Over the past 5 weeks I have analysed many e-learning technologies provided and have found that all are interesting, and almost all could be used in a learning environment.Differences in these techniques vary enormously but I feel that with structured techniques in our modern Australian Curriculum ICT tools are the future of education in our classrooms.
The ICT tools I have been investigating for the past few weeks are as below:
Multimedia Tools = Images, Video, Podcast
Presentation Tools = PowerPoint Prezi
Space Tools = Blogs, wikis, Websites
Other Tools = Google Earth
Multimedia Tools is a competent of tools that can either be an image, video or audio. Digital images can be used from an array of uses within the classroom like such as show and tell, spelling journal (student takes the picture and learns how to spell it), writing stories, slide shows and many more. As provided by Fasso (2011) programs for photo editing are great fun whether it is basic editing colours and resizing pictures in Gimp2 or editing and creating fun boarders in Picnik and are perfect tools for children’s creativity. Another digital program that I took an interest with was www.blabberize.com (2010)this is a free website that you upload a digital picture of yourself or a pet, then crop the mouth and record a funny voice. This program uses both image and audio and at the end have a talking image. Ideal tool for teachers to use in the classroom as it is entertaining and humorous and would work with students from primary to secondary school.I created a blabberize photo and it was good for a laugh,Talking fishJ.
The downside of all this technology is that it is very addictive and time consuming. I could not help but try all the tools and got little carried away with the digital/audio tools available. How can you go past the program crazy talk found on the www.reallusion.com website? To start, download the crazy talk program and then upload your personal photos to it and you create this talking/moving3D image of a digital image. I downloaded this program as a free download and played for hours using a picture of my dog. I was able to use my own voice recordings, upload audio clips or use sample ones provided in the program. Unfortunately when it was time for me to get off and save my work I could not as I only had the free sample. The negative use about this program for use in the classroom is it’s not quick and easy as other tools. If it was set up already as a operating learning tool and the teachers just downloaded from the curriculum would be perfect butit is quite complicated, detailed and time wasting and there are easier tools out there that are just as effective.When using multimedia in the classroom it is the teachers responsibility to make students aware of safe and legal practices as stated by Australian Council for Computers in Education (ACCE) 2011 “Demonstrate understanding of safe, legal, and ethical use of digital resources and tools, including cyber safety practices, respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.”
Presentation
Presentation tools are already a commonly used tool but not many people know that PowerPoint can also be used as an interactive learning tool. I certainly didn’t know the whole other world of PowerPoint until I did this activity. Teachers can create an Interactive PowerPoint which allows students to move around the slide entertainingly and freely without making any changes. Such activities include:
· Games & Puzzles
· Adventures
· Story Telling
I created a PowerPoint using the instructions provided by Fasso, (2011) it’s really simple and if you have planned the PowerPoint it this sort of ICT tool would not take too long to create. This is a good skill to have learnt as stated in Moodle (2011) students can create a storyboard for their story and then turn it into a PowerPoint. I will definitely be using this sort of multimedia tool in the classroom. I had a go at Prezi and Glogster and as I discussed in my blog both tools very creative and interesting but I am not sure if at the moment I will be using them? I will give http://prezi.com and www.glogster.com a second chance but I am happy with PowerPoint right now.
Online Spaces
When using online spaces in the classroom it is very important to use strict privacy and safety conditions as stated by DEECD (2011) when using online spaces to not let your students upload a photo of themselves but to use an avatar instead and teachers should stick to sites that they know are educationally safe.
A Blog is an online space tool for sharing ideas, sharing techniques used for teaching, teachers communicating to parents what’s been happening in the classroom and many others. My Blog is created for university to blog about my ICT experiences so it is useful for me to share what I have experienced and what problems got in the way. You can add followers “friends” such as my fellow university friends, they can comment on my blogs and give helpful hints where needed. I am not much of a blogger as I am not really much of a Facebook person either; I don’t really like to comment about what I have done all day. I believe a blog is a useful tool for a teacher as it can be something used to put what’s happening in their classroom for parents to see what their child is doing (with their permission of course). I found a blog called Let the Children Play http://progressiveearlychildhoodeducation.blogspot.com/ this shows wonderful use for what a blog can consist of.
Wiki’s -Not a fan at the moment but I just haven’t had the right hands on experience and I know from alot of web pages I have gone to about children’s learning wikis will be mentioned somewhere. So obviously this is a good learning tool I just don’t get it right now.
Weebly website on the other hand was a good learning tool for me. I feel proud of myself creating a simple little website. I have showed everyone! Creating a simple website like Weebly are good for people that are just getting into uploading pictures, linking other websites together and great for developing patients when it does not work out the first time. The Weebly I created was for fun learning for kids, all the horrible stuff like maths and English made fun. Basically, it has links to learning games http://karlaseducationsite.weebly.com/. After creating my Weebly I thought that this could be a good tool used in the classroom for student assignments. The students are given a topic to research and then are to use a Weebly website to create a fun way to learn a topic. This could also be used as a collaborative learning tool, students are put into groups to create a website, then each group can visit each others websites to then learn other topics and write a review on it.
There is an array of useful ICT tools that can be useful in the classroom and my last one explored is Google Earth. Google Earth is an incredible tool that enables the students a visual of the entire earth. Educational stories along with imagination and factual geographic create an incredible learning tool.
CAUTION: When using Google Earth in the classroom for the first time it is most likely going to be more effective if the teacher lets the students search places they know like there house and get all excited and talk about it. I know we all secretly like to see a photo of our blurred out letter box number. Another way to introduce Google Earth in the classroom is to get them to search their homes to begin with but also search places they are familiar with in the area such as the shopping centre, the school the park and many more.
As sited on Google Earth Classroom resources (2011) “Students can use Google Earth to:
- Explore the animal kingdom and endangered species with the National Geographic layer and other content.Easy
- Create annotated place markers indicating location of school and points of interest in their town such as the local fire and police stations, the city library, local parks, and museums.Easy
- Study climate change and the effects of global warming. Average
- Create tours of their school or community.Average
- Track earthquakes in real-timeAdvanced”
To conclude we are so lucky that we have these opportunities to use ICT tools in the classrooms and teachers should embrace them. For now we will still have a pen, paper, library and books but should be very appreciative to be a part of this new transition in to 21st century learning as it will one day be history. I strongly believe with that it is the teacher’s responsibility to have a full and essential role in this learning environment with the student and if they keep their students engaged with effective, fun learning tools the students will remember these sorts of things forever. I am only 22 years old but the over head projectors were used when I was in school and it was a very exciting day when the teacher had all the lights off trying to talk seriously about the topic while the whole class did hand puppet shadows when he/she was not looking so imagine the impact modern technology will have on our children’s learning.
