Interactive and Collaborative Learning

Student education is becoming more and more reliant upon the technologies we use, and not the tools provided by the teacher. To move forward into the contemporary classroom, educators must adopt these technologies as their own to better meet the needs of the students born in Generation Z.

This week, we explored a range of interactive and collaborative learning tools that can potentially enhance the learning experience in the classroom. These tools were:

·         Interactive Learning Objects

·         Mapping

·         Collaborative Authoring

·         Online Concept Mapping

·         Online Timelines

The use of these tools in the classroom are not necessarily a new tool, but are expanding and developing in such ways that they are becoming more readily available, and more beneficial as forms of teaching students. The elements of a Creative Classroom Framework (the New Media Consortium, 2014), has six elements listed under Learning Practices; Learning by Exploring, Learning by Creating, Learning by Playing, Self-regulated Learning, Personalised Learning and Peer-to-Peer Learning. These six elements can be related back to the above five tools, as they describe how they can benefit the students.

An overview of the technical aspects: what can this technology do?

The online concept mapping program, Text2Mindmap, is basic way to create effective and multilayered mind maps online.

 

 

As you can see in the image above, on the left-hand side of the screen is a text box and on the right-hand side, is a default mind map showing the capabilities of the program. To use this program, you fill in the left hand text field, and you press tab to create a branch off the title above. Each time a new connection is created, it can be clicked and dragged and then locked into place.

 

This technology allows for students to easily expand upon ideas in a fun and interactive way. Students can easily create mind maps using Text2mindmap, with minimal input and assistance from the Teacher. This system does not have the ability to multi-author, but can be used in Peer-to-peer Learning (the New Media Consortium, 2014) in a collaborative group work setting. Therefore, Text2Mindmap can increase the learning outcomes of a group, when discussing and developing projects.

 

SAMR Model

Redefinition: Group tasks can be enhanced using mind-mapping tools such Text2Map. The tasks can be enhanced by using this tool to quickly expand upon the task. By saving the mind-map, the URL for the saved document can be sent to other students to continue working on or expanding upon the task.

Modification: You can redesign ordinary group discussions to have more interactive learning experience. Unlike traditional mind-mapping, you can continue to expand upon the idea without the prospect of running out of room.

Augmentation: This can be a direct substitute for traditional mind-mapping done on paper, the white board, or even when creating them in a Word document, with enhancements with fixed connections between points, and the ability to create a larger mind-maps without running out of space.

Substitution: This can be a direct substitute for traditional mind-mapping tools, with no functional change. Pen to paper can be just as effective as using Text2Mindmap.

 

 

 

 

I have a Prezi for the Students

A good presentation is all about communicating ideas to an audience for a purpose. One of my all-time favourite programs for presenting ideas is, Prezi. Prezi is a brilliant program which allows for a much more diverse and open-minded approach to design. It also a program which isn’t PowerPoint. Which every student see’s at least once, every school day.

Student engagement starts with trying something different. If we challenge the students by doing a class presentation with something out of the ordinary, we raise the chance of creating higher student engagement.

Technical Aspects

Prezi is an online ZUI (Zooming User Interface) tool, which allows users to zoom in and out of their presentation can display information that can be navigated through on either 2.5D or parallax 3D space on the Z-axis.

It has several tools which make it stand out amongst other programs, these are:

Prezi ZUI – the main concept of the program which is addressed above

Prezi Desktop – a downloadable program which allows for the creation of prezi’s in an offline situation, which allows them to be then stored on the device. Presentations created this way can be uploaded online so they can be accessed by multiple users.

Prezi Collaborate – an online tool that allows for up to ten users to co-edit and show their presentations in real time.

Prezi Viewer for iPad – app developed to allow students to view their prezi’s that are linked to their account.

Prezi has the ability to include; videos, images and audio. With its unique style of presenting content, Prezi can be an extremely power educational multimodal tool.

SAMR

Redefinition – Prezi allows for students to create vast presentations which can constantly be built upon with or without the collaboration of peers. This is something that students haven’t been able to do when using the normal schools programs such as PowerPoint haven’t been able to do before.

Modification – Oral presentations have always been left in the business or lack of in their PowerPoint Presentations. With the use of Prezi, students have the ability to go into great depth in topics, without creating busy noise. It also allows for a more engaging approach to the presentations as it moves around the screen, rather than presented simply slide by slide.

Augmentation – Functional improvement comes from the ability to be collaborative with other students in real-time, and does not need to be completed together using the same computer.

Substitution – when being used in the offline mode, this program can be a substitute for PowerPoint, with no functional change when presenting content and information.

The technical aspects of Prezi are innovative when it comes to incorporating them into the classroom environment. Prezi Collaboration is a brilliant concept that I would love to use in the classroom. To expand on this particular feature more, Prezi Collaboration allows up to ten people to work on a single Prezi, at the same time, in real time from their own devices. This would be a wonderful tool to use in HPE when comparing say a golf swing. The students would be able to upload their videos, images and audio into one presentation, then compare and contrast their performance against that of other students using the same Prezi. For myself I would use this as a backing tool when speaking on topics which need to go in to depth with rather than using PowerPoint.  

 

This is another example on how you can personalise and create a Prezi Presentation. This was used by using a desktop camera.

References

Prezi. (2015). Prezi. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prezi  

Media in Education

 

 

 

Link to an Audio file

 

An overview of the technical aspects:

 

Using multimodal presentations in the classroom allows for students to have that extra bit of solidifisation when exploring a topic. Images, Videos and Audio are three easily accessed tools that all students and teachers have access to. 

 

The use of images in the classroom can be done from something that helps demonstrate a topic to something that challanges are creates a critcal thinking environment.

 

Video's can do used as examples, or even as a tool for students to use to educate others in the class about a certain topic. This is the best used as a teacher tool mainly, to explain topics and engage the students who are profiled as visual learners.

 

Audio of course is a media tool that they can use anywhere that video or images are unavailable. For instance, on a long car trip, students can listen to class content.

 

These three media tools are completely customisable. As a teacher means you can add/remove content, create or just simply change the colour schemes. images, Video and Audio can be made to fit each classroom environment and each student.

 

 

 

 

Though, it is highly important that these are not used as a soul source of information, or by themselves. They should be used to support content.

 

SAMR:

 

In terms of the SAMR model when using Video as a key intructional and educational tool in the classroom, which support student out comes.

 

Redefinition: Using video in the classroom allows for tasks which were once inconcievable come into shape. For instance students could use this technology to enhance their learning when it comes to Health and Physical Education. The students could record a golf swing for example and then have the ability to properly evaluate and critique the movement.

 

Modification: You can redesign once mundane tasks from creating PowerPoints to creating multimodal presentations. This would increase student engagement because it is something they can change and munipulate to be anything they want.

 

Augmentation: Digital videos can be a direct tool replacement to using PowerPoint. The videos can include for facates which would benefit the learning outcomes of the students.

 

Substitution: Creating a video with just images is almost the same as creating a PowerPoint presentation. Further dynamics to the video presentation needs to be included for it to be an ehancement to the classroom.