Course Reflection & Feedback

After watching the podcast about the Catholic Education Office's iLearn Framework, I now have a greater understanding of what elearning is about and how its focus is in creating engaging learning environments, not about using technology - as it is mentioned in the short clip "technology is the tool to achieve the learning goals". Throughout this course we as learners have been encouraged to be reflective which is a significant aspect of the elearning model, by writing blog entries after each module and identifying how we can integrate web 2.0 tools into our classrooms. What I've liked about this is the tools aren't the dominant factor, some will work well, some have little significance to the desired learning outcomes for your KLA. The key to achieving successful outcomes with learners is the way the learning environment is created to engage learners in challenging experiences to draw upon existing knowledge so they can gain new understanding.

The progression from lower order thinking to higher order thinking skills with Bloom's Taxonomy engages the the learner to become more autonomous, challenging them to broaden and refine their existing skills into new and adaptable skills and becoming responsible of their own learning which in effect fits in with an aspect of iLearn Framework. Bloom's digital taxonomy adaptation encourages students interaction with technology to become more knowledgable and skilled in using it as a tool to learn new information and extend on existing knowledge. I find this adaptation to be extremely helpful in the planning of my curriculum as the students undergoing my course interact with a variety of technological sources including lighting desks, audio consoles, vision mixers which require them to develop skills in the higher order thinking domains to be able to operate them successfully.

The web 2.0 course has provided me with a new cofidence in using tools such as podcasts, flickr, blogs, wikis in my classroom and facilitating my students to develop their skills to interact with these tools to gain new and challenging learning outcomes. A learner can't learn new skills or knowledge from a teacher, unless they themselves are knowledgable in practicing the skills. And with the constant changes in technology and the current abilities with students using these tools, there is a synergy between teacher and students in refining and developing their use within the learning environment. I have found this course to be extremely helpful in building a greater bank of strategies to form more exciting and challenging learning experiences for my students.

Module 10 - Wikis/Ning

In this final module I gained a better understanding of wikis and how they can be used in a classroom. The YouTube clip helped me to understand the functionality and ease of using wikis. The fact that you can have multiple users to visit one location where they can add, change or subtract information like the camping list, prompted me in thinking how this can be used in my Entertainment class.  Let's say students are broken into small departments: staging, lighting, audio, vision - by using a wiki as their primary communication tool they can produce lists for equipment, schedules, define roles and responsibilities, whilst adding to or changing them at one single location. This makes the planning process more efficient and enables the students to making contributions and changes outside the classroom.

This module also introduced me to the Education Social Network NING - The thing I liked priumarily about Ning was its benefits to share experiences, strategies, ideas with other teaching practitioners throughout the world, nationally or locally, even with your own colleagues.  The benefits of using NING in the classroom tend to mirror the functionality of a BLOG, the only difference is their are communities to join and participants can interact through discussion forums with other practitioners on topics.

To answer the question about how does web 2.0 assist in improving learning outcomes for all students?, I think is because it engages students in a variety of creative learning experiences. The web 2.0 tools create learning environments that are fun, interactive, creative and challenging. Many of the tools have been designed to be user friendly, and when transfered into the classroom they can cater to a variety of skill levels and learning styles. Another factor to consider is a majority of students are frequently using web 2.0 tools and quite competently. These factors I believe increases students learning outcomes because it is enables them to develop and refine their knowledge in using these technologies and practices and acquire new and improved learning of a topic or subject interactively, collaboratively or autonomously and promotes their confidence to accomplish tasks and receive pleasing results.

Module 9 - Social Networking

With the rapid development of social networking sites in the 21st century, I found this module to be very interesting to explore the opportunities this medium can have in terms of education. Earlier this year I was shown Scootle by our Manager of E-Learning and valued its purpose in accessing shared resources for the 21st century classroom. Revisiting it I can see how beneficial it is to share resources between teachers and encourage students to develop skills in using technology for educational purposes. Unfortunately, the site seems to only cater to KLA's like English, Maths, Science, History, Arts (Drama/Visual Art) not vocational programs like Entertainment.  So when I conducted a search and found no results I was disappointed and questioned its value to me as a Learning Facilitator . Although, I did like the way the unit of work I viewed "if we shadows have offended" had a cross-curricular purpose catering to Drama, English and History in one program of study. Second Life on the other hand, really impressed me. Especially with the number of online virtual games students are playing these days, I liked how interactive it was. Delivering learning through a 3D virtual world enables the learner to immerse themselves in building knowledge on a topic and making learning more experimental, rather than delivering concepts for students to recall alike to traditional teaching practices of the past. I'm intrigued in using this as a creative tool in my classroom to get students to interact with a virtual theatre space to gain knowledge and insight into the practices used in this environment, like bumping in a production.

Module 8 - RSS Feeds

I had noticed on my toolbar on Firefox that the RSS Feed symbol was increasing in number each day, even hour but never accessed it, perhaps due to ignorance as I was unsure what it was and not curious enough to investigate. But in completing this module I now understand its function and in particular how I can access updates from my frequently used sites without having to visit each site individually to get the latest information or news. Furthermore, I can see the benefits of this in the classroom, specifically in terms of accessing industry developments and news.  Also accessing student blogs with assignments or projects and monitoring that students are making entries and commenting on each others through one simple click. For this module I subscribed to the MEAA Facebook Page which is the peak organisation for employees within the Entertainment Industry.  It provides information on funding, changes to OHS practices within the industry, etc which are all relevant issues to the units embedded within the course.

Module 7 - Delicious

In this module I was instructed to open a Delicious Bookmarking account.  At first I was unsure of the relevance this tool have in my classroom and for my students.  After a discussion with a colleague I was convinced that this would be useful to students who are frequently using a variety of different computers, in a variety of locations.

In terms of me implimenting Delicious Bookmarking in my classroom at SCCVC, I see no relevance as all our students have personalised laptops, but this is not to say that it is not a useful and resourceful web 2.0 tool.

Module 6 - Glogster

I found that the first activity with bubbl.us in this module fairly frustrating.  I found it annoying that I wasn't able to navigate the design of the mind map.  I can see it's benefit in the classroom and how students will be able to interact with it, building skills in mind mapping, but I prefer using the function available in MS Word.

My experience in creating a simple Glogster was pretty straight forward.  I was particularly impressed with the ease in using the numerous functions and tools.  Something that I was puzzled by was uploading an audio track to be played in my poster.  I made a number of attempts and was unsuccessful.  This raises concerns in my confidence to teach it to my students to use in future classes.  No doubt with more investigating I will strengthen my skills and knowledge in interfacing with Glogster.

Module 5 - Podcasting

In this module I found the use of podcasting to be a valuable teaching strategy in developing students skills in listening, extracting and recalling critical information on a topic or subject to develop their deeper understanding.  Students in the 21st Century are frequently interacting with this level of technology through visiting YouTube and listening to iPods. So with this in mind by employing Podcasts as a strategy to teach a topic is in effect meeting this demand students require in learning, and importantly making the experience fun and interactive.  In a recent workshop I attended for LNS a teacher shared a Podcast she had created for her year 8 students investigating the Causes and Effects of healthy eating.  The students listened to it as many times as they wished, whilst viewing images that related to the topic and worked on an accompanying worksheet to find the relevant information for each idea or statement discussed in the podcast.  This had a dual effect as it was engaging the students visually and audibly, encouraging the students to retain new information about the topic whilst developing cause and effect language.  I am interested in using this with my Entertainment students as a learning task where they will create a podcast on the causes and effects of a OHS issue relevant to the Entertainment Industry.