My response to peer feedback

I agreed with the feedback; I feel my grammar is passable and my spelling is
acceptable. I would have liked to be corrected on my writing style, as I do
have concerns that I dont communicate well academically, however both
evaluators were complimentary and stated it was well written, which I
appreciate.

The common observation from both evaluators was the lack of visual interest
on the blog. I originally had a theme picture, and the rest of the blog was
composed of links and text, apart from a graphic for Topic 5.

I enjoyed correcting the blandness and going through and finding appropriate
pictures to illustrate and complement the topics.

My references included some book titles in ‘italics’ and some without, so I
corrected this. I tried very hard to indent the second line of each
reference, so the author’s name stood out, however I couldnt get the
software to comply.

Previously I had various titles reflecting what the post was about, however
it was pointed out that it could be confusing, and it would be best to number
the posts so they are easy to follow. I did this and made my previous titles
descriptive headers instead.
Overall I am very pleased with what my evaluators pointed out and less
nervous about my submission.

Thankyou, Adrian Verrier

Blog_Rubric_Adrian Verrier_Tegan McClelland

Blog_Rubric_Adrian_Verrier_Siarah Ul-Haq

 

 

 

Topic 8: Lifelong Learning

 

WHY WE NEED TO TEACH STUDENTS TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL LEARNERS.  

 The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states in their article The case for 21^st– century learning, that ” Today, because of rapid economic and social change, schools have to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, technologies that have not yet been invented and problems that we don’t yet know will arise.” It states in part that we need to educate our students in “…… open-mindedness, making connections between ideas that previously seemed unrelated and becoming familiar with knowledge in other fields.” (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, n.d.)   Full article:  The case for 21st-century learning.

The subject of Living and Learning in the Digital World thus made complete sense to me. The common denominator of future change will be the ability to be digitally proficient. This will be at the heart of employablility, as technologies and jobs are invented and created.

This places a great responsibility on teachers, not only to teach a basic 3 Rs education but to comply with the targets as set by the Melbourne Declaration on Education. Goal 2 stating that “All young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens”, citing ICT to be the foundation for success in all learning areas.

I observe a whole shift in the curriculum to meet this challenge. The recent elevation of Arts education to be one of the 8 key subjects in the national curriculum (Dinham, 2011) is a response to the National Education and The Arts Statement issued by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, which states “Schools that value creativity lead the way in cultivating the well-informed and active citizens our future demands: where individuals are able to generate fresh ideas, communicate effectively, take calculated risks and imaginative leaps, adapte easily to change and work cooperatively. ” I can see where I fit in as a teacher within this framework, and now know that rote scholarly teaching is not what is needed or wanted.

I look forward to applying what I have learned and participating in the upcoming B of Ed. Units.

Thanks. Adrian Verrier

                                                            References:

Dinham, J. (2011). Delivering Authentic Arts Education. Sth Melb, Vic: Cengage Learning Australia.

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. Melbourne, VIC: Curriculum Corporation. Retrieved from: http://www.mceecdya.edu.au/verve/_resources/national_declaration_on_the_educational_goals_for_young_australians.pdf

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (2007). National Education and The Arts statement. Retrieved from: http://www.mceecdya.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Education_Arts_Statement.pdf

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (n.d.). The case for 21st– century learning. Retrieved from: http://www.oecd.org/general/thecasefor21st-centurylearning.htm

Image source:  http://cdn.teachhub.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/student%20empowerment.jpg

 

Topic 7: Digital Blurring

 

EDUGAMING. MY NEW WORD.

I played some educational games to see what was available, and was very surprised. Dog breeding, so children get a grounding in genetics, and even a game in carpentry. There are abundant games in geography, maths and english.

Well now I know the obscure names of some capitals in Oceania, and I can breed a dog that is black, has long hair, and medium sized ears.

Here is my game. I am addicted already, and managed to win 4 times out of 30.

http://www.sploder.com/games/members/v1adrian/play/adrian/

I loved the TED talk, Gaming can make a better world (McGonigal, 2010). The speaker has solved a basic mystery for me. Why so many hours are spent gaming.  ‘Try again.’, ‘You are a hero!’, ‘You are a winner!’ I get it. I would want hours of positive reinforcement too.

I will look at gamers in a more positive light.

I learn by repetition, therefore going through an educational game, failing, resetting, and covering the same ground is absolute heaven for my retention. This was a ‘bring it on’ moment, teach me by games! I coined a new term – Edugaming. Alas, I googled, and found it exists as a company name, but the common usage verb will be mine. This is digital blurring at its finest and I will ‘edugame’ my students to EPIC WINS !

Thankyou.

Adrian Verrier

Reference:

McGonigal, J. (2010). Gaming can make a better world, TED Talk [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world#

Image source:   http://blog.k12.com/sites/default/files/blog/pictures/pictures/wordle_ludoliteracy.png

 

Topic 6: Digital Fluency

FOR VISUAL LEARNING, CARTOONS ARE KING !

I enjoyed making the ‘scratch’ this week. I was nervous, “Oh no, not another digital thing to learn”, however it became fun and fairly easy to use.      Click here for my cartoon.   I had ideas about making personalised cartoons for the classroom, specifically maths equations that we are learning, as well as having group activities in cartoon making.

I discovered that my level of digital fluency is identical to the list of software applications appropriate to be taught in the latter primary school years, as described in the book Teaching with ICT. (Howell, 2012 pps. 145 – 167) I resolved I needed to become proficient in these application in order to teach with these tools.

I have come to understand that visual media assists retention, and at the primary school level this is a good entrance point on the path to digital fluency.

In the book Language and Learning in the digital age the authors state “An image gains meaning,” (Gee & Hayes, 2011. p 112). The use of images in digital multimodality (combining words, images and sounds) is far more pervasive today and is used alongside the written word to convey understanding. I believe the use of images in teaching be a successful way to assist learning, as shown in the attached graphic.

(graphic: developed and revised by Bruce Hyland from material by Edgar Dale, 2008)

Thanks,  Adrian Verrier

                                                                              References:

Multimodal learning through media: What the research says. (2008)  Retrieved from:    http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf

Dale, E. (1954). Audio-visual methods in teaching. New York, New York: Dryden.

Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E.R. (2011). Language and Learning in the Digital Age. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Howell, J. (2012). Teaching with ICT. Sth Melb, Vic: Oxford University Press. 

Grateful acknowledgement is made to ‘scratch.mit.edu’ for providing cartoon making software.

 

Topic 5: Digital Information

How do I teach students to be critical users when I have difficulty myself?

 How to correct the mistakes that I make would be a good starting point, and teach from experience.

I didn’t transfer my browser bookmarks to my new laptop – all 94 of them labelled with passwords. When I needed my online textbook, I was lost in trying to find it.

Time audit :

1 hour – find name of website for my online text book, 30 minutes – download the software, 10 mins – remember the user name and password,  20 mins – distractions of web surfing, 20 mins – to work out that I was trying to log on to the site, when I should be trying to log on to the application,  5 mins – to find the link to the app.

Teaching students to keep track of their pages is important, as well as how to evaluate website information and how to search.   I found this article appropriate and helpful as a guide on how to evaluate.

Teaching Students to Evaluate Internet Information Critically

4 main points that I have come to learn recently as a digital user that can be taught in a digital classroom.

1. Practice activities that will develop memory. Fact: You could possibly have dozens of usernames and passwords to remember.

2. That senior to usage is purpose. Ask yourself: “Does this contribute to my forward motion and goals?

3. Write down everything you have stored digitally or mentally as a hard copy – such as web addresses and user names.

4. Choose user friendly programs.

Adrian Verrier

This week I learned how to use PINTEREST, here is my page.

Reference:

Teaching students to evaluate internet information critically. (2001) International Reading Association, Inc.          ISSN  1096-1232. Retrieved from: http://www.readingonline.org/editorial/edit_index.asp?  HREF=/editorial/december2001/index.html

Image source:  http://www.pratt.duke.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/eyes.jpg

Topic 4: The digital divide

Hi fellow students and tutor,

In the course of constructing the infographic, I read statistics from across the world. I wanted to know what the chasm of the digital divide looked like.   My  infographic and wordle  visually represented my findings.  

The literacy rate was higher than I thought, with 83% of the world having literacy, however this did not equate to receiving a full education. Only 60 % of children go on to secondary education. (IUS., 2011)

I posed the solution of computers and the internet forming a remote classroom at one end and an ‘elearning’ teacher at the other to cross the digital divide and provide a secondary education.

I had stumbled onto the same track as Nicholas Negroponte, in his lecture “One Laptop per Child, two years on.“(Negroponte, 2007), and decided to ensure that not only my own classroom was correctly equipped with laptops, but to raise awareness in my classroom of world illiteracy, the solutions and how we can personally assist by contributing to Negoponte’s ongoing program.

The peer feedback for my infographic was encouraging and picked up on the key point of children being our future “I particularly liked your concept and agree with you that children are our future……..” and , “Without education and knowledge our children do not have future. Great job!”

I consider I had successful learning this week.

Adrian Verrier.                    I found this youtube video to be the most concise explanation of the digital divide.

                                                                        References:
Negroponte, N. (2007) Ted Talk: One Laptop per Child, two years on[ilecture]. Retrieved from

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO Institute for Statistics (IUS). (2011). Global Education Digest: Comparing education statistics across the world. Montreal, Canada: UIS.

Topic 3: Digital Security.

Sticks and Stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me…….  An old adage that can once more be taught, even in the digital age.

I read an article in The Australian about the rise in use of smart app. devices in 4 – 8 years olds and the consequent risk of cyberbullying exposure.   Apptapping tots need cyberbullying lessons.   (Karvelas, 2014)

I regularly witness tablet and smart phone use in a 7 year old neighbour and also a friend’s 4 year old son, and I would not want them, or others, to receive any malicious cyberbullying.

What instigates concern is a line from this week’s lecture, Living and Learning in the digital world, concerning social media bringing schoolyard bullying into the home 24 hours a day. The implications of a victim of bullying not having a safe haven away from the schoolyard, could have a debilitating effect on them both personally, and as a student.  (Howell, 2014)

Couple that chilling thought with the potential for this schoolyard bullying to occur in a very young age group, 4 – 8 year olds, prompted me to think about keeping our digital security tight, and the need for an early childhood education program in the prevention of and protection from cyberbullying.

I explored some school programs and found the following article to have the most helpful guidelines I can use as an educator to prevent and stop cyberbullying.     15 strategies educators can use to stop cyberbullying.                 (Clifford, 2012)

Adrian Verrier

References:

Clifford, M. (2012) 15 strategies educators can use to stop cyberbullying. Retrieved from:  http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/15-strategies-educators-can-use-to-stop-cyberbullying/

Howell, J. (2014) Living and Learning in the digital world Mod 1 04 Topic 3[ilecture]. Retrieved from http://echo.ilecture.curtin.edu.au:8080/ess/echo/presentation/1636447f-aa10-42de-bec3-f6fe6f44932e

Karvelas, P. (2014, March 12).App-tapping tots need cyber bully lessons. The Australian. Retrieved from: http://article.wn.com/view/2014/03/11/Apptapping_tots_need_cyber_bully_lessons/

Image source:  https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSNyUo2XE5YkCP49cWj7niFHYmgsD0sT6A7cJQMIrAH2AGiSeb3