Digital Storytelling

Just a quick note to describe how digital storytelling could be used in teaching maths and science to high school students.
As part of a unit of work you could ask one student (or pair of students) each week to prepare a three minute digital story so that once each week you could open the lesson with a different story. The teacher would tell the student the topic three weeks in advance of their presentation date to give them time for preparation.
Topics which would suit maths and science include:
- introduce the life and work of a one famous person that changed the course of history in that subject matter;
- a book review of a portion of the textbook the students are using for the subject, or;
- a day in the life of the student that highlights their real-life encounters with maths and science.
The digital story would need a simple script with a beginning, a middel and an end, and students could use web clips and researched text.

Reflective Synopsis

This year during my studies in the course Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Learning Design I have investigated the use of the following software programs: Blogs, Google Reader, Wikis, Mahara, Voki Avatars, MS Powerpoint, Learning Management Systems, Flickr, Picnik, YouTube, Explorelearning, Google Earth, Wikipedia and Music (Incompetech). Before I started the course the only programs I had properly explored were MS Powerpoint, Google Earth and Learning Management Systems (although I had occasionally read a friend’s blog and accessed Wikipedia). It was great to be encouraged to try these programs as it has increased my understanding about the variety of professional and personal interests in our community, as well as the character of the internet and its possibilities for global collaboration.

Early in the course our lecturer posed a question that has the ability to strike fear into any self-reflective ‘wanna-be’ learning manager (such as myself)…“why will students want to come to your lessons?” (Aldred, 2010). Luckily, I was assisted to answer this question by a Kearsley & Shneiderman (1999) course reading. The reading describes an attractive learning process ‘relate-create-donate’ and argues that collaborative teams that work on projects meaningful to someone outside the classroom will have more engaged learners.

The first aspect of designing attractive learning experiences requires creating opportunities to relate to others. In the context of education, relating may include the development of teacher-student, student-student, teacher-community or student-community relationships. ICTs may enhance these relationships inside and outside the classroom environment. For example:

• Learning Management Systems such as moodle facilitates discussion between students and teachers who are separated by large distances during flexible learning experiences;
• MS Powerpoint supports both students and teachers to confidently and efficiently share information (see blog posting Food for thought: Creating a powerpoint (2010) and its comment from my colleague Tina Byrne);
• A class blog may support learning outside the classroom (see blog posting Food for thought: Mathematics applications (2010)), and;
• More advanced learners may use programs such as wikis or Mahara to enhance knowledge sharing in the wider community (see blog postings Food for thought: Mahara (2010), Food for thought: Easter Road Culture (2010) and My teaching journey: Engaging with a wiki (2010)).

Marzano & Pickering (1997, p.15) indicates it is a shared responsibility of the teacher and the students to maintain positive attitudes about the learning environment.

The second aspect of designing attractive learning experiences requires providing opportunities to develop and enhance the learner’s creative talents. Smith, Lynch & Mienczakowski (2003, p.3) argues there is a movement toward student autonomy over what, how and why learning takes place. The concept of competence is subordinate to capability, and the focus is on “‘imagining the future’ and bringing it about”. In the context of profiling students and strategising experiences that ensure learning outcomes in clients, ICTs may enhance creativity. For example:
• Visual content of teaching, learning and project work may be supplied by image software such as Flickr and Picnik (see blog postings Food for thought: Apple tree from flickr (2010) and Food for thought: Playing chicken (2010));
• Audio content may be supplied by music software such as Incompetech;
• Audio-visual content may be supplied by video software such as YouTube (see blog posting Food for thought: Tubes on youtube (2010)), and;
• Space and mapping content may be supplied by software such as Google Earth.
We should value diversity as every person has a contribution to offer the world. However, strong habits of mind are required if individuality and creativity are to be supported and encouraged. The blog posting Nat’s student teacher journey: A cyclone is a learning experience (2010) describes an inspiring story about persevering in the face of adversity.

Dimension 5 [Habits of Mind] is concerned with one’s determination to be a
critical thinker, a creative thinker, and a self-regulated thinker. The
commitment to live up to high standards – to be concerned with the quality
of
one’s thinking – is what finally distinguishes Dimension 5 from the other
aspects of thinking.
(Marzano & Pickering, 1997, p.263)

The final aspect of designing attractive learning experiences requires purposeful, authentic creations which, if possible, are donated back to the community. Lucas (2007) indicates all kids want to be adults because they know that’s what they will grow up to be. Giving children authentic “adult type” jobs and projects will engage them to learn. A great example of an authentic learning experience which could be developed and then donated to the school library is described in Christie’s blog posting Christie’s ICT for learning design blog: Youtube (2010). In general, there are many features of the internet that will support authentic learning experiences. The web provides a wealth of information about real people that are involved in real events located in real settings around the world. If the written content isn’t enough, usually the publisher’s contact details are provided to support further investigation.

So it seems ICTs have a major role in designing learning experiences that will be valued and result in student achievement. Apart from email and social networking sites, this reflective synopsis has highlighted the way various programs may be used to enhance on-line relationship building. Examples were provided that demonstrate visual and audio content may be found to support individual and shared creativity. Websites link learners and teachers to real-life information and contacts to support purposeful learning projects. Finally, as highlighted in blog posting Food for thought: The first post (2010), the publishing of student work on the internet can be an authentic conclusion to a project that results in a donation to the global community.

Reference List
Aldred, S. (2010, March 01). Learning Management Rationale [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from
CQUniversity e-courses, EDED20491 ICT s for Learning Design, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/course/view.php?id=9976
Natalie Arthur, Nat’s student teacher journey.
(2010, March 23). A cyclone is a learning experience [Web log messge]. Retrieved from
http://nataliearthurgdlt.blogspot.com/2010/03/cyclone-is-learning-experience.html
Tina Byrne, My teaching journey.
(2010, March 30). Engaging with a wiki [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://bean-the-teacher.blogspot.com/2010/03/engaging-with-wiki.html
Christie, Christie’s ICT for learning design blog.
(2010, April 10). Youtube [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://christiesictblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/youtube.html
Samantha Green, Food for thought.
(2010, March 27). The first post [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/03/first-post.html
(2010, March 29). Mathematics applications [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/03/mathematics-applications.html
(2010, April 4). Easter road culture [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/easter-road-culture.html
(2010, April 9). Mahara [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/mahara.html
(2010, April 17). Creating a powerpoint [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/creating-powerpoint.html
(2010, April 20). Apple tree from flickr [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/apple-tree-from-flickr.html
(2010, April 24). Playing chicken [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/playing-chicken.html
(2010, April 28). Tubes on youtube [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://samslearningblog2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/tubes-on-youtube.html
Kearsley, G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement theory: A framework for technology-based
teaching and learning. Retrieved from
http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm
Lucas, G. (2007, September 18). George Lucas: Sharing his hope for education at dreamforce [video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.edutopia.org/george-lucas-education-dreamforce-2007
Marzano, R. J. & Pickering, D. J. (with Arredondo, D. E., Blackburn, G. J., Brandt, R. S., Moffett, C. A., Paynter, D. E., Pollock, J. E. and Whisler, J. S.). (1997)
Dimensions of learning teacher’s manual (2nd ed.). Alexandria, Viginia: ASCD.
Smith, Lynch & Mienczakowski. (2003). The Bachelor of Learning Mangement (BLM) and education capability: why we do not prepare ‘teachers’ anymore. Retrieved from
CQUniversity e-courses, EDED20491 ICT s for Learning Design, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/course/view.php?id=9976

Tubes on YouTube

I have just found a great resource from YouTube for a Year 9 science class I am teaching tomorrow.

Below is a short video which describes the tubal system for transporting water and sugar in plants. Tomorrow the Year 9 class will learn about the structure and function of plant stems and the video will be an excellent visual teaching aid.

The commentary on the video is not particularly technical. I intend to show it to students after I have provided them with a full description of the stem system. While the video is playing I will pause it at appropriate locations and ask students to identify the correct terminology.

Playing chicken

I have just used an image manipulation program called picnik to crop, resize and add warmth to this photo of my beloved boyfriend and friend.







Before photo (2.7 MB)













After photo (0.2 MB)

Apple tree from Flickr

I downloaded this photo of an apple tree from Flickr. It reminds me of a fun poem "Ipple-apple Tree", by Spike Milligan which I have in his children's poems book called "Unspun socks from a chicken's laundry".

I found it easy to create an account to use Flickr, but was slightly disturbed to have to provide a lot of personal details.

There are two levels of privacy settings within the program. The first allows you to share the images you upload just with your family and friends. This would be very useful for networks of people separated by large distances. There are size limits on email attachments so Flickr is more useful than email for this purpose. The second privacy setting is for public sharing of images. If you upload an image you can then choose whether to allow the public to use the image for commercial purposes and/or make alterations to it.

One use of Flickr in learning and teaching is the potential to get feedback about your image since there is a facility to add comments. Art and photography classes could use Flickr to get exposure and feedback on their creative work - either from the general public or from a previously set-up network of peers.

The creative work that other people contribute is likely to be a very useful resource to find images when students need to demonstrate their learning by creating posters, presentations and reports.

When teachers use visual aids it can really assist students who are visual learners - 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. According to Behaviour Intervention Service 2004, students with Asperger's Syndrome may require visual aids to aid comprehension. Flickr is a resource which could greatly assist teachers to provide visual content to their students.

Creating a Powerpoint

I have been using Microsoft Powerpoint to create presentations for quite a few years. It is a useful program to organise your ideas, highlight main points and show graphs and other images to support your arguments. It also assists with presenting information in small amounts, which allows for reinforcement (see behaviourism theory).
This week I learnt how to add animation and sound in Powerpoint and this has added another dimension. Instead of simply making a presentation about a topic, the use of sound and animation provides the potential to fully dramatise the performance for maximum audience engagement.
I never took drama subjects at school and generally shied away from making oral presentations whenever possible. However, using powerpoint as a prop has helped me to face an audience and speak confidently in a range of challenging situations. Perhaps the enhancement of my presentations with animation and sound will help me face tougher audiences in even more challenging situations in the future!
The benefit for student learning is that Powerpoint supports the ability of the student to communicate and defend their point of view to others, that is, for students to create persuasive arguments. According to Daniel Goleman (2007), the number one competence that distinguishes the 'stars' from the average, is the singular drive to achieve. People who have it have very high internal standards of success. They are also able to create persuasive arguments and set challenging goals.

Avatar Reflection

I can think of three ways voki avatars may be useful in education:

1. To break up the monotony of the speaker. For example, they can be used to attract attention at the beginning of a presentation, or to maintain interest half-way through a longer presentation.
2. To demonstrate different accents in speech. For example, in subjects such as languages other than english or drama, students could use vokis to research accents from different countries, or to submit an assignment using their own recorded voice.
3. To man a display if you need to take a toilet break. For example, at a careers expo you could leave an avatar playing on a computer at your display to bring attention to it while you are away.

Creating a voki avatar was light-hearted and fun. I spent a little time chosing the appearance and voice of my character, which gave me the opportunity for creative expression.

According to Multiple Intelligence theory, some people may have more linguistic, interpersonal and visual/spatial 'smarts.' Vokis may have the potential to capture the interest of people with these talents to engage in subjects they may otherwise avoid.

A disadvantage of using avatars in education is that it is reasonably time consuming and uses alot of internet download memory.

Voki Avatar

Below is my first Avatar which I created in http://www.voki.com/.


Get a Voki now!

Mahara

Mahara is a program within which you can: profile yourself; build a portfolio; provide links to external feeds; describe your skills, experience, qualifications and dreams; create friendships/social networks, and; share various types of files. There is a small annual fee for connection but Mahara is relatively easy to use with a login password, tab menu system, browse file upload and URL based weblinks. There is also a privacy feature so that individual site owners (or group managers) have control over the material other users may access.

The program offers two major opportunities to enhance learning in the education industry: motivation and collaboration. According to "The Need to Belong: Rediscovering Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" (Kunc, 1992), students are more motivated to learn if their low and mid level needs are met, including feeling a sense of belonging, . Mahara has social-networking facilities and the opportunity to document your strengths and goals. If all of its features are embraced the program may offer students the opportunity not only to feel that they belong, but that they can get their higher level needs fulfilled, such as obtaining the respect of others.

There is a 'group' feature in Mahara that allows various file types such as spreadsheets, powerpoints and other electronic information to be easily shared. According to "Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning" (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999), collaboration assists motivation through verbalising problems and different people's perspectives. Mahara offers the opportunity to share student's work in a forum common to the class, which:

...provides an incentive for them to do the best possible work, since they know that their work will be viewed by their classmates...

Easter Road Culture

Being an introvert, I like to consider carefully what information I share with others. For this blog I have been putting my ideas onto paper before starting to write on the blogger website. This has given me a chance to reflect on the main ideas I intend to post before starting to type, as well as increased confidence to share my thoughts publicly.

After setting up my alligator, oops I mean aggregator, I have been able to follow blog posts easily. This has given me an insight into the individual learning journey of other students in the graduate diploma of learning and teaching.

I have added a few comments onto other bloggers blog postings and now I find I would like to know if those bloggers have found a reason to respond to the comments I made. In order to check for a response it is necessary to keep logging into the blogs I commented on. I have not been able to find a way to follow comment updates using Google Reader. I wonder if this is a feature that other people would like to use as well? Because of the difficulty tracking comment updates it seems that blogs are more useful as independent journals which allow limited collaboration as an added bonus. If two-way conversations, feedback and collaboration are the main focus of web-based interaction it seems wikis will be more useful.

Today I started creating a wiki about integrating Road Culture learnings into high school Maths and Science education. I am passionate about the topic of Road Culture. I believe I will be a better teacher to my secondary Maths and Science students if I can show enthusiasm for the topic so my wiki is about exploring this thematic link in the public domain.

It took me a little while to decide what I should create a wiki about. It had to be a topic for which I would be most interested in reading others' opinions and developing a shared forum of knowledge, and I was conscious that the audience of the wiki could be worldwide.

Now, what I would like to know is, how do I get this wiki to be seen, and contributed to, by key people around the world?

Aggregators not Alligators

Phew! I have now created an "aggregator" (sounds very energetic doesn't it!). I was apprehensive but found it to be a very easy process. Without google reader it would be very time consuming to keep up with more than a few blogs.
When I checked I was very excited to see two comments on my own blog. It is a wonderfully social and supportive feeling to receive feedback from my professional colleagues. To return the favour I will endeavour to spend more time commenting on others' blogs over the coming weeks.

Mathematics Applications

This authentic rainbow biscuit was hand-rolled by my friend's two year old daughter. How does this apply to maths? Well I guess she had to mentally appraise the length of the tubes when rolling to make sure they would meet relatively evenly at the edges.


I recently read in the Courier Mail (article by Tanya Chilcott) that the draft national curriculum includes four hours per week of maths for Prep to Year 10 students. Most schools apparently currently teach around 3.5 hours per week of maths. With this increased focus it will become even more important to create engaging maths lessons out of traditionally non-maths topics. Some examples I can think of are:

1. Maths in cooking: eg. "doubling the recipe" or other such multiplications, creating shapes and measuring perimeters, areas and volume of various foods and liquids, GST calculations on grocery purchases, logistics of food distribution, storage and use.

2. Maths in Health and Physical Education: eg. classroom statistics on student lap times, graphs of heart rate vs height and weight.

There must be many more examples, please contribute your ideas !

If maths lessons become less focused on following a textbook and more integrated into 'everyday topics,' such as cooking and physical education, students may be better able to relate to the topic. Now comes the crux of my blog posting, I hope you are still reading. Most maths textbooks have student exercises and answers can be found at the back of the textbook. Maths problems created by the teacher that are based on 'everyday topics' will not have pre-calculated answers at the back of a book. Students will have to become proficient at gauging the correctness of their own work and use strategies to check for accuracy.

One way to encourage students to self-check is to publish their work. When I become a learning manager my students may have to use a class blog. One student each week will be responsible for posting their answers to set homework questions onto the class blog. Other students may then check their own work against the answers posted to the blog and provide comment if they believe the answer should be different. Among other Habits of Mind (see Dimension 5 of Marzano and Pickering's "Dimensions of Learning: Teacher's Manual," 1997), this process may build student's critical thinking skills.

The First Post

If the Last Post is associated with Anzac biscuits, I am going to associate this First Post with....Green cake!

This blog has been created:
- to make my ICT education authentic by creating my first blog, and;
- to share ideas about learning and teaching in preparation for becoming a learning manager.

Welcome to Food for Thought!