Information and Communications Technology is the name given to any digital device. This includes but is not limited to computers and the affordances of the internet, including a range of read-write tools. Scanners, hand-held devices, mobile phones, cameras, digital voice recorders, iPods, MP3 players, GPS devices and digital microscopes are all ICT.
As an E-learner I appreciate the use of ICT’s to assist my learning, what I value most is the recorded lectures along with the availability of lecture slides as I am able to pause and rewind enabling the revision until I am able to understand the concept which is being taught. In my future role as a learning manager within the secondary/math’s/science discipline, I can see the importance of recording myself conducting worked examples so that learners within my classroom are able to benefit as I have of being able to review the worked examples to gain a better understanding of new concepts.
Another advantage of the use of ICT’s (wiki’s emailing) is learners within the classroom environment may not be so forthcoming with presenting ideas, enabling a learner to help further develop the learning experience or to possibly scaffold new concepts over time.
At times I am aware that I am not the most knowledgeable when it comes to different forms of ICT, what I occasionally stumble with is the fact that some components are no as complex as I first thought and have overcomplicated issues.The other issue is that occasionally the tools which maybe selected may not be entirely compatable with the system chosen, for example I couldn’t upload wordle to my site I attempted the old right click of the mouse Ctrl C on my keyboard but I was unsuccessful the joy’s of ICT’s, I was even more frustrated as GaryManArtsLM was successful with blogging wordle post I am aware that there may have been a download requirement which I wasn’t entirely comfortable with accepting and this maybe another issue confronting the use of ICT’s as at some stage we’ve all had to reboot our computers due to the latest internet virus making users somewhat apprehensive with accepting downloads.
The world wide web enables the learner to actively seek engagement by seeking out information on the current events or to even just Google a definition
Within this Blog I have investigated a number of tools first and foremost there is the blog itself
Blogger: Blogger is a web publishing service a great tool for sharing of information it is open to the public domain and has privacy agreements enabling a learner to edit their subscribers however there is a need to make the learner aware of the need to add the privacy settings, An individual is also able to take out intellectual property rights via use of Creative Commons the licence which I have selected is a share alike licence which basically means an individual is able to modify my work but must also make the edit work available to others.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
bubbl.us: a tool which provides the learner to construct mind maps in some ways I found this to be somewhat challenging however its a great interactive tool for learners and may assist with motor skills with click and drag associated with the mouse.
Power point presentation: I really enjoyed this as it is a tool which is readily available I can envisage the possibilities for this tool being used as quizzing future learners, I am aware that the slide show could be used as a tool for animation however the downfall here would be time constraints.
Voki: I really enjoyed this another non complicated tool providing learner with talking animation head for my Voki I selected the bulldog, it could also be considered to be another form of podcasting, the simplicity here is instead of having to upload a recording you type what is required to say choose your accent and that really is all there is to it. Some people may take offence to style of the accent but it really is rather trival.
Blabberize :I so enjoyed this the possibilities here are endless and would make a wonderful tool for engaing the learner for my blabberize I searched flickr with the appropriate flickr Creative Commons licence forbeing I had selected non commercial. I feel that this would provide an interesting tool for learners as they may select the family pet in enabling a little discretion whilst blogging, it also enables the ability to podcast and skills of cropping and editing pictures.
YouTube: Another tool which would be considered relatively easy too use within the classroom environment for the YouTube post used on this blog I simply entered into the search engine pedagogy and selected the post of most relevance posting this clip to the blog was of relative ease. With the use of the search engine and the numerous posts available combined with the number of users viewing adding to the relevance of the keyword entered into the search enables ease of use of this tool.
The use of ICT and tools mentioned is a great way for the learner to apply Blooms taxonomy in the areas of
Knowledge: in that with the use of a search engine they can tell, list, describe,relate, locate, write,find, state,name anything related to the area of study
Comprehension: Cut out or draw pictures to show a particular event,
Illustrate what you think the main idea was,Make a cartoon strip showing the sequence of events.
Analysis: examine
compare,contrast,investigate,categorise,identify,explain,separate,advertise
(http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm#knowledge)
The use of ICT within the classroom is in another resource which has the ability to engage the learner and is in keeping with the trend towards E-Learning in todays society and also the delivery of learning to generation Z they are considered to be the most technologically and social empowered generation (http://www.generationz.com.au/index.html) so by investigating and mastering ICT tools available will enable to deliver lessons to meet the requirements of future society's needs.
References
Creative Commons. (2010). Choosing a licence.Retrieved from
http://creativecommons.org/
Dalton, J. & Smith, D. (1986) “Extending Children’s Special Abilities – Strategies for primary classrooms” pp36-7 Blooms Taxonomy Retrieved from http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm
GaryManArtsLM . (2010, September 01). Wordle [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://garyitd.blogspot.com/2010/08/wordle.html
GenerationZ. (2010). Generation Z. Retrieved from
http://www.generationz.com.au/index.html
http://blabberize.com/
http://bubbl.us/
https://www.blogger.com/start
http://rayuni.wikispaces.com/Power+point+quiz
http://www.cqu.edu.au/
http://www.cqu.edu.au/blackboard/students/quicktour.htm
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
http://www.google.com.au/
http://www.voki.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
