In this 21st century, education is a very important asset for the people all over the world. There have appeared a lot of new terms associated with 21st century skills such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), media literacy, digital literacy and innovation. On the first day of Dr. Greg's three-day intensive course, he covered one main lecture on digital technology, and several applications and useful websites which we did in a workshop format. We also have reading materials that played an important role in understanding the lessons better. Therefore, in the following portion, I intend to present my reflections on the first day in the order of (1) lecture, (2) some readings, and (3) some essential applications and websites that I aim to be able to use in the classroom context in my country.
Lecture One: Digital Technologies for the 21st century
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| 21st century skills |
Education scientist Sugata Mitra's new experiments in self-teaching is a marvellous TED talk event. In the 17-minute Youtube video, he addressed how he did his experiments in students' self-teaching in several places in India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Italy and some other for months. The results confirmed that children can teach themselves by using technology, especially enough computer and internet access. The video inspired me to try similar teaching-learning situations in my country. It also encouraged me to try my best as a teacher in any kind of negative situations of the schools and classes of mine. Sugata Mitra's presentation can be watched on the following video.
Dr. Greg Powell also showed us a very creative lecture by Sir Ken Robinson. It was such a great video clip with many creative input features that at the end of it, some classmates of ours said “Wow!” However, I was not surprised by the Youtube video not because I did not regard it as amazing but because I have watched it for several times and been taken aback by the ideas and the presentation styles of the man. The movie can be watched below. Be amazed!
Readings
Reading One: Comparing frameworks for 21st Century skills by Chris Dede
In this article by Chris Dede published in 2009, he first defined 21st century skills by comparing it to 20th century skills. Then he presented a detailed comparison of frameworks for 21st century skills. According to Dede (2009), 21st century skills are different from those of 20th century in terms of the capabilities people need for work, citizenship and self-actualisation. Some 'perennial' skills like 'collaboration' can also be 'contextual' skills in the light of 'collaboration' done via 21st century communication like the Internet. Despite the skills being good, classrooms today lack 21st century learning and teaching largely because of high-stakes tests not assessing these competencies, and because of lack of professional development for educators. Although there have been conceptual frameworks for "21st Century Skills" proposed by several famous groups and individual scholars, the ones by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Framework (2006) and the Project for 21st Century Skills (P21) serve as a baseline for all the subsequent analyses because they are more detailed and more widely adopted. Most importantly, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills which are also known as digital literacies are emphasised nowadays. I agree with the views in this article by Chris Dede. His proposition that assessment systems should be embedded with ICT these days is also much appreciated.
Reading Two: Opinion of teachers towards using multimedia learning package
Nowadays, there has been an interesting research interest in the combination of multimedia to teachers' instruction. According to Bagui (1998, cited in Sharma & Kakkar (2011)), "multimedia" refers to "the combining of text, graphics, animation, picture, videos and sound to present information." In this research by Dr. Hemant Lata Sharma & Dr. Nidhi Kakkar, they had 10 B.Ed student teachers from different education colleges in Haryana State of North India answer their self-designed opinionnaire in order to find out the latter's opinions towards using Multimedia Learning (MML) packages. It is interesting to see the results that the students teachers unanimously agreed on the four points: (1) it is possible to teach Education Technology through MML packages; (2) it is very useful for distant learners and for the self-study of the students; (3) MML package covers the whole syllabus; and (4) MML package helps the teachers to teach a large class. However, they disagreed on the three points: (1) assignment given at the end is insufficient; (2) it was not interactive in nature; and (3) individual difference was not kept in mind while developing the MML package. As a teacher educator myself, this research article particularly appeals to me and helps me strengthen the idea that I should equip my B.Ed student teachers with 21st century skills, especially using MML packages.
Reading Three: Active learning through multimedia by Roger C. Schank
It is nature that children learn by doing. It is, therefore, very important for teachers to take into consideration the nature of "learning by doing" as eloquently popularised by John Dewey. According to Schank (1994), instead of relying on "page-turning architecture" which is outdated and not very educational, educational technologists should focus on making educational software which can make students learn actively and naturally. In other words, educational technologists should move from behaviouristic "drill and practice" model of educational software originally similarly designed by B.F. Skinner to the individualised softwares which can present users with tasks that interest them, allow them to be curious, offer users the possibility of recovery from failure without being embarrassed, and put learners in control of a task. In fact, I can learn a lot from the researcher's presentation of his six revised teaching architectures followed by practical examples of educational software to illustrate each, viz: (1) simulation-based learning by doing, (2) incidental learning, (3) learning by reflection, (4) case-based teaching, (5) learning by exploring, and (6) goal-directed learning. I believe that his detailed presentation of the six teaching architectures should be the baseline for all the engaging active teaching-learning situations through the use of multimedia.
Workshop
Jing
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| JingSmith main page logo |
Dr. Greg introduced us how to use a very useful screen shot application named Jing. It was fun for all of us to have new experience. Though I had seen that application before, I did not know how to use it exactly. So I was thrilled at it. I tried to do several screen shots of pictures, which I kept in the storage place on the desktop computer in front of me. I used it for screen capturing in other tasks of the subsequent workshops. I believe that the students will know this application very interesting as it will allows them to screenshot not only anything on the screen but also short video clips. As my students are practising teachers, they will be able to teach their future students how to use it for their projects and tasks by me equipping the former with the skills in using it effectively. My students can simply be informed that this application is downloadable for free on TechSmith Website.
DopplelMe
DopplelMe
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| My DoppelMe |
On that day, we were then introduced to a graphic application named “DoppelMe" by which we could create a picture of a similar person to us. I used different kinds features provided for the picture to fit my appearance to the best of my ability. The final picture of mine is provided on the left.
I believe that this online application will also engage my students who will learn to use it to pass on to their future young learners. I am convinced that my students will be keen on using it because it is a personalised application which, on completion, will be a kind of encouragement for them to be self-confident and work harder. But what I am particularly worried about in the context of Myanmar, my country, is that we still have great difficulty with internet access even in my current university let alone schools and so we may not be able to use this kind of useful application.
Another similar but seemingly better-featured online graphic application is “VOKI”. We had a good laugh because the picture spoke to us in different strange ways. I think it will be better suited for young learners as it is fun and can engage them deeply.
Inspiration
Another similar but seemingly better-featured online graphic application is “VOKI”. We had a good laugh because the picture spoke to us in different strange ways. I think it will be better suited for young learners as it is fun and can engage them deeply.
Inspiration
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| My teaching aid named "Sports" |
Inspiration, another useful application, is downloadable for 30-day free trials. But in the class, we could get easy access to the application on the desktop computers available in the computer lab. Dr. Greg asked us to build on the application something interesting from our own field of expertise. As a teacher educator on English Language Teaching (ELT), I tried to construct a relation map about some popular sports with the pictures which were available on the application and in the list of my collected screen shots of pictures from the Internet thanks to Jing. It was also an exciting task for all of us.
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| An example of mind map |
Bubbl.us
I think Bubbl.us is also a very useful mind-mapping website. As it is easy to construct a mind map on this online application, I can also recommend my students to use it for creating tasks related to the English language lessons. However, one defect of using it would be that we have to pay for signing up an account on it to use for longer time. Therefore, I think my students will not be able to use it often in the context of my country Myanmar although it seems fantastic.
Storybird
What I was particularly absorbed in as an amateur writer was a superb website called Storybird which allows us to write and publish our own picture stories after making a new account. We can also read stories written for different age groups there. There are thousands of colourful pictures on it with which the members can write and publish their picture stories. I deeply hope my student teachers will be extremely interested in it as they will be able to use Storybird for their future story-loving children and teenagers.
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| The story I wrote on Storybird |
In the class, we were asked to write a story of our own by choosing a lot of artistic pictures available on the website. I tried to write a story entitled “A girl who loved animals” with the aim of acquiring the sense of loving animals by 5-7 age-group learners. However, I had not finished it up when the lecturer told us to stop and so I finished it later. On the right is my story which you can read on Storybird. :-)
MS Publisher
Later in the afternoon, Dr. Greg introduced us to Microsoft Publisher (MS Publisher) with special focus on “Brochure”. Each of us was asked to make a brochure about something interesting. He also asked us to Google for some useful pictures. He gave Hawaii as a sample topic. Then I chose Mrauk-U as my topic for my brochure as I also missed my native land very much at that time. After some time, the lecturer asked us to stand up and observe the other classmates' works. It was not only a relaxing but also beneficial time for us as we could learn from one another.
Honestly speaking, before I came to this class, I did not have the idea of using MS Publisher for assigning my students projects on the subjects I taught. I believe that it will be very beneficial for my students if I assign them to do projects similar to the one we did ourselves. In such a situation, the learning contexts will be very meaningful and down-to-earth not only for my student teachers but also for their future students. I have decided to apply this knowledge with my students when I go back to my country.
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