe Practise - Glogster can have the teacher as the account manager and they can view/manage students’ Glogsters. This is probably the safest route to take, however it does cost. Again, if you choose not to go this way students need to limit their personal details in Glogster. As always any outside materials used by the children must come from a safe, reliable source and ideally one that is from free education material.
At last we get to the Group 4 Technologies and within this group there are two which are particularly interesting and they are Text2MindMap and VoiceThread.
Text2MindMap is a very simple to use web tool which takes text and converts it into mind maps. You can take a list of words and enter it in the order you want and it will interpret and draw a map out of it. The user can then use the tab key to continue to create the structure of the mind map. Also, you can chose fonts and colours, plus add lines to organise it further and clarify ideas even more. It also can be converted to a Jpeg which allows you to share it with other web tools.
Text2MindMap is another type of mind mapping tool and as such it works well for collaboration in class discussions. The nature of the Mind Map encourages students to forge links (support and enhance learning) between topics as well as forming their own ideas and opinions (transforms knowledge).
Text2MindMap is a tool which doesn’t appeal to all styles of learners, but definitely appeals to visual learners and logical sequential thinkers. Example of Text2MindMap in Blog
Safe, legal and ethical practise with this tool is pretty simple and really it is to make sure content have not being copied and published out there in the public arena.
VoiceThread is another tool from the Group 4 Technologies which is easy to use and very effective. Example of VoiceThread in Blog
The Voice Thread wiki describes its tool as “a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways – using voice (with mic or telephone), text, audio file or video (via a webcam). (VoiceThread, 2011, p 1)” VoiceThreads can be embedded in Wikis, Blogs and web sites.
The Voice Thread wiki also gives ideas on how this tool can be used in primary teaching for repeating or responding in language, drill and practise or for assessment. Children can explain photos taken during field trips or talk about historical photos or images. Children can write poetry and post it then comment about it. In maths children can explain concepts or in science report on an experiment. All these examples show how learning is supported and enhanced and through the discussion and posting the learning can be transformed.
A final overview of copyright compliance to be considered was taken from the SmartCopying website (Australian Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs [MCEETYA], 2011) and shows four instances where teachers do not need to rely on special provisions and these are linking, embedding, using material created by you or your school and free education material and resources’. However, artistic works, text works, radio and television programs, films copied from online, sound recordings copied from vinyl, cassettes and cds, digital sound recordings (ITunes and other digital music stores) need special provisions.
In conclusion, there are a lot of digital technologies out there to use and through the work we have completed so far I would use a Blog or Wiki as my main tool of communication and teaching to my primary class. I would use Glogster to display the students’ projects and I would use enhanced podcasting or Voicethread for them to participate in and collaborate within class. Text2MindMap would be an excellent tool for electronic whiteboard work or for students to view and collaborate with the teacher.
My students will dive, fly and travel in their learning via digital technologies in my future classroom.
My students will dive, fly and travel in their learning via digital technologies in my future classroom.
References
Australian Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA).
(2011). Learning Copyright Compliance Manual for Teachers. Retrieved from
http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/
Duffy, P. & Bruns A. (2006). The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of
.Possibilities. In Proceedings Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006. Retrieved from
http: //eprints.qut.edu.au
Dyck, B. (2009). Hooked on Glogster: Posters 2.0. Retrieved from
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/dyck/dyck037.shtml
Glogster EDU. (2011). What is Glogster EDU. Retrieved from http://edu.glogster.com./what-is-
glogster-edu/
Glogster EDU. (2011). Benefits. Retrieved from http://edu.glogster.com/what-is-glogster-edu/
O’Donnell, M. (2006). Blogging as pedagogic practise: artefact and ecology, Asia Pacific Media
Educator, 17 (3), 5-19. Retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/apme/vol1/iss17/3
VoiceThread. (2011). Welcome to the Voicethread 4 Education wiki. Retrieved April 8, 2011 from
http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/
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