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This is Ben and my Rugby Pass – Podcast.

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We are doing the M-learning elective for our assignment, so we have designed a podcast for our students that will assist them in the learning of a rugby pass away from the classroom.

The aim of the podcast is for students to download the clip onto their personal ipod, they are then able to use the clip to aid their learning away from the classroom.
We feel that this would be great form of self directed learning and one that could help those students in particular who feel they need the extra assistance on top of time spent practicing skills within the class environment.

A podcast of this type could be developed for all sorts of activities with a directional component to them.

I just read this article referring to the ’6 c’s of motivation’ as the key to learning.

It talks about how tasks set for students need to be set just beyond their skill level in order to maximise learning. “Providing or operating tasks just beyond the skill level of the students is a good approach to challenge learners.”

Although motivation for completing tasks decreases if the task is too difficult, boredom arises if the task is too easy.. “Work that is too difficult raises anxiety, whereas tasks that are too easy contribute to boredom; both situations decrease motivation toward learning.”

“In order to ensure that goals remain challenging, teachers should continue giving students the opportunity to provide feedback. Helping students search for more information to improve and revise their tasks plays an integral part in the learning process. ”

 The article continues on to talk about how it is important for students to take more control over their learning which in-turn creates self-regulated learning, responsibility and independence. All valuable qualities which assist with desicion making processes and organisation. Collaboration is another important point brought up. Students working in groups and teams promotes communication, social interaction, and problem-solving skills through the collaboration and exchanging of ideas and strategies.

As you can see yet another valuable read for the teachers of tomorrow..

image source – www.flickr.com/photos/91312924@N00/315872640

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=6d119f3d95f33cedb591

Please you must take a look at this teachertube video, I had no idea this is where education was up to or Even going to. The class in this video had been using handheld computers, not laptops as they are apparently our generation and have had their time in the sun!

These students used them for everything including to practice their handwriting “its who they are”. Several students were asked what they like about the handheld and they all just smiled with delight, “makes learning easier and funner… easier to remember things which makes your grade get better”. The teacher describes her biggest impact as being the increase in students motivation to participate and learn, this to me is a massive selling point as we are all looking to increase students motivation and interest in our classes!

The handheld has become their most important tool in their tool box, they used text books as a reference point and then used the Internet to further research information for project work.

The big thing for me related to motivation, was a comment made by one of the boys “more interesting then pen and paper” and it aided his learning as he liked to see thing “visually”

This is extraordinary and I cant imagine where we are heading in the education world if this continues, I would love the opportunity to use these handheld computer in my classroom one day!

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=6b9478bb0512f0a43028

Image source – www.flickr.com/photos/65919269@N00/557840620

Similar to the video on Youtube posted earlier in my blogs however the last couple of slides grabbed my attention a little more – “Teach them the way they learn best, Prepare them for their world, Connect to your students, Connect them to their world..”

Quite moving and really emphasising the element 2 of the professional teaching standards for graduate teachers – Know your students and how they learn…

In response to the post on Drew’s blog regarding using games based learning as a teaching tool. http://dreeew11.edublogs.org/2008/11/05/game-based-learningcan-it-work/

     

image source 1 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/19487674@N00/280763240                                          image source 2 - www.flickr.com/photos/10278395@N08/2183817766

I think this would be a great tool to use in teaching and especially in PDHPE. Firstly its fun therefore the interest, motivation and of course engagement is there. Secondly it can be challenging therefore developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills and lastly it coincides with the digital world.

If all of these things can be achieved using this method then its definalty going into the ‘teaching strategies toolbox’ and i cant wait to give it a go in the classroom!!

A rather different angle of reasons for using computers in education.. http://www.esev.ipv.pt/3siie/actas/actas/doc01.pdf

This is an article looking at how the computer can be used as a mindtool for interpreting and organising personal knowledge that has been gained.  The students (learners) function as the designers and the computer is the mindtool that represents what they know rather than acting as an instructionist for the student.

It goes onto to suggest that when used in this way, computers can engage the students in critical thinking about the content they are studying and act as scaffolds for different forms of reasoning about content. It then talks about some of the applications that can be used to act as these mindtools including different sorts of databases and organisational tools..

Could be a very useful way of percieving the use of computers as educational tools..

image source – www.flickr.com/photos/17731548@N00/2221656599

I was very interested when reading about the different technological devices that we can use in PDHPE on Kristy’s blog http://kris82.edublogs.org/2008/10/28/technology-in-pdhpe/

To think that things like treadmills, exercise bikes, and heart rate monitors are all considered technological devices pleases me very much as i also had no idea about how to incorporate digital media into the PDHPE curriculum..

In Year 11 and 12 data collection and testing for levels of fitness and health plays a major part in a few of the topics studied so without even realising it, technology plays a huge role in this!

Thanks for pointing this out for me Kristy!!

 

image source – www.flickr.com/photos/41894172972@N01/2317171731

This is a good read about how pre-occupied the minds of students today are all the time and how they are constantly connected to various types of media at one time!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1174696,00.html

It seems to be the norm for students these days to be listening to their ipods while chatting on a messenger site in the internet, while researching information for an assignment and completing their maths homework. How this is done i do not know but not only is this generation the Digital generation but also one of an incredible capability to multi-task..

“My parents always tell me I can’t do homework while listening to music, but they don’t understand that it helps me concentrate.”  An excerpt from the article. The family in this article on a typical weeknight has all members of the family off in their separate rooms all with their own media devices. It goes on to suggest that it is having a detrimental effect on family lives, which i believe is very true. “I’m not certain how the children can monitor all those things at the same time, but I think it is pretty consequential for the structure of the family relationship,”

She goes on to talk about how the study that she has been completing has shown that when parents typically come home from work they are simply ignored as the kids are so absorbed by what they’re doing that they don’t give the arriving parent the time of day. About half the time the kids ignored the parent or didn’t stop what they were doing, multitasking and monitoring their various electronic gadgets.

Its a little bit sad to think that these kids are choosing their digital world over the most important thing in their world – FAMILY!! Its so important for young kids to engage in quality family time spent at home but it seems that this is well and truely a pre-digital-world tradition.

Watch this youtube clip – http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnh9q_cQcUE

I think it brings about a few interesting questions about teaching today..

Are we really connecting the outside world of the 21st century with the inside world that is school for students?? Are we actually preparing them for the ever-changing world and giving them the knowledge and skills to move forward with the world? Or are we trying to enforce old-school ways of the past, without considering the future??

For further comment see Annie’s blog http://annieagnew.edublogs.org/2008/07/27/connected-worlds/

This is an interesting article by Marc Prensky based on the idea that students are the Digital Natives - “Our students today are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.” and us as teachers are the Digital Immigrants – “Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them.”

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

This is quite an interesting way of looking at the differences between the two generations. It makes alot of sense in fact when you think of it this way. These students live their entire lives based around technology whether it be mobile phones, ipods, TV, computers etc – which can be quite foreign to most of us, and then here we are as teachers trying to teach them in a way that is so foreign to them – reading and writing etc without the use of any technological devices..  “school often feels pretty much as if we‟ve brought in a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them.” (Prensky, 2001)

How can we expect our students to be completely engaged and interested in the lessons and actually retain any information learnt at school unless we provide it in a way that is meaningful to them – using digital media of some sort..

Prensky goes onto to suggest that the way our Digital Natives learn is quite different from the Digital Immigrants. They can multi-task (listen to music when studying), they prefer graphics rather than text, they prefer games rather than serious work.. All of which the Digital Immigrants are unfamiliar with and have little appreciation for so therefore still teach as though they are teaching students from the pre-digital-age. “…our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.” (Prensky, 2001)

So I leave you with this thought..

“Should the Digital Native students learn the old ways, or should their Digital Immigrant educators learn the new?”