Topics
Develop a digital narrative on a topic of your choice
- Technology tools in students' hands
- Students-as-designers of digital media (E.g., digital storytelling)
Develop a digital narrative on a topic of your choice
Here is our digital narrative:
If you want to see 1080p video, please click HERE.
Our Comments
comment on how much schools and teachers should change to accommodate students who are digital natives
Joyce Zhu When it comes to digital native, the phrase represents the first generation to grow up with this new technology, which was coined and popularized by Prensky, 2001. Children raised in a digital, media-saturated world, require a media-rich learning environment to hold their attention. As for how much schools and teachers should change to accommodate those digital natives, firstly, understanding the needs of modern students. Students have changed radically and, accordingly, we must find new ways to teach that are appropriate for the new generation. Pedagogy has to be rethought taking into account the constructivist approach, collaborative learning, and networking for learning. Multimedia in the class is essential, but the question now is how to use them. Another question is the method to deliver knowledge. Knowledge takes place in the problems to be solved, in the questions to be answered. The teacher no longer has the monopoly of knowledge delivery, since accessing and acquiring knowledge has changed different so much. Pedagogical scenarios must be adapted to the specificities of mobile devices and “mobile learning.” Teachers are not digital natives nowadays but digital immigrants. They have to take into account the huge differences between them and the students. as an organizer of the interaction between student and knowledge, as a knowledge mediator. | Phoenix Zhao Firstly, in the stance of school, the leadership should work in an overall perspective. Decision makers should focus on infrastructure construction. Spending should be enlarged as much as possible in order to lay a foundation for technology innovation in a long run development, this is the very first step for the accommodation for digital natives. After equipping teacher with hardware equipments, software development of teachers also matters, employing specialists such as Information Technologists(ITs) and Learning Technologists(LTs)(David Woo, 2015). And these specialists can train teachers how to master information technology. And then, school can implement class innovation policy, which push teachers to innovate their pedagogy depending on their personal technology ability. In the perspective of teachers, mind transformation is the first thing that matters. Conventional thoughts have dominant important place for most relatively senior experienced teachers, meanwhile these teachers play an important role in implementing ICT in class. The teacher development that I referred above will help to change their mind and promote the learner-centered mode. And then teachers should create flipped class online, it means that they need to redesign the class form from give-and-receive to question-and-understand. And last, teachers should have ambition to learn about the most recent technology especially those relevant to education, updating their thoughts. To do this, teachers are more easily to bridge the gap between digital natives and teachers themselves. Reference:[1] David Woo. Reviewing and constructing categories for educational technology professionals. International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology. 2015 |
Jane Wang Recently,I read some articles about “ICT implementation and barriers in schools”.Different authors give different opinions about the strategise that enable to eliminate or circumvent the changing barriers schools and teachers face. The most impressive one is it divides all barriers into external (first-order) and internal (second-order)barriers: “The term first-order barriers refers to those obstacles that are extrinsic to teachers. Typically, these barriers are described in terms of the types of resources that are either missing or inadequately provided in teachers' implementation environments (Means & Olson, 1997). ” “Barriers that interfere with or impede fundamental change are referred to as second-order (Brickner, 1995). These barriers are typically rooted in teachers' underlying beliefs about teaching and learning and may not be immediately apparent to others or even to the teachers themselves (Kerr, 1996). ” The paper argue that “it may be more effective to address first- and second-order barriers simultaneously, or at least recursively, as they fluctuate in relative strength throughout the integration process.”And the strategies are:
| Cathy Zheng As ICT has been widely used, changes have happened in the cognitive skills, lifestyle and educational performance of the 21st century students. Emily Sanderson, as a typical representative of digital natives, shows an exceptionally productive and communicative performance in social network out of classroom. She might be slow at school but like a hurricane online.(Robert Hart, 2008). Information technology is highly involved in most of the students’ daily life out of school, but what about the status in classroom? According to the data presented by OECD(2008), the utilization of technology in and outside of classroom is far from balance. The reason of under-utilization of technology in classroom lies in two aspects:first, the limited use ICT at school out of protecting students from the addiction to videogames and internet information pollution; and second, the lack of teachers’ belief and skills teaching with ICT. The 21st century students tend to be the digital natives who are mostly creative with visual-spacial skills and intelligence,it’s a trend to create a student-centered way of teaching and learning with the help of information technology. In order to accommodate the digital native students, related policy should be issued to protect students from harmful effects of internet pollution like violence and sexual stereotypes etc. For school, as the instructor, equipping students with the ability of searching and using online information properly will be better than just limit the access to ICT. And parents’ role are also important in guidance. As for teachers whose teaching belief is mostly affected by school instructional routine, they need to enrich teaching skills of using diversified online applications motivate students to highly involved in the adventure of learning. For example, storytelling is a vivid way of presenting information. By making short stories using simple animation applications, students for both tellers and audiences will acquire knowledge in productive and communicative performance.What’s more, the student-centered learning doesn’t means teachers could just seat back and let students to explore some knowledge. The process of learning is like students voyaging in the sea of ICT, the teacher’s role is to provide them with the basic supply of ‘quant’ and ’food’(to give some explanation of important concepts) and mark them the destination on the “map”(the goal of each course). So teachers need to assure a continuous learning to increase the confidence of subject-matter knowledge to lead a high-cognitive learning for digital natives. |
Our Reflections of Experience
Try one of the major MOOCs, such as EDx, Coursera, or Xuetangx, register one course your like, scan it briefly, and share your experience on your blog, what you like and what you don't like.
Phoenix Zhao
MOOC has the open access and good scalability, these two features make it popular around the world, but at the same time, make it controversy on the implication of HE. I will elaborate on both sides bellow.
According to the learning theory, MOOC is divided into two categories which are cMOOCs and xMOOCs, cMOOCs use networks to spread distributed knowledge through entertainment social network. I think that this kind of way is too informal but can develop stably since the popularity of social networking Apps and its recreation. If developers hope to find way to further development and to enter HEI, xMOOCs should be considered more than the former one. Although it is not that formal enough, it basically has the model of on-line class.
I chose a MOOC course in Coursera, the content is about “Powerful Tools For Teaching and Learning: Digital Storytelling”, provided by University of Houston System. Before the class, it will let students to finish a questionnaire about their purpose and goal of taking this class. It coordinates the developing status of MOOC since the accurate user demand analysis from the questionnaire can help class designer on modeling the whole course overall. This course is given in a way that there is no teacher standing in front of a class, but using short video to illustrate every topic separately. I like this form because it is brief and short, so I can focus easily. And every time I finished a video, satisfaction support me to continue next one. I can pause, or rewind the video depending on my learning pace, subtitles also helps learners who have poor English.
However, with the high rate of dropout at 80% to 95%, the purpose of taking MOOC should be considered. In the survey of students who take MOOCs, most students take MOOC just for fun. Without managing system, students seldom study the class and take exam to get a certificate. So MOOC doesn’t deal with the dropout problem in university and even worse it. Another big problem is that with so many participants from all over the world, the regular interaction between teachers and students is almost impossible. But I also think that in the view of the cost, the participants can spend little money or even be in free charge to take courses from prestigious university, which is worth to some extent.
MOOC has the open access and good scalability, these two features make it popular around the world, but at the same time, make it controversy on the implication of HE. I will elaborate on both sides bellow.
According to the learning theory, MOOC is divided into two categories which are cMOOCs and xMOOCs, cMOOCs use networks to spread distributed knowledge through entertainment social network. I think that this kind of way is too informal but can develop stably since the popularity of social networking Apps and its recreation. If developers hope to find way to further development and to enter HEI, xMOOCs should be considered more than the former one. Although it is not that formal enough, it basically has the model of on-line class.
I chose a MOOC course in Coursera, the content is about “Powerful Tools For Teaching and Learning: Digital Storytelling”, provided by University of Houston System. Before the class, it will let students to finish a questionnaire about their purpose and goal of taking this class. It coordinates the developing status of MOOC since the accurate user demand analysis from the questionnaire can help class designer on modeling the whole course overall. This course is given in a way that there is no teacher standing in front of a class, but using short video to illustrate every topic separately. I like this form because it is brief and short, so I can focus easily. And every time I finished a video, satisfaction support me to continue next one. I can pause, or rewind the video depending on my learning pace, subtitles also helps learners who have poor English.
However, with the high rate of dropout at 80% to 95%, the purpose of taking MOOC should be considered. In the survey of students who take MOOCs, most students take MOOC just for fun. Without managing system, students seldom study the class and take exam to get a certificate. So MOOC doesn’t deal with the dropout problem in university and even worse it. Another big problem is that with so many participants from all over the world, the regular interaction between teachers and students is almost impossible. But I also think that in the view of the cost, the participants can spend little money or even be in free charge to take courses from prestigious university, which is worth to some extent.
Cathy Zheng
After a brief scanning of the major MOOCs mentioned by Yuan & Powell (2013) in the white paper MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education, i set myself as a student who just happen to find the website with no particular expectations, and decide to take a deeper look at the Coursera since it has a more logical and attractive layout. On the frontpage, Coursera analysis the big data captured from “digital footprint” of learners and introduces “the hot special curriculum”, “frequently-searched courses”and ”most popular courses among Chinese scholars” for new visitors’ reference, which could be seen as a motivation for their further learning.
Next i’m going to share my experience on the following 4 dimensions: applicability, accessibility, motivation patterns and learning quality.
Applicability: before you enroll into courses, you will see a brief introduction including the course outline, time schedule, teaching form and references for learners’ information. What need noting is that some courses will show their applicability by reminding you of the background knowledge you might need to know first, so that almost everyone can easily choose the one suits him/her most avoiding both time and money waste.
https://www.coursera.org/course/accountingmore
Accessibility:most of the resources of Coursera online is free and easy to find, what’s more, the related app is also available in APP Store, anyone who downloaded the app into their mobile devices can continue their learning in a flexible time or even no matter where they are, especially in Hong Kong where there is no limit in using 3G net.
Motivation patterns: Belanger and Thorton (2013)concluded the students motivations into four categories, to support lifelong learning, for fun, convenience and to experience online education. Coursera provides easy-to-reach courses with diversified teaching forms, some teachers prefer to upload the video record of their daily teaching in classrooms, while some teachers would like to use some animations using software like GoAnimate to visualize the content. Also, after completing the whole course including finishing all of the content, homework and passing the exam, students will get a verified certificate with teacher’s autograph and university’s logo on it. In order to have a sense of self-satisfaction, i might have the motivation to learn or even pay for the courses, expecting that someday the certificate can be a prove of my specialty literacy in my CV. This demand-led approach includes future economic benefit, development of personal and
professional identity, challenge and achievement, enjoyment and fun, all of these factors motivates students to learn.(Yuan & Powell, 2013)
Learning quality: there is a massive free resources reachable in Coursera, but is that means the learning quality is well ensured? For myself, the teacher’s explanation of concepts and the way s/he teaching is not the most important factor effects the quality of whole learning thing. What counts even more is if i can take a continuous learning without drop-out on the half way. Even they send emails and push notifications to my mobile phone, i don’t see any effects working. As for evaluating the learning outcomes, students who payed for the courses could get an external examination for degree, which somehow reflects their learning qualities. But for people who would like to just take free courses, the learning qualities can only be evaluated informally by commenting on social networks like FaceBook Twitter and Wechat etc.
Apart from the advantages and disadvantages i mentioned above, what i dislike about Coursera is that it doesn’t have a well-organized community for thought sharing like P2PU does--another major MOOC mentioned in the whit paper. In P2PU, students can freely share their comments and reflections about the courses with teachers and peers, in my opinion, to a large scale this community module can reduce the possiblilty of drop-outs and increasing learning efficiency.
A sharing of related resources:
1.Li Yuan and Stephen Powell(2013), MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education.
2.https://www.coursera.org/course/accountingmore
3.https://www.p2pu.org/en/
Jane wang
I registered the course(Nutrition Around You)at the Peking University on edx.I think this MOOCs platform is very useful and convenient.First of all, I can find the course that I want to attend by searching course category and the university I like.Secondly, the courses in this platform are free of charge and both from famous universities and famous teachers.You just need a computer connected to the Internet ,you are able to have access to highe quality education resources anywhere.In addition, there are course assignments and BBS in every curriculum for each class ,which is convenient for students to evaluate their own learning outcome and discuss problems with their peers.Moreover,Course video and lecture notes are available for download.Students can also review the course online at any time.On the other hand,this MOOCs still has some disadvantages.One of them is most of the courses are taught in English, which may be a big barrier for those students who don't speak English.Besides the teaching videos are upload by youtube which can not play in mainland China.And videos are recorded in advance, there no interaction between teachers and students and group learning in the class.online learning is still a teacher - center teaching mode.Finally, the courses are easy to register and also easy to give up, I do not find the system function of urging students to class on time.
I registered the course(Nutrition Around You)at the Peking University on edx.I think this MOOCs platform is very useful and convenient.First of all, I can find the course that I want to attend by searching course category and the university I like.Secondly, the courses in this platform are free of charge and both from famous universities and famous teachers.You just need a computer connected to the Internet ,you are able to have access to highe quality education resources anywhere.In addition, there are course assignments and BBS in every curriculum for each class ,which is convenient for students to evaluate their own learning outcome and discuss problems with their peers.Moreover,Course video and lecture notes are available for download.Students can also review the course online at any time.On the other hand,this MOOCs still has some disadvantages.One of them is most of the courses are taught in English, which may be a big barrier for those students who don't speak English.Besides the teaching videos are upload by youtube which can not play in mainland China.And videos are recorded in advance, there no interaction between teachers and students and group learning in the class.online learning is still a teacher - center teaching mode.Finally, the courses are easy to register and also easy to give up, I do not find the system function of urging students to class on time.
Joyce Zhu
The rapid expansion of MOOCs have caused the development of a serious of OERs (open Educational Resources),including Edx, Coursera, Udacity, meanwhile, some commercial company also want to grasp a share in this field (HE), like Person and Google.
I tried one of the platform above called ‘Edx’, and choose two of the top3 courses in the homepage — “Basic Mandarin Chinese” and “ HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices”. I find that If you want to get a Verified Certificate to highlight the knowledge and skills you gain,you should pay for it . Otherwise, you can only sit on.
When it comes to the two courses themselves, as for the first one — “Basic Mandarin Chinese”, as a Chinese, I am really familiar with Mandarin. What I like is the format of teaching language, combining a lot of flash, attracting students attention,and also show the daily life and teach students the names of some items. However,I have seen the comment below said ” listening and repeating a page of words, and suddenly had to understand really difficult dialogues, without explanations about a sentence is formed, where to put the negation, etc.”It means the method is not suitable for Mandarin Language.
And for “HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices”, it seems more practical. The lecture tell you what the terms it is and how construct a serous of coding, and then give students some samples to understand and after class homework to practice. It is a usual way to teaching code, and seems a useful way. I like this teaching method, just because it is a practical course and students can try by themselves. However, if it is a theoretical course. how can it be more attractive and keep the students’ attention?
This kind of learning platform really sparked commercial interest. Open resources doesn’t means free of charge. In one of the core article,I have seen the word “potential disruptive innovation”, and how to maintain the features of moods: open access and scalability?
The rapid expansion of MOOCs have caused the development of a serious of OERs (open Educational Resources),including Edx, Coursera, Udacity, meanwhile, some commercial company also want to grasp a share in this field (HE), like Person and Google.
I tried one of the platform above called ‘Edx’, and choose two of the top3 courses in the homepage — “Basic Mandarin Chinese” and “ HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices”. I find that If you want to get a Verified Certificate to highlight the knowledge and skills you gain,you should pay for it . Otherwise, you can only sit on.
When it comes to the two courses themselves, as for the first one — “Basic Mandarin Chinese”, as a Chinese, I am really familiar with Mandarin. What I like is the format of teaching language, combining a lot of flash, attracting students attention,and also show the daily life and teach students the names of some items. However,I have seen the comment below said ” listening and repeating a page of words, and suddenly had to understand really difficult dialogues, without explanations about a sentence is formed, where to put the negation, etc.”It means the method is not suitable for Mandarin Language.
And for “HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices”, it seems more practical. The lecture tell you what the terms it is and how construct a serous of coding, and then give students some samples to understand and after class homework to practice. It is a usual way to teaching code, and seems a useful way. I like this teaching method, just because it is a practical course and students can try by themselves. However, if it is a theoretical course. how can it be more attractive and keep the students’ attention?
This kind of learning platform really sparked commercial interest. Open resources doesn’t means free of charge. In one of the core article,I have seen the word “potential disruptive innovation”, and how to maintain the features of moods: open access and scalability?
Relevant Resources:
Video making website: https://www.wevideo.com/
Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalstorytelling
Video making website: https://www.wevideo.com/
Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalstorytelling
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