Digital tool: Digital camera

When most people think digital camera and young children they immediately think "catastrophe". But it is rarely the case, particularly if precautions are taken.

Harriet Price noted in her book "the really useful book of ICT in the early years" that staff were concerned that children might: Drop cameras; damage them with sand, water or messy play resources; or not be able to operate the camera. Harriet later reveled that none of these things happened and that a "parent" was the only person who dropped a camera.

Digital cameras are a fantastic way to enhance childrens' self esteem and independence. The children are thrilled and excited taking and looking at their pictures (even if they are lopsided) and it allows them a sense of "ownership" in their work.

As the adage goes "A picture tells a thousand words". Each individual who views a picture sees it from a different perspective. For example a picture of a weed may look like a "pretty flower" to a child but a "weed" to an adult. Images allow the teachers to get a better view of the perspective of their students. In general multimodel learning has been shown to be more effective than traditional, unimodal learning. Adding visual learning can result in significant gains in basic and higher order thinking.

In order to ensure that accidents with digital cameras are kept to a minimum it is best to insist that all students wear a neckband which the camera is tethered to. It is also possible to buy cheaper cameras for children which have "simple" features and large buttons. There are two examples below one is a "cars" digital camera and the other a "crayola" digital video camera.

As with digital sound, digital pictures can be inserted into a variety of ICTs including blogging.

Reference
Price. H. (2009) The really useful book of ICT in the early years. Milton Park, Great Briton: Routledge.

Stanton,D.; Neale,H.; Cobb, S.; Bayon,S.; Ingram,R.; Benford,S.; O Malley,C.; Wilson, J. (2000) Designing Storytelling Technologies to Encourage Collaboration Between Young Children. Paper accepted to CHI-2000, the Hague, the Netherlands,
1-6 April 2000.

Digital tool:Podcasts

Podcasts are a great tool for individual learning, particularly with students who have difficulty focusing. Many of us have seen a person wearing headphones and being engrossed in what they are listening to. For young children, who are easily distracted it is an easy way to keep their mind focused on a task.

There are many benefits of a podcast for both young and older students and they include:

* Less distractions from sounds in and outside the classroom

* The ability to pause and replay an important piece of information

* It allows students to close their eyes and totally focus on the podcast itself.

* It allows students to listen to important podcasts outside school hours.

* Podcasts are a great tool for aural learners.

* Young students can gain information without having to be able to read proficiently.

However the podcast must be engaging and not in a dull or monotonous voice or the student is likely to fall asleep!

There are a large variety of podcasts available from stories (for the younger students), to scientific information, to thoughts and ideas of individuals, to even gardening tips!

The wonderful thing about podcasts is that they are more often than not free.

Apples Itunes has a fantastic selection of podcasts including storybooks for younger students.

Professional Blog Reflective Synopsis

“The Internet? We are not interested in it.”
– Bill Gates, 1993
"640K ought to be enough for anybody".
Bill Gates

Technology is growing at a phenomenal pace and even those people who helped it on its journey had no idea where it would lead. One thing is for certain, it will not be backwards.
Today's students K-12 represent the first generations to grow up with technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cameras, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age.

While many may see ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) as just another burden to add to an already full teachers agenda, ICT's are more so a tool. However, they are a valuable tool that, when used in conjunction with good pedagogical practices, expose a world of excitement and knowledge for students. It is important to note that as discussed in the blog "Teachers and ICT" that it should not be simply "thrust" upon teachers without discussion and training. The best approach to using technology in the curriculum is to remember that it should firmly start and end with the curriculum.

ICT can be classed as "software" (programs, blogs, Internet, podcasts) and "hardware" (digital cameras, digital voice recorders, educational toys, wii ). While nine ICT or "digital tools" have been mentioned in the previous blogs (another ICT tool) five have been discussed in depth.
These are "blogging", "digital voice recorder", "digital camera", "powerpoint" and "podcast".
Each ICT tool can be used in conjunction with the others, and the students benefit by way of catering to the many learning requirements of the individual students, including Howard Gardners "aural and visual intelligences".
Three of the five 'blogs','digital voice recorder', and 'digital camera' (with a little assistance) can be used by even the most youngest of students. With aid and add-on programs such as an interactive white board the other two 'powerpoint' and 'blogging' can be achieved even by prep students. All five have been chosen due to the ease at which they can be used by all (including the teachers) and the limitless possibilities for fantastic pedagogically based learning experiences.

In order to best identify which tools and how these can be a benefit the "Dimensions of Learning framework" with its inclusion of Art Costas "Habits of mind" has been used as a determination.

While it is possible for educators to educate without ICT the lessons would no doubt be lesser for it. ICT's are the way of the future and with them the future looks exciting and very educational.

References
Prensky, M (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5.

Digital tool: Microsoft Powerpoint

While at first "powerpoints" may bring up memories of dull, repetitive slides (alot like the old holiday slides some of us were subjected to), "powerpoint" is a far more exciting and interesting tool.
In conjunction with a interactive whiteboard it can even be used by young children.

While the Microsoft Powerpoint is required to make a powerpoint, Microsoft allows anyone to download the viewer for free. Unless a person owns a "mac" system it is more than likely that their computer, whether a PC or a laptop will have a version of powerpoint. Powerpoint can be used with images, sound and video. The slides can be altered in a thousand ways to make them more interesting and they can be linked to Internet sites. The one unfortunate problem with powerpoint is that it can be difficult to "upload" the program onto the Internet.
For the older students or their teachers there are various web sites that can clearly help them understand how to best use the program. One such site is:
http://www.actden.com/pp/

For the younger students, powerpoint has the added benefit of being able to be "altered" to allow only certain tools to be accessed, which allows a teacher to ensure that the students are concentrating only on what they should be.

The powerpoint below is an example of a combination of the powerpoint program, photos using a digital camera, sounds recorder via a digital voice recorder, and music downloaded via the Internet from Itunes.

Teachers and ICT's

Technology is becoming increasingly interactive and distributed, at rapidly declining cost, the means to participate in incredibly complex networks of information, resources, and instruction. Electronic tools have given us an immense array of text, video, sound, and communication resources The primary issue facing these educators, Just what is the most effective way to understand and use these tools?

Schofield and Davidson have noted that "The literature on school is filled with depictions of teachers’ ambivalent, cautious, even resistant responses to proposed reforms-whether pedagogical or technical". Cunningham and Bonk noted that “Educational leaders need reassurance and guidance that as the formats for electronic collaboration proliferate, these will enhance interaction and positively reorganize the learning process".A barrier to this as Cunningham and Bonk noted there is a “lack of pedagogical guidance about integrating (electronic tools)which leads to dilemmas and confusion”.

According to Langwitches Blog, the teachers are not the only people to be confused about the benefits of Etools. Langwitches remarks "How can we educate parents and administrators that blogging, podcasting and skyping, etc. are simply a vehicle to preparing students for many skills and literacy's, including the 3Rs they are accustomed to and familiar with?"

It is important for all the stakeholders to understand that Etools are simply tools, they way in which they are used is what is the most important. It is the difference between a child watching a soap opera on television compared with a documentary, it is the same tool, but vastly different outcomes can occur.

References
Cunningham,D.,& Bonk, C.(1998).Searching for Learner-Centered, Constructivist, and Sociocultural Components of Collaborative Educational Learning Tools. NJ, USA. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Schofield, J.& Davidson, A. (2002) Bringing the Internet to School. CA, USA. Jossey-Bass.

Langwitches Blog,(2010). It’s Not About the Tools. It’s About the Skills. Retrieved August 22nd 2010 from: http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/01/09/its-not-about-the-tools-its-about-the-skills/

Digital tool: Digital voice recorder.

DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER

A digital voice recorder (DVR) is a fantastic way of getting the children's thoughts and ideas. Young children may not have the literary skills to “write” their thoughts and ideas but can “dictate” it to a digital recorder, and even later play it back.

A DVR can be used in a multitude of programs including powerpoint (the powerpoint in the powerpoint blog utilised this tool by recording a dogs bark), wiki, podcasts, voki and glogster. It adds a personal touch to presentations as well as to learning. Young children will benefit from DVR as many are very keen to hear their own voice being recorded. It is also benefitial for those students who are shy, it allows them to practice and record a presentation privately if they are uncomfortable about presenting within a group.
Another advantage to both young and older students is that it allows them to "hear" their pronunciations and annunciation, which enables them to correct any errors they may have. Which both old and young are not always aware of.

DOL overview
DOL1: Attitudes and perceptions: Helps the students build confidence and feel more comfortable at the task at hand.
DOL2:Acquire and integrate knowledge: it can be used to record thoughts and was as sounds.
DOL3:Extend and refine knowledge: DVR will allow a student to record their thoughts and ideas towards a subject and pursue it from there.
DOL4: The recording can help the student present their message.
DOL5: The DVR allows students to be persistent at a task, think flexibly and even find humour.

References

Price. H. (2009) The really useful book of ICT in the early years. Milton Park, Great Briton: Routledge




Olympus digital voice recorder owned by this blogger.

Digital tool: You tube

You tube is an easy access point to thousands of videos many of them invaluable to the learning environment. However, it often lacks copyrite laws and can have many inappropriate videos, making it not an ideal port of call for any research they may do. You tube is often blocked by schools due to this reason. It serves more as a teacher tool for resources and first step into finding other, more appropriate web sites.

A more appropriate site is Teacher tube where videos (that are perfect for young students) can be found such as the one below.

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=7708&title=Water_Cycle_Song

some videos can even be downloaded.