Category: Assignment 1 – Blog Posts

In this blog post, I’ll be talking about the differences between TPACK, SAMR and SECTIONS.

 The 21st century has brought us many great technological advancements. One huge thing that has changed for the better, with technology, is the way students are educated. Without technology, most teachers now would struggle to get their lessons across to their students. Young people today always have their face shoved into a laptop, cell phone, gaming system, and other electronic devices. Implementing technology in the classroom allows for students to use their technological understanding to help educate them to the best of their ability.

 TPACK is Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge and this is what shows teachers how to improve their teaching with implementation of technology. Technology could be the use of a SMART board, iPads in the classroom, laptops, chrome books, cell phones, and more. Pedagogy is how you teach. Every teacher has a certain way they like to teach or how they think information is best retained and that is their pedagogy. Content is what you’re teaching whether is be out of the book or found online, you have to be teaching some sort content. All of those combined create TPACK, a great way to incorporate technology into learning. 

        SAMR is also a way to put technology in the classroom in hopes to improve learning. It stands for substitution, augmentation, modification, redefinition. Substitution is putting a technological system into education that could be done equally as well without technology. An example is Microsoft Word. Augmentation is still technically a substitute but it allows for slight improvement in learning. A google doc being shared between students could be an example of this. Modification is a significant change for the better with technology. Google docs being used to see what people change as they do it is a great example of this. Lastly, redefinition. Redefinition is a complete change, making it a completely new task. This could be thought of as D2L, where we can see every assignment a teacher has and also make comments on a students post. 

The SECTIONS Model is an applicable

 framework that educators can use to evaluate the effectiveness of applying a certain technology in their classrooms. SECTIONS specifically refers to 8 different areas: Students, Ease of use, Costs, Teaching & Media, Interactivity, Organizational issues, Networking and Security & Privacy.

References
Schrock, Kathy. “SAMR.” Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything. N.p., 9 Nov. 2011. Web. 17 June 2022

Koehler, Matthew J. “TPACK Explained.” TPACKorg. N.p., n.d. Web1 7 June 2022.

“SAMR/TPACK.” IPad Bootcamp for Teachers. Web. 17 June 2022

Bates, A. W., & Poole, G. (2003). Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley. Web1 7 June 2022.

The importance of making learning accessible for everyone

The move to remote, or distance learning models has provided many challenges for educators and students alike such as a lack of devices, connectivity issues and a lack of confidence with digital tools. It has also brought with it many accessibility challenges. Students are facing more written text than ever before, convoluted instructions and scanned copies of textbook pages with illegible text. This transition has been difficult for all students but especially for those with additional support needs and disabilities.

4 Learning Styles

Visual

People with a preference for visual learning tend to enjoy looking at and observing things. Like me, I find pictures, diagrams, and infographics a good way to understand information. When taking notes, I tend to add visual connection between key points lay more emphasize.

People that find visualization an effective mode of presentation will often benefit from presenting ideas on a chalk or whiteboard where they can draw pictures and diagrams. Some visual learners find technologies such as graphic thought organizers or mind-mapping tools especially useful to understand and present complex ideas.

Auditory

Those who prefer an auditory approach to learning tend to focus on sound and listening to information. They prefer to listen to a document read out, or a person speaking rather than work directly with the text. Even when making their own notes they may prefer to speak out their thoughts as they write, and dictation tools on a tablet or computer are often very effective. When presenting their ideas, they may prefer to work with shorter written notes and to speak out their ideas verbally, and the opportunity to present work as a speech or video recording may work well for them.

Tactile learners

Tactile learners seem to learn best through physical experience and doing things, such as through acting out events or by touching, feeling and handling to understand concepts. For such learners, the ability to move whilst learning can be helpful, such as pacing whilst reading or having small toys to handle whilst listening.

Building activities and creating safe environments that allow a student to move around the school or classroom, such  as scavenger hunts or following clues, can be effective ways of helping them to build links between information sources and ideas.

Text or reading learners

Many learners still prefer to assimilate and produce ideas and content through the written word. They may prefer to use text to record their thoughts in diaries or notebooks and read widely.

Most schools and classrooms are well established to support those with this preference. It is the closest to traditional classroom learning, and may include writing essays, undertaking research, and reading. They often benefit from having time to absorb information and opportunities to express their ideas on paper.

How to make learning materials accessible

A great starting point is to ensure that any documents or slides are designed to be usable and understood by all. Refer to the accessibility toolkit for digital learning materials which includes step-by-step guides based on widely used software programs including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for making your documents and presentations accessible.

References

Gerrard, C. (2022). Making Learning Accessible For All Students – Global EdTech. Global EdTech. Retrieved 8 June 2022, from https://global-edtech.com/making-learning-accessible-for-all-students/.

Adler, E. (2022). How Inclusivity Fosters Student Engagement | Today’s Learner | Cengage. Today’s Learner. Retrieved 8 June 2022, from https://todayslearner.cengage.com/how-inclusivity-promotes-student-engagement/.

Teacher’s guide: How to make learning materials accessible – Accessible Digital Learning Portal. Accessible Digital Learning Portal. (2022). Retrieved 9 June 2022, from https://accessibledigitallearning.org/resource/making-lessons-accessible-to-all-learners/.

Benefits of Multimedia Learning

“Multimedia is characterized by the presence of text, pictures, sound, animation and video; some or all of which are organized into some coherent program” (Phillips, 1997).

The UNESCO world Education Report (1998) notes that the new technologies challenges traditional conceptions of both teaching and learning and, by reconfiguring how teachers and learners gain access to knowledge with the helps of multimedia implementations. There is no doubt that with the advancement of technologies rising, the progression it has made has been impressive.

Some Benefits of Multimedia Learning are shown below in the infographic I created.

Reference

Unesco. (1998). World education report 1998.

Pea R.D. Learning through multimedia. IEEE Comput. Grap. Appl. 1991;11(4):58–66.

Putra C.A. Utilization of multimedia technology for instructional media. J. ICT Educ. 2018;5:1–8. 2018. 

Phillips Anderson . An analysis of the use of multimedia technology in computer aided design training: towards effective design goals. Procedia Technol. 2013;9:200–208. 1998

Kahoot is a game based learning platform located on the World Wide Web. It’s easy to use, does not require users to download special applications, and is compatible with electronic devices that have access to the internet, e.g, iPhone, android phones, personal computers, mac computers, and iPads. Kahoot presents as an online educational, somewhat entertaining, interactive platform. Accessing the Kahoot website simply requires users to type ‘kahoot.it’ into their internet browser; Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, 
Sign up is free and no registration, email address, password, or sharing of personal information is required.

Kahoot aligns well with the constructivism learning theory in that it allows for active learning. When used in an online virtual classroom (Blackboard, Collaborate) this activity combines online chats, email exchange, and group/social activities.

When I consider reflection and communication, it brings to mind the ability to meet all learning styles. One of the most attractive features is Kahoot’s ability to accommodate all learning styles; colourful web design where all questions are displayed on the screen (visual learners); upbeat music and provides learners the ability to read each question (audio learners); answers are selected by users clicking the mouse or using the appropriate buttons on their device.

From my experience of using Kahoot, it has enhanced my engagement and performance level , compared to traditional learning methods.

Looking at the Top 300 tools for Learning, I can confidently say i’m familiar with the majority of the tools listed. As the world evolves, there are constantly new methods of learning arising. Gone are the days when people learn by only reading books, magazines, or any paper-based resource.

Using these different learning tools has introduced a more interesting and engaging way to learn new things. Not only are these tools used for Educational purposes, they’re also used for personal learning, as well as workplace learning.

Tools like Youtube, PowerPoint, Zoom (particularly because of COVID-19), Google-docs/drive, etc, have become very popular in relations to educational learnings.

Other tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Wikipedia, Whatsapp, etc, have become especially popular for personal learning.

While tools such as Microsoft Teams, Google search, Word, Slack, etc, have become very popular for workplace learning.

Reference

Top Tools for Learning 2021 – Results of the 15th Annual Survey published 1 September 2021. (2022). Retrieved 17 May 2022, from https://www.toptools4learning.com/