Week 4's Installment

The following resources will be used in this post:

• McInerney, D. M., & McInerney, V. (2006). Educational psychology (4th ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson.
• Edheads. (2009). Edheads: activate your mind. Retrieved 28 July, 2009, from http://www.edheads.org/
• International Society for Technology in Education. (2001). Five rules for writing a great webquest. Retrieved 28 July, 2009, from http://www.iste.org
• Oliver, R. (1999). Exploring strategies for online teaching and learning. Distance Education 20(2), p.240-254
• Kearsley, G & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement theory: a framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved 28 July, 2009, from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

All I can say from this week is OMG!! We covered so much content in this tutorial. The focus of the tutorial was higher order thinking and the ways in which the use of ICT's can help this along the way.

We looked at Google Earth and Maps. This is a tool in which i have had some experience of. (In a previous post I have encorporated an image of CQUniversity.) I believe that this tool can be very important in engaging students in lessons by viewing various places around the world to understand their culture, sculptures etc. Vygotsky believes that it is important for students to have meaningful material in which they can relate to society to facilitate learning. (McInerney & McInerney, 2006). This tools allow students to view other places around the world and holistically study the environment, landforms, landmarks etc. to help the learning in such subjects as SOSE. Another feature can be the area or distance tool which can help in a maths setting when teaching measurement of areas such as the school oval.

We quickly visited the Learning Place and the advantages of it. This is something that I will use when looking for resources and ideas for units. It can provide all types of these on any topic through an easy search term. This tool is similar to that of Learning Management Systems that will be discussed further in the next post.

Another program explored that relates to flash interactive and simulations was Edheads. "Edheads helps students learn through educational games and activities designed to meet state and national standards" (http://www.edheads.org/).

Webquests are something that I have some knowledge on due to the requirement of creating one for an assessment tasking in a prior course. WebQuests are designed to "use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of anaylsis, synthesis, and evaluation" (ISTE, 2001). Being able to provide an ICT where the student is required to complete the learning with minimal teacher input is a skill that is greatly required. It aids their research, group, presentation and higher order thinking skills in a engaging way. This tools can be identified to be effected through Oliver as he believes that the learning must be scaffolded; which is definitely done in the creation of WebQuests (Oliver, 1999). We created a quick webquest on Weebly. Visit my Weebly page by clicking here.

Youtube. Something everyone should know about due to its widely published forms. It can be used effectively in classes during the engage and content section of a unit. It can allow students to become interested in a topic along with providing vital information to create a final assessment piece upon. Youtube is a program that I use regularly to great effect in the learning phases previously stated. McInerney & McInerney believe that such tools like these provide stimulus for the study of learning and thinking strategies, the teaching of cognitive strategies, and the assessment of cognitive strategies in the context of performance on academic tasks" (McInerney & McInerney, 2006, p. 96).

If students were required in a webquest to create a concept map, the site bubbl.us is a great tool for students to create this. It has various design feature while allowing for easy usability and all the normal perk of a concept map. Another way to publish work can be in the form of a digital book - specifically www.myebook.com. This is just like a PowerPoint or SlideShare presentation but in the form of a book. So just a different design feature from the previous programs. Kearsley and Schneiderman believe that these tools explained above are important for student learning as project-based creation of learning is vital in everyone's learning journey (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999)

To Dare Is To Do.