mahalia’s blog

This piece of writing talks about how to prepare students for eLearning.

The students need to be prepared before eLearnign can begin, this is by having the following attributes:
1)Awareness
2)Orientation
3)Disciplined
4)Organised
5)Self-Directed
6)Internal/External motivation

The instructor is responsible for assessing, introductions at the start of a course, offer links to student resources, provide clear schedules and have scheduled instant messaging/chat times.

Utah 8 (webquests) by Thomdcmp’s photostream
(Flickr in Creative Commons)
This ICT supports visual learning. It could be used as a good cognitive tool within the learning environment as it provokes the children to come and have an interactive experience with the concept. It enables the development of creativity by allowing the children to come up and play around with the concept, this also assists them in achieving a higher cognitive understanding.

Technology is being iintegrated into classrooms at an extremely fast rate. This paper states that teachers need to have access to computers and technology (as well as the ability to use them) in order to ensure they are thoroughly prepared for the lesson. Without adequate skills as individuals, teachers are unable to effectively deliver their lessons.

This uses and auditory learning style. The audience listens to the audio material. This is beneficial to developing creativity because, there is no visual representation of the work, and the audience is able to decipher their own idea of what the speaker looks like.

This article talks about how to question children in order to get a more interesting answer. This is done by provoking the children, by asking them open ended questions in order for them to answer in a more technological way.

The reading this week talks about the differences between the generations in regard to technology and their relationships with it. It names the younger generations “Digital Natives”, and the older ones “Digital Immigrants”.

The following inspiration mind map shows the changes in the generations and the outcomes of these changes, both positive and negative.

Such a graphic organiser as a mind map is meant for the visual learners. It organises all the key points to be learned and displays them in an orderly fashion, so as to make it simple for anyone to read and understand the idea of the text. It is beneficial for the creative development of children because they are able to either follow the map themselves, or if writing their own, make it how they feel it should be.

Meaningful Learning
A video file such as this one is beneficial for both the auditory and visual learner. It is a good cognitive tool as it gives some more perspective through conversation and the film text type to bring the point it is making to the fore. It enables creative development by allowint the children or audience to connect with the characters in it.

The Jonassen reading delves into the question “What is meaningful learning?” This refers to how students are being taught to simply pass tests, instead of focusing on the valuable life skills and school work to be learned.  They are being forced to memorise information, without actually comprehending it, which defies the point of going to school at all. As exams are indicidual assessments, children are not encouraged to work in a group format which is proving detrimental to their cooperation skills with other students.

“…learning to take tests does not result in meaningful learning.

In order for a task to be meaningful, itn needs to be:

1)Active

2Constructive

3)Cooperative

4)Authentic

5)Intentional

I feel that this reading holds extreme relevance in the way in which school children are being taught these days. It is said that education has never been more beneficial or high quality, however when school ratings and money become involved, the one thing that these schools are built on (education) seems to be suffering.

Pumpkin Multiples

The above game (Pumpkin Multiples) is for the student that learns from a more constructivist theory. It is beneficial for their cognitive learning as it is a fast paced game which requires semantical thinking skills. It is beneficial for creative development as it is colourful and exciting for the children who play. They are also able to choose what level mathematics they will be playing.
Article: Translating constructivist theory into practice in primary-grade mathematics

From reading this article, one understands that the article is relating to teachers employing constructivist methods whilst teaching mathematics.  The article’s purpose is to determine if the theories of constructivism are actually practiced in the classroom.  The study involved eight female primary school teachers who considered themselves to be constructivist mathematics teachers. There were two teachers for each primary grade: K, 1, 2 & 3. There was an average of twenty students in each class. These teachers were interviewed and observed teaching, both with video cameras and on unannounced visits during mathematics lessons. 

The results showed that there were four main themes that emerged from the teachers perceptions of the constructivist theory:

1)Learning is an active, constructive purpose

2)New knowledge is an active, constructive process

3)Autonomy is promoted

4)Social interaction is necessary for knowledge construction and active learning.

In their interviews the teachers were asked to explain what constructivism meant to them. One teacher said: knowledge comes from within the children. They construct it instead of the teacher being the holder of knowledge and giving it to the children.”

Personally, one believes that children do learn more effectively from constructivist teaching. Constructivism gives the children the ability to challenge themselves and learn through building upon their prior knowledge.  This is very beneficial for the children’s academic learning as well as building their self-confidence as they realise that they can do things without being told all the answers. This is especially important in mathematics as the children are constantly building upon prior knowledge.

The study found that the children were actively involved in the learning process, used decision making skills to solve problems and questioned each other as well as the teacher.

In conclusion teachers need to be able to make decisions based on scientific research concernign effective teaching and learning. This concern will allow the teacher to tell others why and how they are employing certain instructional strategies in the classroom.