Synopsis

There can be many varying definitions and explanations of what E-Learning is. Personally Queensland government have best describes e-Learning, according to the Department of Education, Training and the Arts (2008, p. 1) “the strategy is about engaging the digital generation, improving individualised learning opportunities, sparking innovation in learning, enhancing teachers’ digital pedagogy and getting the best from schools’ ICT investment.” New and improved technologies are overtaking some of the old ways of completing school work, just one example, instead of using textbooks students are being introduced into the laptop program. If students are not being exposed to technology when they are in the younger grades they will struggle with what they are expected to complete in the higher grades. Agreed by Clarke (2004) there are many benefits from using e-Learning in the classroom, such as group work and to cater for students with different learning styles. Some important topics that will be discussed in detail are, working legally, safely and ethically, collaborative construction of knowledge and the importance of pedagogy.

Involving students in creating and utilising online technology is a wonderful approach to teaching. When allowing students access to technology it is extremely important for teachers to be aware of the risks. Some of the risks include being aware of copyright/intellectual property infringements, information sharing under child protection act 1999 procedure, the risk of compromise of privacy, making sure all students have consent from parents and being aware of what information is being put up in relation to the school. Schools need to implement a procedure and guideline for using the web along with developing and implementing “policies and procedures for the removal or replacement of inappropriately published material” (Department of Education Training and Employment, 2012, p. 1).

I have been looking at many different technologies that can help to assist when teaching technology in the classroom. I have never been a very tech savvy person, but while using different types of technologies I have been surprised with how easy they were to use and incorporate into the classroom. Within teaching technology there are learning theories that can be used to help explain why it is so important; such as constructivist, and connectivism. Fosnot agrees the constructivist theory was launched into action by Jean Piaget around 60 odd years ago and has grown from there. Constructivist approach is not particularly a theory of teaching but an approach to instruction that is now used in most schools. A constructivist view to learning is where teachers can take a step back and allow students to explore their own ideas, contextualised and meaningful experiences; students can raise their own questions, construct their own points of view and search for patterns (1996). According to Fosnot, (1996, p. ix) “the classroom in this model is seen as a minisociety, a community of learners engaged in activity, disclosure, and reflection.” One of the technologies that I have discovered is a collaborative group wiki. Incorporating a collaborative wiki into the classroom would involve the use of the constructivist approach. Students would be partially working independently on searching for their own ideas and views on a certain topic. As shown in the following link http://emilysblogspot15.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/de-bonos-six-hats.html. More detail on this can be found in the next paragraph. Connectivism is a relatively new approach that has been introduced with digital technologies. This approach foregrounds (Ravenscroft, 2011, p. 1) “...the role of network technologies, the connections within these networks, and how these influence an evolving and relative perspective on knowledge.” Recently it has been noted that one of the most important aspects of connectivism is dialog. Without dialog it is hard for students to stay connected with one another. An example of this could be to use a classroom blog. I am going to go into more detail about how I would use these digital tools in the following paragraph. Here is the link to my blog which relates to how students could connect with one another online http://emilysblogspot15.blogspot.com.au/.

Pedagogy, is how to teach; your own personal teaching philosophy. I am going to give you an insight to what my personal philosophy would look like. When I graduate university my preference would be to teach kindergarten. Children in a kindergarten context are becoming tech savvy and are able to use the basic technologies. To help promote technology I would create a class wiki that can be accessed by the whole class. On this wiki I would keep information about what we do in our class, such as what the childrens focus is for the week. If we were working on a particular topic such as shapes, I would have simple pictures of the different types of shapes that can be found, such as square, rectangle and circle. I would then allow students to take out the classroom camera so they can take pictures of objects that are shaped the same as the shapes we are looking at. As a class we would be able to put the images into our wiki. This process would allow the students to explore and experiment with technology as well as how technology can be used in everyday life; students are coming up with their own ideas and questions that they have. Connectivism would be used with in my kindergarten setting, as discussed above I would use a classroom blog. This would be an area where all information surrounding the classroom can be found. There would be links to all different types of online technologies that have been used, such as links to digital tools that could show film of what the students have created, or a voice over of a song. The students can help to create the blog and upload and record any information. Another framework that helps to influence my teaching of technology is the TPACK framework. Koehler agrees the TPACK framework is a complex interplay of three different forms of knowledge; content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and technology knowledge. These three forms of knowledge should be intertwined with one another when teaching students about technology. This would create four more areas of knowledge pedagogical content knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, technological content knowledge and technological pedagogical content knowledge. Being aware of each area will help to assist teachers when they are planning to teach technology. The TPACK framework has helped me to clarify how to organise my thinking and my decision making when it comes time for me to use technology in the classroom. It is evident that as a teacher I will need to have a clear idea of why and how I am going to be using technology (2011).

References

Clarke, A. (2004). E-learning skills (2^nd). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

Department of Education, Training and the Arts. (2008). Elearning for smart classrooms. http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/documents/strategy/pdf/scbyte-elearning.pdf

Department of Education, Training and Employment. (2012). Risk management. Retrieved from http://education.qld.gov.au/web/schools/riskman.html

Fosnot, C. (1996). Constructivism: Theory, perspective and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press

Koehler, M. (2011). Tpack explained. Retrieved from http://www.matt-koehler.com/tpack/tpack-explained/

Ravenscroft, A. (2011). Dialogue and connectivism: A new approach to understanding and promoting dialogue-rich networked learning. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/934/1676