File Storage

I used Media Fire to upload my Reference List for this blog. In a teaching context, a file storage technology would be great for storing class resources, such as posters, charts and learning activities and examples of student work. I would be careful putting anything to personal up there such as student report cards or any information about identities as I would consider that to be private and confidential information.

To see my reference list please go to
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=cd7a790fcd8b19cb00d27174b47c6657e04e75f6e8ebb871

Voice Thread

Voice Thread is a technology that enables files to be uploaded and comments talked, written and drawn into them. I wasn't able to make a presentation however I feel that this technology would be really good for distance education students. Through this technology they are able to hear feedback from their teacher who is able to circle the areas that they are making comments on. Also by making the comments using speech there is no awkward misunderstandings about what the marker had intended to convey (We've all have those e-mails or text messages where we are not sure if some one is joking or not). This technology would also be really good as a scaffolding tool for students to refer to when completing assignments. Here teachers could give a sample assessment presentation that comments and highlights what the assignment should look like and also outline good and bad examples of the assessment.

Using music on the Web

The downloading of music from the web is today a controversial issue. In "Teens Just Won't Pay for Music", findings from UK Music showed that almost two thirds of 14 -24 year olds were illegally downloading music from peer to peer networks (Skinner, 2009).

Music can be downloaded legally from sights such as i-tunes and Bigpond Music however costs soon start to add up with most tracks ninety-nine cents each. So what options are available for those who wish to download music for free without breaching Copyright law? Here enters Royalty Free Music which is covered under the Creative Commons Licence.

After spending some time browsing the Royalty Free Music on INCOMPETECH I started to think that in terms of music I would own up to having on my i-pod there wasn't much here. However there were some short pieces that were bearable and could be used in the classroom to assist learning.

I chose a piece called "Laconic Granny" that featured the tuba, baritone, clarinet and drums. With its slow lumbering sound, the slightly humourous piece made me think of a slow fat cat plodding along in a cartoon. Which made me think, if that's what came out of my imagination what could come out of my students? These short pieces of music could be used as stimulus for creating character profiles or inspiration for short stories. Learning to write from stimulus is a valuable tool for students as they need to be able to do this in tests such as NAPLAN. Being creative and the ability to think quickly are also useful skills to have for success post schooling.

Slide Share

Slideshare is "world's largest presentation sharing community (www.slideshare.net)". Members are able to share their work publicly or privately.

I uploaded a presentation from a past University assignment. It was quite a simple process, including downloading the wma to mp3 converter. This would be a great way of sharing ideas between teachers, or creating a public place for all shareholders to view teacher or student achievements.

Web Quest

Web Quests are an inquiry based e-learning activity aimed on engage students by researching a key question to which there is no one clear answer. Web quests can be the basis of authentic tasks whereby each class member can take on individual or shared real-world roles. Web quests are particularly useful in the SOSE learning area. It enables students to explore events, environments and people from many different viewpoints.

Web Quests can also alter the way the classroom works. Rather then being concentrated at their desks with books and pencils students are in front of computers. The computer acts as a link to the outside world; a link to outside resources, real life videos, live discussions...endless possibilities for learning.

It is important that some scaffolding takes place before a web quest is undertaken by the class. Students (particularly lower years) will need to learn how to navigate back and forth and in between different web pages. If group work is not a regular occurrence in the classroom and there are shared group roles then some "get-to-know-you" activities will need to be done. Surprisingly, not much work needs to be done on getting students to stay focused on the task at hand. Although no one has been able to pin point why this is so I believe that it is because the students are involved in an authentic task and they can see the relevance and the rewards of discovering a solution.

A web quest is a time consuming and also sometimes complicated delivery method to design. It is important that it is designed so that it effectively covers at least two learning areas in order for it to be an efficient learning tool. English and SOSE are the two most likely contenders for web quests as students will research on a topic and generally use some form of literacy media to show what they have learnt. A web quest does however suite Oliver's Learning Design Construct as the learning task, resources and supports are all inter-related.

WIKIpedia

WIKIpedia is a controversial topic for me. It is a site where anyone can add to or create items for the free online encyclopedia. I use WIKIpedia for my own learning about trivial things like famous people or events and I often use it as a starting point for topics I'm not familiar with. However apart from this assignment I have never quoted it for a University assessment piece. It was acceptable to use WIKIpedia in high school however we were encouraged to find other sources for information. I guess WIKIpedia is controversial for me because of the double standards placed on its use (OK for primary and high school, do not use it at University or do so at your own risk!).



For students wishing to use WIKIpedia (or any other piece of research) my advice is to use the CARS method.

• C - credibility - is there enough evidence to support the claims? Where is the evidence coming from?
• A - accuracy - how does it match up to other articles? Is the date recent? have things changed since time of publishing?
  
• R - reasonableness - who has produced this? Are they being objective? Are they using objective language?
• S - support - has the author supported their work with references? Is any contact information provided?
  

In the Student Centred Technologies on Moodle it suggests that students could contribute to WIKIpedia. This to me is a much better idea as students will have to become thorough researchers. Students would be able to work together to come up with a class page on a topic. This would require them to co-operate with each other an would also provide students the opportunity to work with students that they may not usually associate with. As well as collaborative work experience students will also be participating in a task with an authentic focus. Kiersley and Schneidermann (n.d) suggest that as students are participating in learning with an authentic focus "students learn skills and knowledge with higher transfer to work settings". They also state that team work skills can also be acquired as well as skills for client interaction "that are often not taught in courses (but probably should be)".

Pod Casting

Even though I own an i-pod I have never explored Podcasts before. Assuming that you had to pay for everything I didn't give it much attention as why watch something on my i-pod when it is on TV or YouTube for free? (I guess I harbour today's generations attitude about paying for things on the Internet)

Podcasting is essentially where audio files (or video files, changing the name to Vodcast) are uploaded to a podcasting server (like i-tunes) and can be downloaded (often for free) to a computer or mp3 player.

Looking through the huge variety of topics that were available I became quite excited when I saw that I could learn other languages via Podcast. Interested I downloaded Lesson 1 of Learning French however I discovered that I am more of a visual learner than I thought. It was quite difficult for me to grasp these language concepts by only listening - I was craving to have some sort of text in front of me so I could see what letters made up these words and start seeing the patterns of pronunciation.

Bearing this in mind I started searching for something that would be suitable for my Year 1 class. There were some Vodcasts on science experiments but these were either too long and the students would become disengaged or were better off as live experiments conducted by the students. Hooked on phonics also had some Vodcasts but with their black and white graphics and dull voice over I couldn't imagine my students remembering much from the segment. Switching over to Podcasts there were many sites dedicated to stories for children. Scrolling down I came across a story called "In the Dark" by Pinky Dinky Doo. The author's name seem interesting enough so I downloaded the podcast through the i-tunes store (for free!)

"In the Dark" opened with a great catchy theme and very quickly introduced the 'great big fancy word' of the story..."reluctant". A definition of the word was given in children's terms and each time this word was used in was cued by a trumpet fanfare. There are examples of what it is to be brave and also some problem solving skills. If you go to the Pinky Dinky Doo website there are also great activities such as the Great Big Fancy Word Game that help build on things learnt during the story.

This activity would work well for my classrooms it is useful to both upper and lower level learners. For my upper learners they are able to add new words to their vocabulary and follow on activites would require them to use the word of the story in a meaningful way in their writing or their speech. For lower level learners, podcasts help to scaffold the link between oral language and reading. By combining the podcast with something like a quiz from ClassMarker it is possible that all three areas of Oliver's Learning Design Construct are in action. Students can undertake an online quiz after watching the podcast. With guidance the teacher could then scaffold the necessary processes required to create a role play or to undertake a problem solving activity based on the Podcast.

Students can also create their own Pocasts and upload them through a web Url. This could be useful for publshing oral activities on other e-learning places such as wiki's or webquests.

Podcasts and Vodcasts are useful learning tools for twenty-first century learners. In most cases today's students "have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age (Prenksy, 2001, p1)". Prenksy also states that for most college grads less than 5000 hours have been spent reading compared to over 10 000 hours on video games and more 20 000 watching TV. This does not mean that reading should become irrelevant for students but in order to install the motivation to learn to read it is important that we provide our students with resources that are engaging and provide stronger links between what they have access to at home and access to at school.