Week 4

ICT - Blog 4

Week 4 – Dreamtime Stories, & MS Excel

Learning Federation Learning Objectives

Inspiration Task: Dreamtime Stories

MS Excel: M&M Spreadsheet Activity

(Online learning: Thinking Curriculum Tools & ICT)

· Summary of Class Activity

In this session we returned to the Inspiration mind-mapping software. This was a particularly enjoyable lesson. The Dreamtime stories and animation from Dust Echoes demonstrate the kind of successful amalgams that can take place between traditional art forms and technology. These entertaining and thought-provoking Dreamtime stories were nicely accompanied and supported by the stylised animation. Our task was to re-tell one of the stories using freeze-frames taken from the animation. I feel much more comfortable using Inspiration this time around, and was happy that we had a substantial amount of time to carry out the task. We spent the second half of the class working on a spreadsheet activity. It was liberating to learn about the hitherto mysterious world of Excel. Using images copy and pasted from the official M&M’s website , we created a graph to show the number of different coloured M&M’s in a pack. Even though I haven’t used Excel before, I felt more comfortable clicking around to try out different functions then I had been previously – hey, what’s the worst that can happen?

· Readings/Major Issues/Key Concepts

I would like to response to the extra lecture posted on LMS, which compares the way ICT is used by objectivist and constructivist teachers. As a teacher who values explicit, teacher-directed learning as well as constructivist, student-based learning, I can see that ICT has a useful application for both. I’ve stressed before the importance of using technology intelligently, and I think this is pertinent here as well. This starts with a deep understanding of where the student is at with their learning and where you want their learning to go. For example, I am tutoring a student who I have judged is in need of some intensive explicit instruction, and needs to take some time to consolidate their learning through rote-methods. For this student, I think they would benefit greatly by using something like Mathletics or BrainPop, or other drill and practice software. However, I would be very cautious about setting children this work, and would only do so if I thought it necessary for the individual student’s progress. For many students, though, I would use technology in order to stretch their understanding. Simulations are fantastic for this; some great ones I’ve come across are The Reconstrutors (which is probably better suited to High School Students), Calculate your Carbon Footprint, Sim City (of course), and even games such as Civilization and Age of Empire for history. Technologies that challenge students to present their work in new and creative forms are also valuable. My students at the last prac school I visited would create clever Scratch animations to demonstrate their understandings of different topics, and they would use Audacity to record creative projects such as songs and plays. This use of technology makes the students more independent and responsible in their learning, not only because they become experts in the technology itself, but also because it allows them to listen or watch back on their work (much as the teacher would do) and edit it accordingly. This student independence that you achieve with the use of ICT is the cornerstone of a constructivist, student-based learning model.

· Application in classroom (past & future)

I am very excited about the two activities we did today – lessons that can be directly transferred to the classroom are always very welcome. The activity we did today with the Dreamtime stories would make an engaging class activity, and fits well with the English, Humanities, & ICT curriculum in VELS. This would really help kids with the difficult tasks of structuring and summarising, as the activity requires them to hone in on the most crucial elements of a story and allows them to see the natural arc a good story takes. This is a particularly good website, and could inspire many other engaging class activities. There was some controversy about the appropriateness of the stories for children due to the violent nature of some of the stories. Of course, it is important for the teacher to make these calls based on the maturity and circumstances of the class. I do feel, though, that while violent, these stories would strengthen rather than harm children, and I liken them to the Grimm Brother’s fairy tales in the level of violence they portray.

There was some controversy with the M&M’s activity as well. While a fun and educational lesson, the issue of using corporate advertising and products in class bears thinking about. On the one hand, it seems that advertising and product-pushing is so ubiquitous that it renders any use in the classroom insignificant. On the other hand, teachers are in a unique position of responsibility and authority over children, and must think about the implications of their lessons contributing to or perpetuating this. I feel that I would use this in class, but I would consider following up with an additional discussion around advertising and the various ways companies try to get us to buy their products, so the students can start to analyse what is behind the games, websites and other advertising ploys used by companies to sell their products.

· Other Websites/Links

Le@rning Federation: (Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA)) For great ICT learning resources and audio/visual repository http://econtent.thelearningfederation.edu.au/ec/p/home

ELearning ICT Showcase:

http://epotential.education.vic.gov.au/showcase/index.php?showcase_id=53

Dust Echoes: http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/

The Reconstructors: http://reconstructors.rice.edu/recon1/index.html

Mathletics: http://www.mathletics.com.au/

BrainPop: http://www.brainpop.com/

Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker: http://www.microsoft.com/education/teachers/guides/windows_movie_maker.aspx

HyperStudio: http://www.mackiev.com/hyperstudio/

iLife: http://www.apple.com/ilife/

M&M’s Website: http://www.m-ms.com.au

Carbon Calculator for Kids http://babyology.com.au/miscellaneous/clever-carbon-footprint-calculator-for-kids.html

Journals:

‘On using school as an ad medium: THE CONSUMER’, by Mark Dolliver, sourced from Brandweek. (Brandweek April 13, 2009, v50 i15, pAM24(1) 2009)

http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/eds/detail?vid=1&hid=114&sid=947c4fdc-ffc0-46ef-b2c0-6415a66ed02a%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=bth&AN=38419665

Also, from Web of Science (ISI) – , Preventive Medicine: ‘Marketing of foods of minimal nutritional value to children in schools’ by A. Molnar. (PREVENTIVE MEDICINE 47 (5): 504-507 NOV 2008)

http://www.hub.sciverse.com/action/home/proceed (accessed through University of Melbourne Super Search).