Shelly’s Edublog

In this article, March describes WebQuest as a scaffolded learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the World Wide Web and an authentic task to motivate students’ investigation of an open-ended question, development of individual expertise, and participation in a group process that transforms newly acquired information into a more sophisticated understanding. The author suggests that good WebQuests should inspire students to see richer thematic relationships, to contribute to the real world of learning, and to reflect on their own metacognitive processes. I believe this kind of ICT provides a prime example of how technology can be integrated into the learning experience, rather than just using technology for the sake of using technology.

In her post in reaction to this article, Naomi Iwaguchi also supports the use of Webquests as a way of creating soundly scaffolded lessons using ICT.  However Naomi also mentions:

How technology motivated students and that made me think that whether students participate the lessons or not is really depending on that whether the lesson is interesting for them or not. In other words, if the lesson is attractive, all students actually wanted to join that.

I do not necessarily agree with this statement and believe that technology should be used to motivate students, but it should be motivating because it is engaging and relevant to learning, not because Technology provides an attractive teaching medium.

(http://naomiiwaguchi.edublogs.org/2008/11/06/the-learning-power-of-webquest/)

In this article Rieber suggests that the phenomenon of play is proposed as a legitimate goal for interactive multimedia learning environments. Play offers a means for understanding motivation and learning in a holistic way. As has been supported by various articles also reviewed on this blog, serious play is not easy to achieve, but the reward is an intense and satisfying experience for both students and teachers. Reiber’s purpose is to call for designers and teachers to use play as an important benchmark for evaluating the learning environments they create or use. The author puts the importance of motivational outcomes on an equal standing as cognitive ones, something that is constantly mentioned in educational psychology literature, but yet surprisingly few connections have been made between this and the use of interactive media and games in the classroom.

The goals of education today are much different than they were even 25 years ago. It is clear that expecting everyone to learn the same thing, in the same way, at the same time is not supported by anything we know about learning and cognition. Rieber highlights that we know how to teach, how to learn, how to play, but we don’t know how to manage school’s resources — people, curricula, technology, time, etc. — to capitalize on the diversity of our students to bring out their natural learning abilities. This gap between what we know, and what we ultimately need to action, and how is the biggest challenge facing today’s generation of teachers.

I found Trent Wilson’s reaction to this article interesting also, in which he discusses his own motivation for pursuing his own learning as a student. This has made him more mindful of how he will engage and motivate his own students through the use of interactive media and gaming:

http://tewilson.edublogs.org/2008/10/29/serious-play-d/

This video discusses the use and design of games as a learning tool.  The video discusses the idea that games put people in the situation where they can actual experience the things they need to learn rather than just imagine them.  Students are able to explore simulated environments and see things that you wouldn’t be able to see in the real world such as cell formations.  Games ensure that students see connections in what they are doing, a key element in achieving deeper learning.  The video highlights the fact that games are accessible everywhere except the classroom, and we now live in a skills hungry world where the economy relies on knowledge rather than industry.

An issue that was also mentioned in the Van Eck article was that they key to educational games is not the consumers of the technology, but rather the designers, they control what is currently accessible.  The video suggests that technology could completely transform the productivity of education, and based on the available literature on the subject this is undoubtedly true.

The video finishes with the statement ‘Good games are really compelling to their players, to the point where people are worried about addiction’, and highlights how wonderful it would be if our students were addicted to education.  The key for future education pioneers will be to find ways to develop GOOD games that fit with the curriculum and can be effectively integrated into the teaching program.

This article looks at the combined weight of three factors that has resulted in widespread public interest in games as learning tools.  The first factor is the ongoing research conducted by Digital Game-based Learning (DGBL) proponents.  The second factor involves today’s ‘Net Generation’ or ‘digital natives’ who have become disengaged with traditional instruction.  The third factor is the increased popularity of games, which currently accounts for a $10 billion per year industry.  A majority of people believe that games are engaging, can be effective and have a place in learning. However there is little research actually explaining why DGBL is engaging and effective and there is no practical guidance in regards to how games can be integrated into the learning process to maximise their learning potential.  This article looks at several issues in relation to bridging this gap.  Thus far the majority of digital based learning designed by academics could be described as boring and drill based learning.  Van Eck discusses Piaget’s idea that intellectual maturation over the lifespan of the individual depends on the cycle of assimilation and accommodation and that cognitive disequilibrium is the key to this process.  Games embody this process of cognitive disequilibrium and resolution.  Interacting with a game requires a constant cycle of hypothesis formulation, testing and revision. 

Van Eck recommends the use of Commercial off-the-shelf digital game-based learning (COTS DGBL), which involves taking existing games, not necessarily developed as learning games, and using them in the classroom.  In this approach, the games support, deliver, and/or assess learning.  This approach is currently the most cost effective.  Van Eck also highlights a list of five hundred ‘serious’ games, put together by Prensky, that can be used to teach different content (www.socialimpactgames.com).  However, the article highlights that a balance between the needs of the curriculum and the needs of the structure of the game must be achieved to avoid either compromising the learning outcomes or forcing a game to work in a way for which it is not suited, and that educators’ recognise this is the biggest limitation of COTS games in DGBL.  Aside from the practical aspects of implementing DGBL, schools face significant challenges when attempting to support DGBL at the institutional level, which is a constant barrier to any change to the traditional school setting.  Van Eck suggests that the key to understanding the balance between using media in the traditional classroom setting lies in the difference between use and integration of media.  This has been highlighted in several articles in relation to using ICT effectively in the classroom.  In order to use DGBL effectively in the classroom, teachers must think actively about how it can be integrated into the curriculum and teaching program.

This website is an online learning community offering free games for Japanese alphabet symbols like hiragana, katakana and kanji. The games are custom made for people learning the Japanese alphabet. This site also offers lessons on how to speak the Japanese language, vocabulary, Japanese phrases, commonly used Japanese greetings, daily expressions, knowing the day of the week, month, year (date), counting numbers, and reading Japanese time.

One problem with Japanese early language learners is learning the various scripts, especially Hiragana and Katakana. To learn them effectively requires a substantial amount of drilling and repetition, however this can be very boring. Regardless, in order to progress with learning it is vital that the students are proficient in both scripts. I faced this issue with my Year Eight students in my first practicum. The problem was attempting to get the students to practice their script while still keeping them interested and engaged. This highlights the notion of addressing different learning styles and interests within the classroom, as well as the fact the current generation of students require a variety of media to be used in order to keep them engaged. Hess & Madansky (2007) highlight the fact Technology and media are constant companions for the young generation of today. Multitasking and simultaneous media usage are as normal as breathing, a phenomenon also known as Media Meshing. Compared to past generations of students, today’s youth are exposed to multiple stimuli simultaneously and the traditional classroom setting is no longer appropriate. The use of learning strategies aligned with various learning styles such as kinaesthetic, visual etcetera is likely to lead to persistence in learning tasks, a deeper approach to learning, active learning and effective metacognition (Baume & Flemmimg, 2007). By using web based resources in conjunction with flashcards, games and activities, a teacher is able to reach a wider variety of learners, as well as make the students more relevant by using media that they spend a great deal of time on in their spare time.

For this reason, I find this website highly relevant. In order to effectively engage my students I am going to need to explore the huge amount of web based resources and find new and interesting learning activities. Educators have slid into the 21^st century and into the digital age still doing a great many things the old way. It’s time for education leaders to observe the new landscape that’s emerging. Recognising and analysing its characteristics will help define the education leadership with which we should be providing our students, both now and in the coming decades (Prensky, 2006).

Baume. D., & Fleming. N. (2007). VARKing up the right tree! HERDSA News. 29(1) 14-16

Hess. M., & Madansky. M., (2007). Truly, Madly, Deeply Engaged: Global Youth, Media and Technology. Research commissioned by Yahoo Incorporated.

Prensky. M. (2006). Listen to the Natives. Educational Leadership. 63(4). 8-13. www.ascd.org/authors/ed_lead/e1200512_prensky.html

In this article, Papert contrasts two ideas in education and teaching: Constructionism and Instructionism. By the author’s definition, Instructionism is the theory that looks at improving instruction as a way of improving education, while Constructionism looks at the idea of giving students a task to do that lets them learn and ‘construct’ their own meaning by doing the task. Papert supports Constructionism as an effective method of assisting students learning and advocates the use of technology, such as computers in providing new things for children to do so that they can learn mathematics as part of something real. This article was particularly interesting in that it was written in 1980 and still has such a high level of relevance to current education strategies and the use of technology to assist this nearly 30 years on. Current literature discusses student centred and discovery learning as methods of creating deeper understanding and learning for students, and yet this seemed to be one of the very things that Papert highlights in his article. General observation of current teaching practices seems to indicate that today’s teachers still favour the ‘safer’ instructional approach in teaching. Papert’s article also highlights how many technologies and resources are overlooked or passed by in education as time goes by. Even though I attended school 10 years after Papert’s article was written I certainly did not experience anything more than the paper and pencil mathematics classroom. I cannot help but draw parallels with this to the unused interactive whiteboard that sat gathering dust in the last school where I completed my practicum. I only hope that the next generation of teachers will not be afraid to utilise every possible resource available to them and allow students to be an active part of the learning process.

In this article, Prensky looks at the huge gap between today’s students and today’s teachers; namely Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Prensky proposes that today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach, due to the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. This is certainly a problem that I noticed in both my practicum’s this year. At a particular school, each teacher was given a laptop computer, which they could synchronise with the network at school so that all files could be kept up to date both at home and at school. Furthermore, all teachers would be able to use their laptops to develop much of their teaching resources in electronic format, and have an email contact for students, somewhat diminishing the gap between the Digital Immigrants and the Digital Natives. To my surprise however, a good number of the laptops given out seemed to find a nice comfy spot under desks or in filing cabinets never to move again. I overheard some teachers make comments like ‘Oh, there’s no use for that in my subject’ or, ‘Oh I tried to use it but I think there’s something wrong with it, I couldn’t get … program to work’, and I couldn’t help but sense an underlying fear of change and departure from what they knew and what was familiar. Prensky also mentions frequent objections from Digital Immigrant educators such as ‘this approach is great for facts, but it wouldn’t work for my subject’ and proposes that these kinds of excuses are just rationalizations and lack of imagination. I am inclined to agree. It is time to take the plunge into uncertainty and bridge the gap.

Hello, my name is Shelly.  I live in Wollongong, and am currently studying to become a Japanese Teacher.  I lived as an exchange student in Yokohama, Japan back in 2002-2003.  I love playing soccer, the beach, cooking and of course Japan!

こんにちは、私はシェリーだ。ウロンゴングに住んでいて日本語の先生になるために勉強している。2002から2003まで横浜で留学生として勉強していた。サッカすることと料理することと海に行くことも大好きだ。もちろん、日本も大好きだ。