1600 Word Synopsis

Synopsis


Over the part few weeks I have been investigating various digital technologies such as Blogs, Wiki's, Websites, LMS, RSS , Concept maps, PowerPoint, Prezi, Images, Podcast's, Digital Video, learning objects and animations, maps and globes. From investigating these technologies I have come to a conclusion about which technologies I would find most effective in facilitating student learning in order for them to succeed in reaching the learning outcomes set by the learning manager. I found that the digital technologies Blogs, Wiki's, LMS, Podcast and Concept Maps would be best to utilise in order for students to Access Information, Organise Knowledge, Consolidate and refine knowledge, Transform knowledge to develop new understandings and Present knowledge to an Audience. The following paragraphs investigate each of these five technologies identified above will transform, support, facilitate and/or enhance student learning regardless of the context.


Access Information

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are mainly being utilised in the Tertiary Education Setting such as in Central Queensland University (CQU). The LMS, CQU currently employs is Moodle which is after investigation an open source LMS whereas its predecessor Blackboard was a Proprietary LMS (See Blog Entry for Details). I have had an extensive experience with both Blackboard and Moodle and have found both to be very interactive and easy to utilise. In the classroom LMS could be utilised to upload term content including images and embedded video. Various other Digital technologies can be incorporated into the LMS such as Voki (Speaking avatar), PowerPoint, Prezi. As a future educator I feel LMS could be incorporated into the High School System as it has been in Tertiary education as it grants students alot of benefits such as being able to access information all in the area. As I mentioned on my own blog I felt LMS could be used to relieve some of the burden of teachers having to photocopy extra copies (for example task sheets) for students who had lost their own. Furthermore this would be prepare those students who wish to go onto higher education study such as University the necessary preparation they would need to successfully adapt to university life quickly.


Organise Knowledge

A wiki as I defined in my blog is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of an number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language in which BB-Codes are an example of or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wiki's 'are widely promoted as collaborative writing tools and are gaining popularity in educational settings' (Judd, Kennedy & Cropper, 2010). This ICT has a great pedagogical potential as it maximises interplay, works on volunteer collaboration, promotes negotiation, are democratic and motivate students to organise knowledge. Learning Managers can use a variety of activities and strategies in order to first motivate students. This can easily be done if the learning manager has a strong relationship between their self and their students. Furthermore students can be motivated by the use of positive feedback, team activities, clearly explained expectations and the learning manager being energised and enthusiastic. In my discipline of Junior Science students are bombarded by new terms, phrases and concepts that they need to memorise and understand. A wiki can solve this problem. The creation of a wiki is a fairly simple task and all it needs is an email and a password. Once created the Learning Manager can invite their students to become contributors on the wiki. From there the Learning Manager may split the students into groups to work on a particular concept, or may give each individual student a separate task such as defining a particular set of terms or gathering information on a concept. This strategy makes the work load much smaller for each student, but as a study from the University of Melbourne found that 'overall participation was high, a relatively small proportion of students did the bulk of the work and many students' contributions were superficial' (Judd, Kennedy & Cropper, 2010). The article goes on further to state that extensive collaboration would be unlikely due to the fact that in their study the major proportion of contributions were made late in the term thus making little use of the wiki's commenting feature which according to (Judd, Kennedy & Cropper, 2010) is a 'critical tool for contextualising and coordinating their contribution for and with others'. This problem also hinders collaboration between the various groups which is crucial for students being able to consolidate and refine knowledge. This difficulty however can be avoided if the learning manager has properly motivated each individual learner to the task at hand.


Consolidate and Refine Knowledge

A concept map is defined as a tool that helps to organise knowledge for meaningful learning. A concept map allows students to gain the 'big picture' of a concept or unit of work through linking related words together to form meaning. Meaning resides in the form of relations, and helps to organise knowledge. Concept Maps can create opportunities for learners to consolidate and refine their knowledge by Learning Managers ensuring that precise, rigorous, consistent and parsimonious representation of key relationships are not made inaccurate. An example of a concept map used in any area of study in education is Brainstorming. Take Junior Science as an example, students may be learning about the cell and its functions and to aid students in consolidating and refining knowledge the learning manager will utilise a concept map under the guise of Brainstorming to facilitate this. This strategy can be used in any subject such as Mathematics, English, SOSE, Marine Studies etc. Any subject where something involves a unit of work or concepts.

Transform Knowledge to develop new Understandings


A Blog is defined as a website that allows users to reflect, share opinions and discuss various topics in the form of an online journal while readers may comment on posts. Blogs enable people transform the knowledge they already have and develop new understandings through the knowledge other contributors invoke when commenting on any particular post the author has made. However as I have seen in my investigation of various blogs on the Internet, there is a danger in shaping new understandings around the comments of other people. Some contributors may have biased comments, some may type profanity, or some may post what they believe to be facts but in reality is fiction or a combination of both. Another fault with blogs is the problem of anonymity by contributors. Some contributors may do this due to fear of retribution if they comment on something that may be taken negatively. As a future educator I believe blogs can be used to facilitate a deeper understanding of new concepts and knowledge through careful policing of blogs and restrictions on access to the blog or blogs. Furthermore, when blogs are used in conjunction with other digital technologies such as Wiki's, Websites and LMS et cetra, students are able to constructively build on each others knowledge and understanding of various concepts and terms through dialogue. The problem of anonymity can be overcome by firm ground rules and strict policing of the blog.


Present knowledge to an Audience


Presenting Knowledge to an Audience can be done in various ways such as digital video but Podcasting is a much better application to use. According to Kellie Galletly's blog a podcast is defined as 'an Audio or Video file archived on the Internet in such a way that it can be automatically accessed by a personal computer, downloaded and transferred to a portable mp3 player'. This technology can be utilised by the Learning Manager by allowing students to download other digital video viewed in class for personal interest. Another option is that students are able to download recorded theory lessons the Learning Manager has recorded during each class. This would facilitate student learning by students having access to an external source to review previous classes, view notes, experiments and extra practicals . The application of this technology in this way would aid students who are Visual Learners, Audio Learners and Kinaesthetic Learners.



Reference:

Judd, T., Kennedy, G., Cropper, S. (2010). Using wikis for collaborative learning: Assessing Collaboration through Contribution. Retrieved 27 August 2010
http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/judd.pdf


Galletly, K. (2010). Digital Tool 6: Podcasts for Learning. Retrieved 27 August 2010
http://kellieselearningjourney.blogspot.com/

Appendix: Blogs I've commented on

http://kellieselearningjourney.blogspot.com/

http://starleighmanaging.blogspot.com/

http://catherine-elearning.blogspot.com/

http://s0176054sblog.blogspot.com/ (Yes I comment on my own)

Images

Images come in a variety of formats including JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, ART, TIFF. These formats are the most commonly used by people. JPEG and GIF are commonly used for online publication such as pictures on websites and graphics. BMP is a standard windows image format that works well for pictures and graphics but takes up alot of of disk space. PNG (Portable Network Graphic) like GIF and BMP is a lossless format properly pronounced ping. It was created to replace the older and simpler GIF format. Unlike GIF it does not support animation and also generally takes up two times the space of a JPEG file and three times the size of a GIF file. It don't see it taking over anytime soon. ART. This is the reason why your web graphics look bad and only your freinds who have an America Online (AOL) Client Software package can open your pictures you send them. By default AOL compresses image files and send them to you as ART files. Its claimed it makes the pages load more quickly but all it does its conserve bandwidth (rate of data transfer). TIFF is a lossless format that can use file compression (called LZW compression). It doesn't result in as small a file as JPEG (which is why you don't use it on the web) but you do retain image qaulity. When compressed it is usually half its original size. It is best used for saving photos in this format and whenusing a simple conversion program you can convert them into different format for use in screensavers, wallpaper or web images.

Images I find are a great way to facilitate student learning as it captures the interest of students and able to facilitate their understanding of concepts through real life examples which images are able to do.

Sources (URLs Only):

http://www.wordstart.com/guides/imagefile.htm

http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=91805

WIKI

A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language (eg BB-Codes - [b]Fool[/b]=Fool) or a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) text editor. Wiki's depending on the creators settings allow users to edit pages on a particular topic. The most famous wiki in this day and age is Wikipedia.org which boasts having 91,000 registered contributors working on over 16 million articles in more than 270 languages. Sites of this magnitiude can expect to see trafic of up to 78 million hits per month alone. On the net there are a few available websites that allow registered users to create and manage their own wiki's under a subdomain (eg http://schoolisfun.wikispaces.com) for absolutely free. A few examples are wikispaces and wetpaint.

I created my very own wiki which can be found at this url: http://csshipswiki.wetpaint.com. Its basically a database of specs for a game I play in my spare time. I found the tools of wetpaint to be very easy to manipulate it to what I want. It comes with a variety of page templates and the option of saving your own templates. New contributors can be invited to join.

In a teaching context wiki's I believe can be an excellent way to allow learners to Access information, Organise information, consolidate and refine knowledge and present knowledge to an audience. This is done through the use of animated images, embedded video , content and a blog that can be linked to the wiki. An example of this can be viewed at this url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmkqcp11pHM&feature=player_embedded

Comments welcome.

Mind Map

Here is My Mind map. I know its late but it been on my to do list for a while so I hope you can understand it. If you cant see it comment and I will try to rectify the matter.

Prezi

The thing that I like most about Prezi when viewing examples of slideshows people have made is that it gives me a sense that the presentation isn't flat and boring but three dimensional and interactive. This is a tool I can really see myself using in the future as a teacher as it grabs my attention and i'm sure it would grab the attention of my students. I think this could be an interesting and abstract way to inform students of new concepts and information whilst making it interesting. Prezi like powerpoint can be interactive by adding small activities or tasks to demonstrate a point or concept. Prezi I believe is only limited by the version you have and more importantly how creative the creator is.

Learning Managment System (LMS)

Blackboard is quite a good example of a Proprietary Learning Management System (LMS), whereas Moodle is a good example of an Open Source LMS.

Here are some facts about Open Source LMS (Software Package):

• Requires a set of Applications (Platform running Linux, Apache, MySQL PHP).
• IT Support staff needs experience administering and maintaining this system.
• GPL Licensing provides opportunities for localised integration of the LMS with other systems (Basically means a time saving method for Admin Staff).

Here are some benefits of Open Source LMS:

• Moodle as an example has a significant User base: over 46500 registered websites; just under 36.5 million users.
• Development undertaken by globally diffused network.
• Users can develop additional functionality.
• Low cost and no licence fee.
• Open standards that facilitates integrations with other systems.
• Easily modified

Here are some downsides to Open Source LMS:

• Problem resolving procedures.
• Lack of professional support.
• Evolving developer communities.
• Lack of release co-ordination.
• Erratic Updates.

Here are some facts on Proprietary LMS (Blackboard):

• No access to source code (Click View, then Source for an example of a 'Source'). Its the code originally written by the programmer and without access to it you cannot change the way the software is developed.
• User pays for licence to use a copy.
• User does not 'own' the program.
• Cost of support is usually included.
• Costs are high.

Advantages:

• Reliable, professional support and training available.
• Packaged, comprehensive and modular formats.
• regularly and easily updated.

Disadvantages:

• Costly.
• Has closed standards that hinder further development.

Both of these have great assets that can be used to facilitate learning within and outside of the learning environment to hopefully all students. Various digital technologies are able to be uploaded onto these various technologies. We now live in a digital era where kids today have a better understanding of the technologies out there than people who were born decades ago. Technology will soon become mainstream in our schools and as it is today it will continue to evolve. Some technologies may not be suited for use in facilitating learning due to costs, maintanence or other reasons. Which LMS I would use cannot be determined as I have not purchased either and tried them out. Just by the information above I would probably choose Proprietary LMS as it is reliable, regularly updated and has all the support someone who is not very technologically inclined could desire.

Sources (URL Only):

http://www.articlebase.com/training-articles/deciding-between-open-source-and-proprietary-software-325594.html

http://www.slideshare.net/DanitIsaacs/open-source-versus-proprietary-l-m-s

RSS Aggregator

I have a few various RSS aggregators that I use (for personal use - i.e. Gaming/Forums etc) before setting up this one. I find that just like the introduction via Youtube says, that it is more efficient plus should I ever have to get a new computer I don't lose the address of my favourite blogs, forums and newsreels.

In a teaching context an RSS aggregator would be a good technological tool to use to keep up with students postings on my website or forum that I have created. It also can be utilized by the student to keep up with things a teacher has posted like new content, videos etc.

(Note: May need to add more later)