Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Learning - Synopsis
As someone who started school in 1965 and completed year 12 in 1977, I can certainly say that the available technologies have significantly increased since my time as a school student. There has also been substantial changes in the expectations of students since then. Prior to 1980, computers in Australia were almost exclusively in the realm of universities, government departments and big business. They were not something most children ever got to play with. In 1980, the successful Japanese computer game, Space Invaders spread in Australia as an arcade game - the first major use of computers for entertainment. In 1980 almost no Australian homes had a computer but in 2010 almost all Australian homes have a computer.
Most children now grow up with computers in their home which they voluntarily use regularly. These children are clearly engaged by these technologies and so it makes good sense to use these technologies in their learning.
Information Communication Technologies can offer much more educational effectiveness because they involve the student doing something. Based on Dale’s Learning Pyramid, ICTs which involve students doing something, can result in fifteen times as much information being retained by the average student in the same amount of time compared to them just listening.
My MT, who is 2 years older that me, is also well aware of how effective ICTs can be and has made a point of using as many of these resources as possible. The school has a site licence for Clickview that extends to students and teachers taking copies of the videos home in a file system called “schoolbag”, loading the viewer software and watching them at home. The school also has also a collection of animations and images related to the various classes he teaches which are available to all teachers and students.
I have also taught a year 11 physics class in which the students used Windows Media Player to rip music from uncompressed audio CDs to MP3 files using a variety of compression rates for a variety of music genre. These files were then listened to using Audacity (free audio editing software) which also could produce a spectral plot of the music. The students could hear and see the effects of the MP3 compression algorithm in a context that they were interested in. I began this class with questions and explanations of wave theory but while they were working I had the opportunity to talk to individual students and determine how much they understood as well as explaining more details. The students showed a substantial increase in understanding during this class. I don’t believe that these students could have learned this much during this class without the hands on use of ICTs. This is just one example of how effective ICTs can be and I believe the opportunities are there if we look for them. As a learning manager I will be looking for all the opportunities I can find.
Another example of the use of video is the movie clips I took during the year 12 Physics excursion to the Palmara Dragway during the breaking distance demonstration. While format compatibility can still be an issue, once you have the details worked out it can be straight forward but it needs to be tested on the school equipment in advance before attempting to use you own video in a class. In this example I deliberately edited it so there were no students looking at the camera. Schools can have varying policies on photos and videos in which individual students can be identified. Some schools have parents sign a blanket media release at enrolment or otherwise keep a list of students (if any) whose parents have not agreed to their child being identifiable in photos or video.
Flickr is a resource that I intend to search in the future when looking for specific examples. Sharing photos and video in such an uncomplicated way is a great resource for teaching material. Slideshare is similar in that it is a website for sharing PowerPoint and Keynote presentations. Again a great place to find free resources.
The NetSpot website has Mahara open source e-portfolio software running on it. Mahara supports linking to other sites so quite a substantial e-portfolio can be managed from Mahara. Its has the capability of providing different views of sections of the same material with the ability to tailor and control what different individuals can access. For example, you can allow the Principal of a school who may want to employ you a different level of access to students who you are teaching. Netspot is independent of schools and universities so it can me be maintained as a personal account.
Picnik is an example of a free on-line photo editor. It’s strongest point is that it is free and on-line, making it very easy for students to access and use. While it doesn’t have the capabilities of Adobe Photoshop, it is freely available on-line making it a great resource to know about.
PowerPoint and similar software for producing slide presentations is effective and has become common place in business and in education. Earlier versions of this type of software just handled text, graphs and photos, but later versions can now include animations and video clips. I expect to be using PowerPoint presentations in a significant proportion of my classes.
Engagement theory is based on the idea that students must be engaged in their work to achieve effective learning. (Kearsley & Ben Shneiderman, 1999) It requires that students:-
• Relate - work as a group
• Create - solutions to real problems by extending their knowledge and using it meaningfully
• Donate - this knowledge should ideally be of value to people outside the school
ICTs are great tools for this type of learning. Blogs and wikis are particularly good for facilitating group work. The amount of easily accessible resources available such as wikipedia, google, etc. and specialist material on school based servers mean it is practical for students to own their learning process, resulting in much more effective learning with life long learning skills, better equipping them for the knowledge economy.
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