Session VII : Mobility

In 2000, Sharples, mobile learning expert in United Kingdom, pointed out that advanced mobile technology is making the transition from E-learning to M-learning. Therefore, mobile learning can be exempted from the limitation of computer environment, and use convenient mobile learning tools with the wireless network, so that learners can learn at anytime and anywhere.

I think that these issues are not a problem. For example, the mobile station can provide schools, not just parents. Even children should take the phone to school, have been or are to become a reality, even in the absence of teachers orders will occur. What educators should do is to follow this immutable reality, and to teach them how to better maintain their own phone. Secondly, when the children using a mobile device. Teachers and parents must be guilder, and regularly check their equipment to ensure there is no unnecessary applications, to avoid adverse effects on their research. And, in fact, students may question the teachers and teachers learn, in some cases, is a good learning. Maybe it sounds terrible teacher, but he is the ultimate goal of learning. Learners should be used as building claims, to build their knowledge and cooperation. Even if the change in the classroom, especially in the roles of teachers and students, the change is necessary, there is no danger. The concerns of the teachers is unnecessary, we should solve the problem and change you. "The problem in the absence of mobile phones should be banned in schools, teachers need more help and more training and more training in order to be able to have confidence in the teaching learning to use them."

In my opinion, that mobile learning emphasis on mobility, but it also has inevitable limitations. These limits are reflected in the following two points. First of all, the scene of any mobile learning will distract the attention of the students. In the context of mobile learning, the learning environment is complex and diverse, such as sitting on the bus, on a noisy street cafe and other places. Learners around multiple confounding factors, which is difficult for them to maintain a longer period of time and attention. Secondly, the learning environment of mobile learning is a fully independent learning environment, which can only be guaranteed for learners to provide a quality educational infrastructure, but cannot guarantee the quality of education provided.

Session IX ： Virtuality

With the rapid development of society and technological progress, various technologies promote the development of various industries in the people’s daily lives. Virtual reality (VR) is an immersive, interactive simulation wherein the user feels like interacting with an environment that can be either realistic or imaginary. (Bansal, 2003) VR applied to the field of education as well. Because of the interactive, immersive, reliable and low-loss, it plays an increasingly important role in the field of education. VR is need for modernization of education, education reform and cultivation of innovative talents. Applied virtual reality technology in education, the effect is the following three points.

⑴ Improve learning motivation and stimulate learning interest

Traditional teaching is mainly through the sensory stimulation of two-dimensional plane, such as books, paper, and blackboard and so on. However, VR technology creates a virtual three-dimensional space to stimulate students’ interest and motivation, and promotes external motivation change into internal motivation.

⑵ Improve students’ hands-on ability

Under the situation of education reform, more and more schools and teachers focus on student’s hands-on ability. Some experimental class also has attracted increasing attention. However, under the constraints of the economic, geographical and climatic conditions, many lessons cannot be done in reality. Therefore, VR can simulate the real environment, and lead students to learn and explore. Besides, it can repeat operations to achieve reinforcement, and timely feedback.

⑶ Virtual reality technology is beneficial to carry out situational learning.

Immersive VR allows students to explore, engage, and visualize schoolwork in a powerful new way. (Brian 1999) VR technology uses graphics, sound and image to reconstruct realistic circumstances. The use of virtual reality technology can virtually build the learning condition similar to the real environment, such as virtual physics and chemistry laboratory.

Reference:

Bansal, M. (2003). Medical Informatics: A Primer. Tat McGraw-Hill Education

Brian, F. (1999). Using technology to enhance classroom interaction: A review of the literature.

Session VI ： QR code

Have to say that this lesson is a very interesting. When I entered classroom, I attracted by a variety of QR codes and pictures on the wall. In addition, teacher also designed a virtual tour to find QR code in the teaching building. These activities have increased the class interesting.

A QR code, abbreviated from Quick Response code, is a specific matrix barcode that is readable by dedicated QR readers, smart phones, and, to a less common extent, computers with webcams. Regardless of newspapers, magazines and goods, as long as there is a QR code on it, you can get more information through QR code. The feature of QR code is that information can share more conveniently and can be passed to the user more quickly, including text, pictures, videos and links. The combination of mobile phone and QR code can make us obtain any content through any media at any time and any place. The use of QR code brings great convenience to our life.

After I learned this lesson, I was surprised to find that the QR code has unwittingly entered into our lives. There are 40 interesting ways to use QR code in the classroom. For example, teachers can add QR code to word documents for students to check their answers, or put a QR code in your classroom window so people can see inside. However, in the actual teaching, the QR code has not widely applied. 

Session V Collborative learning

Collaborative learning is a method of teaching and learning in which students team together to explore a significant question or create a meaningful project. Cooperative learning is a specific kind of collaborative learning. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximise their own and each other’s learning (Johnson & Johnson, 1999:5). Cooperative learning advocates that students learn from each other in the learning process, and exchange learning experiences with each other, in order to increase the efficiency of learning.

In this lesson, I tried to use Google docs for collaborative learning. During the editing process, the operation of each group member will be seen by other members timely. Besides, by looking at the revision history, everyone can see which part of the document is modified, which person and when change it. Teachers also can observe the progress online at any time and give some guidance to every member. Therefore, using Google docs can stimulate learners’ motivation and creativity; increase their ability to communicate with others, also can effectively improve the learning efficiency. Google docs provide learners with an open collaborative learning environment.

Blog can effectively encourage the students to participate in not only reading and commenting on teachers' or other students’ logs but also more importantly for the ability to set their own topics and thus share their own thoughts with others by building their own logs. Such type of Blog can be assessed both inside and outside school and can enable more learners to participate in group learning. Besides, teachers cultivate their students' ability to learn collaboratively through this method. Teachers can provide a project or topic for their students to participate in together. Collaborative learning refers to all relevant collaborative and mutual help behaviors committed by the students in participating in as teams to achieving their common learning targets and maximize their own and others' learning outcomes under a certain incentive mechanism. It is a learning method conforming to the modern teaching methods and approaches based on the learning theories of constructivism and humanism. Teachers can propose a project or topic at regular intervals for their students divided into groups or all students to together participate in discussion. And those not in the class can also participate in to express their viewpoints and opinions. In the discussion, open-minding can be achieved and knowledge provided by others can be drunk to perfect the students themselves and also increase the ability to learn collaboratively.

Reference:

Johnson, D.W. and Johnson, R. T. (1999) Learning together and alone: cooperative, competitive and individualistic learning.  Boston, Mass: Allyn and Beacon.

Session IV Multimedia

In this lesson, the teacher did a very good show for the use of video in teaching. For example, we watched a video named destruction of a building. In order to observe how to destroy the building, teacher can parse the video and drag the button of progress to make this video like moving pictures. In this way, we clearly see where this building starts to collapse. In addition, teacher asked some detailed questions after watching the video to mobilize student’s enthusiasm to more carefully watch the video.

How to make the abstract concepts clear and easy to be understood is one of the difficult education issues in the practice of theory education. The video is a media using a vivid way to express information. In the educational activities, educational content displayed by a vivid method can help students’ memory and perception for educational content and make the abstract concepts clear and easy to understand. Therefore, from the appearance of audio and video, they have got attention by educators and have been applied in education. However, the application of video in education is not common in my country, due to scarce video resources and high application conditions.

Schwartz and Hartman (2007) think that when used effectively, video is a powerful technology for learning. They described four common learning outcomes, suggested methods for determining whether an outcome has been achieved, and offers some examples of how one might use digital video in a larger, multimedia context. Their goal was engaging reader interest in the potential of video within multimedia for education. Besides, they tried to help people see that there are distinct learning outcomes, and gave some examples of how to do videos that help learners learn. Finally, they aimed for some saying outcomes by providing select facts and explanations about why certain forms of presentation affect different types of outcomes.

Reference:

Schwartz, D. and Hartman, K. (2007) It is not Television anymore: Designing Digital Video for Learning and Assessment, Available: http://www.mmiweb.org.uk/ltnt/site/downloads/Schwartz_2007.pdf [Accessed 19.02.13]. 

Session III Finding Resources and Digital Curation

The definition was that of digital information fluency developed by the 21^st Century Information Fluency project (Heine & O'Conner, n.d.): Digital Information Fluency (DIF) is the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically. DIF involves Internet search skills that start with understanding how digital information is different from print information, knowing how to use specialized tools for finding digital information and strengthening the dispositions needed in the digital information environment.

Apparently, Network is essential for students’ lives in the recent years. Also, it is an important source for student getting knowledge. There is lots of information on the Internet, but not all the information is valuable for using, because any person can publish information on the website. Therefore, it is essential to master how to find information on the Internet for each student. When students get information via the Internet, they have to identify which information is useful and trustworthy, which information should be critically accepted, and which information should be completely abandoned.

As Alan November (1998) said,”As they use the Web, they need to evaluate their findings using several techniques, which I will place into three main categories: Purpose, Author, and Meta-Web Information.” More exactly, students should always try to make certain the purpose of website, and analyze whether it is designed to sell products, advocate ideas and entertain. Secondly, they should analyze the site’s author, and even can search their background, such as level of education, position and job. These can help to determine the credibility of the page content. Thirdly, they can get some clues of the site via analyzing the URL or address from Meta-Web information.

November pointed out that for too many students, “If it is on the Inter­net, it is true.” Therefore, it is an urgent need to teach students how to search information on the Internet.

Reference

Heine, C., & O'Conner, D. (n.d.). 21st century digital information fluency model.  Retrieved April 13, 2009, from http://21cif.com/resources/difcore/ 

November, A. (1998) Teaching Zack to Think, Available: http://www.mmiweb.org.uk/ltnt/site/resources/teaching-zack.pdf [Accessed 16.02.13]

Session II : Presentation Technologies

In fact, I never know there are such a variety of presentation tools before I learn this session, such as Google Docs, Prezi, Slide Rocket and Zoho. Besides, I only can use PowerPoint as presentation tool. The basic functions of these presentation tools are similar with PowerPoint, but the biggest difference of them is that they run platform all based on network and contents are stored on the Cloud. In addition, these new presentation tools not only bring the advantages of the traditional presentation tools into the full play, but also develop new functions based on the original. Even, dull presentation can also do as attractive as a story.

 

With the development of network, the influence of presentation technologies in education is gradually revealed. It is benefit to make use of and share information flexibly and promote non-linear thinking mode. The linear structure is not the most effective form of presentation for teaching. If the course content is organized according to the linear structure, undoubtedly this is move content intactly to the presentation. Non-linear mode can inspire students to think and develop innovative thinking. Besides, this free-form presentation tool supports groups or individual online collaboration and communication. Additionally, presentation technologies promote the development of distance education. These presentation tools can make users in the distance classroom achieve more thorough collaboration.

 

Nowadays, Cloud-based office software cannot substitute for Microsoft Office. However, with the continuous development of information technology, online software and online services gradually become the new trend of the future. A lot of software and management systems are beginning to provide online service model. I believe that people can get rid of the operation in the desktop side and move work, live and learn to the Internet in the future.

Session I : Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

The concept of digital natives and digital immigrants are proposed by Marc Prensky in 2001. You should not be surprised, when you see that a five-year-old child knows how to watch the latest animated cartoon from the Internet and around the age of ten students are already adept at operating the phone. Our students are living in the era of the Internet and mobile phones from their birth. We call them digital natives. However, the era of teachers’ growth experienced the process which digital technology grows out of nothing. Therefore, they are new residents of digital technology. If you are accustomed to print out electronic documents for reading or if you call to confirm that you have received an e-mail, etc. In that case, you have the typical characteristics of digital immigrants.

 

Predictably, the distinction between digital natives and digital immigrants is debatable, not least because the digital universe currently inhabited by digital natives was in fact conceived and created by digital immigrants. It also makes assertions that may not be consistently valid, for example, the idea that younger adults and children are always comfortable with technology, and that correspondingly older people are more likely to find technology awkward.

 

Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language (Prensky, 2001). For digitization and high-tech, every teacher and the digital age are still in the run-in period, and they are going through a process of learning and adaptation. When the digital immigrants encounter digital natives, traditional education methods already facing challenged. Teachers as a digital immigrant how to use new technology teach students? The answer is that teachers need to improve information literacy, and change methodology and content.

 

Reference:

 

Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. MCB University Press. Vol. 9, No. 5.