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Edralin's Journal  The final chapter provides useful information on how to assess student’s progress with the use of rubric in assessing children’s performance. In the previous chapter, we have described engage learners in meaningful experiences as manifested by the problem-solving activities described, so must our assessments as well. As defined in the text that performance assessment is the process of assessing a student’s skills by asking student to perform tasks that require those skills. With the used of rubrics it helps teacher in assessing the quality and power of the learning environments created, as well as the progress of individuals. Evaluating students with the used of rubrics is fairly new to me, not until I had my first course in Ryerson. It is a great way of evaluating student’s progress. Based on my previous course, teacher had provided us the scoring rubric for our final work it actually serves as a guide to improve some points in a certain topic. It also provides us to select which learning activities we have to focus on to have a good evaluation at the end. It works well to both educator and students. For students it motivates them to work hard and guide them during the learning process when rubric is given before the learning activity begins. And for teacher, it gives them an overview on what students have learned and the progress they’re making along upon working on their course. The focus of the chapter is to help teacher develop and use performance assessments that will provide with the data needed for assessment purposes. I like the way the chapter had explained on how to develop rubrics for evaluating performance. The samples presented are clear and more informative than simply assigning a letter grade. Compared to a typical classroom on how to evaluate student progress by giving grades, you can’t really tell where the grades come from and student cares only about the grade received. It is like having the grades without even understood how you’ve got it and or what learning process you’ve accomplished. True learning it involves problem solving and should know how to integrate what you’ve learned into a real life situation. The chapter also gives a clear explanation on the characteristics of developing a good rubric. It provide clear and specific example that a teacher would understand clearly and give additional information on how to develop their own rubric. Teacher should consider that a rubric is a contract between the educator and student and avoid assess anything not included in the rubric. The rating should cover the range of expected performances. This will help students regulate their learning as they proceed through the complex tasks offered by meaningful learning environments. Rubric is really a great way of assessing student’s progress and also a great help for teacher on how to assess student’s performance. It also guide student’s to improve performance and focus on a specific point. The feedback used provides an important baseline for reflection by both learners and educators. It is definitely a great guide and very informative! Current mood:  refreshed.
Chapter 7: Learning by Exploring Microworlds and Virtual Realities Another interesting topic mentioned in this chapter where children learn to explore microworlds, as defined in the text that Microworlds is an exploratory learning environment that presents a simulation of some real world phenomena wherein learners can manipulate, explore, and experiment in different ways. In the previous chapter students studied about hypermedia environment and learned how to construct and represent a model of the information they encounter. In this chapter, children will explore, manipulate phenomenon, observe the effects, and generate mental representations of those phenomena, students would be able to constructs mental models and learn meaningfully by creating them. As we’ve been always talking about meaningful learning, children who explore, observe, analyze, understand and construct their own models will lead them in a meaningful learning environment. The purpose of this chapter is to describe and illustrate learning environment that foster and facilitate modeling building by learners. Microworlds support learning by doing, students are motivated to participate actively and engage themselves in any activities and direct their own learning rather than passively receiving knowledge in a lecture in class. Eventually, this can lead learners to think critically wherein they construct their own understanding of the principles of the microworld through exploration and by rebuilding their own mental model of the world with which they are experimenting (Jonassen, 2000). As also stated in the text that Microworld can be naturally found in the world, they can exist anywhere and everywhere, in that manner students could explore, manipulate and experiment in many ways whatever they will wish for and they are relative to the learner’s age and interests. This will allow students to make control and regulate their own learning. As Burton, Brown and Fisher (1984) stated that microworld is a controlled learning environment where a student is able to try out new skills and knowledge. Furthermore, students will have the ability to learn and explore about objects in the environment and their relationships that rely on the interest and curiosity of the learner. There were different computer-based microworlds program cited in the chapter. Interactive Physics, StarLogo, SimCalc, Math Cats, Counting Money, etc. These websites will provide students an overview and/or concepts about Math and would give them an opportunity to use such helpful site in improving their knowledge to a specific area. Although Physics, I think is an advance site for younger kids that we are teaching but still gives us lots of ideas in teaching. A program that caught my attention is Math Cats, is a very interesting web site that promotes an open-ended exploration of math concepts. This would be an interesting site for young learners, with the use of animation design it actually motivate students to explore more and learn about math. Another program is counting money, a fun math that introduced students to learn addition and subtraction, and recognizing currency. In essence, microworlds foster the development of problem-solving strategies, critical thinking skills, and creativity. It can be used to engage students in collaborative learning that supports meaningful knowledge construction. As a facilitator, it is amazing to see what students can contribute when they involved themselves or participate actively and learn through experimentation in a meaningful activity. Within learning environments the goal should be to have representation along with explanation, being able to represent and explain the knowledge is a powerful learning tool. Current mood:  grateful.
To all subway members, Hey guys! hope you dont mind, i made a little changes of our home page. Let me know if its ok...or else i can put it back the way it was before. Thanks, Edralin Chapter 6: Learning by Constructing Realities with Hypermedia The chapter mainly discussed how multimedia and hypermedia can be used to engage learners to learn meaningfully. I agree with the statement that students learn much more when they design, construct, and evaluate multimedia and hypermedia than when they study hypermedia programs. It’s a good way that students can make their own program where they can make their own home page that designed or modeled by them. Deciding and modeling of their own home page will engage students in critical thinking. The process of making it and to involve themselves is an efficient way that learning will take place. As the chapter states that students-as-producers-of –technologies engage in much more meaningful learning than students-as-receivers-from-instructional-t The process of constructing hypermedia knowledge bases is constructive very active and very intentional. It needs careful planning in manipulating the various modalities and representations afforded by multimedia programs. The students need more time in planning or creating this kind of project. It requires a lot of work that students need to focus on and needs supervision or guidance by the teacher. Students should work cooperatively, engage and support each other towards achieving common goals. Hypermedia construction is an ideal medium for engaging and supporting interdisciplinary learning as stated on page 187. Learners sometimes work in learning and knowledge-building communities, exploiting each others’ skills while providing social support, and modeling and observing the contributions of each member. I believe that the key to constructive learning is creativity, involvement and careful planning. Children as photographers: an analysis of children’s photographic behaviour and Intentions at three age levels Children as photographers, an interesting article about children taking photos at the age of three. Giving children the opportunity to explore and use cameras to take photos is a way of introducing the advance of technology. Think of the time that were brought up with a camera, how big when we carry them, not to mention the quality of film, how many people have owned or experienced using a camera. Nowadays everything is high-tech from big to small cameras, film/manual to digi cameras and we can even use the cell phones in taking pictures. The quality of the photos the cameras can take is getting better all the time. The innovations of technology is something that children should learn and know about and how lucky they are that they were born with all of these technology. Introducing children to photography is one way to express their creativity in taking pictures, photography is part of art education, as mentioned in the article by Brake and Procter, 1996. Photography is an interesting activity that children will enjoy for sure, how to manipulate the camera, to take photos and something that they will be looking forward at after pictures were processed. Like us, we automatically look at the screen of the camera right after we took photos when using digicam and to have film developed after the roll of the film is finished. Upon reading this article, I thought of my nephew who is 5 years old and love to take photos of anything. I still remember the time when he is still using the camera with a film and got reprimanded by the mother saying that he is just wasting the film. Since then he stop taking pictures but he then continue when digicam came out. With his photos taken mostly were pictures of animals, that’s how we figured that his interests is about different kinds of animals. Is it true that children develop their own distinctive content and styles of representation and their abilities, interests, concerns and perspectives and their intentions of taking photos. The research also study and analyze children’s behaviour as photographers and their attitudes to photography as they develop between the ages of 7 and 15 years. Children were asked to describe where and why they took the photograph, how they might make it different or better, and what they would do with it. It shows that a seven years old take more photographs inside the house, particularly without people and taking more photographs of personally relevant objects, such as their toys and games. While eleven years old children are interested of taking photos of animals and fifteen years old pictures of friends. Children take photos not only to people but also with anything that caught their interest, photographing silly and humorous subject matter also appealed them, and most importantly if they like the subject. Generally, we take picture to capture an appearance or likeness, to record an arrangement of people and/or objects set up especially for a photograph and what we usually say “to capture a moment” and or to serve as a reminder or memento of something that would not be available in the future. As stated in the article, children have an ambiguous relation with photography, children’s photographs are not just their ‘view of the world’, but are also a construction of their identity in relation to their parents and their peers. Hacking Human: Data-Archaeology and Surveillance in Social Networks Well, the moment I found the article given by Dr J I printed it right away. I heard the term hacking’ before but I am not sure enough what is really all about. I read the article and it surely gave me a lot of information what hacking means and why it is important to understand what hacking actually is. “People watching people”, it made me scared and made me realized that I am not really safe using the internet after all. I am not aware that hacker could access personal information and or a complete picture of an individual, all I knew was hacking means people can break computer software or network. It made me stop and think what information about myself I already gave and not sure how safe I am upon doing online banking, buying stuff and even booking flights from the internet. As also stated in the article that everything a person has done it will trace on the internet, though it is hard to find the information may never disappear. It all depends on what a person want to present publicly about their self. An example is blogging, photoblogging, chatting, etc. that gives someone information about yourself that you posted in your page. You can learn what a person has done for years end. That’s how technology can do, it change over time and lots of improvement is going on nowadays we cannot under estimate what people can do to make some improvements about our technology. With this it made me more cautious and more careful for giving up information of myself from now on. On the other hand, the spread of information about an individual has an advantageous effect, you can search for the address, phone numbers and locate where someone lives. It’s a great help to locate or get an easy way to go to some places. Like looking up in Mapquest which I usually do in going to some place I haven’t been it is very useful and helpful to map the person’s place and give you easy direction. In using the access of the internet we should just be careful for whatever information that we are providing especially if it is pertaining about self. Current mood:  good.
Chapter 5: Learning by Visualizing with Technology: Recording Realities With Video This chapter focused on the use of video as a medium for student constructions, engaging them in planning, writing, visualizing, organizing, creating and other meaningful learning activities that a teacher can adapt as a tool for learning. Using video to engage meaningful learning requires a lot of things; student to be active, constructive, intentional and cooperative; ideas that student can engage creative thinking in order to plan and produce programs and most importantly an equipment that student can use. Yes it is easy to purchase any equipment you will need provided that the school has a sufficient funds to produce all of the things that the students can readily use. As you begin to associate video in teaching more creative ideas will occur and yet the participation of students will likely improve. In addition it will improve students’ self-confidence by planning, producing and sharing video production in class and foster cooperative learning by sharing ideas. Based on my personal experienced, back to my University days This chapter also talks about the importance of television to foster learning. Although much of the content of commercial television is vulgar which is not appropriate for young children it still provide a lot of cultural, informational, and educational programming. Some of the instructional and educational programming stated in the book which is still on going, such as Sesame Street and 3-2-1 Contact from the Children's Television Workshop were available either broadcast or available on videocassette, to supplement classroom instruction which are helpful and interesting program for children that could be used by educators. This will also help parents and teachers of young children in facilitating learning. There are variety of learning activities an educator can adapt in associating technology that provide meaningful learning that were mentioned in the text. Video Press Conference, Broadcasting,Talk Shows, Video/Personal Documentaries, etc. can be use to help students understand the different aspects that we can acquire and learn meaningfully. These activities will engage students by sharing ideas, careful planning, think critically and creatively moreso cooperatively to make it possible. Video Press Conference is an interesting technique a teacher can adapt but in this activity not every student will be active. The primary characteristics of meaningful learning through press conferences is that it is constructive. The students being interviewed must study and reflect on the knowledge, beliefs, and perspectives of the person being portrayed. I find this activity hard for young children to do especially in portraying person, student should know more about the identity and characteristics of the person that they portraying. An example of a videotape of press conference that a teacher can show to the class is a great help. Another learning activity is Broadcasting. Students have to research information in order to construct scripts. Using computers to search for information on the Internet, in libraries, and other sources is the first activity. Teacher should give supports in evaluating, regulating and directing students in the process. Like Broadcasting, Talk Shows is also very constructive, as students articulate the ideas, personality, and dialogue of the characters they are developing and reflect on the kinds of responses they would likely make on different issues. They have to know the characters much more deeply than the student writing a report on the character. Again teacher guidance is needed, provide encouragement and feedback to the participants when writing their scripts. The chapter also talks about ‘documentaries’, video and personal documentaries. I find these learning activities very interesting especially personal documentaries, this activity will get the students warmed up to the process of creating documentaries. That is, they produce a documentary about themselves. This will give a student a chance to decide the most appropriate setting, the perceptions about themselves that they want viewers to have, and the format of the personal description. Talking about self is the most interesting topic for most kids, so this can be an engaging activity. For teachers, this is a great help to know more about the personality about their students. And video documentaries will give more information for young children by visiting and observing sites and interview native peoples and then videotape the experience. In doing so, they become more concerned and productive members of society. To sum up, the use of video as a medium of instruction is a great help to students as well as for the teachers in learning how to work cooperatively with others, think critically and creatively, and also know more about the society and different cultures of the world that will promote meaningful learning. Chapter 4: Building Technology –Supported Learning Communities on the Internet As Kathryn Fulton and and Margaret Riel (1999) state, “ A community of practice is a group of people who share a common interest in a topic or area, a particular way of talking about their phenomena, tools and sense-making approaches for building their collaborative knowledge with a sense of common collective tasks. In other words, learning results naturally from becoming a participating member of community of practice. Like in our work place, you cannot do the job without the skills, knowledge and experienced that you can instigate with the work community. It is very true that we are learning from others, like in our group in the class we are actually sharing, helping and supporting each other to achieve common goals. When people need to learn something, they acquaint themselves to the situation and tend to form a group that can teach and support each other. A community is a group of people who share knowledge, value and goals. In school, learning is a serious concern, with lots of innovations in technology teaching and learning promote a good results. Technologies of various kinds can serve as bridges between schools and students. Learning communities evolve when students share common interests. Students can go online or chat with their fellow students share their views and gather information and ask questions for whatever topic has not been cleared to them. Search for an additional information in the Internet that they can use and applied meaningfully. Technologies that we have nowadays is a great way that can support learning communities and people around the world can interact and learn together. Like learning together with the group. Chatting with the group is good way to discuss and share common interest in a topic or area. It actually expands your knowledge and gather an additional input with the views of other people in a certain area. We are very lucky that we are exposed to a great technology nowadays. The Internet has been an essential tool for learning, provide access to a variety of information and keep people connected. It is very satisfying when you are searching for something and find the answer through the use of the Internet. The Internet, as stated in the chapter can become the communications vehicle that ties learners together, including students and teachers into coherent learning communities. I agree in the statement that online communication is better than face-to-face communication and other technology-based forms like telephone conversations. Like in chatting, you can actually have more time to think first before formulating responses or agree/disagree to the idea of your chatmate. It’s also a good way of expressing and sharing ideas and an open-ended communication in a meaningful ways. Another example is writing a forum in an online game, I find it a very interesting part were you can read about how other people comments talk about how good you play in the game, and even give you recommendations on how to improve your game. The interactions between people who are playing the game is a good form of communication and learning with the community takes place. This chapter also talks about different knids of program that will provide students an additional information, where students and teachers work independently as well as collaboratively. CaMILE and Swiki, it’s a good form of communication that students can post notes with group discussions, enter a comment into an ongoing discussion and also make suggestions to somebody’s work. It’s a good way of learning that discussions take place, share their ideas and views about the ongoing discussions. Swiki is also known as collaborative website, http://guzdial.cc.gatech.edu:8080/myswi that strives to create communities of learners with shared workspaces for collaboration. Discussion boards, chat, e-mail, and messenger systems facilitate communication. These programs will help students engaged in information searching, respond to counterarguments or queries from classmates and chance to interact with the discussions. When a group of student function together, they become more capable of learning. Teacher role is to monitor the discussion and evaluate a group’s total activity, as well as learning of individual students. Teachers and students learn when they respond and adapt to each other, guide and make comments, involve themselves in the discussion or knowledge forum, learn to express themselves in writing, contribute ideas or views in a given topic and to information resources. As the chapter states, “In learning communities, learners judge people by what they say, not by how they look”. Current mood: calm.
Learning From the Internet: Information to Knowledge Through Inquiry; this is a very interesting chapter, lots of information captured my attention. Talking about the codes on the web address i still remember few years back when im still in the Philippines, i only know a few codes and/or web addresses like hotmail, yahoo or lycos.com. Not until this time after reading the chapter i did not even know that the code .com is commercial not communication, which i thought it was. Pardon my dambness about it, at least now i know it means commercial not communication. The code of Canada as well as the code .de in Germany has been familiar to me since a friend of mine gave her email address and it ends .ge/.ca, not even realizing by that time that its a code from a specific country. Internet is certainly a great source of information and holds the power to connect people around the world. It is a powerful means of communication. The Inetrnet is making the world at once smaller and more connected, it is fast and it is growing rapidly. Its indeed growing rapidly, few years ago Internet allowed users to send and access text document only. I remember four years ago, i use email to send message to my family and friends compared nowadays since Internet technology is growing faster instead of emailing them im just using instant messaging and or texting. Now, in addition to delivery of images, the Internet is being used to deliver animations, sounds, music, telephone calls and video. Its really a great means of communication and its essential tool for me as far as communication is concerned, i can easily chat to my family backhome through the use of Internet and in addition see them with the use of webcam while talking to them. Its very convenient and yet affordable! Internet is very useful to me, first thing in the morning i go over to the Internet to look for the weather forecast, searching for information or interested topic that i can present in class, directions on how to get to other places and also for directories of people home and phone no. and many more. I agree with the statement stated in the chapter as well as from the podcast of Dr. Jason Nolan that Internet can immerse students in stimulating, challenging, motivating, vibrant learning environments that provide a context in which computer literacy develops, not as a goal but as a requirement in order to achieve much higher goals. As President George W. Bush (2001) states schools should use technology as a tool to improve academic achievement, and that using the latest technology in the classroom should not be an end unto itself. We believe that technology can help students develop both academically and personally. I, myself use Internet to search for information that i can present in class. Most of the time i use google in searching for example images that i can integrate in presenting lessons and ensures learning. There are so many interesting topics to explore that can adapt and use for teaching purposes. Internet expands opportunities for learning with a wide variety of resources and people, providing multiple perspectives, access to diverse cultures, access to experts and access to information. Internet has become an important tool for teaching over the last 2 years, half or more use the Internet at school. They do aware of many uses of the Internet, but not all changed the way they teach. Rather, the Internet is basically use as a research tool. Thats why sometimes many students know more about computers than some of their teachers. Children love to explore and find something that will catch their interest and even talk about it with their peer group. Their exposure to computers its a great help to gain far better understanding of the topics and for solving problems. It was stated that Collaborative problem and project-based learning activities begin with online research as a first step. Research is just a first step, a means to a bigger end. Equipping students with the skills to search effectively is the first step in using the Internet as a source of information. Effective searching is understanding the different types of search tools that are available, their differences, how they work, and when a specific type is appropriate. Current mood:  accomplished.
Problem solving is meaningful learning. It involves crtical thinking. Problems are everywhere in school, work place, and at home. When we solve problem we are learnng meaningfully because solving problem itself and finding solutions to the problem is meaningful. What? where? how to solve it involves meaningful learning and critical thinking. In order to solve problem, one must identify what the problem is all about, as well as various solution, options , inferences that could be a possible solution to a particular problem. Sometimes, the solution that you think the answer to the problem wont be the accurate one or the best. But, most people learned from the mistakes that they have done and try to avoid the same mistake again. According to the text, solving problem is the most meaningful kind of learning activity in formal educational settings. Teacher teaches student to solve problems in a meaningful way not by memorizing text. Requiring learners to memorize text is a waste of valuable school time and an insult to learners, because some students merely memorize without understanding. Problem solving is more interesting than memorizing, students learn meaningfully through problem solving. There are 11 different kinds of problem solving stated in the book by Jonassen including logical , algorithmic, story, rule-using, decision-making, troubleshooting, diagnosis-solution, tactical/strategic performance, case/system analysis, design and dilemmas problems. There are also classified as well-structured and ill-structured problems. Algorithms and story problems are well-structured problems were preferred solution to the problem is available. The rest were classified as ill-structured problems were many alternative solutions and ambiguous defined goals and multiple criteria for evaluating solutions. Ill-structured problems require learners to express personal opinions or beliefs about the problem. An infinite number of possible solutions is presented then choose the best solution. Problems are everywhere, its true that problem that is happening everyday or what we called nonschool problem are the most interesting and fulfilling one. I do believe that technologies can play very important roles in helping learners to solve problem. But first you must identify the problems and challenge your students to solve them. By searching information through the use of computer students can find solution and answer to the problem. Technologies help students learn meaningfully through problem solving. Yet, information searching is essential to meaning making and problem solving. In order to learn information students must have an intention to find information that will help them to solve the problem. Problem solvers must understand the problem area well enough to be able to generate solution alternatives. As you go over with the problem and gather well enough information you will feel satisfied and relaxed afterwards. |
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