Audio and Video Technologies in Teaching & Learning.

Providing rich interactive multimedia is a key feature of cloud learning at Deakin. It enables students to access resources that support learning wherever they are; without the need to attend a specific location at a defined time. The use of audio and video also makes it possible to present knowledge in different ways and enables different forms of interaction with learners. Utilizing audio and video to support learning is now more accessible than ever, especially for learners’ off-campus, with 9 out of 10 staff and students at Deakin saying they have high-speed and reliable Internet access at home (Oliver et al. 2012).

Audio and video materials can be used to enhance learning resources by showing real life scenarios, explaining concepts, observing social groups, and acting as triggers for discussion. They are also able to bring experts and viewpoints to the student learning experience and are excellent at bringing subjects ‘to life’ to engage discussion and inspire learning. As Deakin moves into the cloud, you are encouraged to learn more about creating your own audio and video resources to ensure you have the skills to deliver rich, engaging content. Both audio and video have been used to support learning for some time, but as new technologies have become available and the cost of making media resources has dropped, it is now possible for individual educators to capture their own audio and video using every day, accessible technology.

Internet-Based Communications. Using Internet & Web in Teaching and Learning.

Since Web 2.0 is easily accessible provided the possession of a computer or smart device, it definitely has changed various aspects of my career in teaching. The first and foremost advantage is a significant surge in researching more efficiently. The need to visit libraries, study and filter through stacks of books for a specific module of teaching information, or physically borrowing newspapers and journals is now no more an issue. A simple search using any web search engines gives breadth, depth and specificity of information or literary resources pertaining to the doubts I have, be it in educational psychology, child behaviorists, current lesson materials or almost any other subject matter. This allows me to be efficient and effective in preparing my lesson plans to teach in class. Not only that, since Web 2.0 is available all the time, I do not need to allocate a specific time for research. Instead, I can surf the web, browse and study even during mundane leisure moments such as during my wait for the bus or even during recess in school.

The next advantageous impact is a significant increase in resourcefulness. Through the use of Web 2.0, I am able to easily introduce new teaching materials to my pupils. They vary from audio/video presentations to interactive applications that enhance understanding in a subject matter. Examples of such applications I have used are Kahoot and Quizziz(interactive quizzing applications), Chatterpix(a story-building application that improves language proficiency) and Prezi(an intuitive and user-friendly presentation application). Therefore, there is less need for handouts or worksheets in class. These kinds of highly graphical and innovative resources easily capture students’ attention, thus making them more interested in learning the subject. The students end up having lots of fun whilst learning. These digital teaching materials also introduce new neural pathways for students to witness, grasp, relate and reinforce what they have studied instead of learning through conventional teaching methods like memorization and examinations.

Another major change through the use of Web 2.0, is easy communication between the tutor and the pupil. Unlike conventional teaching which requires physical face-to-face interaction between both parties, now the teacher can simply go online to discuss topics with students. These can be done through educational portal forums like Google Classroom or using applications that allow collaborative teaching/learning sessions like Google Docs. In my experience, I see the effectiveness of my own university’s educational portals known as UNIEC Campus and UNIEC Virtual. Both these web applications have many features that facilitate teaching and learning. Lecturers may post online timed quizzes, assignments and start a forum or post lecture slides and coursework marks. Students like myself, on the other hand, may participate in the online activities initiated by the lecturer, download course materials, message the lecturer through a messaging service, submit assignments, check assignments for plagiarism and view exam schedules. Therefore, the use of Web 2.0 has effectively built a robust and reliable channel of communication between the teacher and the student, even without physical presence.

Other beneficial influences of Web 2.0 include timeliness in announcements and eco-friendly work practices. Addressing the former benefit, announcements do not necessarily need to be printed and distributed to students any longer. Instead, they may be circulated via online social media messaging platforms like Twitter or Facebook. The teacher can keep in touch with the students even off the classroom. This saves time, is significantly cheaper and last but not least, effective in performing managerial or teaching tasks. Since every rung of the teaching and learning process incorporates digital media and devices needed to access those media, there is a substantial drop in the use of paper and books. This is because assignments can be submitted in softcopies (text or word file documents), referential resources can be viewed and read digitally such as in PDF or HTML formats, course or teaching slides can be displayed using presentation applications and communicative or instructive messages can be sent via emails or instant messages. Employing the use of Web 2.0 in the educational field, therefore reduces the burden of ecological destruction through deforestation.

In conclusion, the changes brought by using Web 2.0 can be seen to enhance productivity and effectiveness of teaching and learning, allow efficiency in work completion by saving time, cost and energy and lastly, make teachers and students enjoy their interdependent careers in the education line.

Academic Software: Graphic Software. Tutorial Software, Educational Game.

Picasa is a free software developed by Google, an essential image editing tool that will allow you to edit the pictures you have stored on your PC so you may then use them on worksheets, coloring pages, games, flashcards, and all types of activities. You can also create albums to be shared with your students.

English Live is an online English learning program that helps its users quickly and easily learn the English language. You can use this ESL application 24/7 from any internet connection. This program offers private classes, group conversations and lessons that are not only designed to improve listening skills but also reading, writing and speaking skills.

With Kahoot, teachers and students can create multiple-choice quizzes as well as polls and surveys that populate on-the-spot data (although this data isn't saved over time). Other than their own scores, students only see the top achievers so low-performing students won't feel put on display. Quiz questions and polls stimulate quick instructional decisions as well as whole-class discussion, but an open-ended response feature and/or the ability to string together a quiz and a poll in one game would be welcome to aid learning. Tech savvy students can connect with students from across the globe to play or connect to their peers after-hours to compete for new scores. Data can be downloaded by teachers (or student creators) and viewed in Excel. These reports can be helpful, but data can't be compared over time for classes or individual students since accounts are not required for students (even though they can, if they choose, create them). For teachers, this means it can be time-intensive to analyze students' growth patterns or individual problem areas using Kahoot quizzes.

Administrative Software: Presentation Software, Portfolio Assessment Software

Many-a bona fide teachers love creating the best online presentations for their students so as to get them hooked to their learning material. This isn’t easy for everyone since learning how to make a “wow” presentation requires a good amount of presentation, creativity, and maybe some designing skills.

But what about the use of the latest cool-tools that technology has brought us? Not everyone has learned the art of design or has amazing presentation skills. However, many teachers and educationists do have an arduous desire to be the best in front of the classroom. The cool-tools of 21sttechnology can be of great help in this situation.

As you can see, there are many options for creating meaningful, interactive presentations for your students. Although it’s easier to stick with the “tried and true,” I think you’ll find your students are more responsive and find your discussions to be livelier if you try using one of the many, free digital presentation tools available on the web.

Administrative Software: Elelctronic Spreadsheets and Data Manangement

The main things that should define what a spreadsheet is, is simply the rows, columns, and grids that are used to compare numerical data, or to record them. Spreadsheet technology is used widely for the same purposes, as it simply feels as if one is doing work on a virtual paper sheet with all their needed tally areas available. Most organizations and businesses are using spreadsheets to track their data, analyze their budgets, forecast sales, or simply tally up their expense records. On excel worksheets, formulas are readily available for use such as simple calculations and more complex calculations can be done as well. These spreadsheets are also the main thing used for testing hypothetical theories and determine scenarios.

A step-by-step guided series of lessons for students on all types of graphs. It walks students through the process of identifying the axis, plotting points, connecting points, and making sense of the outcome of data that is graphed.

In a classroom setting spreadsheets are great to use when tracking surveys. They can store huge amounts of data. Another great application of spreadsheets is that most programs has the ability to take the data and instantly make graphs and data tables on the fly.

Schools implementing the RTI approach are finding that it typically requires a three- to six-year commitment, a range consistent with the findings from systems change research. Therefore, it is important for schools to set up a data management system that will enable them to examine student data over time (e.g., by grading period, by year, or across several years). A good data management system will help principals generate accountability reports, demonstrate the success of the approach, and facilitate the sharing of data with faculty, parents, other principals, and interested community members.

A classroom-level data management system helps teacher’s track student performance. By examining the data plotted on each student’s progress monitoring graph, the teachers can determine whether students are making adequate progress. Teachers have two options for creating progress monitoring graphs for individual students in the classroom. In either case, schools must have a system in place so that teachers can enter the data for each classroom in the school or district database.

Administrative Software: Word processing & Desktop Publishing

Word-processing software is the most commonly used computer application. Computers loaded with word-processing software have all but replaced typewriters for text-oriented tasks, although the typewriter still has a niche in the completion of non-computerized forms. Today’s word processors, however, are capable of doing far more than even the most advanced electronic typewriter. In addition to creating, editing, and printing documents, these software packages are capable of desktop publishing, creating and editing graphics, and developing web pages. Combined with a relatively inexpensive color ink-jet printer, word-processing software packages are also powerful tools for creating full-color transparencies, classroom signs and posters, customized certificates and awards, and even personalized stickers and buttons. Of course, they are also essential tools for creating tests, student worksheets, and memos. Unlike most typewriters, word-processing programs maintain large amounts of data in an electronic format until it is ready to print out. This allows educators to store and easily update or modify the many documents they use in the daily administrative tasks that are a part of every educator’s job. Word processing offers educators a way to easily file and access electronic documents and then to modify and update them with little effort. Furthermore, word processors typically include a built-in capacity to check grammar and spelling and an interactive thesaurus, which make this software application a valuable tool for every educator.

Most word-processing packages share several significant and useful features. These can be broadly grouped in terms of the word-processing functions they enhance. These functions include document preparation and editing, desktop publishing, and archiving and printing. On your Companion CD, each of these functions is explored. As you try each of the word-processing exercises, you will experience and practice the unique and powerful functions built into one of the today’s most popular word processors, Microsoft Word. Most word processors include the ability to manipulate the look of a page. By using this feature, an attractive arrangement of graphics and text on a page can be created and manipulated with a few clicks of the mouse button. Although word processors can perform some desktop publishing tasks, they cannot perform the extensive adjustments to page displays that dedicated desktop publishing software can make.

Digital Technologies in the Classrooms. Emerging Digital Technologies in Classroom.

Education World offers new technology content every day. Some of our pieces related to technology tools can be found in this archive. We do update these articles regularly, but given the changing nature of technology, we cannot promise that every piece will be on the cutting edge. In this information age, we can now talk to each other in ways we never imagined. Teachers and administrators face a new challenge; however, as they try to find a way to safely incorporate this technology in the classroom. It is so easy for students to carry tablets from class to class, using them to seamlessly access textbook and other course material as needed, that schools and universities are rethinking the need for computer labs or even personal laptops. A student’s choice of apps makes it easy to build a personalized learning environment, with all the resources and tools they need on a single device. With their growing number of features, tablets give traction to other educational technologies from facilitating the real-time data mining needed to support learning analytics to offering a plethora of game-based learning apps. It certainly is an exciting time to be involved with learning and technology.  Because of the great advances, we are making in educational technology, new doors of opportunity are opening in classrooms.

The Evolution of Educational Technology. Understanding Personal Computer.

I watched a video called “This will Revolutionize Education” and it was about a perspective that technology has not yet succeeded in the revolution of education. The video included the statement of others from Thomas Edison’s “The motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years, it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks” time to the present that technology will revolutionize education from movies to computers and YouTube to name a few. Personally, I would agree as Derek says in the video that “we can evolve education, if not revolutionize it”. Yes, because as a teacher I can only enhance my teaching strategies by showing a video to have a clearer picture of what it is like rather than replacing me with the YouTube video.

Based on aforementioned, I was really intrigued by the research behind animated pictures vs diagrams and written script. Do moving, narrated, or animated pictures better help students learn content than pictures with written script? I always assumed that the animated version would be better because it shows you how the content works or is done, but the video brought up a goal point that looking at diagrams and pictures with written text which forces the students to put the pieces together in your mind and that it could be easy to miss an important part of an animation because everything is happening at once. Here is an experience I would like to share that happened to me in my class. There was once this student who is a visual learner acknowledges and appreciates the presentation method. He understands better by watching videos, but on the other hand, another student is an auditive learner where he needs to listen and speak for him to understand. Eventually, here comes the balance teaching strategy for the teacher to pass the knowledge accordingly to the students to understand her class. Technology is important in education but essentially traditional teaching method is also needed and to stress on the teacher is also very significant in the learning process.

Check out this video for more of his thoughts on the subject: This Will Revolutionize Education (by Derek Muller)

It has become a cliché in using technology tools in the classroom that the students should understand, “it’s about the learning, not the tech”, and that’s a great thing. The mantra sticks, and it always depends given. Maybe students can use technology to help in their daily lives which would be to write a paper, check email, to conduct research, find information and to boost their general knowledge. Thus, I see technology more a tool because it is used a lot in today’s society and it would help reinforcing but personally I don’t think it would take the place of a teacher.

Creating Lesson Plan Using the DID Model

Lesson planning is at the heart of being an effective teacher. It is a creative process that allows us to synthesize our understanding of second language acquisition and language teaching pedagogy with our knowledge of our learners, the curriculum, and the teaching context. It is a time when the teachers envision the learning they want to occur and analyse how all the pieces of the learning experience should fit together to make that vision a classroom reality.

Now here is all about the use of technology is classroom teaching. I had come across many technology tools that can be used in teaching and learning to have more effective learning. ISTE has suggests that it is important to engage students in learning experiences that require them to communicate using variety of media and formats. Despite the traditional method of teaching using whiteboards, markers and exercises, the teachers would enhance their teaching method to Flipped Learning. Nowadays everything is found in the internet, and the students are also known as the i-Gen (Internet Generation) in this era. Moreover, the students have variety ways to access and exchange their information using applications, such as Schoology Forums, tweets in Twitter and much more. Besides, they will be also self-directed learners. Students nowadays are so into technology and there would not be a problem for them to find their own when it comes to completing their port folios or school project.

In order to use technology tools in the classroom, as a teacher I need to plan a perfect lesson and also choose the precise technology tools to be used in the class. I must be also aware of the advantages of using the technology tools chosen. Example of technology tools that I can use in my class is first, Kahoot. I find it interesting because, students of my age group love learning English Language by playing games. This is the accurate application that I would choose for them. Hence, I have to plan my lesson accordingly. There by, I will apply the DID Model in my lesson planning. I have already known my learners well, and my objective is I want my students to acquire English in a fun and innovative manner. I have to also provide them a stable internet connection and gadgets in order for them to play this game. The lesson planning process also allows teachers to evaluate their own knowledge with regards to the content to be taught (Reed & Michaud, 2010). If a teacher has to teach, for example, a complex grammatical structure and is not sure of the rules, the teacher would become aware of this during lesson planning and can take steps to acquire the necessary information. Similarly, if a teacher is not sure how to pronounce a new vocabulary word, this can be remedied during the lesson planning process and it can be found in the internet. The opportunity that lesson planning presents to evaluate one’s own knowledge is particularly advantageous for teachers of English for specific purposes.

After few days of understanding the notes from Chapter 2, I did a plan a lesson to use one the technology learned. I choose Pinterest. I took my students on virtual field trip. My students can find images of places they’d like to visit or have visited. They were find it interesting and the whole class was excited using this application. They are many advantages of using it in learning English. Students can improve their reading skills, once they find their topic; they are assigned to come in front the class to share their ideas to their friends. Here, they improve their speaking skills and presentation skills. Moreover, other advantage is they can map a trip around the world with visual and stunning images from remote locations around the globe. In a nut shell, I learnt a lot from this chapter, to design a perfect lesson plan using DID Model and selecting the accurate technology tools for teaching and learning for my students.