The speed in which new technologies emerge is just incredible. A person who is attempting to learn about any software, after a while he would need to learn about a different one. I consider, because of the amount of things to explore, it becomes difficult to be totally updated. Nonetheless, as more updated we can be, the better the results we can get from the students and the better we can use what is available for our teaching practice.
A useful manner of being updated, which I knew about during the development of the subject New Learning Environments, is to belong to communities of practice. By doing this, we could share experiences and learn from other people who can give us ideas on how to use certain tools; this practice will optimize our time and teaching procedures.
Another way to get updated is to visit the favorite webpage about the programs we use. It is a starting point to see if the program has improvements from the previous version or if it’s possible to download an upgrade to add new functions. Also try similar software in order to compare or even, to complement the programs we have in order to add more content or more functions.
Not only for the designing programs, but also for the hardware we use in our laboratories. Upgrading the software for the hardware we use in class will fix some issues given in the lab or even to provide more functions to control the class or to offer proper feedback. Using old software for old hardware can be really harmful if we don’t visit the support webpage in order to get the most recent information about which bugs have been removed or which improvements or functions have been added.
Also try to talk with your partners about the difficulties you have in the laboratory or the program you use. Talk with the people who know how to use the program to get better information about its usage. Otherwise, you have the option to visit the forums to consult other’s problems and to find – the most probable – a solution there. This can be applied from the lab programs we use in our schools and home until the hardware that can be upgraded via software.
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZkvmpE50GQ&feature=related
The 21st century is full of social, political, environmental, scientific, and technological changes and innovations. All these changes affect the educational context as well. The classroom of the 21st century has to bear in mind aspects such as the space in which learning takes place, the population it addresses, and the literacies it is preparing with and for.
Before thinking in the ideal classroom it is important to think that we cannot think only in classrooms but in learning spaces. Traditionally, learning used to take place in specialized spaces such as the classroom and the library. Now, because of the multiple possibilities offered on the web and the technological devices, learning can take place anytime and anywhere (Brown, 2005). Learning can be in virtual and/or in physical spaces.
For me, the ideal classroom for the 21st century is the one designed within the category of blended community. Blended is the category of –e-learning that incorporates face to face and online sessions (Siemens, 2004). Nonetheless, that classroom has to give also room to other categories: informal and networked. In this way, learning opportunities can be broaden. It also has to be a community that have common goals and/or practices, and issues of identity, and in which members depend on each other to achieve the learning outcomes. (Palloff, Rena and Pratt, 2007)
Now, I would like to describe the ideal classroom of the 21st century, having in mind the population it addresses: the Net Geners. According to Tapscott (2009), the Net Generation has eight norms: freedom, personalization, scrutinizes openness and integrity, entertainment, collaboration, speed, and innovation. For the norm of freedom, the classroom of the 21st century has to offer learners variety of options from where to choose and allow them to make decisions. For instance, the resource they will use for a presentation, it can be a video, a PPT or even a podcast, etc. For the second norm, we can allow them to personalize the space in which they are going to sit down or even the classroom. For the norm of scrutinize, we must have network connections and internet access so that they can search any information they might need. For the norm of integrity and openness, we need to offer them what is really appealing for them and option for the future. For the norm of entertainment we only need to be more dynamic and allow them to play in the classroom, always with an educational purpose. For the norm of collaboration we need to allow them to work in groups, create blogs, forums, wikis, and even make use of facebook. For the speed, we need to offer them multiple activities in only one class and make sure activities are not too long and boring because they will get bored too soon. We also need to have high speed connection. Finally, for innovation, we need to explore all the resources offered and make constant innovations in class so that students can feel motivated for entering the classroom.
The classroom of the 21st century has to have in mind the literacies it is preparing with and for. Classrooms cannot continue with the same traditional resources: the whiteboard and the markers they are used to work with. Daley (2003) stated that multimedia language is the current vernacular and I do agree. Hence, we need to be aware of this situation and start updating our knowledge and developing multimedia skills for being able to teach learners in the way they will really learn and face their daily life. We need to start working with new technologies and teach students how to use them in a proper and critical way. We need to have interactive boards and/or virtual boards to be displayed on students screen. Students need to have headphones to be able to record their voices and listen to their teacher, as well as record all that is said in class. We also need to have a video camera or webcam incorporated in the computers. All the students need to have their own work station, preferably laptops which are easy to move from one place to another. Connections need to be wireless to allow mobility.
Although, Net Geners’ naturality is to know how to deal with technology, our responsibility, as teachers, is to teach them to be critical and to learn how to deal with all the information offered on the web, so that they can make the best decisions. The classroom of the 21st century has to develop in students critical skills. Fjeldstead (1991) said “think critically about the meanings of what you are seeing, hearing, sensing, and experiencing” (as cited in Bamford, 2003). We need to make learners to see the different perspectives from which an image, movie, song, web page, and any content can be analyzed. By doing this, we are helping digital natives to be critical and be able to make informed and assertive decisions on what they can do with the multiple options from which they can choose and start constructing meaning.
21st century classroom need to be implemented with technological devices otherwise netgeners will choose not to learn with/from us. Classes must be student centered; it means we have to be aware of and address learners’ needs, likes, interests, and learning styles. Prensky (n.d.) said “most useful education for the future is not happening at school. It’s happening after school, particularly in personal robotics clubs, etc., and on the entire Internet – it’s happening in games. It’s not on a test…So they go to what is really turning them on.” We need to make of classrooms the place where they are turned on, the place in which they choose to pay attention, collaborate, construct meaning, learn and share “(learners’) attention spans are not short for games, for example, or music, or rollerblading, or for spending time on the internet, or anything else that actually interest them. It isn’t that they can’t pay attention, they just choose not to” (Ibid). The classroom of the 21st century has to be designed having in mind learners and what they will really pay attention to.
The classroom of the 21st century needs to change the organization and resources. It needs to have enough light, comfortable and mobile chairs, desks for group work. It needs to be big, warm and comfortable. Videoconferencing facilities, wireless networking connections, Internet access, projectors, and devices to capture and spread, for further reference, what happened in class; need to be implemented in physical and virtual learning spaces. The classroom of the 21st century has to be flexible, collaborative, self-directed, autonomous, mobile, networked, interactive, and student centered. By doing this with the classroom of the 21st century, we will have motivated students learning meaningfully because “when learning is pleasurable, it can happen even more rapidly” (The New Media Consortium, 2005).
References
Bamford, A. (2003) The Visual Literacy White Paper. Adobe Systems. Retrieved from http://www.adobe.com/uk/education/pdf/adobe_visual_literacy_paper.pdf
After reading the article E-learning categories, I would like to talk about my experience at La Universidad de la Sabana because it has been the only e-learning experience I have had.
In the master program, I have been involved in five of the seven e-learning categories mentioned by Siemens (2004): course, informal, blended, community and network.
Most of the subjects I have taken have been blended courses. Courses because they have had a start and an end date set. Most of them follow a constructivist theory and all of them have had a clear evaluation and assessment process established since the beginning of the course. For instance, the self-assessment class I attend, started on February 13th and will finish on May 29th. It is based on a constructivist theory because we “construct knowledge by understanding new information and building on (our) own current understanding” (Brown, 2005). And finally, the evaluation criterion is clear because all the assignments are well explained, with rubrics and the percentage they will have for the final grade. It also has a final project we have to make based on everything learned throughout the entire course.
The courses have been blended because they have both face to face and online sessions. Again, talking about the self-assessment class, we have received face to face sessions and online sessions (synchronous and asynchronous) to reinforce what was studied in the face to face session.
The blended courses at La Universidad de la Sabana have also encouraged me to have an informal e-learning. For instance, I would like to mention the ICELT component in which we had to fulfill some assignments and for doing so, we had to do a lot of search from which we learned a lot. I want to mention Lerner Autonomy and Self-access Materials class (LASAM) in which we had to design some activities and while designing them we found many interesting and useful resources to be applied in our teaching practice. And finally, I want to mention the blogs I have been constructing (ARP and NLE).
The master course has also helped us to become an e-learning community. We have become a community because we share the same and/or similar interests, purposes and goals “A community is a group of people with a common purpose, shared values, and agreement on goals” (Oblinger and Oblinger, Eds, 2006). Furthermore, we are constantly expanding knowledge by collaborating, supporting and encouraging each other. In that way we are keeping ourselves updated and making the knowledge flow.
Finally, I want to talk about the Network component we have develop in the blended courses. While studying the master course we have been also building our own learning network with more teachers from our school, teachers from the master course and the multiple resources we have been in contact with to enhance our function as teachers.
I did not mention the category of knowledge management because I am just capturing knowledge but the availability I have made of it has been little. Soon, I will start making all the resources I have been in contact with, and all my experiences available to the teachers who surround me, especially the ones from the school I work for because I really want them to start improving their teaching experience to enhance the children learning process.
References
Brown, M. (2005). Learning Spaces. In Educating the Net Generation, Chapter 12. Educause. Retrieved on March 10th, 2010 from www.educause.edu/educatingthenet gen/
Oblinger, D., & Oblinger, J. (Eds.) (2006). Learning Spaces. Educause. Retrieved from
Retrieved from http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_kZ_pdWl1UFU/StnWBtWvteI/AAAAAAAAAGI/Pw7BEAGCj9Y/s320/Online_Community.jpg
A community is a dynamic whole that emerges when a group of people share common practices are interdependent make decisions jointly identify themselves with something larger than the sum of the individual relationships and make a long term commitment to well being in terms of their own, one another’s and the group’s. Shaffer and Anundsen (1993)
For me the three most important issues of a community are:
A community is not a place-based concept anymore. (Palloff, 1996 as cited in Palloff, Rena and Pratt,2007)
Nowadays, the concept of community has changed since it is not based on a place, as it used to be. Because of technology, now we can also find online communities, who may not share the same physical space but a virtual one. The only requirement to form a (online) community is to have common goals and/or practices, and issues of identity. In our NLE class, we are all part of a community that is not necessarily place based. All of us have different skills and personalities but all of us share the same goal; learning from each other.
Members of a learning community depend on each other to achieve the learning outcomes. (Palloff, Rena and Pratt, 2007)
Since learning is a social process and meaning and knowledge is better constructed collaboratively, it becomes very important the participation of all the members in a community, especially when it is an online community. This does not mean that place-based communities do not need the cooperation of each member, it is only that when members of a community can meet face to face it becomes easier the communication because of the body language, signals and expressions. Fortunately, NLE community members are very committed and like to collaborate to each other. All of us are active members of the community because we are constantly sharing information, commenting on others ideas, giving opinions and even solving “conflicts). All this participation enhance our learning if it was not like this it would be frustrating to post our ideas and do not receive any reply instead. If there is not response, there is not community and so learning outcomes could not be achieved. Furthermore, some of the activities in the course are designed in such a way that without the help of each other could not be well achieved: wiki, mindmaps, etc.
Members’ expressions of support and encouragement exchanged between students, as well as willingness to critically evaluate the work of others. (Ibid).
In a community, support and encouragement are important to foster development. Our learning community is characterized by a constant exchange of expressions of support and encouragement that enhance our learning process. We are critical when replying to our classmates and respond to critics with maturity. We recognize when mistakes are made and correct if it is necessary. In this community we learn from each other experiences.
References
Oblinger, D., & Oblinger, J. (Eds.) (2006). Learning Spaces. Educause. Retrieved from
