Reflective Synopsis on ICTs

Before I commenced this ICTs course, I didn't even know what ICTs stood for! I had to look it up!! Out of all the courses for the Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching, this was the one that frightened me the most. Why? Because I was not technologically savvy (and I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about).  But here I am, over 8 weeks on, and I have had my beliefs challenged, my eyes opened to not only a new world, but it's endless possibilities and I now have a new perspective.  I am still on a huge learning curve, but I can see that it is all worthwhile as I will hopefully be able to use the skills I have learnt to learn more and to better facilitate my students' learning.

What I have learnt is that students are digital learners. They spend enormous amounts of time on the computer, the web, email, computer games, i-pods, blogs, text messaging, instant messaging, and mobile phones, that it is clear that ICTs motivate or engage our students (see posting – “A vision of K-12 students today”). What I have come to realise is that if I, as a 21st Century Learning Manager, don’t make an effort to learn about what interests or engages my students, and then somehow incorporate these into my pedagogical practices, then I will not be able to engage my students fully (or at all in some cases) and I will be doing them a disservice. The catch-cry “Engage Me or Enrage Me” (Prensky, 2005) still rings in my head and pushes me to learn more.

Over the last few weeks, I have experimented with a number of different ICTs and during this experimentation, I have thought about how I could apply them in the classroom using the Engagement Theory of learning (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999) as well as to promote active participation. The ones I can see myself using initially are programs that are easy to use (for both myself and the students), quick to set up and can be used for a multiple of applications. These include the following:

· Avatars (see posting “Vokis in the Classroom”).

· Wikis (see postings “Wikis and Engagement Theory” and page “Activity Ideas for the Classroom”).

· Powerpoint (see postings “Playing with Powerpoint” and “My Powerpoint Presentation”).

· U-tube (see postings “U-Tube – Oh the Possibilities” and “U-tube again”).

· Digital Stories (see posting “Another First For Me”).

· Music (see posting “Music – Such a Wonderful Thing”).

· Wikipedia (see posting “Wikipedia – A Wealth of Knowledge”).

· Opinion Polls (see posting “Take a Vote”).

· Flickr and Picnik (see posting “Uploading Flickr Images to Blog”).

· Forums and blogs (see postings “Blog Ideas for the Classroom”, “Blog Activity in Detail”, and “Reflection on Blogs”), both of which I have used most extensively during my ICTs course. Through this experience I have come to learn that these ICTs provide a great platform for student engagement and interaction. I have learnt a lot from visiting other peoples’ blogs. For example, I learnt about glogs from Carolyne Thornton’s and Sally James’ blogs (I had never even heard of them previously). I learnt about how to imbed powerpoint presentations into blogs by posting to the forum and getting a response from Carolyne Thornton. I found out about bubbl.us from William Sutton via the forum.  I have contributed to a lengthy thread about Mahara which was started by Sally James and, of course, I have benefited from other students’ questions posted to the forum and being able to learn from them also (such as the Assessment Task 3 forum). I was also able to comment on other students’ blogs such as Susan’s learning design where I shared her thoughts and opinions about Flickr/Picnik and appreciated her posting on Music; Christine’s e.journal posting about Obesity where I provided feedback about her powerpoint; Sally’s Learning e.journal posting about Mahara where I supported her thoughts on the use of this application with Primary school students, and Carolyne Thornton's Blog about using U-Tube in Teaching as I thought she made a great choice.

Even though I have gained a lot of information from the use of forums and blogs and I tried to contribute to them, I struggled with feeling like a valued member of this community (as I felt that I had nothing to contribute) and hence, didn’t post or comment as often as others perhaps have. I can only envisage that if I feel this way, then this will be an issue for some of my students as well. While I need to consider this issue further, there are possibly 2 things I could do: One could be to scaffold their learning by providing prompting questions to respond to on a forum and another could be to foster a ‘safe learning environment’ (whether it is in the classroom or online in a forum), so that students are comfortable with providing and receiving positive and constructive feedback.

As well as the ICTs identified above, there are, however, other technologies that I would like to utilise once I have learnt more about them (to incorporate them effectively into the classroom). For example, I am really interested in animations and simulations (see posting “Animations and Simulations”), Interactive Whiteboards (see posting “Interactive Whiteboards – WOW!”), audio technology (such as ‘Audacity’ as recommended by my lecturer), glogs (see Carolyne Thornton’s Blog “There is a Glog in my Blog”), Microsoft Movie Maker (which I have downloaded but I just need time to play) and the use of ipods or mobile phones.  I think all of these would be great for promoting active participation.

Aside from what I have learnt in the ICTs course, I have also played with Photostory 3 (which I am really excited about); I have bookmarked numerous sites that I have found along the way and I have learnt how to take screen shots (which I think will be an invaluable tool to incorporate into instruction - see posting "How Cool - Screen Shots Made Easy). 

I am also very conscious that what I have learnt so far is only the tip of the iceberg (see posting “Into the Abyss”), so it is very important that I try to keep abreast of new and evolving technologies.  I need to find out what my students are interested in outside of the school environment and try to incorporate these into my teaching and student learning so that my students are “engaged” and not “enraged”.

Wish me luck!