Reflective Synopsis

Hi to all those interested in reading my reflective synopsis on the various technologies in which I believe to be important and effective in the classroom environment.

If you are wishing to view this document, please follow this link to my Mediafire account and click on the "Reflective Synopsis.doc" link to view what I have written.

Just think, i'm providing a use for Mediafire in a classroom right here haha. (Providing files for students and teachers to access.

Anyways, here's the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7f1b31007206325241446e35a78dc463e04e75f6e8ebb871

To dare is to do.

Week 5's Installment

The following resources will be used in this piece:

• Oliver, R. (1999). Exploring strategies for online teaching and learning. Distance Education 20(2), p.240-254
• Ten Principles to Active Learning (http://www.idecorp.com/teacher/documents/dowling_002.pdf)
• Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (1997). Dimensions of learning: teacher’s manual. Alexandria, VA Sydney, NSW: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Well, well, well. Week 5 has brought even more interesting programs in which we have discovered.

The first was Ning. This social networking program is similar to that of the project room in the learning place. It's a great way of finding information required to instigate and continue learning. Also it is a great communication tool just like other such as myspace and facebook provide. "Students engage in colaborative, open-ended problem solving with peers as well as working independently when needed" (Ten Principles to Active Learning).

On the Flickr website, they have a section called creative commons. In this section, people are able to label certain copyright clauses to their image determining the types of uses to their images. These clauses are:

• Attribution License: Attribution - Yes, Rest - No


• Attribution-NoDerivs Licence: Attribution - Yes, No Derivatie Works - Yes, Rest - No


• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Licence: Attribution - Yes, No Derivatie Works - Yes, Non Commercial - Yes, Rest - No


• Attribution-NonCommercial Licence: Attribution - Yes, Non Commercial - Yes, Rest - No


• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence: Attribution - Yes, Non Commercial - Yes, Share Alike - Yes, Rest - No


• Attribution-ShareAlike Licence: Attribution - Yes, Share Alike - Yes, Rest - No
  

This site has be helpful in teaching students how to understand what copyright is and that by not abiding to them is the same to going down to the shop and stealing a piece of fruit. There for this allows the students to become self-aware about their actions and are forced to also reflect on their actions to identify if their are right or wrong (Oliver, 1999).

Mahara is an e-portfolio and another networking application. It allows its users to make a portfolio of their learning to present to higher authorities. Mahara has the following uses: file manager, blogs and resume builder. This can be used by myself when I go for my interview after finishing my degree. Also students can use this application to complete documentation of a unit such as technology of how they created a solar boat for example. Marzano and Pickering say that students must know that organising and information is a very important part of learning as you have to evaluate on the best way in which the audience will read it (1997). Mahara would help the students to engage in that Higher Order Thinking stage on Bloom's Taxonomy.

Tag Galaxy is another application we looked at. It is a way to find the exact image you want by refining your search results to a deep extent. This can help students not only when finding images, but in breaking down a topic for research. Students, when given a topic, are able to type it in this program and it will give the user more options to what they could research. These research terms could them be put in a concept map form on bubbl.us to show their ideas. The students are not engaging in multimodal resources (Oliver, 1999).

Incompetech is an application that has been created to allow for safe and legal download of music, videos etc, but they must be correctly labelled to ensure copyright isn't breached. This can be used for students to continue the process of the previous paragraph to present the research topic and ensure the student's are continuing to engage in multimodal learning (Oliver, 1999).

File storage is another topic we explored yesterday. Mediafire is the application of choice and this allows users to upload and backup files and information onto an online area. This has a couple of benefits. One is that if your usb and computer crash, all of your data will still be accessable if you regularly place the data on this site. Another use is in the classroom when completing group projects. Students are able to complete individual tasks in a collaborative environment by uploading their work onto one profile. When the group complete their individual tasks, the group can then come together and access the data together and collaborate on what has been completed. This is important as explained by Oliver as he believes that collaboration tools are vital to student online learning (1999).

I have provided a graphic organiser on some risk analysis issues that relate to me as a teacher professionally and the rights of my students which engaging in electronic applications. Click on the image to have a better view.

I hope this weeks post was insightful as the previous installments.

Adios

To dare is to do.

Week 4's installment (Part 2)

The following resource will be used in this post:

• Ten Principles to Active Learning (http://www.idecorp.com/teacher/documents/dowling_002.pdf)

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are something that we are required to use in the participation of university; these sites are Blackboard and the new Moodle. These sites are in between a website and webquest. Lecturers, Tutors and Course Co-ordinators are able to upload resources, activities, course content and assessment information. Students are also able to log on, access this and participate in discussion boards to enhance learning. As I said these sites are similar to webquests, I believe that these sites are able to be encorporated in the classroom in the same way to webquests. This resource allows for student responsibility for their own learning as explained in the Ten Principles of Active Learning. It states that, "Students take responsibility for setting goals, scheduling time, utilizing resources, and making other responsible decisions" (Ten Principles of Active Learning). LMS are similar to this part of the principles of active learning as this tool forces the user to be largely responsible for their own learning through the use of all resources available.

The only problem with this system is the level of engagement provided. Sometimes, this form can be used where sheer content and readings are posted which does not accommodate for all learners and suite the ICT world. But if used technologically effectively can become a vital resource.

To dare is to do.