Synopsis

Wow, what a journey this has been. These past 6 weeks I have experienced an information overload, having said this I thoroughly enjoyed it and my eyes have been opened up to a whole new ICT world. ICT's are fundamental learning tools for the 21st century student. They provide a vast array of learning opportunities and tools that allow learners to make sense of the world.

I have learnt that there are vast amounts of pedagogical tools that can be very beneficial to engage learners. In 1999 Greg Kearsley and Ben Shneiderman released a paper that offered a formulaic approach to engaging learners of all ages. The learning engagement theory states that in order for meaningful learning to occur the students must relate, create and donate. The use of the pedagogical tools mentioned in this blog allow students to do this.

Depending on what class I was teaching would depend on the technologies I used. Most are appropiate for any class however some may be more usefull or more effective then others. Lets say I'm an english teacher I would opt for blogs, Podcasting, webquests, you tube and WIKIs.

As an education tool Blogs have many strong applications that include:
-student reflective journals
-class website for extra resources and sharing successes
-creative writing space

Webquest, although very time consuming, are a great tool to engage students. webquests allows students to truely engage as they are able relate create donate by using webquests. The ICT learning design suggests beginning by designing real world tasks that are messy and ill structured and webquests are perfect to use in this situation, and an example of this is Scot Aldred's webquests.

You tube allows teachers to upload their own videos and access videos that are already on there. The other advantage of using you-tube rather then, lets say a video, is that the students can access it at home and save time re-watching the video in class.

Through these past 6 weeks I have visited my peers blogs and commented on some of their postings. I enjoyed reading about how they would encorporate technology into their classrooms compared to how I would incorporate it, especially because a number of them are from a generation above myself. I found it interesting how many different ways each technology could be used. For example some people would use music as background music while others would use it as a means to write an essay about music. I have commented on the following blogs (but I couldn't remember them all)
-http://deb-myassessmentblog.blogspot.com/
-http://aliceslearningjourney.blogspot.com/
-http://bronteprofessionalblog.blogspot.com/
-http://katrina-bubbleon.blogspot.com/

I look forward to learning about other pedagogical tools which I can use and further enhancing my knowledge about the ones I have only recently discovered! Until next time, bye.