Overall brief reflection on the 3-day workshops with my home country in mind

Reflecting all the lectures, readings and workshops that I had been through for 3 days, I come to think about the situations in Myanmar, my home country, which is still developing. I have come to compare the situations of Australia and those of Myanmar. Reflecting so, I feel extremely dissatisfied with the conditions of my motherland for many reasons.

First, the Internet is an essential part of schools and university students' learning and the lecturers' instructions here. They can take full advantage of the Internet. For example, instead of paper-based assignments, online-based assignments are always used. In Myanmar, however, even universities, let alone schools, do not have internet access for academic purposes. There has been an increasing series of complaints from the public concerning the very slow internet connection. In my opinion, one of the most important reasons for being such outdated in schools and universities is that the Myanmar government does not provide enough financial support for them. All the universities in Myanmar are administered by the government; there is no private university yet except one or two private international colleges. Although there has been some vague news that universities in Myanmar will be privatised soon, they are still under the government. I believe that privatisation of our universities will help provide infrastructure required for them with their autonomy, and improve teaching-learning situations much more. Second, our universities and schools use the traditional teaching methods and simple teaching aids most of the time without using multimedia. As teachers mostly use teacher-centred approach such as lecture method, and the texts are exam-oriented, most of the students only do rote learning without any critical thinking and creative thinking which are not required for the exams. Therefore, educational reforms are now underway in Myanmar but not very successful yet.

Taking into account the above situations in Myanmar, the use of multimedia for learning in my country is still very far away. Still, I hope that the current educational reform will help improve Myanmar education sector with many good educational policies and modern infrastructure for educational institutions in the country. However, although multimedia are useful tools, teachers will be the most important change agents of the education system of Myanmar. Therefore, our teachers should be well-qualified for such a positive change to take place. As a teacher educator, I am convinced that I will be able to equip my student teachers with the modern knowledge of using multimedia for learning, which I believe to be one of the most important 21st century skills for them. In this way, I intend to contribute to the development of education sector in my country Myanmar, as well.

Day Three: EDU4UML - Using Multimedia for Learning (27/06/2015)

On the third day, Dr. Greg Powell covered the last lecture on animation, and workshop that we had to get involved in. In the following parts, I am going to present the lecture, some reading materials and workshop in a brief way with my reflection based on my experience and how I may use the knowledge gained in Myanmar context.

Lectures

Animation is the theme of the third day lecture. By its definition, animation is the process by which we see still pictures move. There are a lot of reasons why animations should be taught in schools as enunciated in the slide on the right. The brief benefits of teaching animations are that students can develop creativity, questioning and language skills, mathematical, logical and spatial skills, collaboration skills, multiple intelligences, critical thinking and have fun. 

Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) is good for young people aged 8 and older. It provides tools for animation and several related creations like interactive art and games. 

Game maker (http://www.yoyogames.com/studio) also looks very interesting to me. But I have not tried it yet! 

I think Edsoft and Stopmotion, the two professional animation softwares, will be very beneficial for local Australian teachers. However, I think it will be too expensive for a teacher from Myanmar to buy and use it if our government does not buy it for the university or school he or she is in. Therefore, I think that despite their benefits, Myanmar teachers will be able to use Scratch and Game maker for free if they are really keen on using animation for instruction. 

Readings

Reading One: Understanding engagement in educational computer games

This is about an empirical study to understand engagement in educational computer games, based on in-depth interviews with 12 educational computer game players. The players were undergraduate students (aged 19-25) who voluntarily participated in 1-hour interview sessions. The researchers collected and analysed data by using Grounded Theory (GT) to build theory from data, based on the three main steps of the coding procedures of the GT approach, viz., (1) open coding, (2) axial coding and (3) selective coding. The research findings in Nah et al (2012) suggest that the educational game players were engaged in the games. The results also suggest that motivation is a key factor in fostering users' interest in educational computer games, and that such motivation can be self-generated or generated from users' external environment. Moreover, the students' sense of curiosity is also found to be a major factor that sustains user engagement in educational computer games. In my opinion, this kind of research conducted on teenagers (13-19) will be more effective because, from my observations, they are really fond of computer games and so will love educational computer games, as well.

Reading Two: Using multimedia to enhance learning

This reading material is an article by David Feith about using multimedia wisely to enhance learning. In the article, Feith presented several recent researches done by prominent scholars first, and then he suggested how to use multimedia most profitably to enhance teaching and learning. Primarily, he argues that recent brain research indicate that multimedia doe not develop all aspects of intelligence and so should not be used in all learning contexts.

According to Feith (2008), multimedia is only a tool and so its usefulness or benefits are reliant on the way it it used. Reflecting on Roger Sperry's research on the left and right hemispheres of the brain (cited in Feith (2008)), it is impossible to develop all the intelligences with multimedia. It is also crucially important to pay attention to the technique of mind mapping developed and started teaching by Tony Buzon in the 1970s. Buzon studied brain research that showed the brain remembers things by making associations, or remembers things that are emphasised. 

Professor Howard Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligence in his book "Frames of mind: the theory of 'multiple intelligences'" in 1983. According to Armstrong (2000, cited in Feith, 2008), "the essence of multiple intelligences theory is to respect the many differences among people, the multiple variations in the ways that they learn, the several modes by which they can be assessed, and the almost infinite number of ways in which they can leave a mark on the world." Caine and Caine (1991) examines and discusses the implications of the brain for learning and teaching. It summarises 'the accumulated insights of the research' and develop 12 principles that 'can serve as a general theoretical foundation for brain-based learning. Boyle's (1997) essential point: multimedia technology and the internet are enormously potential learning tools, but that the technology alone does not enhance learning. 

Based on the recent research, Feith concluded that teachers' role is still crucial although many powerful multimedia tools are now in hand. He also emphasised that there are still several skills that multimedia cannot develop. In my opinion, teachers should keep doing research on the benefits and weaknesses of using multimedia in the future as nothing is ever perfect in this 21st century.

Unpacking the potential of educational gaming: a new tool for gaming research

As game play is very popular nowadays, especially among children and teenagers, game business are also producing more and more complex, engaging games. Several educational researchers have studied the usability and benefits of games in education. In the virtual communities of game play, players make reflection, planning, and interaction to build a shared understanding, value system, and culture around the game itself. According to Lave and Wenger (1991, cited in Wideman et al., 2007), if new players decides to participate, they then begin to move into the community more fully, learning its practices, values, roles, and symbols through observation, practice, and interaction with more experienced members. If educational games are properly designed, they can function as "practice fields" (Senge, 1994, cited in Wideman et al., 2007) which engage students in many meaningful realistic learning activities. However, there are significant bodies of research only in two disciplines, viz., medical education and business management studies. As engaging educational games are in necessity, Wideman and others developed Virtual Usability Laboratory (VULab), a tool for collecting the kinds of rich and "thick" game-play process data. The game was tested in a computer laboratory at a university in a large Canadian city over two separate sessions. During the sessions, students played an educational game and the VULab was used to record the gaming episode and present pre- and possession questionnaires. Analysis of the data showed several technical and usability issues that players had with the game. Though the students responded in questionnaires that they enjoyed the game, they were found to be confused and frustrated at different points throughout the game session. However, the field test results clearly demonstrate the possibility and value of VULab for the unobtrusive capture of data central to understanding many of the key elements of educational gaming. Personally speaking, educational games I have seen are just simple language games which will only interest keen language learners. However, by studying this research article, I come to be convinced that more engaging educational games that will teach young students English language will be highly beneficial for the ordinary students as well as for the keen ones.

Workshop

Quia

Quia was the most important part of the third day workshop. It has three main sections as shown in the following picture of its main page. I think all the sections are excellent, depending on who use them. For example, the students and teachers who are keen on mathematics will find IXL section truly engaging and valuable. Likewise, those teachers who want to buy Pdf's of good teaching-learning materials will regard Quia Books section invaluable.

Quia Home Page 

My multiple-choice questions on elementary English Grammar

However, the most useful section of the three, I think, is the Quiz Web, in which we tried to do several tasks in the class. We had to construct our own multiple-choice questions and then go around the class to try one another's. It was really fun and a good learning experience for me because I could differentiate the good and the bad questions. 

Next, we being asked to construct some kind of quiz available on Quia, I constructed a Hang Man quiz by the title of "Animals". I built the quiz with 20 names of commonly-found animals and some clues for each. After that, we had to roam around the class to attempt one another's quizzes. I found that some of my classmates made Battleship quiz, which I was not used to tackling. I think I need to study many more unfamiliar kinds of quizzes like it on the Quia. It will surely be a training ground for me. I am confident that these kinds of quizzes will make my students engaged, and that they will also be able to make their future students interested and encouraged to continue studying the lessons. Moreover, I am convinced that if I could keep using this website back in my country, I would be able to construct my own test on the Quia for my students to do. 

My Hang Man Quiz named "Animals"

In fact, the merits of the website are varied and wide. It has a lot of adjustable online applications like allowing teachers to build their own quizzes and other kinds of learning activities for their students. Moreover, it also gives us opportunity to try to do learning games on different subjects created by other people. 

I think it would be beneficial for us if we joined it and really used it for our class for a long time. However, we could join it for 30-day free trial. I think it would not be easy for me and my students to use it far more than the trial days as it is still very difficult for Myanmar people to pay for the monthly price or to afford to do so.







Dvolver

One scene from my Dvolver movie clip

I believe that Dvolver is a very good online movie maker with quite much adjustability in dialogues, and with many interesting choices for inputs such as backgrounds, music, and characters. However, one of its defects is that as it has no speech system to let the character speak, the viewers have to read all the words in the dialogue box to understand the video we make. Therefore, in my opinion, this online application will be more suitable for young learners. There is no doubt that students will get fun and better language practice, especially in reading skill. In the class, I made a simple language teaching movie on Greetings, one plot of which can be seen on the right side.

PowToon 

My trial movie clip made with PowToon

PowToon is a captivating presentation application. I have seen one or two awesome movie clips which were made using this online application. I made an account in the class as soon as Dr. Greg introduced it to us. Although my free account allows me to use basic presentation templates and basic tools without download rights, I find it really worthwhile. I tried to make a movie entitled "Life is: Trial movie clip" on PowToon. Despite its poor quality then, I made up my mind to develop my skills in making good presentation movies on it. I  also think about making my multimedia presentation movie, my second assignment project in this subject, with the great help of PowToon. 

Sketch Swap

My sketch

I was not very comfortable with using Sketch Swap perhaps because I am not very keen on drawing pictures. One thing which confused me much was how the unrelated pictures were swapped between strangers. The unpredictability and uncontrollability over the sketches swapped from our strangers overwhelmed me while drawing. I drew a young man saying "Hello!" to the viewers as seen on the right side, and then submit it. But after some time, I got a sketch of a beautiful couple surrounded by 'hearts' which is shown in the following one. That time, I was lucky, I thought. 

The sketch I received

However, when I tried to draw a new sketch of a girl and submit it for the second time, I got some ugly sketches of dogs and cats. What an unlucky time. However, I think some students who like drawing will like this online application very much. As my student teachers will teach young people, they will be able to use Sketch Swap effectively. As youngsters, the learners will find it really engaging since they normally like mysteries.



Buildyourwildself

My wild self made on Buildyourwildself

I like Buildyourwildself because it allows me to combine several parts of weird wild animals in the body of a human being. In my opinion, the young learners will like this online application very much as they are generally lovers of legends and strange animals. What may attract them most will be that they can hear the sounds of the wild animals they chose. They can also learn about each animal that they chose for making their wild selves. As a language teacher, I am convinced that this website can help young ESL learners develop their language skills, especially reading skill, and some knowledge about animals. Therefore, I intend to recommend my student teachers to practice using it so that they will be able to engage their future students in some meaningful learning activities.

Day One: EDU4UML - Using Multimedia for Learning (25/05/2015)

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

21st century skills

The lecture gave me a lot of knowledge and insights about technology in the 21st century. It is amazing to know that, in the current global environment, there are two prominent change agents: education and the Internet. I strongly agree with this statement because both the categories are influential and crucially important for the 21st century learners. I knew the term "Education 3.0" better with the elaborated definitions by means of two categories: the What Skills and the How Skills. As the present education trend is changing into the form of Education 3.0, the 21st century skills by 2006 Gilbert review (UK) are becoming essential for all the people. In fact, the students should be trained to be fully equipped with these essential skills. For that, teachers should also be trying their best to keep themselves updated with more knowledge and 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

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

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

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. 

An example of mind map

I am convinced that Inspiration will be extremely beneficial for my student teachers. By using the application, they will be able to create their own engaging colourful teaching materials for their instruction by themselves. As it will allow them to make interesting diagrams, outlines and mind maps of their own, it will help them with planning their lessons, and arranging important ideas concerning the lessons. Besides, by using this application effectively and efficiently, they will also be able to develop their future students' critical and creative thinking skills, and mind mapping skills, which are crucial for 21st century learners. The sample mind map described on the left is a kind of task that young learners can do and learn.

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. 

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.