Part A:
1. Digital
storytelling:
''Digital Storytelling
is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Throughout
history, storytelling has been used to share knowledge, wisdom, and values.
Stories have taken many different forms. Stories have been adapted to each
successive medium that has emerged, from the circle of the campfire to the
silver screen, and now the computer screen.'' (The Digital Storytelling
Association, cited in DeNanale & Traynor, 2008). In other words, digital
storytelling is to use technology to make meaning of stories in specific
and leaning in general which is created in an interesting way adding certain
multimedia that attracts learners' attention towards learning and creating as
well. Adapting digital storytelling in education and specifically in the
classroom, Bull and Kajder (2004) ''found that the following sequence of steps
works well: write an initial script, plan an accompanying storyboard, discuss
and revise the script, sequence the images in the video editor, add the
narrative track''. Digital storytelling is very useful in engaging students to use
their personal experiences in a form of story and benefiting from technology to
understand the subject. ''The process of developing a digital story is not only
deeply engaging for students, it also fosters a type of reflection that is
difficult to accomplish through print assignments. These types of assignments
also address the needs of aural, visual, and kinesthetic learners'' (DeNanale
& Traynor, 2008).
As a future teacher, I
wanted to use this method of storytelling in my class to attract students' attention
and make them engaging and enjoying their learning. I felt so happy when we
were introduced to digital storytelling in technology course this semester
because I wanted to learn about it and apply it in my teaching in the future.
With my friends I have used movie maker application to create a story using
technology. What we did was writing a story at first. Then, we narrated the
story and recorded our sounds. After that, we made our younger siblings to act
the story and we took photos of them. Finally, we joined all of these elements
together and put in the movie maker and that is how we used digital
storytelling in this course. (you will find our product of movie maker in part
2). It was an interesting experience and we benefited a lot from it because it
will be an addition to the variety of the teaching methods in teaching and it
will help the students to be engaged and interested in the subject they learn.
They will also be happy to have a new experience which will make them creative
rather than being assessed with tests and quizzes as usual.
To sum up, using
technology in general and digital storytelling in specific is very crucial in
the educational field .It is very important to teachers and students as well to
use it in the teaching and learning process because it makes education more
interesting.
Resources:
DeNatale, G., &
Traynor, J. (2008), Digital Storytelling: Tips and Resources. Academic
Technology.
Bull, G. & Kajder,
S. (2004), Learning & Leading with Technology. International
Society for Technology in Education, 49.
2. Technology
in Education:
Technology in
education is considered a tool that is helpful in student learning
and it shows how and why people behave. Educational Technology is a part
of the word "technology" 's wide meaning. Technology in terms of
education is referred to as material objects like overhead projectors,
laptop computers, and calculators. Also tools such as smart-phones and games
are used because of their learning potential. '' The newest challenge is
to use technology to individualize instruction to help students meet standards.
Teachers should consider using technology to adjust content to students’
individual learning styles to achieve this goal'' (AL-Bataineh & Brooks
2003).
Technology in the classroom:
There are many technological tools that can be
used in the classroom and these are some of them:
*Computer in the classroom: Having a computer
in the classroom is an asset to any teacher. With a computer in the classroom,
teachers are able to demonstrate a new lesson, present new material, illustrate
how to use new programs, and show new websites. ( Using Technology to
Enhance the Classroom Environment, 2002).
*Mobile
devices: Mobile devices such as clickers or smart-phone can be used to
enhance the experience in the classroom by providing the possibility for
professors to get feedback. (Tremblay, 2010).
*Digital
Games: The field of educational games and serious games has
been growing significantly over the last few years. The digital games are being
provided as tools for the classroom and have a lot of positive feedback
including higher motivation for students. (Biocchi, 2011).
In
my opinion, technology is an addition to the methods of teaching that the
teacher can use to deliver the subject in an interesting way. furthermore, they
need to have the knowledge to make use of these various technological tools so
that they teach their students how to use them correctly. nowadays, no one can
escape from using technology in schools especially Microsoft office programs
like word and PowerPoint, Photoshop application, etc. Personally, I used
Photoshop application in one of the courses in the SQU which was an interesting
experience that made me go further in this world to be more capable of using it
as a future teacher. Another experience I had using technology in learning was
in technology class this semester in which we used the Whatsapp application in
smart-phones to discuss the issue of cyber safety. It was a discussion directed
by our doctor who was the facilitator and we, the group members, responded to
the facilitator's questions and argued about that issue. It was really
interesting and added more fun in learning. In addition, we searched and read
many articles and went deeper in the issue because we were curious to know the
answers of the raised questions. Really, it worked well and it was a good
experience. Here is our discussion using Whatsapp application:
As a future teacher, I support using technology
in classroom because it saves students' time and efforts. It also adds some fun
to their learning and makes them more interactive. However, I will guide them
to use it in appropriate way and check if they copy their work using the
internet or not. I will pay attention regarding this point and make sure they
benefit from it.
Here are some examples of using technology in
education:
-Microsoft Office:
*Word:
*PowerPoint:
-Photoshop:
Resources:
AL-Bataineh, A. & Brooks, L., (2003),
Challenges, Advantages, And Disadvantages of Instructional Technology in The
Community College Classroom. Community College Journal of Research and
Practice, 27: 473–484.
Biocchi, Michael. "Games
in the Classroom". Gaming in the Classroom.
Retrieved 24 March 2011.
Tremblay, Eric. "Educating
the Mobile Generation – using personal cell phones as audience response systems
in post-secondary science teaching. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and
Science Teaching, 2010, 29(2), 217-227. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.".
Retrieved 2010-11-05.
Using Technology to Enhance the Classroom
Environment. THE Journal, 01 January 2002.
3. Interactive Whiteboards
''IWBs'' in the Classroom Pedagogy:
''IWB technology typically combines a
projector with software and computer technology to produce enlarged and
interactive images, animations and text for the purposes of teaching and
learning. IWB technology has been described as a computer connected
to a data projector which projects images onto a touch or pen-sensitive
screen.'' (BECTA, 2004; Bell, 2002; Kennewell & Higgins, 2007; Roberts,
2007).
Gibson (cited in, Burden, 2002, p. 5) suggests that schools go through a series of stages of technology development: infusion, integration and transformation. Burden suggests that Gibson’s stages may be “a means of looking at how we might expect the use of electronic whiteboards to develop over the coming years” (p. 7).
Pedagogical Approaches:
*''Whole class interaction was the main
pedagogical approach used.
*Over forty different uses of IWBs noted.
*Dialogue was often authoritative and followed a
traditional Initiate-Respond-Evaluate interaction mode (Mehan,1979).
*Both students and teachers suggested a
preference for this whole-class approach rather than collaborative small-group
or pair group approaches.
*Pre-planned lessons were strongly supported by
the technology and teachers used the boards to collect resources, plan whole
lessons and past lessons for future review.
*Explicit teaching was prevalent.'' (Kearny
& Schuck, 2007).
In my experience, Interactive Whiteboards have
the ability to help create learning environments which appeal to all
learners much more easily than you might be able to without them. They allow
using auditory and visual. They have the ability to let teachers
producing advanced lessons, a well-organized plan. They bring life to
learning for most students. They will encourage us, as future teachers, to
create prepared resources, they will also allow us the opportunity to choose
the best methods of creating lessons that will maintain all the needs of our
learners. They are fabulous and fabulous.
In this course, I had the opportunity to try
them for the first time and ,as a student, I enjoyed the class using them. It
added more fun and interactivity in the classroom as if it had brought life to
the students. We tried the IWB using the ActiveInspire application in creating
variety of lessons and here are the examples of our work:
ActiveInspire: Vegetables:
Resources:
Ishtaiwa, F.F. & Shana, Z. (2011). The use
of interactive whiteboard (IWB) by pre-service teachers to enhance Arabic
language teaching and learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher
Education: Gulf Perspectives, 8(2).
Schuck, S. & Kearney, M. (2007). Exploring
Pedagogy With Interactive Whiteboard.
4.Wikis and Collaborative Learning:
''Wikis are websites that can be
interactively edited by any number of people using simple online tools. An
incremental version of the website is stored each time an edit is saved, making
it possible to ‘rollback’ the site to any previous version if subsequent edits
need to be undone.'' (Cropper, Judd & Kennedy, 2010). It is an outstanding
way of teaching that can be added to the teacher's methods used in the
classroom. The picture bellow shows the steps of creating a wiki:
There are many sites that can be used
easily to create a wiki. Learners will be motivated to be creative and
interested in looking for information to post it in their wikis which is a good
thing to make them curious about what they learn. It is also used in
collaborative learning in which groups of students work together and collect
information about the subject they study and post it in their wikis in a
creative way. However, using wikis in collaborative learning should be
introduced by the teacher in appropriate way to be effective way in learning .
Mackey (2007) argued that by using wiki alone, students did not necessary learn
more effectively. Instead, the use of wiki should be balanced with face-to-face
activities in order for communities of practice to function well.
In my point of view,
wiki is a useful method in teaching. Instead of using the usual ways in
teaching, teachers can use wikis in group work, so that students will divide
the work and do it together to benefit from it. It is an easy way to make what
they learn sticks in their minds because they will have to put an effort in it
and write it in their wikis to present it in an attractive way. However, I
think that teachers should not depend a lot on it because it does not work all
the time. Sometimes, students have to discuss things with the teachers and not
only writing in the wikis because speaking is the best way used in
convincing and presenting ideas. Wikis should be used to add more fun and
changing styles of teaching and not for students to be assessed on
because they will lose their value which is adding fun to learning.
I had an interesting
experience in creating a wiki for the first time in this course. My friends and
I created a task for students which is made up of many parts. We used the wiki
and posted the task there with the materials that students should read
for them to do the task. It was an enjoyable experience. I enjoyed it.
Here is our wiki for
this semester which was a debate about keeping exotic animals:
Resources:
Cropper, S., Judd, T. & Kennedy, G.
(2010). Using wikis for collaborative learning: Assessing collaboration through
contribution. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology,
26(3), 341-354.
Leung, K., (2009). Using Wikis for
Collaborative Learning: a Case Study of an Undergraduate Students’ Group
Project in Hong Kong.
Mackey, T. (2007). The social informatics
of blog and wiki communities: Authoring communities of practice (CoPs). Proceedings
of Canadian Association for Information
Science. Montreal, Canada: 1-14.
5. Concept Mapping:
''Concept maps are graphical tools for
organizing and representing knowledge. They include concepts, usually enclosed
in circles or boxes of some type, and relationships between concepts indicated
by a connecting line linking two concepts.'' (Canas & Novak, 2006). In
other words, concept mapping is representing different concepts in the easiest
way can be. Canas and Novak (2006) state that ''there are two features of
concept maps that are important in the facilitation of creative thinking: the
hierarchical structure that is represented in a good map and the ability to
search for and characterize new cross-links.''
The picture bellow show you the steps of
concept mapping:
Concept mapping is beneficial in classroom. For
example, in science classroom, ''concept maps allow students to think deeply
about science by helping them to
better understand and organize what they learn. Students also and to store and retrieve information more
efficiently, articulate and challenge their thoughts about science when
they discuss their maps with each other.'' (Ruiz-Primo, Tomita, Vanides, &
Yin, 2005). As a learning tool, concept map can be used as a tool of note
taking, study, collaborative mapping, summarizing readings, etc.
In my point of view,
concept mapping is a very effective tool that has to be applied by teachers and
students. Teachers can do it to make lessons easier for students and to make
them differentiate between what is important to them and what is not. Students
can use it as well when they study to make the study easier for them. Putting
important notes in maps can help students in memorizing especially when they
draw the map in different colors. From my experience, I found that this way
works a lot until now.
In this course, I have
learned how to use technology in making a concept map using prezi.com which is
a very useful website in creating well-organized maps. As a future teacher, I
will definitely apply the concept mapping using prezi.com. here are samples of
using concept mapping in prezi.com:
*Structural
Syllabus:
*Nyctophopia:
for further information about concept mapping,
click here:
Resources:
Canas, A., J. & Novak, J., D., (2006). The
Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them.
Ruiz-Primo, M. A., Tomita, M., Vanide, J &
Yin, Y. (2005). Using Concept Maps in the Science Classroom. National
Science Teachers Association, Vol. 28, No. 8.
Part B:
My Collections in
Technology Course:
During this semester, I have benefited a
lot by applying what I have learned about technology. We have been introduced
to many concepts in technology which have enriched the educational field that
we work in. I have got the opportunity to use new applications and programs of
technology in my practical teaching. Here are examples of the programs we
worked on this semester and also my products of these programs:
1. Prezi: (We have
learned about concept mapping and prezi is an online application that I used in
creating concept maps). Bellow are two maps that I created using prezi to
identify two concepts, one is about structural syllabus and the second one is
about nyctophopia:
*Structural Syllabus:
*Nyctophopia:
2. Movie Maker: ( I used
this application when we have learned about digital storytelling. This
application helps in learning stories in an interesting way and our group has
used it to make a story about ''The Careless Girl''):
3. ActiveInspire: ( We
learned about this application when we were introduced to the interactive
whiteboard ''IWB''. This application is used to make the lesson interesting and
to engage students in the classroom. Our group have worked together to make a
lesson about vegetables using ActiveInspire):
4. Wiki: ( We created a
wiki in a website called weebly to engage students to write their opinions
about the debate that was held in class. It was about keeping exotic animals as
pets):
I hope you find these programs useful as
I do and that you apply them in your own fields because they really work for
everything.
