Mia Shin’s Blog

Reaction to Matthew Kearney’s Use of Video Medium

Matthew has published a valuable post which offers various websites that assists teachers to use video as teaching/learning medium. In Visual Arts, Burden and Atkinson’s (2008) pedagogical exemplars would be great resources to use in the classroom. For example, 1c Stimuli: What happens next can be used in Art Criticism lesson to engage students with artworks/artists and asking students to respond and critique the subjects.

Matthew suggests that students can also engage in ‘learner-produced video task’ by digital storytelling. Students can watch digital stories uploaded by other learners around the world and apply it to their own learning process. For example, students could use video for their research tasks to construct their own stories.

I have made a short movie myself, a digital story that reflects my learning and teaching experience as a Visual Arts Education student. Learning to use iMovie program was a laborious task for a beginner like me, but I really enjoyed making it. This was a valuable experience for me, and I could even teach iMovie program to my students in my own classes in the future!

Log in and see my video in the PRIVATE post below.. (Please be patient! The video may take a while to load..)

Reference

Burden, K. & Atkinson, S. (2008). “Beyond Content: Developing Transferable Learning Designs with Digital Video Archives.”. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (pp. 4041-4050). Chesapeake, VA: AACE

GAMES, SIMULATIONS, MICROWORLD

IN E-LEARNING OF 7-12

VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION

The Gender Gap: Why do girls get turned off to technology?

Kelly addresses an interesting perspective of e-learning gap in gender. In her paper, it is researched that girls use computer and e-mail at about the same rate as boys, however, their perceptions about technology or computer science become negative as they get older, from as early as grade 8. They feel they are no good at it, competing against boys who excel at it. Evident from her research, girls visualize computer scientists as ‘nerds’ and since they rate personal interest and personal ability as the top reason for choosing a career, very few of them pursue computer science. To encourage technology use for girls, adapting to single-sex environment may reduce sense of rivalry and intimidation for girls. Kelly suggests implementing girl-orientated games as another part of the solution.

In many ways, it is true that girls do not engage in games/computers as much as boys do, for females consider computers as tools to facilitate work instead of source of entertainment (like boys). Also, girls tend to step aside when boys are playing the game. Therefore, sing-sex environment for girls would assist a great deal in involving them in computer/game activities. Unlike the boys who like destroying (walls, enemies), girls like nurturing and creating (dolls, house, etc) in games. Girl-oriented games like Room Makeover Game or Guess the Colour are great games to use in Visual Arts lesson. Room Makeover teaches visual, spatial perspective and compositional skills by making students design an interior of a room. Guess the Color teaches visual and color scheme skills by making the students observe and measure the hues of RGB colour selection with their color scheme knowledge.

Refernce

Kelly K. (2002). The Gender Gap: Why do girls get turned off to technology? In Gordon, D. (Ed.) (2000), Digital Classroom: How Technology is Changing the Way We Teach and Learn, Cambridge, MA : Harvard Education Letter.

Stuffing Technology into the Curriculum

McKenzie addresses a problem that is occurring in education today – “stuffing technology in education” for the sake of it – a peculiar modern phenomenon caused by the presumption that new things are always better. In this way, governments of many states have forced technology integration into the classroom without learning goals or adequate strategies. The result was disappointing as expected; Pflaum found 86% of computers off or unused in most schools he visited. To remedy this situation, it is advised that we: 1) identify the PURPOSE of integrating ICT in learning; 2) measure the appropriate STRATEGIES needed to produce effective results; and lastly 3) provide the TOOL in the classroom. This will assist in designing learning with ICT integration. However, to ‘unstuff’ the curriculum, McKenzie suggests redesigning learning goals and strategies when planning lessons. Focus should shift from ‘slabbing’ data from internet or ‘bling-bling effect’ on Powerpoint, to the actual learning content in the presentation.

In Visual Arts, there are two aspects to be discussed in both agreement and disagreement of the McKenzie’s article. Un-stuffing the curriculum and putting focus back into learning content is very important for the theory component to the V.A. subject. Too often, students ‘copy’ information from Internet and ‘paste’ straight into their essay assignments. Although Internet is an excellent information resource, it may hinder children’s learning by information being too easily accessible. This may be rendered by encouraging students to use the books and journal articles from the library to gather their information instead of using Internet. This would ensure that they are developing appropriate research skills for V.A.

However, in the practical component of the subject, emphasis on practical skills is significant, especially in the Digital Art unit. Students are encouraged to practise using technology and programs (e.g. Photoshop) to enhance their artmaking practice. Demonstration of their skills is a crucial criterion in their assessment; hence, in such exercises, students are to develop astute and elaborate effects by studying the technology program closely, rather than focusing on the meaningful content behind the work. Yet, it is important to note that Visual Arts teachers do have all the learning goals and strategies appropriately measured before pursuing these exercises. In this light, McKenzie does make a valuable point in planning the lesson.

Reference

McKenzie, J. (2004). Stuffing Technology into the Curriculum. From Now On: The Educational Technology Journal, 13(8).

Teacher on Learning Curve

This article presents that technology changes the way teachers teach in the classroom, and to be effective teachers, they are now on “a steep learning curve”. By utilizing technology and Internet in teaching methods, teachers can engage students and manage their own professional lives up to date. Advancement in technology also offers new job opportunities for people interested in education-related careers.

It is great to train new teachers for technology-classroom, but pre-existing teachers (on the job) must not be neglected. In Visual Arts, use of ICT such as basic computer operations, Powerpoint, Internet has been popular resources for information research, however, more advanced programs such Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver are becoming recognized as Digital Art tools. These are more complex, and specialist programs which are difficult to learn independently. Teachers should be encouraged to undertake professional workshop/training programs to teach these skills to students. Another option is to recruit a designer who can teach these particular skills to the class, which confirms the view that technology has broadened career opportunities in education.

Reference

Teachers on learning curve (Recent newspaper article)
Technology is forging new ways of teaching and learning, writes Kirsten Lees The Australian, April 05, 2008

Response to Chris Batcher’s Where Does Cheating Begin?

Chris has made a very very interesting point about utilization of tools and cheating. Yes, it is true that our education system drives examinations  based on students’ skills to recall correct answers to problem, and in those situations, using tools like PDA or mobile phone would be considered ‘cheating’ and student may be disqualified. However, in a different situation like ‘open book exams’ where books and lecture notes are allowed to be used, digital tools (e.g. electronic dictionary, laptop notes, etc)  could be introduced as another tool.

In situations outside exam conditions, more focus should be on the ‘process’ of finding the answers. While Internet is an excellent information resource, students can be assessed on how well they use Internet and other resources to find their answers to their research tasks or projects!

Digital game-based learning: It’s not just the digital natives who are restless

Van Eck provides a comprehensive analysis of and ways of implementing DGBL (Digital Game-Based Learning) for student learning. Supported by past 25 years of ongoing research, he asserts that games are effective because what they embody and what learner are doing as they play a game, and making use of this principle of ‘play’ as an instructional strategy. Games teach lower-level intellectual skills and improve physical skills, and embody well-established principles and models of meaningful learning. Games also create a continuous cycle of cognitive disequilibrium (hypothesis formulation, testing, revision) and resolution (through assimilation and accommodation). He suggests three ways of implementing DGBL: students creating their own games, teachers creating games for students, and integrating Commercial Off-The-Shelf Digital Game-Based Learning (COTS DGBL). So far, COTS DGBL has been the most practical and effective in the classrooms if implemented appropriately. Because commercial games are not designed to teach, it requires careful analysis and matching of the content, strengths, and weaknesses of the game to the content to be studied. In this light, educators and faculty members need to be trained to analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate DGBL.

There are some website that promote construction and practice of games such as Scratch and Gamemaker, where both children and teachers can design and play games. It would be a worthwhile activity to introduce a home assignment for students to design a game on certain topic (e.g. in Visual Arts class, a matchmaking game on paintings and artists) so they learn the content in building the game. Otherwise teachers can design games according to the teaching contents and so students learn the content in playing the game. Whether it’s building or playing, students will be engaged in learning process through DGBL.

There are other websites that promote educational games that have already been constructed for learning purposes. For example, in Edugames, Spelling Match or Brainteaser that involves student learning in English and Maths through DGBL. For Visual Arts students, there are great COTS DGBL websites that incorporate games in learning of arts, e.g. MOMA Destination, Inside Art and Renaissance Connection. All of these games provide a appropriate contents of art history and art criticism study while deducing student skills such as comprehension, hypothesis, test and revision.

MOMA Destination

Inside Art

Renaissance Connection

Reference

Van Eck, Richard. 2006. Digital game-based learning: It’s not just the digital natives who are restless. Educause Review 41 (2): 16-30.

Log on education: K-12 and the Internet

The writers of this article suggest that schools provide Internet to enable information access to students, however address the need to keep our children safe and recommend techniques such as Web filtering. They present WebQuest and Digital Library Project as appropriate examples of Internet-based resources in the classroom. Various roles of discourse on learning are also discussed, such as incorporating audience for children’s work, critiquing by audience who provide feedback, teamwork to idiosyncratic topics, and tutoring each other. The Jason Project and MaMaMedia.com are recommended to be implemented in children’s learning for they both provide real-world learning experience through constructivism methods. Despite their assertion that “internet promises to make the cost of retrieving information lower than it’s even been”, it is difficult for all schools to equip 20 computers per classroom. Therefore, Soloway also points out that IT departments in schools must work together with curricular and administrative groups to give fair opportunities to everybody.

This article has made some excellent comments on the utilization of Internet in K-12 education. I think this is absolutely necessary for all the students in the classroom to aid their learning, especially in Visual Arts, because a considerable amount of work is dedicated to student research projects in the art historical/critical study component of the curriculum. School and local libraries have limited specialist books on arts, therefore Internet research has certainly been a great utility even since. However, problems occasionally occur with students who “copy and paste” Internet information straight into their research assignments and it results in plagiarism. Providing access to Internet-based resource is fine, but teachers need to educate students in rights of intellectual property and Internet to prevent such problems.

Reference

Soloway, E. et al. (2000). K-12 and the Internet. Communications of the ACM 43(1), 19-25.