E-learning

Part A : Digital Natives



1) What are some characteristics of digital natives? (What are they good at? What are they poor at?)

I enjoyed the TED talk by Sugata Mitra, and it quite frightened me by how children of the current generation are able to manage the computer, the Internet, and to find information and gain knowledge on their own without even the guidance of the teacher. However, I suppose that I should NOT be frightened by this, but instead to keep up and move ahead.

I was reading Prensky's article, both Part 1 and 2, and wondered if I am too in fact considered as a 'digital native' as well, as the term is referred to those who are probably 0-20+ years of age.

Rocketboom Blog - via all media info via kwout

What exactly are Digital Natives, and their counterpart, Digital Immigrants?

According to Prensky, the influx and rapid distribution of digital technology in the last decades of the twentieth century has evolved the students today as they are no longer the same as the students of the past. The students now have already spent their entire lives being surrounded by and naturally using computers, having the latest phones, playing video games, listening through digital music players, working with video cams, and having all other toys and tools of the digital age. Thus as a result of this global technological improvement in the environment, and the utter involvement or interaction with it, and allowed today’s students to think and process information differently from the students in the past.

However, those who were not born into the digital world but have at some later point become involved with and have embraced many or most parts of the new technology are referred to as Digital Immigrants. Digital Immigrants think differently and may even speak in different digital languages from Digital Natives and they did not grow up with the same technological toys. Therefore there is a quite broad gap between these two generations.

Digital natives progress greatly and are going to a much further distance in their learning experience as they are able to keep up with the latest digital tools and they are able to gain knowledge on their own. Information is becoming much easier to find on the Internet and tools allow easy access to these information anytime, anywhere. The tools allow them to expand their imagination and creativity, and multi-tasking becomes less of a task – as with new technologies, more could be done!

However, with the rush of the digital advancement, students become impatient and less attentive (as they only want to focus on what interests them). As they spend most of their time wired in front of the computer screen and engaging with people through the net, they tend to cultivate bad habits and manners with others as they may not spend enough time socialising or interacting with others on a face-to-face basis. The overload of information and the easy access to various resources may also cause our students to become overwhelmed and disorganized if they are not able to manage well.

2) Which portrait did you select? (In your blog, create a link to the portrait.) In terms of their digital background, how similar was that student compared to a Singapore student?

I chose Virginia (14 years old).
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-virginia-video

Like Virginia, many students in Singapore may start to diligently use the Internet in the upper primary - lower secondary, and signing up for social networks such as facebook. The students then may start too spend too much time on these Internet sites and have allowed technology to consume themselves instead of actually living in their real world.

Virginia has reacted maturely by seeking back a balance in her life between technology and an actual active social life. Students in Singapore too need guidance in managing a balanced life and avoid cultivating bad habits of Internet or gaming addiction.

3)How might teachers in Singapore today engage and teach our digital natives?

Teachers can seek for various resources and online tools to engage students to learn and work collaboratively for their respective resources.
Some resources are as mentioned in my previous post. However, teachers must also ensure students know, understand and remember rules of being cyber-healthy. Teachers should always encourage students to expand their knowledge and creativity with the tools available but also remind them of being balanced in time spend on the computer and their behaviour towards others. From the video of Virginia, she used the application Woogi World to teach students of cyber-safety/ cyber-wellness.

Woogi World : http://www.woogiworld.com/


Part B : The Digital Natives Future

1)As you look into the possible future of the educational landscape, what sort of impressions, fears, or possibilities crossed your mind?

I do fear that I might not be able to keep up with the 'native language' and technological tools available. However this is a fear I must and will be able to overcome by exposing myself to various resources and to get comfortable with it.

2)What might living, learning and working be like in the future?

Technology should not take over our lives completely, but it should be used to ease our learning experiences and make available to us a wider resource and opportunity for creativity to grow. As we become deeply involved with the digital world, there might be more possibilities of lessons being attended from home or through computer sites where students and teachers may not have to be present in a normal classroom, but through a virtual classroom instead.

Life would probably be even more fast-paced than it already is, therefore it is very important to be able to manage every information and still lead and encourage our students to have a balanced life. Technology is becoming a necessity in our lives, but we must not lose touch with the real world.

On another note, just like how the arrival of photography has turned the art world upside down, I am also anxious and excited at the same time as how future technology might also change the way we make and look at art in the future.

Video Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfV4R4x2SK0&feature=player_embedded

3)How is NIE preparing you to prepare your students for this possible future? How might you prepare yourself?

The modules that I am attending in NIE are co-related where our assignments and activities are mostly done, submitted, or collaborated online. Resources such as presentation, links and notes are available online and we are all able to access them at any time, any place.

Students in the future might also be learning or attending lessons virtually and the NIE modules has allowed me to practice the habit of being active online.

I must also prepare myself by constantly updating myself of the latest applications and resources that are available- for teaching AND for art.

Resources:

http://sue-on-education.blogspot.com/2009/06/still-on-module-2-digital-natives-and.html
http://scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2008/12/digital-native.html
http://www.doseofdigital.com/2009/04/healthcare-marketing-needs-some-digital-natives/
http://neilballinger.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/digital-native/
https://the21stcenturyeducator.wikispaces.com/
http://claytonacton.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/the-digital-native-and-the-digital-divide/

Reflection of Session 6 on 151010

On the previous session, we first entered to the MXL room. It was true to be a room to be wow-ed for, as mentioned by Cheryl. For someone who's happy enough to be in an air-conditioned room, I was definitely amazed; with three sets of projectors, a theatre area and 4 stations, fully equipped with big screens and wii sets, it was definitely not your average learning environment.

Dr Tan has prepared for us to go through a round robin fashion and that allowed us to experience every station (though not all yet).
On Session 5, I had the opportunity to be in Station 1, where we could either play the MacDonald farm or Dafur is dying. I was very excited to play the latter, because it was visually appealing to me and the MacD's farm was alot like farmville from facebook applications and I had enough of farmville. Dafur is dying, to me, felt was very effective for me to have experience, even for a few minutes, the struggle dafurian children go through just to get some water and i felt really depressed after the game yet thankful for what I have. (Even thankful that I'm not living in a refugee camp and I get to go to the MXL lab every Friday ha-ha.)

For Session 6, yesterday, I had the opportunity to play the wii game, Trauma Centre in station 2 and CSI game at station 3.

For the station 2, what I have learned that day that observation and communication is key to improving through out the game and to achieve a successful outcome. As the players observe those before them, they also learn through the steps they have taken. The players who would have had a go would also mentor those after them. The game also provide certain details about the surgery , although we kind of skipped those parts.
The instructions that were given by the game in fact were pretty unclear but I definitely learned to find a solution as I played through it. At that point in fact, I had flashbacks of lessons that I previously had where my students had difficulty understanding my instructions. During those lessons, I felt that I was a terrible teacher for not being able to give clear instructions. However, when playing the wii game, I remembered that my students would understand the technique as they begin to give it a try. Similarly, I only knew how to stitch the wounds/ apply gel/ pull the bones out, effectively, by actually doing it. I personally felt that that station made me realize/remember how our students can learn by doing and by collaborating.

At Station 3 however, there was a list of games that we could play but personally I had no interest in any of the games, maybe because none of the games were related to my CS. (We tried to play CSI but we kind of got bored).
Therefore, I went on to do my own resourcing for sites of online art tools and there were plenty. Plenty that was not quite good.
However here are some that I found that I could use for my future students.


http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/
This is like Microsoft Paint, to create artworks virtually, its quite fun because you can replay the painting and watch the brush move! You can also view amazing artworks from other users!

http://www.nga.gov/kids/zone/collagemachine.htm
This is like creating a virtual collage

http://vn247.net/flash/Color-and-Me.swf
This is an interesting website where it can read your personality through the colours that you choose for certain objects. This website is effective in teaching the topic of Symbolism of Colours and Objects in Art.

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/
A flash based website, where you can paint like Pollock





http://www.picassohead.com/create.html
Having fun with Picasso's cubist technique to create a portrait. Students can try to imitate an actual Picasso painting.

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html
I 'stumbled' into this 3d flash site of the Sistine Chapel and students can take a look at all of Michelangelo's paintings.

Main view

Top View

Close up (Son of God)

As a kid during primary school, my favourite computer game was 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego'?. Surprisingly, I learned most of my geography from the game! I also gained a lot of knowledge of the world history from 'Where in TIME is CS?" , English from 'CS Word Detective' and Math from 'CS Math Detective'. The games basically put me in the profession of a detective and I have to find the criminal, Carmen Sandiego, and to find her, I had to go through a series of games and answer various questions. It was really fun.
In relation to that, I found this website:
http://www.eduweb.com/pintura/index.html

I like this website the most, although its not the most visually appealing, it is also a detective game where students can look through artworks and search for the actual artist behind the paintings by observing and comparing the Colour, Style, Composition and Subject matter of the artwork. I feel that this game is the most engaging for art students to learn their art history and to learn to 'appreciate' the artworks by reading into it.

The only problem I felt with these virtual painting sites is that I feel that they lack a hands on element. Call me old-fashioned but , I still feel that the best tool to paint is with a brush, and not a mouse. However, for Art History and personality art tests, they can in fact be more engaging and fun through games.

Currently reading : Video Games in Education readings. Will reflect in part II.

Diana Ghazali's Reflection of Session 3

What I already KNOW:
a) There are five dimensions to meaningful learning:
- The use of real worls context
- Tapping on to students' prior knowledge
- Learning - by - doing
- Self directed learning
- Collaborative learning

b) The importance of meaningful learning


What I WANT to learn:
a) How do we incorporate meaningful learning into our lessons?
b) How do we encourage our students to be self-directed learners?
c) What is the difference between cooperative and collaborative learning? And how do we encourage our students to collaborate with each other? (Especially in ART class)

What I LEARNED today:

(A)We viewed three videos today in class:
1)SOUR '日々の音色 (Hibi no neiro)'
A Japanese music video collaborated by 25-30 people.
This video gave me a basic idea of collaboration.

2) http://www.edutopia.org/east-technology-lab-video
EAST -- A Way Forward: Tech Inspires Self-Directed Learning
A video of students in the Environmental and Spatial Technology program where they use technology to connect with nature and serve their community.
This video showed me how self-directed learning can be accomplished (also with the use of ICT) through the projects the students have done. The students took a closer and deeper look into the environment and society. From there they focussed on the issues they could find and designed projects to solve the issues. They themselves took the initiatives to contact the right authorities to establish/ make their projects real and all the planning & skills has allowed them to be self-directed learners and become more involved with the real-world.

3) http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/multimedia/video/Video279
Description of video from the site: "The Space Mission: Ice Moon project puts pupils in the roles of scientific experts in an Emergency Response Team after a disaster in space. Working in teams in the classroom, up to 30 pupils use video-conferencing facilities and interactive materials to help resolve the disaster. They must use and develop all their skills as scientists, mathematicians, planetary geographers and communicators."

This activity has clearly established meaningful learning through all five dimensions and we were told to explain it in detail on our personal WIKI page.

(B) After watching the 2nd video, I feel that we can encourage students to be self-directed learners if we introduce activities/subjects- probably based on our syllabuses, and relate them to the real world context; OR to encourage them to learn certain techniques on their own. As a teacher, I could guide them by giving a topic/ or theme (e.g: the environment, or based on a Principle of Design e.g.: depth/ harmony etc.), and then they could find ways of doing it on their own. For example, I could take them outside/ allow them to do their own research on issues concerning the world/ environment. Then, they could look through Youtube for effective instructional videos where they can see and choose their preffered techniques to work on, before working hands-on on their own work.

The advantages of YouTube Instructional videos:
- they can replay the clip repeatedly until they have absorbed and understand the information completely
- they are able to stop the clip at advantageous places taking all the time it needs to copy and to experiment with information learned
- examples are shown so they can understand what and how the strokes/techniques look like up close
- students can revise and practice at home (if they have computers at home or in the library)
- they can experiment and explore a variety of different techniques at one time based on their own pace of understanding

After acquiring the techniques on their own, they can then teach it to the rest of the class.
It does seem to be true that "you never really know something until you have taught it." [Anon] By sharing information gathered from YouTube.com in this way, the class will benefit from a wealth of knowledge gained during the investigative process.

An example of an instructional video:

Resource: http://www.suite101.com/content/selfdirected-learning-for-art-students-a73802


(C) From the third video, I feel that students will be able to achieve meaningful learning through collaboration. But before I think through how we can achieve collaborative learning in an Art class, I have to understand what is the difference between COLLABORATIVE and COOPERATIVE learning?

Cooperative learning is when it is defined by a set of processes in which teamates intereact with each other to accomplish a specific goal or develop an end product that is content based. It is also closely controlled by a teacher based on co-operating skills.

Collaborative learning however, is beyond a classroom technique; beyond just reaching for the end product. It suggests a way of dealing with people which respects and highlights individual group members' abilities and contributions. There is a sharing of authority and acceptance of responsibility among group members for the groups actions.

Now, how do we create collaborative learning among our students? Perhaps in my Art class?

There has been many collaborative works in the history of Art. But what sort of activity can I do to allow this? I am still unsure how feasible it is for my classes, but I feel that this is highly probably for perhaps say, my Art club(CCA)? One such activity that I can think of is perhaps my students in class can create ceramic tiles and then the art club members would put them together and paint them. They will have to plan and work the whole idea out among themselves. Would that be considered collaborative work? Hmm.

Resource: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/deliberations/collaborative-learning/panitz-paper.cfm

Here is an example of a collaborated artwork:

What QUESTIONS do I have?
How can I apply ICT in my Art lessons to encourage collaborative learning? I will think more about this.

Diana Ghazali's Reflection of Session 2

Firstly, to Dr Tan, I apologize once again for being late for the class. I will not repeat it.


After the short quiz that we were required to take at the beginning of the class, we were told to read the presentation slides that was put up in Wiki. Then, we were to discuss in groups of three, in achieving meaningful learning by:
- using real-world context
- tapping students' prior knowledge
- doing
through our respective CS.

By allowing us to look through the slides by ourselves and then discussing with others to come to a conclusion, I feel that it encourages it me to learn independently and collaborate ideas with my classmates. However, I usually understand better by listening and writing rather than reading. In this case I had a little trouble focusing on my own towards the slides. However it was effective in engaging myself to think and discuss with my classmates and after exchanging ideas with them I was able to understand the gist of meaningful learning better.

Meanwhile, we learned a new tool that day too: LinoIt - which is to me, a virtual sticky note board and I had found it very interesting and fun to use although it was quite messy at first.
I feel that this tool and also the MindMeister can very much help me with getting my students engaged in discussing Art Theories in the future and I am really looking forward to using this application in the future for my students' benefit.

After exploring and 'sticking' our ideas on the LinoIt space, we were to discuss and think about what CyberWellness means to us, its concepts and its importance through the MindMeister. CyberWellness to me is the effective and secured youth's usage of technology and new media. In my personal stand, CyberWellness to me is very important to ensure that our children will engage in a useful and safe community where they can learn without risking themselves to dangerous sites and people, virtually.

I shall discuss more in the CyberWellness section.

What I already KNOW:
WIKI and MindMeister. The importance of meaningful learning.

What I WANT to learn:
To ensure meaningful learning in my class.

What I LEARNED this week:
The use of LinoIt stickies, how we can engage students in meaningful learning and the importance of CyberWellness.

What QUESTIONS do I have:
Not right now :)

Diana Ghazali's reflection of Session 1

Through my experiences as a student in Yio Chu Kang Secondary and Millennia Institute,
the teachers of my cohort mainly uses basic presentation tools, such as the projection units or Microsoft PowerPoint slides. At that time, besides the basic use of computer desktops to work on our research, we had courses such as 3d animation and robotics where we deal with technology in other means through design and computing soft wares. However, we do not really communicate with each other or the teachers through any communication device. Everything was being done 'old school'. Project work and group were discussions were being done through meet ups and information has to be passed manually, not digitally.

When I went to Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, I was exposed to even more tools of information and communication where we are all easily accessible through the comforts of our homes. I also gained skills far beyond the traditional idea of creating art, and I felt I have gained far more than anything I could have ever expected through out the three years. Being a 'noob' before, now I can safely say I know at least more than enough, to keep up with the changing world, and I am not afraid to even learn more to enhance the learning of our future generation through ICT.

During my school experience in Chung Cheng High, I was not as fortunate as my other classmates who has been posted to schools where ICT is used frequently. For example, in Maris Stella High, every student have to have a macbook, and every teacher will be provided with one. Information and communication was easily accessible anywhere, anytime. Where as in Chung cheng, I was not even able to put my PowerPoint slides and flash animations in my macbook that I have gruellingly made due to not updated pc laptops or faulty projection, and the only computer lab there was unavailable due to certain events that was going on there at that time.

Though fortunate were my classes was of 15-20 students - which I was able to get them to group around me and to teach them through my own macbook, it somewhat saddened me when they were very impressed even having an actual macbook there. Traditional art materials were in itself very, very limited. So it was very difficult for me to find any ways of teaching traditional or even digital art. Cameras, when proposed for, were given only two.

I feel that I have yet to be exposed into a school (besides nafa, nie and polytechnics) where ICT is fully utilized. However I very much do wish to learn every possible ways of encouraging and providing my students with effective learning through the use of ICTs.



What I already know:
Besides design and animation soft wares, blogs, livejournals, basic presentation soft wares, networking sites, I have learned through our first session, the use of WIKI and MindMeister.

What I wish to learn:
I wish to learn to fully utilize the use of ICTs to engage my students in meaningful learning.

What I learned this week:
The importance and effectiveness of ICT, wiki and MindMeister.

What questions do I still have:
How can I encourage students or fellow colleagues to effectively use ICT in their teaching/learning.