Carissas E-Learning Journey Sypnosis

"Digital kids need learning to be relevant, meaningful and applicable now." (Marc Antonio Torres, 2009)

Technology is rapidly growing and beginning to take over the world, with the majority of children and teenagers being engaged in or exposed to various different technologies in their day-to-day life. More and more children are incorporating online chat rooms, YouTube, social networking sites and so many other technological tools into their daily routines and no longer engaging at school as they find it irrelevant. Current pedagogy practises are becoming out-dated as society is rapidly changing, the traditional teaching methods are no longer engaging or relating to students and therefore they are uninterested and not paying attention. Students academic standards are slowly slipping away and I have asked myself, how can we engage students so that school becomes interesting to them and they are more willing to learn. By updating pedagogy practises (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999).

"As technology increasingly becomes the medium for communication and information sharing, students need to be capable of harnessing technology to perform skills, such as communicating effectively with presentation software or juggling personal responsibilities with a personal digital assistant" (Sharing Technology, 2009).

I say we need to relate to students by considering their interests and the changes in society, as Sharing Technology has become aware of. If more technologies and tools were incorporated into everyday learning, the children would find school more interesting and relevant to
their futures and actually want to learn, which has potential to increase student participation and academics.

A great learning tool for students that can help engage them in learning, is Voki; a website where uses create avatars and instruct them on what to say. I could incorporate this into teaching by assinging each student a research topic, instructing them to use technology to research their topic. Students could then create an avatar to sum up their findings before presenting it to the class and answering questions. Students would have fun creating the avatar and listening to their creation talk. Being able to create an avatar after researching would also provide the students with a fun goal to work towards, and the students would not see this as purely educational but fun. I trialed this activity with a student and who had fun, not even realising this was educational. Students are intreiged by colour, avatars/characters and technology so this activity really relates to them; the avatar is just like a few online games children play such as 'Club Penguin', an avatar based social networking site. Students are using creativity, ITC, research and oral speaking skills therefore I feel this would be a great way to engage students in a positive learning experience.

After more experimentation and research of a variety of technological tools, I have decided the next technology that I would integrate into teaching is podcasts; I find them useful as not only can teachers view other podcasts, but they can create their own for their students. I would use podacsts as a homework task; by sending children home to watch podcast and answer questions, they are more likely to engage than they would in just reading an article with questions. Podcasts are more appealing, attention-grabbing and full of colour. They are also not something students associate with education as they use itunes/podcasts as a recreational activity. This same activity could be used with YouTube, which could also be used for research assignments, investigations and to begin lessons and introduce new topics.

Much to my surprise, I have found email a valuable classroom tool. Throughout this course I have communicated over email with lecturers, peers, admin, etc. and found it very valuable. Students need to learn how to use this valuable tool for their futures. I have never looked at email as an educational resouce until now, when I have realised its importance. Students could email teachers asking for help with homework, email peers regarding group assignments, etc; there are so many potentials.

Forums could also be introduced to students, one set up specifically for each class and used for classmates to post homework questions. Some students may not complete homework because they are too embarrassed/shy to ask for help; if there was a forum, students would be more confident in asking for help over the Internet and get a confidence boost when they're able to answer another's questions. It would also improve students communication, ITC, grammer, punctuation, spelling and typing skills in the process of engaging them; engaging students being very important in the 21st century. (Prensky, 2006)

As a teacher I'd also use TeacherTube as there are some really great ideas of learning activities to be found. Teachers are under constant pressure from students to create fun, engaging learning activities and sometimes strained for ideas so this website is ideal. There are numerous categories for a range of year levels, it would be impossible not to find some inspiration. Viewers can also get in contact with the videos creator which could have interesting opportunities to share teaching experiences, concepts and ideas.

Although there's many other tools I'd love to use in the classroom, I will finish with just discussing music from itunes as if I named all the other tools I'd be here forever! Music could be introduced as an art activity where I'd give students coloured crayons and paper, play music and ask students to draw what they feel. Throughout this I would change songs to different genres, tempos and speeds while observing the students reactions; not only would this be fun and creative, but it would expose students to different musical genres which they could learn about afterwards. This would really relate to students as many love music, spending much free time on itunes downloading fresh songs and YouTube watching new music videos. This would really relate to students and engage them, making them focused and willing to participate. (Prensky, 2006)

Overall, I must say my e-learning journey has been a positive learning experience and really opened my eyes to the world of e-learning in the classroom. Prior to this journey, I was completely unaware that e-learning is so critical to classroom environments and children's learning. I am now aware that in order to engage students we need to be aware that technology plays a critical role in students lives, their future lives and the workforce. After this study I can now see how e-learning needs to be applied in classrooms, as shown by the activities I have suggested. Current/future pedagogy professionals need to do everything we can to engage our young digital natives (Green, Hannon, 2007). After investigating and experimenting with many different technologies, my experience and knowledge of e-learning and its incorporation into pedagogy practises has really progressed, as I hope it continues to along this learning journey that i have embarked upon.

REFERENCES

Anderson, Carl, Why We Need Technology in Education, 2007, Accessed August 21 2009, http:www.youtube.com/watch?v+_VnHdqpE4RM&feature=related

Kearsley, G & Shneiderman, B. (1999) Engagement Theory: A framwork for technology-based teaching and learning. Retreived 16 August 2009, http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

L. Tyler, ITC Literacy: Equipping Students to Succeed in an Information-Rich Technology based Society University of South Carolina, Accessed 16 August 2009, Copyright 2009, http://www.sc.edu/fye/resources/assesment/essays/Tyler-11.3.05.html

Prensky. M (2006), Engage me or Enrage me, Educause, Accessed 18 August 2009

Green, H., Hannon, C., (2007) Their Space: Education for Digital Generation, Accessed August 9 2009, http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Their%20space%20-%20web.pdf

Sharing Technology (2009), Using YouTube in the Classroom, Accessed 15 August 2009, http://teacherlingo.com/blogs/sharingtechnology/archeive/2008/02/23/using-youtube-on-the-classroom.aspx

Torres, Antonio, Digital Kids, 2009, Accessed August 21 2009, http://homepage.mac.com/torres