EDED20491 Assessment 2 - Synopsis of Analysis: 4 Digital Technologies

Without doubt, modern survival is intertwined with waves of the computer revolution.  This revolution is born of interplay of learning and a complex of human designed tools, where computer hardware & software are digitally networked/networking all over the globe.  Therefore,  we are seeing a maturing effect on our culture of mass communications broadly affecting contemporary socialization and learning behaviours.  Teachers are educating a generation of digital natives, & the modalities in which 21st learners learn are increasingly becoming enmeshed with information communication technologies (ICTs) so it is up to the professional educators conscience to discern which technologies to best use.  As I am a music & SOSE/Geography major, I have identified 4 (four) ICTs (of the vast array of ICTs in extant) that, at this early stage in my career I most readily recognize as having accessible & engaging pedagogical potential.  Within this discourse, I shall include comment upon legal, ethical and safety considerations for each technology as may be applied in education.  The four technologies I have chosen to focus on as pedagogical tools are: blogs, digital videos, Prezi & Google maps.  

As I indicated in my blog post on the topic of blogs, I have had significant personal experience as a blog reader/contributor.  Experience that has taught me the potential power blogs have to convey volumes of knowledge and provide reader feedback to writers.  Blogs also have a significant presence in mass media (a potential future employer and/or probable future marketing service provider for a larger proportion of any student cohort).  There are numerous pedagogical potentials in blogs for teachers of any subject, and one of the main strengths of blogging in education is it allows collaboration between students & teachers whilst using (developing) language skills.  The editorial control of an educational blog ideally should be maintained by the teacher-blog-creator, which actually allows moderation of comments so abuse or slander is not permitted in a public domain.  Online behaviour (postings) can be managed appropriately if monitored by the teacher, peer-moderated and self-moderated to comply with the relevant school/university/training-college behaviour code or framework. 

Readers may be restricted to authorized blog members or the blog may be open to the public. Yet, it is possible that allowing parents to access a students blog may increase engagement in curriculum delivery in the student's home (Infinite Thinking Machine, 2011).  By posting in blogs (regardless of subject area), students are practicing their reading, writing and critical thinking skills.  In the future I will have in my teaching toolkit (for either music or SOSE/geography) the capability to establish educational guest blogging sessions just as some major news media internet sites do.  One strategy I will use to engage students through the blog will be to provide focus questions or paste from other sources focus material which not only conduits curriculum content, but does so in a memorable and enthralling way.  


Because class blogs can be a reflection of the collective knowledge of the whole learner-cohort, teachers can also use blogs to create opportunity for extending learner discourse.  This may develop higher order thinking in students, demonstrated as such through the dialectical skill in applying abstracts of reason and logic to a sustained argument (perfect for classes in SOSE/geography/history etc).  Debates and arguments develop persuasive writing and should be encouraged and managed.  Ideally (moderated) commentary may come from teachers, peers, guest bloggers and other blog members, but particularly student blog postings and commentary can provide teacher with learning markers for individual students (for refinement of pedagogical strategy or to inform assessment).

Design of blogs is important to consider when integrating into learning, as the creator can embed other technologies such as digital video, pic or Prezi (more on this later), and this is important to consider when designing learning for different age/class cohorts, & considering diversities such as impairments.  Blogs may be set up primarily as a reading or writing blog, or combination of both types.  They can be used for assignment construction and transmission, research projects, reflective journals, and many learning activities that can be performed in real classrooms can be blogged (e.g. SWOT, PMI, a debate, role play etc).

Notably, blogs would not be quite so engaging without the facility to embed video - a perfect segue way to discuss pedagogical potentials of digital video.  Most late generation mobile phones have inbuilt digital cameras, and many students own these ICTs.  Digital camcorders are also available in many homes and schools.  As such, the capacity to capture footage is literally in the hands (or homes or libraries or resource centres etc) of many students and teachers.


The beauty of digital video for teaching has many dimensions, firstly as video editing software is freely available to most PC or Macintosh computer users.  Video is a highly engaging tool to use as arguably most children around the world have been raised with this medium.  Transparently,  video provides direct engagement to visual learners, yet it is possible for students (& teachers) to fulfill potential roles as writers, actors, stage managers, camera operators, editors, directors, producers, audio (SX), lighting (LX) etc.  Variety of learning outcomes range from integrated visual and aural learning, specific video & audio production skills (procedural knowledge), to vast meta-learning and augmentation of core content task work.  Teaching with video production can engage and extend students well beyond the core subject curriculum content well into lateral learning outcomes through skill developing and internalizing instinctive learning processes.


Examples of video production learning processes are: reading and comprehending instructions to access and download software or upload videos, analyse problems and barriers in production and posting to blog/wiki, create solutions responsively to problems/barriers, develop problem solving skill and acquire some new declarative & procedural knowledge (of computing video & audio production), explore procedural knowledge in visual literacies of video & audio editing/design, develop procedural (technical) knowledge of computers, codecs and some software, evaluate hardware limitations and adapt in applying high data usage software on this computer such as video, network to other users of the software (solution videos) for repairs via search engine, develop literacies in area of photography & /video/audio production as well as computer structures & maintenance.




Whether it be in music or SOSE/geography, digital video will be in my teaching toolkit.  Examples of video tools (purely for viewing) I may use; histories for student's contextual analysis, a documentary about a musical genre (e.g. gangsta rap or baroque or jazz) for a study in form, or connecting students to music teaching video websites so as to offer a visual-aural tool to access to music theory.  Conversely, collaborative video production project examples I may use in the future are; 

• to create my own musical rudiments practice exercise videos or have students create their own,
• or have students produce a historical re-enactment where degrees of artistic license permitted is tied to teacher's schema for assessment where higher quality of dramaturgical research and demonstration of historical fact-finding positively influences marking, 
• or perhaps geography students could document the flora and fauna within the school grounds and compile-edit into a video to be posted on the class-blog
• establish a music student-class routine where video footage is captured regularly in class, as a matter of course in order to track project progress or log in a video diary, and importantly provide the students substantial opportunity to observe their own works on tape and adapt their work accordingly.       

Serious ethical, legal and safety considerations about teaching with videos relates to the appropriateness of the content for use in the class or to show outside of the class/school/college etc.  However, institutional policies may guide the teacher in the values and boundaries of such judgement calls.  For example, although video camcorders may be less readily available, the use of cameras in classes is not currently permitted in many Queensland state schools.  The authority to ban mobile phone cameras from being use anywhere in a school or to allow teachers to integrate their use into learning design rests with the State school Principals based upon any foreseen disruptions to school life (SCM-PR-003: Appropriate use of mobile telephones and other electronic equipment by students, Queensland Government, 2011).  


My current employer's school policy does not permit students use mobile phone cameras but allows teachers and students to produce appropriate videos with school and personal digital camcorders.  Some schools accept a degree of mobile phone use but with strict conditions that relate to decency, avoiding disruption at school, maintaining personal dignity and privacy, avoiding tarnishing personal or professional reputations and preventing misuse of any recording device for sexually explicit material, embarrassment, harassment, bullying etc, e.g. Toowoomba State High School policy; 'Use of Personal Technology Devices by Students at School' (Toowoomba State High School, 2011).  Clearly the onus is on teachers to monitor/moderate school video recording activity.  Ideally students self & peer moderation will prevent problems occurring before they actually happen.


Copyright and intellectual property rights must also be considered by any teacher integrating any digital technology into their learning designs, particularly when sourcing copyrighted works.  Students and their legal parents or guardians should opt to using recordable digital media (of any transmissible form from which a material financial benefit could be gained) and sign media consents.  Teachers must remember that works produced whilst in paid employment may create significant entitlement to copyright ownership by the employer.  

I avoided copyright issues in creating the musical soundtrack of my video by recording my own performance of an older song out of copyright ownership.  With credits given to author of song, plus that it was not a commercial project, it was effectively a 'demo' of my performance work for educational purposes.  As thus, teachers may need to consult the National Copyright Standards in order to predict possible consequences of certain actions as such under the 'fair dealing' clause restricting un-authorised copying or many forms other forms of unauthorized use of any other copyright owners works (MCEETYA - Smartcopy, 2011).  Legal obligations on copying or other use of copyright material applies to all kinds of intellectual product e.g. text works, artistic works and photographs, musical works, sound recordings, film, Video / DVD, CD-ROMS, Television and Radio Broadcasts, Internet and Websites, Multimedia, Databases, Computer Software. All four technologies analyzed here are subject to copyright laws.

Not quite a video, but never-the-less a novel digital technology involving motion, I found Prezi appealing as a pedagogical tool and created my own.  Effectively this program is website based and a unique way to present text, pictures, and even concepts in a presentation format viewable through a video-esque viewing screen.  The impressive ability of a Prezi to enable students to make/enjoy original works with use functions of zoom, drag and spinning pages designed with text and/or pictures.  The revolutionary idea behind this gadget is that the dynamics of the movement of the text is eye-catching & engaging for early or advanced readers.  Seeing a Prezi is a dynamic experience for visual learners.   Prezis are enthralling & easy to create and I can foresee some constructivist and connectivist learning design opportunities, e.g. a student group designing a musical theory Prezi or a rudiment practice exercise Prezi, a teacher making a rhythm notation quiz in a Prezi format, a geography student creating Prezi concept maps with diagrams and pictorials for inclusion on the class blog or wiki, a SOSE camp commentary and pictorial Prezi for presentation at speech night.  Whatever scaffold or foci are applied to the subject curriculum content delivery, Prezi can visually transmit meaning non-sequentially, and users have camera control providing the ability to read any aspect of the Prezi which would suits global learners.  



Finally, the technology of Google Maps is in many ways a perfect match for a Geography lesson.  This free software has navigation tools that are relatively easy to use and is linked to the vast resources of the Google search engine to pinpoint specific location maps. Images are taken from around world from almost any angle and the software also links with Google Earth (another amazing geography platform).  Google Mapping pedagogical potential lies in the ease of teacher's scaffolding to deliver curriculum content (scaffolded with graphic organizers, focus questions/tasks, Q&A, PMI, pair & share, etc) and beyond, particularly in providing perspective of global physical and human geographies. That is not to suggest the teacher's choice of scaffolds are not important, for this tool or any other ICT, rather that there is an abundance of scaffolding options in which to approach essential learnings for each grade or developmental stage.


Intelligent use of map layers (e.g. roads, labels, live and recorded traffic levels etc), or choosing between satellite and physical map imagery, provides illuminating learning designs and the program has a function to embed maps in blogs/websites/wikis.  Another learning design option is manipulating screen shots with other programs such as Paint or Corell Draw, but the maps themselves convey a lot of information about human and physical geographies. Edits can also be made to maps should landmarks or specific buildings be found to be incorrectly located (mapped), and a worthwhile geography class learning response (project), should students ever discover such an instance, would be to plan see how they might correct it.

In summary, although I am sure to investigate many other digital pedagogical tools, there is a place for each of these four technologies to be included in my future teaching toolkit. 

REFERENCES

Australian Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA).

(2011). Learning Copyright Compliance Manual for Teachers. date accessed: 12/4/2011, accessed at: http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/

Department Education and Training, 2011, SCM-PR-003: Appropriate use of mobile telephones and other electronic equipment by students, date accessed: 12/4/2011, accessed at: http://education.qld.gov.au/strategic/eppr/schools/scmpr003/

Zilm, C, 2007, The Use of Personal Technology Devices By Students at School, accessed on: 12/4/2011, accessed at: http://toowoombshs.eq.edu.au/wcms/images/mobilephone.pdf

Wittner,R, 2005, Basics - Why use blogs in formal education?,  EU Leonardo project eReport, date accessed: 10/4/2011, accessed at: http://www.sbg.ac.at/zfl/eTeaching_Skills/eTeaching_Weblogs/basics.ht

Various contributors, 2011, Infinite Thinking Machine Blog - Blog '...designed to help teachers and students thrive in the 21st century', accessed: 10/4/2011, accessed at:http://www.infinitethinkingmachine.org/stuff/Blogger.pdf


Zilm, C, 2007, The Use of Personal Technology Devices By Students at School, accessed on: 12/4/2011, accessed at: http://toowoombshs.eq.edu.au/wcms/images/mobilephone.pdf

Group #4 Digital Technologies - Animations & simulations inc' interactive learning objects, Google Earth/Maps/Documents for Collaboration, Online Concept Mapping, Online Timelines, Zooburst for Interactive Storybookss

Exploration & Reflections - 

This is a large a diverse group, so I will be spending some time reflecting on each technology in this group, however I  chose Google Maps to perform a SWOT at the end of this group's analyses (see end of this post).

 Animations & Simulations (inc' Interactive Learning Objects)

Most people whose childhood was in the 20th century, like myself, have grown up with animations and are familiar with the ability of animation to convey meaning, concepts and abstract ideas very differently to normal 'real' video.  Examples are common today where we see animations working to communication ideas in the real world; in advertising animations such as the Dodo bird,  Ranbuild Man, or the classic - Louis the Fly,   in Sport such as the Cricket Duck, in safety or civic campaigns such as the Slip Slop Slap bird,  the Recycling Super Heroes or even the Microsoft Office Assistant which can be set as a paper clip or many other animations.

Effectively the suspension of disbelief that is applied by the viewer/reader of animations provides them access to whatever other message/s the animation is conveying.  Even animations of scenery conveys ideas differently to real footage. But that is the beauty of such an art and its pedagogical potentials; ideas which may be confounded by other texts or sub-texts in a reading (say of a textbook or a video) may be conveyed by animation in a focused way.  The capacity for animation to be crafted and manipulated far exceeds that of the real-world or real-people.  (Note: As digital technology has evolved, today the line between computer generated animation and computer generated special effects video has drawn very close together).

Super heroes may have been first produced in picture & comics books , but today they can be re-created easily with computerized animation software.  The practical teaching applicationsof animation as a tool may range from teachers using animations for learning designed viewing in complimenting a topic in a relevant way, to students creating their own group or individual animation projects.   But even the simplest of movement can be eye catching and draws students attention to a point or aspect.

Above: Geography teacher (Source: Animation Library for Teachers)

 

Exploration of animation design is an engaging learning activity that could be readily scaffolded within a Geography or SOSE class, e.g. in the following animated video created by students in a school project, students collaboratively explored vulcanism and constructed an animated video (using from their own knowledge and skill set and drawing from other sources of information) which demonstrated their procedural knowledge acquired on the topic.  The beauty of computerized animation is now that there are animation creation platform software commercially available, but the difficulty is that the procedural knowledge for digital animation can be complicated.  

Although the quality of this student animation is somewhat robotic & unrealistic, beyond the artistic and aesthetic dimension the teacher may recognize some great investigation into vulcanism in context as a critical earth science.   The students devised fictional characters to demonstrate this, e.g. news anchor, reporter, vulcanologist etc which show not only student teamwork and collaboration skills in scripting, animation production, acting and directing, but also a relatively deep analysis of some procedural knowledge of vulcanism.  Along the way the students made choices which demonstrates students grasp of abstract concepts of comic satire and even irony, such as having the volcano erupt and have the characters use buckets as 'safety gear'.  (Personally I do not think some humor mocks the task or is disrespectful)   Further, the students demonstrate also they have learnt some aural literacies and attempted to make some scientific observation (example of critical thinking) in the part where the solid volcanic ejecta (the size of a car) squashes one of the characters, and the other characters discuss (analyze) the sounds heard.  Interestingly they mistakenly use the term 'atrophy' when describing the sound of a disintegrating muscle and bone (when atrophy means wasting).  This gives the teacher some insight into whether the students truly understood the dictionary defined meaning of their chosen words and can launch the teacher into other literacy outcomes working with procedural vocabulary.

I experimented with a couple of free animation programs - one called Anima8or  and a fun one called Free Morphing 2.1.  The morphing tool was fun and fairly easy to use, but I found getting into the animation program very difficult and it would require a great deal more exploration on my part before I start creating animations that way.  Such programs abound and there seems to be a great deal of resources available, so I believe that animation could be worth investigating further, given more time, for my future teaching toolkit, although I foresee more so with SOSE/Geography than Music (at this early stage).

 

The gaming industry is now larger than the film industry around the world & relies upon animation in games and game-movies which support the games concepts & storylines.  Now gaming is a good segue way into discussing simulations, but let me establish this: not all animations/simulations are considered good tools though.

So,... on that matter, I bring  some great news....

....Guitar Hero is DEAD! 

 HOORAY! 

I am happy to report that, according to Richard Young (Rolling Stone, May 2011): 

       'The party is over. The game series that has been responsible for obliterating more hands than any other

       in the world is kaput.'  

Apparently the game brand that took the world by storm is no longer going to be developed.  Guitar Hero has robbed both young guitarists and drummers of the motivation to practice their chops and denied the world of half a generation of new musicians wasting time on colour-coded target practice! Guitar Hero is not musicianship 101, not even .00000000001.  It has a soundtrack and that is as close to music as it gets.  Happily, Activision (software production company) will discontinue Guitar Hero as a business unit and cease game development for that brand.  

Let me tell you this: Guitar Hero is NOT a true simulation. Unlike other music simulators (e.g. the drums kits or piano keyboards on smart phones or mac-books) which are fairly realistic to a degree (no actual sticks or keys but the pictures and sounds relate to the reality of the instruments). Other useful simulations (basically practice programs) I have experienced are truer simulations (e.g. Flight Simulators, etc).  

Simulations are available (many include animations) which may be useful in teaching geography or SOSE classes such as those I found on Ideas to Inspire.  I particularly like the idea of the Goggles Flight Simulator (by Google) but the maps would not load.  However, that is one thing I particularly enjoy doing when using Google Earth is the 'Fly to' function (more on that later).  As I am interested in human geography, the Darfur is Dying simulation was very relevant and poignant.  I can imagine it won't be long until a Libyan version is made, but I believe these kind of SIM-ish games are a good strategy to engage students in alien contexts.  War in our homeland is very rare in Australia, and has a place in history with the instances like the Cowra POW Breakout and Japanese assault on Darwin. But students may yet go beyond the disbelief of the cartoon animation into the action of the simulation exercise (e.g. foraging water, staying alive & not captured by Janjaweed militia in the process) and experience glimpses of their own very real fear given a similar situation for themselves.  Simulation achieves acquisition of skills and knowledge without the danger of the reality it is model upon. In the future, creation of my own simulations might be possible given the animation and web design software that is available, should I be able to gain the procedural knowledge to produce them. 

Google Documents for Collaboration

The idea of online word processing, spreadsheet & presentation editors is a bit daunting for privacy & control issues, although I do believe the Google account security to be fairly secure.  The ability to store work online does mean less paper and so long as a student has access to Google and their account, they can work on any of their uploaded/created documents.  I like the idea that students can collaborate (thru the shared collections) on works or peer-review.  

The range of possible approaches to developing essay writing and language skills in teaching with Google docs for SOSE/Geography is significant.  I can imagine progressive peer-reviews of individual essays investigating such tricky topics Indigenous peoples and the geography of genocide (ELs relevant: culture, identity, place, space, time, continuity, change).  Or imagine a project on sustainability in the Mining industry (similar ELs).  Students could write preliminary investigations and research findings up, and construct a essay plan, and upload these to Google Docs for others to read.  A round of peer reviews (another assessment adjunct to the essay) could occur which would be engaging for students and cross-fertilize there knowledge collectively.  As teacher I could be on hand to provide input and guide quality outcomes, but the hard work of the investigation, research and review/essay writing is actually mostly performed by the students.  

{Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.}

(Chinese Proverb).

The benefits of referential literacies is well understood by tertiary students, but it would be great if some referencing and citation skill is taught at an earlier school stage.  Because the teacher (ideally) can readily access the Googles Docs too, teacher can also focus attention on scaffolding/prompting/facilitating structurally robust essay writing and referencing and development of the student's command thereof, which amounts to enhancement of language literacies too.  I can foresee this happening in any of my teaching areas. 

Geography content is broad as space itself, but according to the QSA  'Geography is offered in the school curriculum because it is a valuable medium for the education of young people.' (2007).  Google Docs will be a useful tool in developing many skills which support student becoming geographically informed citizens.  Literacy which transcends disciplines will be acquired.  Student's presentations could provide them the chance to develop oral language skills too, or set backdrops to live social/environmental debates which also increase persuasive speaking skills.  

The capacity for Google Docs to be scaffolded and integrated into almost any subject delivery is also significant.  I can see a use for this program in music in documentations relating to music history or ethnology, but perhaps a good use might be as a repository for practice exercises that the student find or even develop themselves.  A spreadsheet could be used to log practice or other notable times like research or even time spent on composition.  Students could upload compositions for peer-review or dissemination of music notation parts of songs to practice for an ensemble or band.   

Online Concept Mapping, Online Timelines & Zooburst for Interactive Storybooks

  

The Online concept mapping tool of Bubbl.us is a great device useful for creating neat & colorful flow charts to convey concept connections and is very user friendly.  The tool is very easy to use and would be very useful to produce interesting graphic organizers.  I found the Bubbl.us concept maps very useful as scaffolds for my learning during this course too.  In music, recording can sometimes be a tricky process  and the concepts difficult to convey.  But the steps in using music recording technology could be developed by a teacher/student who wishes to extend their own learning and pass on the recording procedural knowledge they acquired during a recording task/s. 

Dipty has clear applications for history classes, but also for geography classes.  Timelines are great for both sequential learners and the visual learners are also catered for with the possibility of embedded pictures.  I can see a clear application of Dipity timelines in geography classes investigating the physical geography of a particular area & its geomorphology  or illustrate declarative and procedural knowledge of the changes in the human conditions of urban Australia.

Zooburst creates a digital interactive pop-up book, which is a novel idea.  The application of this as a tool for music or SOSE/geography teaching is perhaps a bit limited.  The visual learner is catered for with a 3D presentation of 2D books.  There may be some chance to create a Zooburst book for a junior SOSE class, or perhaps the students could create their own.  But to do so would mean paying membership fees (should they wish to upload images) or the school/teacher would have to find the funds. The teacher might wish to create their own Zooburst in order to convey certain aspects of a topic, but that obviously may take some time to produce whilst learning to use the program.

Google Earth & Goole Maps.

 The following pics are screen shots of my investigation in using Google Earth & Google Maps.  The applications for music teaching is very limited, unless you are planning a school band camp trip to visit New Orleans or Salzburg.  (btw I actually used the 'Fly to' function to go to New Orleans and it is not a visual enthralling city!)  

But to teach geography using Google Earth is a match made in heaven so to speak.  You can literally view the (virtual) Earth through the visage of satellite and street level photography.   The use of a search engine linked to Google itself and any ads, images, videos, guided tours, and other postings relevant to a specific area provides teachers and students the chance to see geographies from around the world.  Interestingly Google Earth suits the global learners need to see the part in relationship to the whole.  The choice of map layers and other functions (such as roads, sights-seeing spots, cities/towns, labels of landmarks, water-bodies etc, etc) creates opportunities for teachers/students to design diverse and engaging presentations with such maps, creating maps, and designing lessons so maps are used to illustrate area geographies in ways text cannot.  This is a valuable tool for the modern geography teacher.

   

Here is my home & work marked with 'pins'.  I can imagine this type of activity being incorporated into a essay topic about the area in which they live (ELs: place and space).  Maps can be viewed from any above angle (e.g. 2nd pic) .  Students could map a pathway from home to school/work or make additions/notes to the map such as I did (scroll down, see the peanut shape of Middlemount, my town). 

These following screen shots are from Google Maps, which actually also is integrated with Google Earth (online).  The ability to switch between physical maps (standard) and satellite imagery maps.  The use of layers in Google Maps is similar to that of Google Earth, but such as traffic, webcams, videos, pictures, labels, etc.   The students who use these maps in classes have a great resource at their finger tips.  I can imagine Google Maps being used for SOSE/Geography classes to explore a topic such as the issues relating to climate change and using such maps to guide readers/audience/teacher/peers to areas of note (e.g. Antarctica when talking about ice cores or the Pacific Islands when talking about sea levels).  The power to embed a map into a blog or wiki is also significant and one I will explore at some stage, but it appears as though some maps cannot be embedded and there is some thing stopping me (I haven't worked out yet) from embedding them here....Anyways this program is sure to feature is my teaching toolkit. 

SWOT on Google Maps

Strengths

• Google Maps is a free software.
• Navigation tool is easy to use
  
• Images from around world from almost any angle
• Links with Google earth
• Easy to scaffold tasks which convey students to essential learnings
• Provides perspective of global physical geographies and human geographies
• Intelligent use of map layers provides illuminating learning designs
• Can embed maps or take screen shots for later manipulations 
• Conveys a lot of information about human and physical geographies
• Edits can be made to maps should landmarks or specific buildings are incorrectly located

Weaknesses

• Embedding maps doesn't always work
• Requires computer and internet access for online use
• Resolution of images is poor at close range
• Markers and labels sometimes clutter visage
• Sometimes the maps are imprecise (although no maps are perfect)
• Cartography is a manual craft and the software robs students of motivation to learn it when software can achieve a more detailed result in shorter period
• Cannot take a computer into the outdoors to use Google Maps if internet access is unavailable
• Brings the world to the student rather than the student out into the world

Opportunities

• Maps are staple for a great deal of geography studies & Google Maps are excellent quality
• Google maps enables students to experience other places in the world using supportive imagery, videos and other links from the map
• Pedagogy and assignments on population/tourism can be designed directly utilizing Google Maps as a tool to establish locations and provide a framework for mapping tourists/migration. 
• Screen shots of Google Maps are easily manipulated with drawing programs such as Paint
• Links with Google earth could be very well explored and virtual/simulated tours could be set up
• Students can all visit the same virtual place or individual choices
• Google Maps can be integrated into Google Docs or other platformed presentation editors such as Powerpoint, Prezi or Glogster (embeds or screen shots) 

Threats

•  The loss of manual cartography skills amongst subsequent learner cohorts over time
• Diversity, such as low economic status or impairments may deny equitable access to computer resources
• Data from website might not be available when required for download
• Because it is so easy to use, students may come to rely upon this as if it was the only geographic information system (or way of gaining a perspective) in the world, when there are others such as ArcGIS which can allow the development of more complex maps and geographic presentations
• Orienteering in the outdoors may become a less viable option for teaching geography outdoors (e.g. on field trips) such as applying practical bush (survival) craft if students only known context for a compass is the Google Maps navigation device

Group #3 Digital Technologies - Powerpoints, Prezi and Glogster

Brief comment on Powerpoint & Glogster

Exploring group 3 digital technologies has been quite delightful.  If the group 2 analysis found video production as frustrating as it was rewarding, then the group 3 analysis finds these technologies as versatile for teaching as they are brilliantly simple.  Powerpoint is one that I will not dwell upon as I have been exposed to this software in the past (mainly as a student in classes) and to be honest I have discovered most people only know how use it to its full potential, and usually such equipment gets used as a glorified (digital) overhead projector.  But then again I am sure that the full potential of such a toll for teaching has not truly been fully explored by me nor anyone I have observed using them.Yet there are powerful quality examples of Powerpoints available on the net, and this example is linked directly to blogspot as sponsors like this Christian teaching resources site called 'Share Faith' .  The powerpoints at this site have incredibly powerful and professional grade digitally rendered photographs that are great tools to enable teachers to use the software to stimulate religious or theological discourse.  (I am not planning to teach RE, but who knows what I will be required to relief teach should I ever teach at a private religious school.  However, I mainly included this as an real-world example because the publishing there is actually an excellent Powerpoint exemplar)

I thought of a way I could possibly also use Powerpoint for quizzes or other exams, e.g. a series of blank _______ in sentences about a particular picture or for an exam question/s, then the blanks get filled in with subsequent answers as each Powerpoint page is activated by the student or pupil. Students/teacher could also write elaborate story boards and pose group discussion prompts/questions in text.

The other program, Glogster, is a surprisingly useful tool for teachers which actually encourages not only creativity in students making online posters, but also highly collaborative projects.  The use of Glogster is actually a kinesthetic experience in itself.  But the interface is typical of many user friendly windows apps.  The students who use this online poster program can be organized into groups or individuals, but passwords provide security so hacking into others works is prevented.  But the teacher remains in control of the learning experience in terms of acceptable ethical behaviour and appropriate posts.   In many ways this can substitute much of the manual ways of creating posters (ie. glue, scissors, paper etc) with far less mess!

My Prezi

Well this happens to be one of my favorite programs ever.  Not kidding.  I think the movement of the text and the zoom tool is a powerful device which could potentially engage a entire demographic of visual learners as well as many which might otherwise be lost through the cracks.  By this I mean any learners with developmental impairment such as dyslexia or other learning deficiencies.

I believe that this tool could actually transform the way some of us read.  Whilst I fear for oral fluency in classical reading of English should Prezi takeover as the next facebook or sms technology, yet what also seriously impressed me is that Prezi is absolutely diverse in its range of possible designs.  The ability to embed video or pics is another strength which can blend other visual strategies in the lesson.  I see this as having great potential with a number of language literacy genres like storytelling (narrative), reviews, histories, biographies, summaries.  Geographical literacies could very well be explored and broken down into interesting prezis e.g. A human geographical profile of the peoples of Rwandan genocide or would make a powerful investigative prezi presentation for a Senior geography class.

More opportunities abound also to use prezis in music teaching for: delivering theory lessons creatively and in engaging ways, creating practice exercise for ensemble, demonstrate scales  and arpeggios, explore music histories, etc.  Prezis can be used for its unique ways (zooming and dragging page, pathways etc) to deliver lesson content.  My Prezi, compared to the posted examples, at a hunch makes me not so sure I have mastered Prezi at this but it is very engaging nonetheless.  The dynamics of the movement to text and PDF images is quite enthralling and the relationships between the language and visual literacies is very powerful. 

Edward De Bono Hats on Prezi

 

Blue Hat - Thinking about Thinking (big picture)
Prezi’s simple user interface is readily accessible for almost any age
Simple design defy impairments, goes beyond disability
Is a new digital media which draws upon both text and visual literacies
Is a tool marketed for use in education, domestic & commercial real-world contexts
Software applications broadened by links to other software (e.g. Paint, Picture Viewer, PDFCreator, Adobe, Publisher, Corell Draw, Photostudioetc)  

Black Hat - Negative (caution/judgement)
Prezi tutorial trains only to basic level of Prezi skill
Prezi is a design tool   
Prezi needs to be complimented by pedagogical content
Scaffolding is required with use of Prezi and where assessment tasks may link using Prezi to other programs (e.g. Paint, etc)
Can cause dizziness or nausea
A ‘knack’ must be acquired to get best out of Prezi presentation design


Yellow Hat - Positive (optimistic)
Has promise of overcoming many challenging disabilities in order to integrate impaired learners and others in challenging social contexts (such as poverty and abuse). 
Expressive and creative tool, taking text and picture design for learning to a new level
Great dynamics of movement engaging to visual learners
Offers global perspective learning opportunities and encourages memory imprints which relate topical concepts in student activities
Offers a chance for students to review and edit works

Green Hat - New ideas (creativity)
Given time to explore, students may be able to make dynamic presentations
Theme Wizards provide an array of colours & themes
Can personalize Prezis with photos
Prezi doubles as an artistic design tool and topic presentation platform, usable by teachers or students
Edit Prezis online or offline

Red Hat - Feelings (emotions)
Exciting to see a new and accessible digital media as I have seen this kind of presentation on internet before, but none so easy to use
Frustrating at times whilst getting the ‘knack’

Pleasing once a Prezi is posted online and you are satisfied with product

Reminiscent of scrapbooking and poster making

Confident in that this tool can be used with kids regardless of age or diversity