End of topic reflection

This topic has been invigorating. We were able to talk to some people who had experienced, or ancestors had experienced, what it was like in the past and the impacts of settlement in Australia. We were able to view our task at all times through the class Wiki page and we could post questions etc which always got answered. We completed reflections (much like this one) so we could then develop our understanding and knowledge with other students. I really enjoyed how we had individual and group tasks, but I particularly liked the group task where we had to develop our own argument and support this using literature etc in which we had to find and evaluate. We really dug deep for this task as we had to present it members of the local Indigenous community, our parents, the school Principal and some other teachers came. We thought long and hard about our argument to make sure it was appropriate and we could support it fully. We chose to base our argument on the impacts of settlement on Indigenous culture and then we related this to the boat people being turned away in Australia. We drew similarities and differences between them and from there we were able to consider what would happen if we allowed boat people into Australia and how this would impact our culture. This topic has demanded a lot of hard thinking, evaluation, discussion and debating.

Q&A reflection

We just had the opportunity to speak to members of our local Aboriginal community. We were able to ask questions about how migration and settlement has impacted them and how it is still impacting them. I learnt a lot from our visitors. They answered all our questions with detail and we have gained much more knowledge on the impacts of European settlement. It was great being able to discuss this with someone who has so much knowledge and experience with it. Although over the past few years we have investigated settlement, nothing prepared me for how Indigenous people felt.

Questions for Q&A with members of local Indigenous community

How did settlement impact your community?
What happened after settlement?
How did it effect your way of living?
Did your culture change at all?

Blog Post 1: Making a Nation

Impacts:
Land, culture, rights, food, environment, violent conflict

From my understanding, European settlement impacted Indigenous people greatly. This has shaped Australian history as Indigenous peoples had to fight for their rights for many many years. There was an official apology made by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to the Indigenous population, however, they still fight today. Indigenous people are still discriminated against.

Blog Posting 2: Reflection

Blog Posting 2:

The teacher started with us answering 2 questions (see blog posting 1) on our blog. I found this to be quite hard because I didn’t know much about the topic. We then had a class discussion on migration, which I found really good as we were able to ask questions as we went along and the teacher asked us questions. The teacher then asked us to complete a 15-minute presentation in response to a question the teacher provided to us. We were able to complete the task in groups. I was a bit nervous completing the task because we were in groups and blogging is new to me. I found that working in a group was a positive experience because we were able to gather enough information and were able to work together in developing our ideas. Everyone had an opinion on the matter so we were able to discuss everyone’s ideas and put them into our presentation. We were also able to see the other group’s presentation on the same topic as ours and it was interesting to see how they formed their ideas. I think this allowed me to better my understanding of the topic. Overall, I think this activity really worked for me, as I was able to work with other students, which broadened our understandings.

Blog Post 1: Migration and Settlement in Australia

Blog Posting 1:

1)    Based on what you already know, what do you think are some reasons people might want to explore other parts of the world?

Find, explore and experience new things

2)    Based on what we have learned about Aboriginal people in Australia, how do you think their way of life might have changed when settlers from other parts of the world arrived? 

Everything would have changed, competition for food and land.

Assessment 1: Reflective Synopsis

The current generation of students we teach are very different to those before them. Today’s students represent the first generations to grow up with digital technology (Prenksy, 2001, p. 1). For this reason, it is essential that teachers use instructional approaches enhanced by the use of technology to engage, enrich and encompass learning in pedagogically comprehensive, flexible and advanced ways.  A big concern with using digital technology and information communication technologies (ICTs) in the classroom is the legal, safe and ethical issues that may arise. However, this can be overcome by understanding the restrictions and privacy options available in these ICTs.

There are hundreds of different ICTs teachers can use to engage students effectively.  During the first seven weeks of this course, I have explored and reflected on some of the ICTs available to teachers and students. From this learning experience I have discovered one of ICTs greatest attributes is its flexibility in adapting to the contemporary classroom. When applied correctly and effectively, this can enhance leaner experiences and allows teachers to improve on their pedagogies and create an engaging environment for their students. The implementation of ICT across the board in educational environments also allows teachers to enrich and transform curriculum development and progress, content, delivery and presentation, access, participation and collaboration and lastly, assessment. This can be viewed in my previous blog postings over the past several weeks.

Integrating and/or combining digital technologies with past pedagogical practices will also have a learner-centered approach meaning personalised and realistic learning approaches for students. As a result of this, students are challenged based on their levels of learning and ability and are encouraged to use higher order thinking skills that many teachers seek after. Another one of ICTs greatest attributes is the ability to collaborate with other learners. This allows students the opportunity to take responsibility for both their learning and the learning of others. Students are able to develop their own perspectives and view others, which would give them a broader understanding of the topic at hand. Students are able to engage with multiple perspectives on a local, national and even global scale.

In order to use digital pedagogies effectively, teachers could use a specific framework, or scaffold, to not only select appropriate ICT material, but also to engage students to use higher order thinking skills. In this course, we have used both Blooms Cognitive Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) and the SAMR model (Hogan, 2011). You can view models of Blooms pedagogical framework and the SAMR model in any of my blog postings over the past seven weeks for this course By using frameworks in ICT, learning becomes more scaffolded and allows the opportunity for redefinition in order to establish higher order thinking in our students. This blog experience has been an excellent example of using framework and presenting in ICT format. I strongly believe that I would not have learnt as much without using Blooms Taxonomy and the SAMR model in this course.

As stated earlier, legal, safe and ethical issues are a big concern for teachers, and pre-service teachers, incorporating digital technologies into their learning pedagogies. Generally speaking, many schools and departments will already have policies or codes in place to assist teachers in making informed decisions. In conjunction with these codes, teachers should model correct practices and remind students of what is expected of them in terms of being safe and legal on the Internet. Specifically, my plan is to moderate the risk to students through careful planning, current information and awareness. It is impossible to say that all risks would be diminished by doing this, and honestly, there is no way we could be completely satisfied that there were no risks, but by doing this and adhering to school policies and government laws (for example, copyright laws), I can at least reduce that risk. As a part of this, I will need to ensure that all students are up-to-date with the correct referencing techniques, what they can and cannot use (for example images of people), how to use these, and unfortunately, the consequences if they don’t adhere to the policies correctly. Obviously we want our students to be safe on the Internet, however this is hard to monitor as the Internet is a dangerous place. Schools generally limit what students can access on the Internet whilst in the school environment. By ensuring students understand how they can be safe on the Internet; we should be able to slowly diminish the risks. For example, social media plays a big role in cyber-bullying and by creating what I’d call workshops to help students best understand how they can help themselves at home by making sure they keep their conversations private, make no derogatory comments or post derogatory photos etcetera. From a teacher’s point of view, we don’t have much control over what they do on social media but we can help them understand how they can avoid bad situations. All of the ideas presented above also tie into ethical issues for using ICTs in pedagogical practices. To reiterate, we need to ensure students know when and how to use the Internet.

Although there is still much to learn in regards to using digital technologies and ICTs in the classroom, these course learning’s have greatly assisted me in understanding digital pedagogy and the legal, safety ethical implications. Key themes discovered throughout this experience include ICTs flexibility, enhancing learning experience, higher order thinking, enhancing pedagogy, learner-centered learning, collaboration and frameworks. In this reflection I have discussed these key themes and the legal, safe and ethical issues that arise in this reflection. In this digital age, teachers need to use digital tools available to effective engage and enhance the learning experience for all students.

Bloom, B. (1956). Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/-donclark/hrd/bloom.html#cognitive

Hogan, L. (2011). SAMR – A Model for Instructional Technology Use [VIDEO]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=519&v=Pro9cfp2baA

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001. Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Assessment 1: Reflection Task 6 - My experience

Over the past seven weeks, we have explored numerous information communication technologies (ICTs) that can be used in contemporary classrooms and reflected on five ICTs specifically in a weekly blog posting.  In this week’s task, I will reflect on my first ever experience with blogging, as well as, the benefits and drawbacks of using blogging.

I endeavored to challenge myself in this course by exploring and using different ICTs I wouldn’t normally have given a chance. I have learnt a great deal about online learning communities. I must admit that this whole blogging experience terrified me because when I was younger I was subjected to online bullying. Unfortunately, I did struggle to comment on others postings for this reason (and also partly because I was so focused on what I was posting). This is something I know, with practice, I can rectify as this course has put me a step ahead in the right direction. I know in the years to come of studying, I will be using online collaborative learning tools in which I honestly do look forward to.

I kept a list of a few blogs I enjoyed reading including CQUBlogger132, brettcolemanintroduction, and entirelyunique. I tried to find posts about other ICTs I didn’t get the chance to explore to build on my knowledge. All the posts I read I found to be very informative and well written. I enjoyed reading others perspectives on the topic as these forced me to reflect upon my perspectives. It wasn’t until week 7 that I posted my first comment on the blog creativedigitech in response to the authors reflection on their experience with these tasks. Here is a link to the post: creativedigitech

It was scary to think that anyone could access and read my blog. I don’t know about anyone else, but I felt compelled to analyise my posts over and over again to ensure it made sense so I didn’t make a fool out of myself. I suppose this is somewhat a good thing because by doing this I created new pedagogies. I received a comment on the 22^nd March 2015 from “Johnny Lost, wait. What?” on my second post addressing the nature of digital pedagogy and another comment posted by benmccullough on the 30^th March 2015 on my post reflecting on using blogs. Both of these comments helped me in realising how good blogging could actually be for students.  

From my very limited experience with blogging, I have found both benefits and drawbacks. Benefits of blogging include better understanding of the topic, as you are able to draw on numerous perspectives to form a broader understanding, establish higher order thinking supported through combination, analysis and evaluation of multiple perspectives, enables creative thinking, and learning becomes self-regulated learning through blogging. On the other hand, the only drawbacks I found in blogging are minimal participation in discussions or even just comments on blog posts (like myself in this course) and minimal effort put into posts and comments. These can be regulated in some way or another however.

This blogging experience has really emphasised how useful it can be for students. Although I didn’t participate as much as I should have, I have a better understanding of how blogging should work and what benefits come out of it. I will make a conscious effort in the future to incorporate blogging in my classroom.

Simulations, Interactives (or Technology of your choice): Assessment 1 Embedded Task 5

This week saw the introduction of many technologies, tools and ideas relating to simulations and interactive tools.  For this embedded task, I have opted to reflect on the online timeline approach specifically using Tiki-Toki.  I have had zero experience with a tool like this one but I found it to be quite easy to use and to understand.

TIKI-TOKI

Tiki-Toki is web-based presentation software that allows users to create interactive timelines to be shared online. Tiki-Toki allows users to view timelines in either a 2D or 3D function including text, images and videos, create your own backgrounds, whether it is an image or a colour out of their colour schemes and create different categories for stories or events and colour code them. Tiki-Toki allows you to share your timelines with friends or colleagues, and depending on which access option you select, it can also allow you to group edit and embed timelines on other sites. The image below shows you what access options are available. For the purpose of this task, I selected the ‘Free Account’ option.

Access options

Like Prezi, I was hesitant at first because it is so new to me, but I found it to be so easy to not only sign up, but also edit and make your timeline. The software has easy access (there is no download required) and an easy sign up process that just requires a username, password, and email address. To start a timeline is quite simple, you must enter a title, a start and end date and an introduction, but also have the option to select background image/colour and credit, and about section and an intro image and credit. You are able to change this at anytime in the settings toolkit as well as add stories or events and categorise your items. The instructions are quite simple and there is an option to have help assist on or off. I think Tiki-Toki would be suitable for most people with a general knowledge of what certain options can do. I do think high-school students will be able to use this tool with ease. Depending on the access options available, you are able to have a group-editing timeline in the paid options. There is one designed specifically for teachers, which allows one teacher timeline, and up to 50 student timelines. In advanced settings you are able to select your privacy setting to public, private or password protected. To be able to group edit, a secret word is created and all who edit must input this word to give them access. The following images are screenshots from a Tiki-Toki timeline in the making.

Creating a new timeline

Account Settings

 

Time Line layout and settings (note 2D/3D option on bottom left side and create new story on top right side)

 IN THE CLASSROOM

Tiki-Toki will prove very useful in the classroom as it is yet another creative and interactive way of presenting information and engaging students. Students are given the opportunity to visualise meaningful ideas in creative and interactive manners. Tiki-Toki timelines will allows students to present their stories/ideas for assessment pieces, a diary, timeline of events and many other learning activities. I believe that with the use of timelines students will become more engaged in their learning because learning becomes fun. This tool would prove useful in both individual and collaborative tasks (obviously, subject to which access type you have), as well as presentation of learning materials for teachers. Much like the other tools reflected on in this course, Tiki-Toki is interactive, creative, motivating and encourages exploration, challenge and assessment. The following table shows only some of the activities involving the use of Tiki-Toki in the classroom, the advantages and disadvantages, and use within the context of my chosen subjects including History and Biology using the SAMR Model. You will notice that there are no activities for Substitution and Augmentation, as I strongly believe that this software has a significantly improved function in all areas and unless a task only asks you to use text (which, lets be honest, probably won’t happen), Tiki-Toki redesigns the whole experience of timelines.

SAMR Level	Examples of Activities	Advantages/ Disadvantages	Context     (History and   Biology)
Substitution
Augmentation
Modification	Present a timeline of events for a specific topic using an online scaffold including videos and images. Group or individual task.	Significant redesign from written timeline. Allows ease of use of images and videos linked into timeline. Ability to presented online/in class/in group presentations. Becomes more interactive (and fun) for students. Easier than writing everything.  Distractions and bullying possible. Easier to download all information and less time consuming for both teacher and student. Also allows more information (ie. Able to fit more in an online timeline than a written).	History – Present a timeline of a historic event of your choice. Use images and videos from viable sources. Biology – Present a timeline of Human Evolution using images and videos. Use of scientific resources encouraged.
Redefinition	Teachers set task for students to create an online diary using Tiki-Toki to document their learning progress over the course of a specific period of time.	Nothing (that I have heard of) that gives students an opportunity to document their learning progress in a simple but interactive way. Students become responsible for their learning. Distractions are possible. Teachers can monitor students learning.	History – As suggested, students document learning progress. Use to take notes, link in resources they find useful etc. Use as an assessment piece for end of term to show that student has contributed to their learning experience. Biology – same as History.