Synopsis

Introduction:

E-learning is the use of electronics to enhance and support students learning alongside teacher's pedagogy. Students build skills that not only enable them to further explore and understand the content being taught in detail but also skills that they are able to transfer to other areas of learning. ICT's are an effective way to transform, facilitate, support, and enhance students learning regardless of the context. ICT's allow students to further delve into a context or new information allowing students to transform their understandings into new tasks. ICT involves a range of different resources such as computers, cameras, internet resources, voice recorders and interactive white boards.

Students entering the classroom today are the first generations to grow up with this new technology (Pensky, 2001, p.1). Therefore, classrooms need to adopt and encourage the use of ICT's to help facilitate students learning and prepare them for the use of these tools in everyday life. "Computer games, email, the internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives" (Pensky, 2001, p. 1). If students entering prep classrooms today have previously been exposed to so many different forms of ICT before they enter the classroom should they be limited in their access to ICT resources? Prep students are able to interact with and successfully use a range of ICT's to help facilitate and enhance their learning experiences. They are competent ICT users and their age should not be used as an excuse not to use ICT in learning. Prep students are capable and competent in so many ways, however these capabilities are often overlooked.

Students are able to develop many skills from using ICT to help enhance their learning. It is the teacher’s responsibility to monitor and be aware of students' capabilities and adapt learning experiences and ICT to cater for these students. There are many barriers that can be identified when it comes to using ICT in learning with prep students. By identifying and catering to these barriers there are so many possibilities for students to learn through a number of exciting and new means. For example prep students spend large amounts of class time focusing on site words and number recognition, an ICT resource such as power point enables the teacher to set up an activity where students engaged and encouraged to extend their knowledge by turning practice into an interactive game. The blog post power point delves into the opportunities for power point to be used in learning experiences, and its effectiveness as a learning tool.

Engagement Theory:

Engagement theory is based on the idea of creating successful collaborative teams that work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom (Kearsley & Schneiderman, 1998). The blog Engagement Theory explains more about the theory and its components.

Access/gain Information:

Managing e-learning is about making decisions based on what is important for students learning, and how ICT helps to break down the classroom walls and connect students to real life contexts and situations outside of school. It is about creating learning opportunities for students that they could not experience any other way. Students are unable to make personal links and connections between the content they are learning and its relevance in their lives if they cannot see its importance or impact upon them or others like them. ICT's enable this to happen, it enables students to interact, experience and learn from people and resources from all over the world. It provides new, inventive solutions and problems for students to face and conquer. Google maps is a resource which enables students to see real life images of places from all over the world. The blog post Google Maps provides information on how this can be used effectively within a prep classroom and how this ICT enables students to further extend upon current understanding and where their knowledge fits into the wider community.

Consolidate and refine information:

The implementation of cognitive theories in e-learning often involves the use of schema, or mental maps to help organise the learning content (Allen, 2007, p.41 cited in Lein, n.d). In week one of managing e-learning mind maps were created on bubbl.us an online tool for brainstorming or mapping the thought process. The blog post on mind maps talks of the ease of using this tool. Online concept mapping is a valuable tool for information organisation and chunking. Shunk (2007) explains that "cognitive theories emphasise the role of learners' thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and values". The emphasis on thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and values is catered for with the use of mind mapping as students are able to contribute all of these factors and create links between their thoughts and the thoughts of others.

Mind Mapping is something that could seem complex with prep students; however it could be used to begin a unit of work to gain access to student’s prior knowledge through their contribution of ideas. It would be difficult for prep students to independently use this resource without teacher assistance, as images are not able to be used only text. A way to overcome this problem would be to complete the task as a whole group using an interactive white board, then saving the mind map and inserting the images for corresponding words after. This would enable the students to contribute more ideas as they begun to develop more understanding surrounding the conent buillding upon their previous knowledge.

Transform information to develop new understandings:

The transformation of information to develop new understandings can be done creatively and effectively through the use of blogs. Blogs are a way of presenting individuals throught processes visually and enables other to contribute ideas to collaboratively build upon the knowledge of individuals. Constructivists believe that, "learners construct their own reality or at least interpret it based upon their perceptions of experiences, so an individual’s knowledge is a function of one's prior experiences, mental structures, and beliefs that are used to interpret objects and events" (Jonasson, 1991, cited in Mergel, 1998). If an individual constructs their own understanding through the contribution of others thoughts and opinions their individual understandings can be expanded upon, this aligns with Vygotsky's (1896-1934, cited in McInerney& McInerney, 1998) social constructivism, where students construct their understanding through different social contexts. The blog Blogs in Preps explains the barriers of using blogs in a prep classroom.

Present knowledge to an audience:

Movies are an innovative and engaging way for students to present their new knowledge and understandings to an audience. Programmes such as Movie Maker are simple and movies can be created through still images and music. This is a tool that, with assistance, would be appropriate for prep students to use to demonstrate their understandings especially if they are not confident and able writers. Students are able to take photos to document their learning and insert them into the programme; students can also add captions and music if they choose to do so. Kearney & Schuck (2006) explain that outcomes of students video production include affective, metacognitive, higher order thinking and communication skills. This is an ICT that is excellent to use in a prep classroom especially because the documentation of students learning is done through photos and observations. The use of digital video is further investigated in the blog Digital Videos.

This ICT allows students to be a part of the documentation process and enables them to take control of their own learning. Through documenting learning with the use of digital video it assists students to be reflective on their learning (Schuck & Kearney, 2003-2004, p.13). Digital videos promote authentic learning experiences for students to engage in real world problems and situations rather than hypothetical examples which students can find difficult to put into practice as they are unable to make personal links (Janassen, Peck & Wilson, 1999 cited in Schuck & Kearney, 2003-2004, p.15). Digital videos would effectively work within the engagement theory, donate component as stress is placed upon the value of students making useful contributions while learning to have an outside authentic purpose. The engagement theory is catered for with digital videos as students acknowledge the importance of having a 'physical product' at the end of this process which can be presented to a range of people for a range of useful purposes (Schuck & Kearney, 2003-2004, p. 16).

Collaborative online learning:

My learning journey throughout this course so far has been overwhelming. I have learnt so much and have realised that ICT learning is never ending, there is always something new to learn. When beginning my learning journey I had never used a blog before and the experience was new, exciting and challenging. In my first blog I talk of my first impressions of blogs and where I hope the experience leads me.

In my week two blog I talked about wikis and websites and at first it seemed like these resources were exciting and new but I personally did not feel that I could use these ICT's to facilitate my own learning. How wrong was I. I have used websites to present and complete two group assignments just this term in other areas of learning. They are such an easy resource to use and all members of the group were able to make contributions to our learning without having to continually meet face to face. We then used our websites to present our findings instead of power point. Once I begun exploring the resources independently, away from class, I became more inquistive and excited to use the resources to enhance the learning not only for me but also students in my classroom. In my Prac class of prep students I am always looking for possibilities to incorporate ICT into learning experiences to enhance students learning and to engage them in otherwise limited interactive lessons.

Collaborative learning is important in all areas of learning as it enable students to effectively communicate and participate with other class members and peers. Through collaboration students are able to build understandings and knowledge, and construct new knowledge through the assistance of peers. Dillenbourg & Schneider (1995, cited in Curtis & Lawsom, 2001) describe collaborative learning situations to be where "...two or more subjects build synchronously and interactively a joint solution to come problem". There is an emphasis on the extent and quality of the exchanges that occur within groups of students in collaborative environments. According to Curtis & Schneider (2001) collaborative online learning eliminates off task activity and enhances the development of collaborative learning skills such as negotiation. Throughout this course I spent time not only creating my blog bit it is also important to work collaboratively with peers the comments blog is a record of comments and replies that I have made to my peers.

Conclusion:

Overall, it is evident that e-learning is the use of ICT to enhance and better the learning experiences and opportunities for students in the classroom. It is about making informed decisions about the use of ICT and the effectiveness of their purpose. ICT enhance the context and concepts being taught in class and provide learning opportunities that students would not otherwise experience without ICT in the classroom. Students are able to be exposed to real life contexts and teachers are able to break down the classroom walls to create relevant and purposeful learning experiences.








References

Curtis, D. & Lawson, M. (2001). Exploring Collaborative Online Learning. JALN Vol. 5, Issue 1.
Kearsley, G. & Schneiderman, B. (1998). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Instructional Science and Development.
Lein, K. (n.d). Elearning Pedagogy. Retrieved 10th August, 2010 from: http://elearningpedagogy.com/cognivist.html
McInerney, D. & McInerney, V. (1998). Educational Psychology: Constructing Learning. 2nd ed. Pearson Education Australia: Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
Mergel, B. (1998). Instructional Design & Learning Theory. Educational Communications and Technology: University of Saskatchewan.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, On the Horizon, Vol. 9, No. 5, October. MCB University Press.
Schuck, S. & Kearney, M. (2003-2004). Students in the directors seat: Teaching and Learning across the School Curriculum with Student-generated video. University of Technology: Sydney.