Week 5: Group 3 Presentation Tools

Reflection on Glogster.

I had a look at some of the glog posters that have been created. I don’t feel that they are effective visual literacy tools as in most of them I had no idea what was being communicated. There was music, links to other websites, images. I found one that was set up like a book shelf, click on the book and it would send you to a link about the author. There was still a lot of reading involved. It’s a cool tool to introduce concepts or ideas, but I think it is mainly a resource to store and gather learning materials or research in.

I like that it is creative, colourful and individual.

It may be cool to have a link to a Glog off the main art web page where I could store links to material relevant to a unit of work that the students can access as ‘required reading’. I don’t mind this example by pbarto.

I had a go at my own here.

A screen shot of my Glog Poster

It was not as easy as it looks on the tutorial, though with a bit of time I got there in the end. I managed to embed it into my weebly page as a mock Year 11 assignment (pretty chuffed with myself), you can check it our here.

Reflection on dipity

an online timeline that allows you to link video, audio, images & text. This tool could be used in assessment as an art history timeline, or as a learning resource of art movements with links to information that I could access in the classroom.

 

Using Prezi.

I have used this presentation tool before, see below, and I still remember how impressed everyone was with the look of it. I teamed it up with a script when I presented it, outlining the similarities between Leonardo DaVinci and Banksy. I will definitely use this again.

A Man of the Time Prezi presentation

Week 4: Image & Video for learning

Use of Bogs in the art room.

As students become increasingly tech-savvy and multiple forms of visual media become the norm in their daily lives, it is only natural that instructional pedagogy embraces this trend in an endeavour to “speak their language”.



Snap shot of "Did You Know 4.0" YouTube clip

21^st century literacy implies the ability to use media to evoke emotional responses. Art, music, film, photography all have this potential and are powerful communication tools. Creativity and the ability to articulate and communicate ideas using not only words but also images and sounds is valued broadly.



Snap shot of "A Vision of Students Today" YouTube video

I would like to implement personal blogs in the form of Electronic Process Diaries (EPD) into my classroom, alongside the physical Visual Process Diaries (VPD) already in place in art classes in all year levels. Blogs can more fully engage students, allow them to articulate ideas and demonstrate concepts. Communication skills are highly valued by students and teachers alike- both in traditional forms like print and public speaking, and also in forms like multimedia, the visual arts, music and cinema (notes from 'A Global Imperative' paper).

 

Using images in eLearning: notes

Visual literacy is the ability to see, to understand, and ultimately to think, create and communicate graphically. The visual literate viewer looks at an image carefully, critically, and with an eye for the intentions of the image's creator. While accurate observation is important, understanding what we see and comprehending visual relationships are as important. These higher-level visual literacy skills require critical thinking, and they are essential to a student's success (notes from 'Reading images; an introduction to visual literacy').

 

Reflection on Podcasts:

I think that Podcasts can be a useful tool in the classroom and as set tasks for homework as part of the learning journey. I found some fantastic Podcasts from TED relevant to my subject area. I could provide access to this Podcast through links on my weebly to introduce a unit of work that the year 11 students are doing. this video would be in the 'engaging' or 'seeing' learning outcome on the designed video diagram below taken from 'It is not television anymore, Designing digital video for learning and assessment'.

Learning Outcomes for Designed Video

Creating a video for use in the classroom:

I created one for an arts subject; interview a local artist. It could be used an an example of an assessment piece for the students. Students could interview each other in pairs to create artist statements about their finished works and upload them onto their blogs. It took ages and ages and ages to upload, and eventually I had to stop it so I could actually leave the page and do something else, so I am not massively fond of it. FAIL!
So, I created a smaller one... fingers crossed.

Web 2.0 tool that I will explore and develop further is my weebly.

I have opted to explore and develop my weebly further because it is a tool that I want to use in my classroom to engage interest. Visual literacy is a major component of the arts curriculum, indeed being an assessable element, and I believe that implementing a weebly full of imagery placed in a valid context will greatly assist in communicating tasks and providing links to specific material to the students.

Idea: Pablo Picasso's Guernical analysis from 3 different perspectives.

Watch the 3 videos embedded on the weebly for year 11. First... answer the questions on the worksheet link. Then... create your own analysis of 'Guernica' and present it in your own way. this might be a small essay or you may choose to use your Voki. It must be embedded onto your blog. 

or to set up a reflective activity....

Idea: In your blog, reflect on the unit of work and the learning journey you have undergone while completing it. What was the most valuable lesson you learned from this? What was the most valuable resource for you? What advice would you give to future students undertaking this unit?

Week 3: Web 2.0 & 3.0 in an education setting

Some great uses for blogs in Education:

A screen shot of Common Craft's YouTube video "Blogs in Plain English".

• Teachers can use blogs to post class times and rules, assignment notifications, suggested readings and exercises.
• Teachers can link to internet items that relate to their course. Blogging allows the teacher to write what are in essence short essays directed specifically toward their students. These entries are not mere annotations of intersting links; they effectively model the teacher's approach and interest in the subject for their students.
• Blogs can be used to organise in-class discussions. the converstation possible on blogs is also an amazing tool to develop our community of learners. The students get to know eachother better by visiting and reading blogs from other students; blogs are personalised so students can discover, in a non-threatening way, their similarities and differences. The loud student and the quiet student have the same writing space to voice their opinion, putting students in a situation of equality.
• Students may be asked to create their own blogs as part of the course grade, and comment on others as a peer feedback activity.

Blogs are easy to use and offer a powerful tool kit for the support of collaborative and individual learning that adhears to the patterns of contemporary information-intensive work and learning outside of formal education settings.

Downs, S 2004, Educational Blogging, viewed 17 July 2012, http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/educational-blogging

Reflection on the use of Wikis in an educational setting.

A screen shot of Common Craft's YouTube video "Wikis in Plain English".

Check out my go at a Wiki for an Art Competition I made up.

A wiki is an online space where users and guests can edit, modify, add, remove information with intuitive editing tools. It could be compared to a never-ending, paginated sheet of online butcher’s paper.

Teacher context: The history function can be very useful to identify the contribution of each student to the blog, authoring dates, and progress of students.

The nature of the learning to be done must be carefully considered and scaffolded by the teacher- set a task such as the six learning hats or a PMI to generate and encourage a focused student contribution.

Student context: When partnered with a blog, students can add a link of their collaborative wiki. Can be used as a reflective tool. It’s fun and interactive.

Reflection on the use of Wikis in an educational setting.

Check out my webpage for my students across all year levels.

It is great for students to be able to access all their learning support materials in one place. Also as they progress into later year levels they are familiar already with the functionality and usage of the webpage.

It also allowed me to add fun parts such as the completion page.

Great for me to make available all my resources online.

Potential to add an “extra reading/resources” alongside the page for students who are ahead of the class to access other activities or materials to extend themselves.

I think I would prefer to have students in middle school use blogs, and have the senior years create web pages- I am not sure why.

Week 2: TPACK, Wiki's & Safe Ethical use.

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

TPACK in plain English!

The Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge framework, integrated with Bloom’s Taxonomy, is the knowledge of how to use appropriate technologies in your learning design to support the complexity, level of thinking and delivery of the content you are encouraging students to engage in.

De Bono's Six Thinking Hats

Reflection on wiki activity Mobile Phones - should they be used in the classroom?

Being the first of the Noosa crew to add a discussion to the activity did not really allow any learning in the sense of the purpose of the wiki. It was beneficial to use DeBono’s Six Thinking Hats as it allowed me to adopt Bloom’s Taxonomy to analyse and evaluate the issue from many different angles. It will be interesting and beneficial to revisit the wiki to discover what other learners have added. This in itself is an issue with a compulsory wiki contribution- once a learner has contributed to the wiki, there is no guarantee that they will revisit it. An activity such as the one suggested of evaluating the contributions and creating a list of the most important would be essential to promote a learner to revisit the wiki. As it is, I found it hard to find the link to the wiki. Also, I forgot the password I had created, which is another obstacle for use in the classroom. The link must be easy to find for the activity to be successful and for intended learning outcomes to be met.


Productive Pedagogies Activity Reflection

This learning experience was valuable in that it is similar to the thinking hats in the way it makes you consider the different aspects of a simple lesson in how to create a stencil.



My Stencilling Lesson in Productive Pedagogies

Ethics, Issues and ICT

Students must use ethical, safe and responsible practices when working with ICT. Codes of practice in terms of intellectual property and acknowledging the owner/creator of digital sources (citing references) and understanding ethical and unethical use of communication tools and social online environments are all a part of this. After going to our week 2 lecture I understood the importance of all of this and am endeavouring to include this in my own practice. More information is available on the Smart Classrooms website here.

Week 1: Learning Theory and e-Learning

Engage me or Enrage me

What is your belief and understanding of the nature of today's learners in relation to ICTs?

My belief is that today’s learners are tech savvy. They are used to getting information that they want in an instant through Google search, they are fantastic at multitasking- they listen to music, write emails, create new playlists and chat to friends on their phones and online all while doing their homework. They are constantly engaged in their own lives, so why shouldn’t they be engaged at school too? So yes, there is substance to the "engage or enrage" argument made by Prensky (2005).  

Reflection on bubble.us online mind-mapping tool

I would definitely use this in the classroom. All of the students at current EPL school have laptops that they bring to the classroom. Many of the students come up with fantastic concepts, however they are usually too broad like “technology”. A mind map would help the student to funnel that concept to develop a focus such as "communication" and a context such as "19th century compared to now" to create their artwork from. Below is an example of my concept "my cat Tommy", and how I could choose a focus such as "makes me laugh" and choose a context from there.

Example of online mind-map from bubble.us