Google Earth

Last week I downloaded Google Earth to my computer. This is such an amazing tool that can be used for both my personal and professional experiences. Technology is increasing extremely fast and the more I think about it the easier it is to almost literately get from one side of the world to the other with just a few clicks. It is amazing how much information is built into this one program from the Earth, Sky, Mars and the Moon. I am able to take a tour through the streets of any nation in different views of 3D, satellite imagery, maps, and terrain. I can also surf the sky’s galaxies and dive deep down in the ocean. This pedagogy tool is so amazing that there are endless possibilities of using it in my classroom, Google Earth for Educators, shows great examples of how to implement it is the classroom. As I journey through more understandings of how this tool can be implemented I will continual reflect upon my experience and seek out my colleagues’ to gain a wider range of understanding and expertise.

Google Earth can be used as a great resource in the learning journey of the year five unit, ‘Around the World in Ninety Days’. As previously talked about, the learners are required, through the Engagement Theory (Kearsley, & Shneiderman, 1999) to develop an itinerary and then explore each country that they visit. This tool will enable the learners to graphically identify their itinerary as they can save their journey. Together as a team the learners will endure collaborative, learner centered experiences that will benefit them through the processes taught and in the use of such a globally interactive tool that has “over 400 million product activations worldwide” (Google Earth, 2009).

This Learning Journey into new technologies tools is increasing my professional pedagogy strategies and resources, but I must not let these tools miss direct my thinking away from the reasoning’s why I am using them in the classroom. As a Learning Manager it is my responsibility to provide worthwhile, real and engaging resources to my learners that will support them in achieving the essential learnings.

Until my next experience

Kind Regards

Lizzy

Reference List

Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved July 21, 2009, from: http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Google Earth. (2009). About Us. Accessed August 17, 2009, from: http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/earth_enterprise.html

Mahara - E.Portfolio

“An electronic portfolio...is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web (also called Webfolio)...E-portfolios are both demonstrations of the user's abilities and platforms for self-expression, and, if they are online, they can be maintained dynamically over time...E-portfolios, like traditional portfolios, can facilitate students' reflection on their own learning, leading to more awareness of learning strategies and needs. Results of a comparative research between paper based portfolios and electronic portfolios in the same setting, suggest use of an electronic portfolio leads to better learning outcomes” (Wikipedia, 2009, p.1).

A few weeks ago I opened my own online E.Portfolio account through Mahara. Through this process I was charged an annual fee of five dollars to own up to 100MB of storage space on the internet and for a lot more space I can purchase it for a very small price. Just like Flickr, this is like a highly secure internal hard drive that I can access anywhere in the world on any computer. This area allows me to develop my professional portfolio through reflective blogs, multimedia resources, resumes and documents that I have created or are of a great resource. Through the continual building up of my professional dialogue and experiences I am able to reflect upon my learning journey as a lifelong learning. Through networking with other professions like myself, I am able to draw from their experience and shed light on my own learnings as “Mahara is designed to provide users with the tools to create a personal and professional learning and development environment” (Mahara, 2009).

Mahara might be better used in the upper years, as the learners are more independent and can continually update and upload their reflective learning and developing pieces of work. If used in the early years, it would be my responsibility as a Learning Manager to continually help learners upload their learning achievements. I would also up load to a generic site in Mahara the classroom objectives from behaviour to formative and summative assessments. This enables parents to see what their child is learning and the behavioural expectations that are enforced during their days. This creates a synchronised community between the parents and learning managers, as the parents are about to build more educational bridges into their child’s life as they never have to except a non responsive answer when asked about their day. Instead the parent s are about to access their accounts and develop dialogue, past experience, knowledge and understanding of the current topics. The learners then can enter the classroom with a fresh new experience and understanding, bringing a large range of diversity to each room.

Until my next learning journey

Kind Regards

Lizzy

Reference List

Mahara. (2009). About Us. Accessed July 21, 2009, from: http://cqu-mahara.netspot.com.au/about.php

Wikipedia. (2009). E-Portfolio. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eportfolio

SlideShare

The other day I opened a free account with SlideShare. This amazing web site can transform my PowerPoint presentations into a video file. To do this I must upload a pre-created PowerPoint presentation, add MP3 music or YouTube videos, synchronise each slide to create a well timed continuous presentation. This is a great resource that I can you for both my personal and professional life. This will enable my university presentations to run smoothly without having to worry about changing the slides. I can instead focus my energy on the content that I am delivering.

Within the classroom context this will also have the same advantage. To make my classroom productive and collaborative, based upon Kearsley and Shneiderman’s (1999), collaborative approach in their “Engagement Theory”, I can use these video files in rotational group time. At one of the station the learners will be required to view the video file and then work collaborative to make meaning and extended them into a research task as the Learning Manager scaffolds their learning.

The other week one of my university colleagues and I worked collaboratively to construct a dramatical presentation around Digital Literacy. When presenting it in our lecture we used a PowerPoint presentation in the background. My role was to change the slides as it was required. I was so afraid of consuming myself in the presentation that I would forget to change the slides. If we had of used SlideShare, it would have created a less stressful environment. Below is the PowerPoint that we used, but instead I have uploaded it to SlideShare, embedded an MP3 audio track in it and have synchronized it together. The only problem would be the gaps in-between each slide. We would have had to practice it several times to get the slide synchronized with what we were doing. Another obstacle that we would have had to overcome were the hyperlinks which took the presentation to Animoto, YouTube and TeacherTube. I believe that this resource would have been very beneficial to use, but very time consuming as well.

I am looking forward in using this pedagogy tool in my profession as a future Learning Manager and now as I am in training. I will use it to implement lessons and in the older grades, the learners will be able to use it in different tasks, such as presentations and blogging, as the learners can upload these video file to their blogsites to inform their audience about the content they have found or learned.

Until my next learning experience

Kind Regards

Lizzy

Reference List

Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved July 21, 2009, from: http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

SlideShare. (2009). About Us. Accessed July 25, 2009, from: http://www.teachertube.com/

Our Digital Literacy Presentation

Digital Literacy

View more presentations from Lizzysshlidshare.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a state-of-the-art and efficient free on-line encyclopaedia that is being updated on a daily bases. As it is one of the world’s biggest Wikis, anyone who has opened an account with Wikipedia has the authority to change, update and create the information being displayed on almost any screen. This brings a large diversity of knowledge, understanding and experience to one site. As professionals from any industry discovery new information or experiences they can immediately bring the world updates through this technology tool. Recently when Michael Jackson past away, podcast host, Dr. Kathy King and Mark Gura (2009) identified how advanced Wikipedia is compared to the television news. They stated, “the Michael Jackson entry into Wikipedia...has [had] the highest traffic within a day of this showing up on Wikipedia, it is the highest traffic in the eight years history of Wikipedia...Over a million hits almost as soon as this hit the news (King, & Gura, 2009). They also identified that “information on the TV has been incorrect while information on the web is more accrete and more up to date” (King, & Gura, 2009). This fast and effective tool is showing to be more effective then news reporters that I would generally stereotype as the most current source of information. This tool is showing to be an efficient resource that could be greatly used in any classroom, but unfortunately Wikipedia does not hold all creditable information.

Wikipedia’s advanced technology is a pedagogy tool that can be effectively used in any classroom context. But without explicit teaching and scaffolding this tool can be a source of incorrect and unauthorised content. If all members of Wikipedia, both professionals and amateurs, have the ability to update and create new ‘pages’, the content has an aspect of unreliable authority. As a Learning Manager it is my responsibility to scaffold learners understanding and practice so they may decipher whether a website is an authority source or not. The learners will need to know and understand the characteristics that identify reliable sources before they use its knowledge in group and individual research tasks, and assessment.

My year one class is studying ecosystems at this present time and to help me understand this concept better I did a Wikipedia search on ecosystems. This is the type of content that was found:

• 1 Overview
• 2 Examples of ecosystems
• 3 Biomes
• 4 Ecosystem topics
• 4.1 Classification
• 4.2 Ecosystem services
• 4.3 Ecosystem legal rights
• 4.4 Function and biodiversity
• 5 The study of ecosystems
• 5.1 Ecosystem dynamics
• 5.2 Ecosystem ecology
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 Further reading

9 External links (Wikipedia, 2009, p.1)

With so much direct and specific information, this would be a great resource if it is authoritive. When studying different pages of Wikipedia I came to understand that all the information is not all together unreliable. Instead if it is a creditable source, it will be referenced with links to the original authoritive source. With this understanding, I can create activities around research that my learners must first seek out on Wikipedia and then through the Dimensions of Learning phase in Using Knowledge Meaningfully (Marzano, et al. 1997), the learners can compare and sort the information from Wikipedia and the original source to identify what is true and what is someone’s personal belief.

Just a thought, I information is so much more assessable than ever before, then shouldn’t we as Learning Managers and as a body of professionals, be teaching our learners who to correctly reference an authoritive source? When I was in primary school I do not remember referencing or been taught how to reference until high school. A lot has changed since then, but from what I have seen, the younger grades are not required to reference, is this right? It would be good to start a conversation around this, because when times change I believe as Learning Managers we also need to change what we are teaching to help our learners become successful in education and life.

Until my next learning experience

Kind Regards

Lizzy

Reference List

King, K., & Gura, M. (2009). Teachers podcast: Eposide 43, Pt 2 of Science and Social Media. Accessed July 25, 2009, from: www.teacherspodcast.org

Marzano, R., Pickering, D., Arredondo, D., Blackburn, G., Brandt, R., Moffett, C., Paynter, D., Pollock, J., & Whisler, J. (1997). Dimensions of Learning: Teacher’s Manual (2^nd ed.). Aurora, Calorado: McREL (Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory).

Wikipedia. (2009). Ecosystems. Accessed July 31, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystems