ELearning Design - Assess 3

My E-Learning Design is at http://el-design-assess3.wikispaces.com/

Some thoughts on an E-Learning Design.
Google Maps would be great to have children map / look at places and connect with other parts of the world.
Digital Books in Excel seem like a fantastic tool for children. They could write their own story to promote a point of view, or make a story which has them think of the point of view of the characters.
There is so much which can be utilized using technology today. This course is packed full of tools for teachers.

Reflective Synopsis

What is E-Learning.
E-Learning is the use of technology to enable people to learn anytime and anywhere. E-Learning can support, enhance , transform and extend learning. It is about collaboration and the new age. It is a new way of learning and allows for a great deal of creativity and imagination. It is a great way to help us organise our lives, our learning, our thoughts and others ideas. E-Learning is fast becoming a necessary commodity in our lives as teachers. As in society where we need to be able to log onto many sites now including banks, medicare, centrelink, many government agencies and many businesses, just to be able to deal effectively with them, so we must move into the 21st century and support learning with computers in school. However the use of computers in schools must be valid.

The Dimensions of Learning framework (Marzano & Pickering, 1997) are a comprehensive framework which allow for teachers to check that the use of E-Technology in their lessons is relevant and useful in the context. When considering using Dimension 3 - does the learning extend and refine knowledge and Dimension 4 - is the knowledge used meaningfully it is important to apply these to learning with technology to check for valid learning. Also using the Productive Pedagogies framework (Qld Department of Education, 2002) allows for an in-depth and comprehensive review of learning experiences to check if they meet the criteria for learning that the essential learnings requires.

When considering which tools at this stage would be useful for me in a learning context I must say that digital video would be one of the most important tools to use in teaching. Refer blog reference "Digital Video". By asking the students to create a video they are being asked to work at the highest level of blooms taxonomy.
Powerpoints are another important tool to be used in the classroom. Especially since powerpoint has proven to be more powerful as discussed in blog "Powerpoint".
Wiki is a great tool for collaborative learning. See "Wiki" in blog. A number of pages have now been set up in http://gemagreen.wikispaces.com/ to allow for collaborative learning. This task shall begin in another course and as a collaborative learning tool this is being put into practice and used immediately for learning. To see such learning unfold in a real world context will benefit all in the learning context and allow new wiki users to enjoy the benefits such as; being able to create an assignment from anywhere and yet still be interacting with other members of the group. Wiki's allow for the retrieval of information and the updating of information by all members in real time.
Concept Mapping can be used for early analysis of information to help organise thoughts and then because the concept map is an e-map it is easily changed as new thoughts or information is gathered. Concept mapping tools are important in the design process and they can also be used collaboratively. Concept mapping can help create inspirational ideas and can also be used to early and late analysis of a problem. They also allow one to view a problem or experiment, or challenge from different perspectives.
It is important to be able to use photographic programs to resize images. When opening a website or blog or other site it can be a slow process for the user if there are a lot of visual images or movies which are taking a long time to download just to view the first page. This is a useful tool and can make a site more engaging for the end user. Students would need to use this regularly if they were using images (which would be encouraged. It is important for students to engage the audience and using visuals with colour or animations can sometimes have a greater impact see Comment on Gary.
Websites are a useful tool to be used in the classroom. One of the features of the website is that they cannot be changed by anyone unless they have authority. This allows students to publish their assignments or art works or other works and their works cannot be altered or changed. Students could engage others by creating an information website for a sister school or class on the other side of the world. A website could be used to promote the conservation of a particular animal or it could also be used to advertise products as a fund raiser or to enthuse and encourage particular sporting prowess or other high achievers at a school. A website was created see http://grannyshouse.weebly.com/. Although this website is in the beginning of very early infancy stages it has been created and is intended to be used as a real world tool.
AS we progress into the future there will be less barriers to e-learning. More people will understand the e-language and more people will have grown up and interacted with computers and e-technology from earlier on in life. At this stage some barriers to e-learning are lack of resources, the slow and sometimes bad connections, the cost of technology, the lack of training available to older users, and the closed mind set of those who have not been immersed in the e-culture. E-Learning allows for a very rich experience for students and opens up the world of learning anywhere in the world. It supports the levels of Blooms Taxonomy of thinking and moves students up into the higher levels of thinking by being able to have them analyse, create, judge, select, choose, decide, justify, debate, verify, argue, recommend, assess, discuss, rate, prioritise or determine outcomes easily and collaboratively if necessary.
Swanson and Law (1993) actively purport using the whole-part-whole strategy when teaching. They state that this is a natural way of learning and should be used when teaching any new idea. Prezi.com allows for a lot of information to be embedded within larger information and allows a microscope like view to be taken or for the audience to view the whole picture.
Voki's allow a student to talk without having to use their own voice. Voki's are useful for engaging students who are not able to read, who are audio learners or if they need to have their attention caught. We all like a good speaker. Voki's can be used to explain concepts to the students but would be used secondary to real learning tools like concept mapping which requires the students to construct their own map, therefore using higher order thinking.
In conclusion using technology as a teaching tool is a must for students lifelong skills and to be competitive in an increasingly global environment. However although we engage in the cyber world it is important to remember that in many cases images, expressions, written materials, and video or voice material may be used for dubious means and we must protect our students from themselves and others when using ICT's.

Digital Video

What a marvellous tool for learning. A video could be used as a record of say plants growing in science. Or as a record of any changes over time. It can also be used for presentations, for connecting with people on the other side of the world. It could be used to record events, people, things or places for posterity. Video is another dimension. It could be used in HPE for the teacher to video students and then review their performance in sport and improve their actions or technique through watching themselves. Digital video can also be manipulated to change the way things look to meet the criteria of a particular audience. For example; a video may be changed by speeding the video up to show change over time of turtles hatching out of the sand. It may not be practical to watch this process for hours on end but by having a video and then speeding it up the process can be condensed in to minutes rather than hours.