Volume 7 Issue 9 November 2003
New Technologies in the e-Learning Game
Macromedia Breeze is a program that allows teachers and students to use PowerPoint to create instructional sequences and add alongside it voice files offering instruction. Breeze offers the capacity to create Flash animations directly from PowerPoint presentations. Not only will Breeze convert PowerPoint presentations into flash animations but in the process the file size is reduced by up to four times, meaning that these presentations can stream over a 28.8 modem quite comfortably. The potential of this technology is enormous.
Students
and teachers can create lessons and then store them inside environments such
as the knowledge NET (http://www.knowledgenetworks.co.nz)
allowing students to revisit and replay the lesson at their leisure, at their
pace and when it suits them. Macromedia Breeze is part of the Macromedia MX4
suite of tools that incorporates Dreamweaver, Flash and Breeze.
To get an idea of the potential of this program visit the URL below: http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/ltde/pptoweb/sample1audioindiv/184689/index.html
Voice accompanied interactive slideshows using Macromedia Breeze are pointing the way to a much more interactive environment that puts the learner in much more control of where the lesson may be directed.
How important is critical thinking? Just ask your bank manager!
At a recent presentation a curious parent asked whether critical thinking was really that necessary for average kids and people. Westpac Bank customers found out just recently how important this can be when they received an email stating
Dear Westpac Bank Member,
This email was sent by the Westpac server to verify your e-mail
address. You must complete this process by clicking on the link
below and entering in the small window your Westpac Banking
Customer ID and Password.
This is done for your protection --- because some of
our members no longer have access to their email addresses and
we must verify it.
To verify your e-mail address and access your bank account,
click on the link below. If nothing happens when you click on
the link, copy and paste the link into the address bar of your web browser.
http://www.westpac.com.nz:ac-iz41nvIkP3tE4CTH29xZ@gom4fg5zx.Da.rU/?tjhIdYptzuRR4XU
--------------------------------------------------
Thank you for using Westpac Bank!
--------------------------------------------------
BUT this was a well disguised internet scam and the letter certainly didn't come from the bank but with the bank's web page in the background, and a pop up sitting in front of the site asking for your customer ID and banking password I imagine that hundreds of people will have sent these two critical pieces of information, providing access to all their banking records, to people who are not out to improve their investment profile. The fact that the URL of the pop up was http://www.gowest.org.co.nr and that the .nr stands for Nauru would have alerted a user with some critical information literacy skills to the fact that it was unlikely that the head office for Westpac bank had moved to Nauru! (For a full list of country abbreviations visit http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/85tldn.htm )
Internet scams based on places such as Nauru, Nigeria and others are very common and generally referred to as Four-One-Nine scams, a reference to the relevant section of the criminal code of Nigeria. Critical literacy provides students with the capacity to recognise the various types of illegal activity that are perpetrated on the Internet. The first question that should always pop into the mind when confronted with an offer that appears "too good to be true" should be “who is the author of this information and is the author legitimate". Almost any company trying to do business on an Internet address ending with .ng is going to have a hard time gaining any credibility. However this has not stopped this type of scam from becoming Nigeria's fourth largest business.
It should be noted that even if you are not asked for money up front, and you end up flying to London to pick up your million dollars you will be asked for money and you'll be under a lot of pressure because you will have a flight to catch, people you thought were your friends (you met them yesterday!) telling you that they need just another $3000 to complete the deal and you'll probably even be shown briefcases of money that will be yours in just a few short hours! You are seen down to the nearest ATM to provide the missing $3000 so you can take home your $1 million. The acute embarrassment usually keeps the victim from telling too many other people. Critical literacy is just that: critical.
Transitioning Schools into the 21st Century Model
Transitioning a school into a model that better reflects the skill sets required by students in the 21st century requires considerable strategic planning and a re-evaluation of the purpose and mission of the school.
In previous commentaries we have stressed the requirement to shift from an almost exclusive emphasis on content and "knowing" into a more balanced relationship between content and processes, empowering students to not just access information but also to be able to use this information to construct meaning and understanding. In order to find out what these 21st century skills and processes are, simply gather together a group of parents and ask them "what skills, attitudes and content do you think your children need in order to be successful in the 21st century?" Almost universally there is no mention of algebra, photosynthesis, ancient cultures, Shakespeare. . . . The list below was compiled recently in just such a discussion.
|
Reading |
The ability to work in teams |
Basic mathematical skills |
The ability to speak well in public |
|
Critical thinking skills |
Understanding thinking |
Searching and finding information |
Business skills |
|
Appreciation of other cultures |
Appreciation of our own history |
The ability to work with multimedia |
Technology skills |
|
Entrepreneurship |
Writing |
Social skills |
Time management skills |
If parents expect these skills to be taught in the classroom then the amount of content that will be delivered will decrease significantly.
The other pressure being exerted on content is the desire to teach concepts rather than just content, as content can be accessed far more easily now in the very rich information landscape environment that technology is helping to provide. Rather than doing a unit of "space," teachers are more likely to ask more significant questions such as "It has been almost 35 years since men landed on the moon. Predict two possible future scenarios for space travel in the next 25 years" or “Compare the geography and geology of Mars and Earth and identify two similarities and two differences. “Taking one of the different elements explain how it may possibly account for the success of life on earth and the lack of any significant life on Mars."
Asking open ended, high order or Socratic questions such as this requires investigative work by students and reduces the apparent amount of content that is being taught. The truth is that much of our teaching about "space" has been very content oriented, and students have often understood (conceptually) very little, but may still have impressed parents by knowing considerable fact based content. These two shifts in teacher and parent expectations will mean that the amount of content being delivered will be reduced significantly. How then do we readjust the balance between content, processes and skills and spread the development of conceptual frameworks over the 12 to 13 years of schooling?
In order to address this issue we would like to look at the common objective within most curriculum documents: (quoting the New Zealand curriculum framework).
"In their study of planet earth and beyond, students will use their developing scientific knowledge, skills, and attitudes to investigate and understand relationships between planet earth and its solar system, galaxy and the universe."
To be able to achieve this outcome students would traditionally have learnt the names, sizes, brief geographical information about, and distance from the sun of each of the planets, followed by an explanation that stars are mostly suns and that some of the stars are actually huge collections of sun's known as galaxies. . . . . There may also be some discussion on black holes, space flight, telescopes and our earth as a planet.
Considering that space is a common theme throughout the first 10 years of school, how can we scaffold and structure a balance between content, processes and skills, enabling students to build a conceptual framework about the universe that they inhabit? There are two key issues here: 1.One of the basic tenets of science is to empower students with the skill of understanding and practicing the scientific process. 2. The terminology in the objective used here includes terms such as knowledge, skills, attitudes, ability to investigate and understand relationships. As has often been the case in the past the immediate focus of a unit on "space" is the knowledge element. In order to develop an understanding of “attitudes” and “investigate and understand relationships” the use of open, high order and Socratic questions will be essential.
The following graph is a general indicator of the relationship between the increasing age of the students and the potential balance between content, process and concept.
It
is important to note that these are simply generalisations and not rules.
Underpinning the generalisations described below is the premise that it is
necessary to have a good foundation of knowledge in order to build conceptual
frameworks. Over time as these frameworks are reinforced and built on,
conceptual frameworks can gradually be drawn together and built.
The scaffolding process can be demonstrated using the simple yet broad-ranging scientific skills of observation and interpretation. These include being able to use any measuring device accurately, appropriately. and correctly. In learning how to use a ruler years zero to three children will grow to understand where to start and finish the measuring process. They will also require simple mathematical capabilities such as adding and subtracting. The range of measuring tools is considerable and includes those for measuring volumes of liquids and solids, time, and distance (the appropriate units), temperature, speed, velocity, acceleration, force, current, voltage.
Concepts such as ‘’expectation bias’’, ‘’error acknowledgement’’, ‘’scientific culture bias’’ (the world is flat!), ‘‘working as a team’’, all figure in a wide number of concepts embedded in accurate observations.
Processes such as ‘’recording data’’, ‘’following instructions’’, ‘’filling in forms’’, ‘’scientific process procedure’’ also need to be learnt.
The complexity of ordering the teaching of these tasks so that students can continue building on a framework of understanding, soon becomes obvious. Certain specific experiences, skills and processes will need to be developed by students before they even begin to appreciate and build conceptual frameworks such as “expectation bias”.
Of critical importance is a skill profile record that can be kept from year-to-year, reflected on and, through effective assessment, built on. In most school systems teachers do not transfer these skill profiles from year-to-year, and it is only recently that computer-based recording systems have made this even remotely possible. Once these records are available 24/7 to students, teachers and parents they will become meaningful and very powerful.
Acocdrnig to rseearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Tihs may exaplin why txet mseagsing is so esay to foollw.
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