Reactionary post: Serious games for serious topics
I had never really considered implementing games into the classroom, and so reading Mia’s post has opened my eyes to a window of possibilities that are available to students. The incorporation of technology in the classroom is, for many, a mainstay, but the inclusion of educational technological games is cutting edge, as many educators are under the false impression that if students are having fun then they aren’t learning. This is a completely false notion, if the games provided have an educational message. When games are correctly and appropriately implemented in the classroom then students become engaged more thoroughly in participation, gain a deeper understanding of the content and learn to work collaboratively and develop important problem-solving skills. In order to apply games into education, the games must be ‘serious’ as Clarke and Quinn state; ‘serious games recast a learning task into one that is game-like and fundamentally alters the experience of the learner.’ In visual arts there are several ‘serious games’ that can both educate and enthuse and stimulate learning, these can be accessed through the tale website and cover a wide variety of mediums. Now that I have the understanding, I am really looking forward to watching the students in my classes learn through play.
reactionary posting: Are libraries obsolete?
Maree asks an imperative question in her 16th/10 blog posting, and it really has me thinking, ‘are libraries obsolete?’ I constantly use the library, but never as my first port of call. The first place I look is Google scholar, then the databases on the UTS online library site. On my first prac, I sat in on a class where the librarian instructed students on the basics of locating a book. Students were uninterested in completing the task, with one student stating that there was no reason to go to the library because he saw the internet as ‘one big book.’ Of course expectations of the inclusion of academic literature differs dramatically from a year 7 class to that of a university course, but the research skill we learn in high school affect our ability to write and make investigative enquiries later on. With the assumption that other students are of the same opinion as the child in my first prac, we as educators must ensure that students still have access to the same academic literature and edited books that are available in the library. Universities and libraries in local suburbs have already begun this task by including online references, journals and edited organisational and educational websites, but the school library needs to catch up. During my last prac, my cooperating teacher did not to even bother to show me where the library was, as all the books were obsolete and irrelevant to what the students’ were learning. I think that libraries are a wonderful source of information and so to ensure that students still have access to all the wonderful uses and references a library has on offer, it must become digital to some extent. Obviously with copyright laws this is a difficult feat, but even if the school creates a database, where students can link online sites and keywords to corresponding books in the library. I hope that this digital generation can overcome the transition between the tangible and the virtual for the sake of ensuring not only our children’s, but our library’s future.
A picture really can tell a thousand words!
Through my research I stumbled across a short article on the creation of digital storytelling and I thought it was an interesting approach in incorporating visual literacy, text and technology in an educational setting. Digital storytelling is the idea of including a voiceover or voice commentary to go along with pictures or images to tell a story. This is a fantastic way of encouraging students to research a topic, the history of a work, or create visual commentary of the images they created in class.
Digital storytelling is a fantastic constructivist mode of teaching and learning as students would have input into the images they include and the style in which they narrate. The exercise of digital storytelling would be a great way of introducing more foreign concepts such as the Kuleshove effect in Video Production. Students could take photographs of themselves with neutral, happy and sad expressions and link them with unrelated material such as trees or smiling babies to understand the importance of congruence and the effect expression has on the images that precede and succeed it. In a unit of work focussing on the art movement Cubism, students could research the history of Cubism, the artists who influenced the movement and samples of quintessential images that centred around the work. These images could be sourced from internet sites such as Google images or official websites dedicated to the artist. If the student wanted to, they could scan images from books, handouts or posters and then put them in a PowerPoint presentation, iMovie or any other video editing equipment. The storycircles website encourages people to submit their photographic stories online. This would be a great way of sharing student work with a wider community.
Educational Forums
After looking through everyone’s immersion activities, (all of which were fantastic, go us!) I found something that really appealed to me, and that was Amina and Elissa’s Ning sites. Ning is an online forum where students are encouraged to participate online, work collaboratively on ideas in any KLA (they chose visual arts) and share their ideas and artworks along with websites they may find interesting or relevant to the topic. It is also a great medium for educators to connect with their students, as teachers could comment online to student feedback, post assignments online and encourage students to share their work. I found it incredibly exciting to see that students can participate in online debates with fellow students, and with the wider community. The best part about it is that the creator of the site (the teacher) has to invite participants to join, so the site remains safe from outside influences. It is a fantastic opportunity for students to not only share ideas and concepts, but to also link in with students around the state, country and world. This allows students the ability to experience art from other cultures, as well as differing peoples’ opinions of art theory and ideas. It is not just a place where students share dialogue, as students can upload their videos, artworks and images, and this can be done through a variety of means, from Photoshop jpgs, to QuickTime and YouTube files. What I really feel students will gain from this is the ability to see how art theory and real life experiences begin to intertwine. I decided that this was definitely something I wanted to be a part of, so as well as becoming a member of both their sites, I also created my own, check out: http://visualartsstage456.ning.com/
iPods in the classroom
After reading the short response on Nico’s blog, I was intrigued and decided to investigate the introduction of iPods in the classroom for myself. WOW! Mr Teacher makes a very convincing argument about the legitimacy of engaging students in maths and science by allowing them to have creative input in the creation of a podcast of the vocabulary relevant to the science and maths KLAs. I think that this is a fantastic way of both teaching content and engaging students as students are given a voice, literally, in the way they learn. The inclusion of the iPod as a teaching tool allows students to listen to vocabulary and concepts whilst working on other things, therefore catering to their ability to utilise more than one sense and allow them to multitask. As Mr Teacher states; ‘traditionally, vocabulary is often taught by presenting kids with a list of words and having them memorise it and regurgitate it for a test. When students create a product such as a video podcast, they are creating meaning by actively researching examples and images to illustrate the world.’ By recording the podcasts themselves, students learn to regulate the tone, pitch and volume of their voice, along with being consciously aware that they, along with the rest of their class will hear what they have to say, so students learn to monitor and self-regulate, which in turn increases the fluency of their reading. I would love to include this method in the Visual Arts KLA, because despite what a lot of people may consider to be a purely visual subject, visual arts contains quite a dense amount of theory and vocabulary that can at times be difficult to dissect and understand. By students recording choice concepts and glossary terms and definitions, they are increasing their understanding of the topic for that unit. Another benefit of this is that students have a permanent record of their podcast, that can be utilised at later stages to refresh and revise for exams and essays. I think that this is an excellent way of extending learning possibilities, and the trees also benefit as we don’t have to worry about all those handouts!
http://misterteacher.blogspot.com/2007/07/ipods-in-classroom-learning-science.html retrieved 5/11/08
Show your student’s work
‘Showing Your Students’ work: How students and teachers can share what they create during the year’ is an insightful article on the introduction of video production, its purposes, aims and relevance to the curriculum, pedagogy and the overall extension and integration of ‘real life’ skills in the classroom environment. I felt the purpose of this article was to introduce the idea of video production in education, as students learn and engage in a practical and hands-on manner, it can be incorporated into numerous-if not all- KLAs, and the software employed to edit and manipulate the footage can be used on P.Cs and Macs combined, with software ranging from the free downloads of Windows Movie Maker to the more expensive and professional softwares such as Adobe Flash.
I really regret not reading this article before when on practicum, as I was teaching a Stage 5 video production class. Having come from a visual arts background, I was reasonably comfortable with the 4D medium, but I found the P.C. technology bamboozeling. Knowing what I do now, I would have downloaded Windows Movie Maker instead of solely relying on Pinnacle 11, so that students who were unfamiliar with the software would have had more time to create their work and less time spent struggling to understand the content. Of course, I would eventually encourage students to use a more sophisticated program such as Pinnacle, but the easy progression of introducing the more simple software would have been a better way of introducing the topic, and created less confusion and frustration with the medium.
As far as levels of student understanding and engagement, I felt that allowing students the opportunity to work collaboratively with video, to be an inspiring experience for the students and very moving and successful teaching experience for me. Students made exciting and inventive advertisements that covered a broad range of products and genres. They skilfully and sensitively incorporated a variety of camera angles, transitions and special effects and voice-overs which extended their understanding of the medium and allowed them to think constructively about the meaning and message of their commercial.
As Woods (2003) states; ‘When students can see, hear and participate interactively in their own learning, they’re motivated to spend more time on task.’ In both the video production classes I taught, almost all students completed work outside of class time, be it before class, during lunch or after school. They all brought in props, included music and blooper reels, creating an incredibly inspiring and motivating environment in which to work. Through my experience on prac, and further investigation in this subject, I am extremely enthusiastic and excited about the opportunities video will provide for collaborative and individual teaching and learning in my classes.
Digital video in the classroom
July 2003 special issue from Techlearning magazine
reactionary post
Debra discussed in her response, the difference between constructionism and constructivism. I found her statement regarding constructionism to be extremely siginificant as ‘it allowed students to be producers of knowledge.’ In order to provide a meaningful and interesting education for these digital natives, we must allow students a greater level of involvement in order to keep them engaged in the classroom. Just like Debra, I constantly have to justify the importance of my KLA (visual arts) in the classroom. I found merely intoducing engaging and relatable topics in the classroom are not enough to sustain interest. Students must be engaged and particiate in a hands-on and interactive capacity in order to effectively teach. In practical applications of visual arts it is relatively easy to engage the students, but in theory, a lot of students struggle. In order to keep students interested, there are numerous interactive websites, software and practical ways to keep students interested. The biggest goal we should aim for as educators is to keep an open mind, be open to a myriad of different teaching styles and educational aides and be aware of new and cutting edge technology etc to assist in and continue to allow students to be the producers of their knowledge.
Immersion Activity: OPTION 2
Fiona and I made an ‘infomercial’ about just a few of the many technologies available in Visual Arts. We decided to place it on YouTube, to extend the opportunities to use technology in the classroom. The Option 2 immersion activity was a practical and proactive way to investigate how students can create 4D productions with a multitude of technology and software. As Adams (1986. p.34) stated ‘the simplification of video technology as contributing to the potential of production in the classroom.’
Fiona and I work mainly with P.Cs and so our informercial mainly consists of some of the software available for schools using personal computers. Pinnalce is an example of a professional video editing software that students could utilise when creating videos. It works the same way iMovie and any other video editing software does and allows a myriad of possibilities for students to create imaginative, insightful and creative videos.
Video-based tasks are an engaging way for students to express themselves, work in group activities which require everyone to participate and manage the activity. It also helps with literacy skills and is a very different way of expressing ideas and concepts. With the multifarious range of technologies available in the classroom, the student and the teacher benefit, as students are able to interact with the software and the process of creation in a more hands-on approach, allowing the teacher additional teaching strategies, thus creating an enthusiastic and engaging learning environment. I hope that this is evident in our infomercial.
Shewbridge, W. & Berge, Z. (2004). The role of theory and technology in learning video production: the challenge of change. International Journal on E-Learning 391), (Jan-March 2004), 31-40.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb0-C-jNxdI
Digital Video Goes to School
The article ‘Digital Video Goes to School’ focusses on how the availability and accessibility that mini dv, video cameras and computer editing software allows has revolutionised teaching and education. This generation of students live in an increadingly visual world, and so the incorpration of video cameras and editing softwares encourages another way of thinking and teaching students in several different KLAs. One of the original focuses on video art was to capture the ephemeral, the performance and the moving image, and this still has relevanc in classrooms today. Students are encouraged to use video cameras in english to increase visual literacy skills, in history, to capture a documentary style interview, Science, to capture erosion and experiements etc, and of course in Visual Arts, to capture performance art, to document an artist’s practice, to create a short film clip, video, short film or stop-motion video. The whole prupose of video art in education according to the article is to “encourage the use of video in inquiry-based learning throughout education” (Hoffenberg, H. & Handler, M. 2001 p.12) The video camera has many functions in a multitude of classrooms, including;
* capturing the best in e-learing environments in exemplary classrooms
* the creation of video-editing and music compositon
* student planned overviews of unit plans on Greek Mythology.
The video camera in the classroom allows for several different teaching and learning styles within the classroom as well, including lecture, collaborative, discovery, group and indivdual work. Utilising the video camera for a unit of work allows students to create work that is meaningful to them, allows them to work at their own pace and provides them with important skills in time management, problem solving and investigative skill. As Hoffenberg, H. & Handler, M. 2001 p.15 state ‘Many of us have also found this resource equally useful in the hands of a good teacher to encourage students in new ways. Meaningful tools in the hands of students create lifelong learners, preparing our students for the challenges they will face in a digital world.’
reactionary posting
In response to Basil Capizzi (Group 3) and Paul Gray (Group 4) response, I found your statement that ‘students’ don’t see technology as revolutionary’ quite insightful, as we are all grappling with the concept of teaching and making each lesson interesting and meaningful by incorporating technology, hypertext links that the students can follow, intereactive websites to keep them amused and at the same time educating them, the students all see it as the norm, even blase. I think that in order to make the most of the technology available, teachers must find a way to make meaningful and justifiable links between the subject being taught and the technology implemented. I love the idea about recording books and creating them as mpg files so that the students can listen to them. I think that teachers don’t necessarily need to be constantly on the cutting edge of latest technological developments to be good teachers, they need to know how to get through to the students, using the technology available, and making the topic interesting, meaningful and stimulating.
I thought I would answer some of the questions you listed in your questionaire including;
* what percentage of students do you encounter that you would consider computer literate? During prac, I was asked to teach digital photography and video production (I’m from the visual arts KLA) and I was astounded at the number of students who found locating software and importing images extremely high, with only 3 or 4 of the students relatively computer literate. As Amina states in her posting, many of the students may be labled digital natives because they are young and immersed in technology, but many are unaware and unable to reference and use it to the best of their ability.
* what technology areas do you find the majority of students engage in? I found that the only things students were interested in were bebo, facebook and myspace, along with a few online games. I think any technology that allows students to interact with one another is going to be popular.
