Learning Management Systems...

A learning management system is a software application which acts as an online home or book of information and details. For my university studies I log onto a learning management system called moodle. I can find a list of all my courses and as I click on each course I can go into each week's topic and find topic information, readings, activities and video uploads. It allows me to post comments and questions on a forum, learn at my own pace and find key information easily and readily. Wow! Now that sounds like something that would benefit a primary classroom greatly.

Here are some key points about how Learning Management Systems (LMS) are effective for classrooms:

- Manage users, roles, courses, instructors, facilities, and generate reports
- Course calendar
- Student messaging and notifications
- Assessment and testing handling before and after testing
- Display scores and transcripts
- Web-based or blended course delivery
- Integration with performance tracking and management systems
- Planning tools to identify skill gaps at departmental and individual level
- Curriculum, required and elective training requirements at an individual and organizational level

(Wikipedia, 2010)

LMS could be used for homework, assessment tasks, student paced learning, differentiated activities, online learning programs etc. It is really easy for students to log on and find information, complete activities, post a question, collaborate with other students and progress through the content at their own pace. It is beneficial for students who are gifted and talented as they can go onto do additional activities or even start on the next week’s topic and not be held back by other students.

I was not able to create a LMS due to heavy demand. However, I can say that after using a LMS as a student (in secondary school and university) I would be encouraging all learning managers to explore this software and introduce it to their classroom.

Nathan-Out.

Wikipedia. (2010, July 29). Learning Management Systems. Retrieved August 2, 2010, from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system

Right to the Point....

PowerPoint.... what is it? In my words, I believe it is a simple way to engage students by creating slides of content or pictures that can move, jingle, fade, bounce and continuously progress. I have use PowerPoint many times before. In see one in every university lecture I have... pretty much I'm not new to PowerPoint.

However, until recently I never really thought about how effective they are in the classroom. Do kids enjoy them? DO they make the lesson more engaging? Well after these questions popped into my head I knew I had to start investigating.

According to Geneva Baker (2005), students believe that they learn more from PowerPoints being used even though there is no statistical data to prove they do. However, she did find in one of her studies that PowerPoints that include sound or graphics that do not relate to the topic content actually result in a drop in students’ learning. I believe that this means that PowerPoints can be highly effective and engaging for students if they are meaningful, relevant and stay on topic. The unnecessary graphics, sounds and transitions would only act as a distraction and deterrent from the desired learning outcomes.

When I reflect on the name “PowerPoint” it makes me think of a little saying ‘get right to the point powerfully.’ That is my goal for my future PowerPoint creating.

Where I could use PowerPoints powerfully:

• Story/book slides so all students can see (I have used this already and it worked really well)

• Introducing a new topic

• Showing information about a new concept or topic

• Homework tasks (students can open the file at home)

• Assessment tasks – students create their own

• Teacher role play (e.g. coming in as a scientist and using it as an information slide)

• Brainstorms

• Photo slides

• Story starters (e.g. put up a picture or beginning or a story to help students get started on a narrative or short story)

Here is a picture of a recent PowerPoint: 

Nathan-Out.

Baker, G. (2005). Multimedia: Effectiveness in the Classroom. Northern Arizona: Northern Arizona University.

Weebly.

Well recently I created a website with the company weebly. I found it really easy to manage. A website is basically similar to a wiki except that no one can edit it but the creator. This would be better for creating a homework program for your students, putting up interactive quizzes or games or even creating a research page specifically for them to find the information you want them to.

I think that a lot of thought would need to go into the outcomes the students would get out of the website activities. Would learning be happening? Are they going to be doing activities that can only be done on the computer? Are they using higher order thinking skills? Many teachers think that to make their websites or online learning spots engaging and exciting by adding pictures, graphics and animations. However, "creating engagement is not about those fancy, expensive graphics but rather about ideas." (Prensky, 2005) So really the point of the website would be to create ideas… and hopefully lead that to higher order thinking, problem-solving, investigating and collaborating.

I created a S.W.O.T analysis for how effective it would be in a classroom context. I’m sure there are many other points but these are the main ones:

Nathan-Out.

References:

Prensky, M. (2005). "Engage Me or Enrage Me" What Today's Learners Demand. Washington: EDUCAUSE.

Wicked WIKI!

Well I finally ventured out into the land of WIKI! At first I assumed that it was too complicated to do... which is probably why I avoided doing it for this long. However, after my experience with it, I now realize they are quite simple and easy to understand, create, use and manage. Basically that is how I see the steps of a WIKI as well.

1. Understand–“a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content…” (Leuf & Cunningham, 2002). In other words, you create a web page about anything. Then you (and others) can add to and edit it.
2. Create – sign up free with a username and password and then follow the simple directions in decorating your WIKI page.
3. Use – click edit, write what you want, click save, done.
4. Manage – view or edit your page any time.

They are so easy to make that I actually made two. Well really, I couldn’t decide which WIKI site was better so I chose to create two and then compare which one was better for me. I decided to put it into a Venn Diagram:

After using and comparing the different features of both WIKIs, I decided that I personally prefer wetpaint. It has an easier editing process and includes a lot more free features. Wikispaces is still very useful too and it is quite easy to edit and manage. However, many of the features it has can only be accessed with a paid membership.

Despite what WIKI site people choose; I can clearly see the benefit of any of them. For instance, in educational contexts they could be used for a collaboration of class research, communication between classrooms in different countries or a way to communicate and collate information for a group work task. Students could even create an information page for a class show and tell or an individual assessment task. There are endless uses for this tool. I believe it teaches students how to collate and edit information. For instance, a student may find some new information on Polar Bears and decide to add it to their class Polar Bears research WIKI. The student can not just edit and paste the information onto the page as they’ll need to make sure they are not doubling up on information already posted. They will practice scanning, editing sections of texts, paraphrasing, making dot points and synthesising and summarising information. They also learn many technological skills such as how to manage a webpage, create hyperlinks, add URLs, pictures and videos as well as how to search and collect data about specific topics and communicate and share that information through the WIKI space.

If anyone is apprehensive about creating a WIKI I would encourage them to put away their preconceived ideas and have a go.

Nathan-Out.

The Big Six

I was attracted to the Big6 because it is a process model. It has defined steps that teachers and students can work through to obtain good results. It's fundamental values is that is equip students with a set of skills that helps them work with technology more successfully and efficiently. These skills and understandings teaches students how to "find, process, and use information effectively" (Eisenberg, 2001). This is important as the internet has so much information that students need to know what to access and how to access it.

The Steps

Step 1: 

The first step is to define the problem and then identify the information needed for the solution.

I believe this step is so vital as many students struggle with understanding what they are trying to solve and what they need to solve it. If they have a clear focus from the start of where they need to be it is assured they will be heading in the right direction.

Step 2: 

The second step allows students to identify all the possible sources they could use to find information solutions and then encourages them to choose the best possible source. This is also a helpful tool as students can spend a lot of time seeking bits of information from all around the web. To save time they simply choose the best sources and can use the additional time to focus deeper on the information they find from those sources.

Step 3: 

Students use this step to locate and access the sources and information. As the students know what sources and information they need already; this will be a quick and easy process.

Step 4: 

In this step students are expected to engage in the information and extract the most valuable to their task. Engaging in the task means to soak it in through as many senses as possible. This means to read it, to hear it, to touch it and to view it. The further they immerse themselves in the information the easier it is to create detailed mental images of information - this improves their comprehension and retention of the information (Marzano & Pickering, 2006).  It is important for students to complete the second part of this step (extracting the most relevant information) as it will help them focus in on the required task. Too many times students can have information overload. They need to have skills to extract and identify relevant and valuable information.

Step 5: 

This step is called synthesis. It focuses on students organising the information from their sources and then presenting it. The steps that have led the students up to this point should have prepared them for completing this step efficiently and successfully.

Step 6: 

Evaluate. One of the most important steps. The students evaluate their product... and the overall effectiveness of it. They also judge the efficiency of the process they followed. This step helps students make informed decisions for their future practices. It gives them skills to know how to reflect on and improve their actions.

Overall Big6 has so many vital steps. It equips students with life skills. It does not just stop at how they complete technological learning tasks. It is really a good framework for many activities and tasks.

Nathan-Out.

References

- Eisenberg, M. (2001, November 19). Big6™ Skills Overview. Retrieved July 22, 2012, from The Big6™: http://big6.com/pages/about/big6-skills-overview.php

- Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (2006). Dimensions of Learning Teacher's Manual. Victoria: Hawker Brownlow Education.

The Concept of Concept Mapping...

Today in Managing E-Learning I explored and practiced concept mapping. This activity at a glance seems fun, engaging and an effective digital resource. However, after fiddling around with the mapping program on bubbl.us I realised it isn't all fun and games and it definately requires a lot of patience. It seems that when you create or move a "balloon" (new box/bubble); others around it adjust, move closer, get tangled with other balloons etc. It was actually very frustrating. I think that if I used it in a classroom for younger children where there would only be 5 - 6 points leading off the main topic it would not be as tedious. Whereas if it was given to a year 6 or 7 class to do independantly or even in small groups I'm sure that after the initial excitement wore off they would soon get frustrated and confused with the moving bubbles.

After realising it took me over an hour to just make a simple mind map; I thought... "Hmm.. it would have been a lot quicker and easier to do on paper or a whiteboard". So while I admit that a digital concept map looks appealing and engaging (and a bit more interesting than marker on a whiteboard) I do think that in a classroom it could take up valuable time and confuse and distract students. The students would probably be focusing on the technicalities rather than the topic or learning objectives.

Here is my concept map... the topic is this weeks (week 3) overview for Managing E-Learning.

I would be interested in hearing what other people have to say about digital concept mapping. Do you agree that it is tedious and pointless? Or did you have a positive experience? Leave your comments.


Nathan-Out.

My Style...Your Style... His Style.... Her Style..

After looking around at a few different blog spots I have noticed that everyone has their own unique style and way of doing things. Some people like big and colourful, others like simple and stylish. I guess that is what makes this world so interesting. Everyone is different. Imagine a world where everyone acted the same, thought the same and followed the same things. For one... we would probably not have the advanced technology like we do... see we need those entrepreneurs and geniuses. We need inventors and creators. We need people to think differently and stand out against others. I believe that encouraging young people to be different and not follow the crowd will result in a rising generation of innovators, adventurers and Einsteins. We need to make sure not one child in a classroom is afraid of being themselves. They need to embrace thinking differently and being unique.

So if I am going to stand up and shout to be different then I guess I have to show I am doing the same thing. I recently visited the Memletics website and took the learning style test. After seeing my results as well as a few others I have already noticed I am different to others......


As you can see I am quite indeed a social learner. I understand things better when I commuinicate and collaborate with people around me. It is good to see that I have a well rounded learning style... but then I need to remember that I'm not the modern Einstein. I'm not the Leonardo Davinchi.. I'm not even the William Shakespeare. I am Nathan Searle

This is my learning style. This is my style. I think discovering your style is important to understand how unique you are and to embrace it. I would definately encourage all students to complete this test so that they can understand their unique style and start to use it... not go against it.

Nathan-Out.

So, this is my first blog. Very interested to get going and exploring some new technology that will hopefully help me in the future. I am also anticipating a lot of new experiences that will help identify what technology works and what doesn't work in the classroom.

Feel free to leave a comment or share a though/idea and I will be happy to reply. =D

Nathan-Out.