My Final Reflection

E- Learning relates to the use of digital technology for teaching and learning purposes. Teachers need to embrace this term and incorporate it into their daily classroom activities as they are teaching children who have been introduced into a world that revolves around technology. The following synopsis will review and analyse four useful digital tools that can be incorporated into educators’ everyday classrooms to enhance students’ learning.

Group one tool – Blog

PMI (Refer to appendix a)

The first tool I have chosen to address is an educational blog, which are also known as ‘Edublogs’. An Edublog is a web page containing personal or general information, basically taking on an electronic form of a diary or a journal. After experimenting with a blog, I realised how simple they are to create and update, and personally would choose to use this digital tool with a class over wikis or websites.

Blogging is an extremely useful and beneficial tool for teachers to use within today’s classrooms. Anything that a learning manager posts to their blog can be instantly viewed by students whether they are at school or home. This is therefore a useful tool that can connect with and update students on current school work and assessment pieces. Students can easily respond to blog posts by their teachers, whilst also sharing links and videos and discussing homework or assignment tasks with their fellow peers. Edublogs can also connect teachers with the students of the class’ parents. By creating this blog, teachers can inform parents of upcoming events, assignments and homework, therefore keeping track of their child’s progress throughout the schooling year. In addition, Edublogs eliminate the chance of students using excuses as to why they have not completed tasks set in class, as the blogs can be used for class reminders about due dates.

The Edublog is an essential digital tool to be incorporated into daily classroom activities as it caters for a diverse range of learning styles. It allows students who may not have the confidence to ask questions in class about set tasks, to address their teacher and peers in a comfortable environment. For visual learners, videos can be posted on the blog, to assist the students to understand what is required of them. For learners that prefer hand on tasks, teachers can upload interactive activities that students can complete whilst at school or home. For auditory learner,s teachers can post podcasts, Vokis or any recorded speech that students can listen to instructions through.

However there are downfalls to blogging amongst schools, regarding accessibility and safety issues. When using a blog within the classroom, to ensure the security of students the blog would be created within ‘The Learning Place’ (refer to appendix b). Edublogging requires both a computer and internet connection; teachers must ensure students have regular access to both of these before introducing a blog outside of school. As blogging is a useful tool to publish students’ projects and class work, learning managers must take into account children’s safety. When publishing students’ information on an Edublog, teachers should refer to the ‘Kids’ Rules for Online Safety’ (Safe Kids, 2012) (refer to appendix c). The Online Safety website supplies both teachers and students a list of cautious measures that should be taken when uploading pictures or information onto social networking sites. Most importantly, no full names or personal details should be displayed in the child’s information.

In conclusion, I believe that educational blogging is an effective way to communicate, instruct, collaborate and display students’ school work. Although there are some safety precautions to take, an Edublog is a simple way to incorporate technology into regular classroom activities and is beneficial for both teachers and students.

Group two tool – Voki

PMI (Refer to appendix d)

The digital audio tool I have chosen is a Voki, also known as a talking avatar. Essentially, a Voki allows you to express yourself through a talking character. This can be done by selecting from a computer generated voice or your own and matching this with a character. You can customise your Voki to look like you, or take on a completely different identity. Within a classroom, teachers can use Vokis effectively through greeting the children in the morning, introducing a topic or recording and delivering instructions.

When experimenting with a Voki, I found the step by step guide when creating my character extremely basic and easy to follow. In completion of the steps I had recorded my own voice that was then spoken by Ghandi (refer to appendix d). However, when choosing a character, there could have been more options as it was hard to find a life-like version of myself. When it came to publishing the Voki, I had trouble embedding html code into my blog. However after experimenting with the blogging page I found at the top right hand side of the box where you post your blogs, there is an ‘edit HTML’ button which you simply paste the embedded code into.

Due to the simple nature of creating a Voki, it is a highly suitable digital tool to use within both primary and high school classrooms. A Voki is a creative and fun way to introduce the world of digital technology to lower primary students and reinforce the concept to upper primary. For a young age group, students could create a character from a story they have written and use this character to enhance the presentation of their story. This develops higher order thinking, as students are not simply reading their story aloud; they are extracting a character and recreating it to enhance their narrative.

Research by Marzano & Pickering (2009) reveals that teachers must cater for individual students’ needs and interests. This tool is suitable for all learning types, as it provides a visual, kinaesthetic and an auditory style of learning. Vokis can be used across all areas of the curriculum whether it be introducing an assignment or calling out sums in numeracy, making the lesson more engaging and fun for the students.

Vokis are an excellent way to engage students in what would otherwise be a tedious lesson. However, when allowing students to create their own, younger children should be supervised to ensure they do not use the tool inappropriately. Overall, a Voki is a successful digital tool for teachers to use within the classroom to enhance learning.

Group three tool – PowerPoint

PMI (Refer to appendix e)

My third chosen digital resource is the widely acclaimed presentation tool, Microsoft PowerPoint. PowerPoint allows users to create professional looking presentations from their own computer. Teachers can use this digital tool to enhance the effectiveness of classroom instruction. Through applying videos, sound clips, charts and images, educators can improve the quality and authenticity of their lessons. In past experience, I have constructed a PowerPoint to introduce a new topic to the class, which proved to be a successful means of engagement.

PowerPoint presentations are easy to construct, however when attempting to upload onto a blog, it proved to be a difficult process. In order to embed the PowerPoint its format had to be changed to a Google document. When finally uploaded onto the Edublog, not all of the slides were completed, there was missing text and images. I gathered from this experience that PowerPoint is not a web based tool, therefore would be perfectly safe for children to use in regards to internet safety. In referral to the above information, PowerPoint presentations are most suited to a classroom context, as the process the teacher must go through to upload onto a blog or online space is both difficult and time consuming.

Within a classroom, educators can incorporate PowerPoint presentations to cater for children’s diverse learning styles. Text on the presentations is much easier for students to view and read compared to notes that may be written on an over- head projector or white board. Teachers can stimulate students’ interests through incorporating images, colour, graphics, action, design and audio effects, depending on the students’ learning needs. However before incorporating PowerPoint into day to day classroom lessons, learning managers must remember that this is a highly overused presentation tool and could bore students. Therefore teachers must include all the exciting features PowerPoint has to offer. This digital tool allows students to exhibit their creativity and have control over their own learning by providing them with the opportunity to design their own PowerPoint presentation using a number of necessary multimedia tools.

Although this digital tool, if not used correctly, may disengage students, I would always turn to a PowerPoint to create appealing, informative and exciting lessons. Being easy to incorporate videos, audio clips and pictures amongst text and information, helps keep the class focused throughout the whole lesson. Overall, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations can be included into regular classroom activities with ease, and has proven to be beneficial for both teachers and students.

Group four tool – Google Earth

PMI (Refer to appendix f)

My fourth and final digital tool I will be discussing is Google Earth. This popular tool is a great resource for both teachers and students, as it allows exploration of the outside world from your classroom or home computer. Google Earth can be used across a number of subjects not just technology. For example in SOSE or Geography, the students could explore a World Heritage Site (refer to appendix f) from both a bird’s eye or street view, and compare how their environment may be different to Australia’s. For a history lesson, the class could be required to research a historical building (The Pyramids of Giza). Google Earth can enhance this by providing students with a visual cue to accompany them with what they are learning. A creative and engaging way to start one of these lessons is by searching for the school.

When referring to safe and ethical practices for students, Google Earth is a trustworthy online tool for children’s security. However, additional precautions have to be taken with regards to searching for home addresses. Teachers must ensure that no addresses are to be shared amongst the students, or posted online. In reality, and as long as these terms are discussed prior to experimentation on Google Earth, there are minimal risks that accompany this digital tool.

When referring to Bloom’s Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) (refer to appendix g), using Google Earth as a tool within the classroom can provide students with the opportunity to work their way from lower to higher order thinking. This can be demonstrated through starting with children experimenting by searching particular addresses, showing that they are remembering and understanding certain information. This can lead to higher order thinking, by asking students to then use this knowledge to evaluate and create a particular topic, such as how their place is different to others.

Google Earth allows a teacher to bring a world of information alive through the use of satellite images through both a bird’s eye and street view. Through using this digital tool, teachers can explore topics with the class like the growth of cities; impact humans have on the natural environment; and the impacts of natural disasters. Google Earth can be used to set the scene and engage students in what could otherwise be a tedious lesson.

In conclusion, there are many reasons why ICT tools within the classroom are extremely beneficial and engaging. As today’s students are being introduced into a world of technology, it becomes a part of their everyday lives, which educators must therefore recognise and provide for. It is evident that the aforementioned tools and other digital resources are becoming an important component of students’ learning; therefore specific teaching methods will need to evolve as technology does. It is imperative that Learning Managers accept and utilise this new and innovative way of teaching.