Cha's Comment:
Distance Learning – is a field of education, with emphasis on teaching methods and technology to provide the objective of teaching and replace the traditional learning. I believe this is a good example that it is a successful use of technology on teaching or learning. In Hong Kong, there are many institutions works together with oversea universities to release the distance learning to the student absorb local education and learning cultural. Teacher can provide different service through e-platform for student. For example: upload / update the latest course material and information, video conferencing with teacher and student, submit the assignment, and use of virtual environment for group discuss or sharing information. Above examples are backed up with online resources for student access to computer and internet connection at any time. In student view, student can schedule learning in their personal life. They can study during off-hours or from home that it can save the money and time for spend on go to school. On the other hand, student can choose institution for learning in different countries, without consider regional issues while enjoying their education. Finally, technology can narrow the gap between the teacher and the students in any time any where.
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Christine's Comment:
I am not a teacher in the school. Sometime, I will act as a trainer/trainee. I would like to share my experience in my training session.
In the past, the training session even the application system training session, there is provide a set of paper document or handouts only. The trainee has just sat and looked at the projector and located which page is shown. It may cause that trainee cannot follow which page and cannot understand well how to use the new features in the system as result of less interactive and waste of resources.
As a trainer, not an educator, we also found this problem. In order to improve that, each student will have an owned computer in front of them instead of projector to locate which page is shown. Trainer can control all computers in the classroom to avoid waste time on finding the page and trainee played using the computers. And it will also provide the exercise during the training session. Let trainee have more hands-on experiences the systems and not just only read the procedure on the paper.
As times have changed, IT technologies are widely used on education as well as training.
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Esther's Comment:
As an IT Officer, my perspective of using technology in teaching and learning could definitely enhance the learning experience by creating a more dynamic learning environment where knowledge could be transmitted in a more effective way of stimulating learners’ interests and prompting participation actively. No doubt about many research figures and reports have proven that students seem to be more engaged in the class when technology is used, however, after reading some articles, I was impressed by the one called "Technology Combined with Good Teaching Leads to Success" which reflects me on thinking about how the educational practitioners could effectively convey knowledge using technology would be another key element of success.
The article mentioned about an assessment was performed by dividing 85 educators into two groups; one group was targeted in providing lessons to their students using interactive whiteboards and the other taught lessons using the same standard way of traditional tools. Based on the students’ total scores of the teaching subjects, their overall scoring ratio were increased by 17 to 29 percent depends on how skillful the teachers were used in the technology and the frequency of use among the classes. Since the proficiency of technology for the teachers is also critical to the results, the development of the teachers themselves must be fundamentally necessary in the success of the learning and teaching process.
In my opinion, the effective use of technology in teaching will increase the productivity of the students and the correlation between technology-use and student achievement, teacher quality is irrefutable, but technology should only be considered as a tool and the role of quality teacher could never be replaced by technology.
To simply conclude my reflection on the use of technology in learning and teaching: Technology + Teaching = Uncertainty, but Technology + A well-trained, passionate, creative teacher = Endless Growth and Possibilities.
REF: Technology Combined with Good Teaching Leads to Success – by Heather Wolpert-Gawron
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Josephine's Comment:
The successful case I am going to share is from my little girl. Starting from this school year, her kindergarten introduces a new integrated e-platform which consists of a school correspondences broadcasting system, a repository of class notes, a kid learning channel as well as a parent learning channel. In the kid learning channel, a new topic on liberal studies will be posted every week. It is present as a short flash story. There are some tags embedded along the playing of the flash. Some of these tags lead to interactive quizzes related to the topic, some lead to extended knowledge. My girl shows great enthusiasm and urges me once every few days to log in to the system for her to play games and watch stories. She is able to grab relatively complex concepts or facts like Confucius when they are incorporated into an interactive and multimedia median. These ideas might not be effectively conveyed verbally or by reading books.
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One example of successful use of technology in teaching and learning that I have read on the internet is about the use of wiki in the classroom. Richard Byrne, a teacher librarian shared his successful story of about helping students to create their own wiki page (Byrne, 2009). The students were engaged to find out more information of their assigned African countries through browsing the web and adding information that they found to their pages on the wiki. Byrne suggests that the use of technology in teaching and learning enhanced the efficiency of both teaching and learning for both students and teachers in his class since students had easier access to more and deeper information. Byrne also presented more current teaching materials to students to arouse students’ interests. The bringing of more information into the classroom via the internet both by the students and teachers and the creation of the wiki pages by the students enhanced more discussions and activities among students. Also through creating the wiki pages, students demonstrated a more in-depth understanding of the topics than by using their text books. Byrne also found that his students were motivated to learn. Because wiki is open to public, students put extra effort in creating the pages. By the end of his first lesson, his students tried to compete with each other to create the best wiki page. In addition, students in Byrne’s class learnt how to learn through verifying information on the web and asking and answering questions via researching information that they have access to.
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Esther's Comment:
As an IT Officer, my perspective of using technology in teaching and learning could definitely enhance the learning experience by creating a more dynamic learning environment where knowledge could be transmitted in a more effective way of stimulating learners’ interests and prompting participation actively. No doubt about many research figures and reports have proven that students seem to be more engaged in the class when technology is used, however, after reading some articles, I was impressed by the one called "Technology Combined with Good Teaching Leads to Success" which reflects me on thinking about how the educational practitioners could effectively convey knowledge using technology would be another key element of success.
The article mentioned about an assessment was performed by dividing 85 educators into two groups; one group was targeted in providing lessons to their students using interactive whiteboards and the other taught lessons using the same standard way of traditional tools. Based on the students’ total scores of the teaching subjects, their overall scoring ratio were increased by 17 to 29 percent depends on how skillful the teachers were used in the technology and the frequency of use among the classes. Since the proficiency of technology for the teachers is also critical to the results, the development of the teachers themselves must be fundamentally necessary in the success of the learning and teaching process.
In my opinion, the effective use of technology in teaching will increase the productivity of the students and the correlation between technology-use and student achievement, teacher quality is irrefutable, but technology should only be considered as a tool and the role of quality teacher could never be replaced by technology.
To simply conclude my reflection on the use of technology in learning and teaching: Technology + Teaching = Uncertainty, but Technology + A well-trained, passionate, creative teacher = Endless Growth and Possibilities.
REF: Technology Combined with Good Teaching Leads to Success – by Heather Wolpert-Gawron
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Josephine's Comment:
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| The e-learning platform of my girl's school |
The successful case I am going to share is from my little girl. Starting from this school year, her kindergarten introduces a new integrated e-platform which consists of a school correspondences broadcasting system, a repository of class notes, a kid learning channel as well as a parent learning channel. In the kid learning channel, a new topic on liberal studies will be posted every week. It is present as a short flash story. There are some tags embedded along the playing of the flash. Some of these tags lead to interactive quizzes related to the topic, some lead to extended knowledge. My girl shows great enthusiasm and urges me once every few days to log in to the system for her to play games and watch stories. She is able to grab relatively complex concepts or facts like Confucius when they are incorporated into an interactive and multimedia median. These ideas might not be effectively conveyed verbally or by reading books.
One of the keys of success of this kid-learning system is each story is quite short. Younger children would be able to finish watching the whole topic/story before they lose their concentration. Cute images and characters used in those stories also helps to attract their attention. Interactive games and tests are able to reinforce the newly learnt knowledge. One important factor that can't be ignored is the involvement of parents. This tends to become more prominent and crucial when the students are younger.
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Margaret's Comment:
One example of successful use of technology in teaching and learning that I have read on the internet is about the use of wiki in the classroom. Richard Byrne, a teacher librarian shared his successful story of about helping students to create their own wiki page (Byrne, 2009). The students were engaged to find out more information of their assigned African countries through browsing the web and adding information that they found to their pages on the wiki. Byrne suggests that the use of technology in teaching and learning enhanced the efficiency of both teaching and learning for both students and teachers in his class since students had easier access to more and deeper information. Byrne also presented more current teaching materials to students to arouse students’ interests. The bringing of more information into the classroom via the internet both by the students and teachers and the creation of the wiki pages by the students enhanced more discussions and activities among students. Also through creating the wiki pages, students demonstrated a more in-depth understanding of the topics than by using their text books. Byrne also found that his students were motivated to learn. Because wiki is open to public, students put extra effort in creating the pages. By the end of his first lesson, his students tried to compete with each other to create the best wiki page. In addition, students in Byrne’s class learnt how to learn through verifying information on the web and asking and answering questions via researching information that they have access to.
Some reflections/comments about using of teaching from teachers, parents, students and employers:
- Reflections of some teachers: Sugar, Crawley & Fine’s research (2004) indicated that the decisions for the use of technology in classroom were influenced by teachers’ individual attitudes towards technology adoption. The teachers’ attitudes were formed from their own personal beliefs about the consequences using technology in teaching and learning. Some teachers welcome the use of technology and believe that it would enhance students’ learning. Since it motivate and engage students to learn. However, some are resistant to the changes using technologies in classrooms since they challenge their way of teaching and their roles as a teacher. Training and implementation of technology for teachers may help them to understand how technology can assist them in teaching.
- Reflections of some students: Hartshorne & Ajjan (2009) find that students felt the use of Web 2.0 applications as tools for improving their learning and writing ability and increase interactions among themselves. However, few students chose to use them for educational purpose. Hartshorne & Ajjan (2009) suggests that further study will be needed to investigate the factors behind students not using the applications for educational purpose. One reason could be students’ attitudes and cultural norms towards using Web 2.0 for social purpose only.
- Reflections of some parents: In the study conducted by Plowman, McPake and Stephen (2007) parents tended to think that their children were self-taught on the use of technology and underestimate their own role in supporting their children in learning with technology for educational benefits. They were not aware of the way families could support the learning through using of technologies. Children’s at home mainly use technology for communication and entertainment purpose and hence parents often associate children’s use of computer and other technology for social purpose only. In some Asian household parents may even forbidden children using computers before they have finished their homework. Educations may need to consider offering parents family learning programmes to promote learning technology at homes.
- Reflections of some teachers and students from different cultural background: Teachers and students from various cultural backgrounds may have different perspective on using technology in teaching and learning (Chen 2007). They have different interpretation and organization of information. In the west, with the use of various technologies such as internet and computer, the role of teacher has become less formal and authoritative. Teacher is the facilitator to help students learn for themselves. However for some teachers and students in Asia, this approach may challenge their traditional way of teaching and learning and thus become resistant in using the technology in classroom.
- Reflections of some employers: Proactive employers always find new tools and tactics to keep employee learning and growing and make their companies more competitive in the market (Kaufman 2011). Technology offers such solution to engage employees to continuous learning. Kaufman gives one example about Gail Brooks, vice chancellor of human resources for California State University (CSU) who described using webcast to deliver information to campuses, while in the past employees needed to travel to different campuses and gave professional development seminar to students. In addition more online classes were offered to students. As a result, employees needed to learn more technical skills to deliver the service online instead of giving face to face service.
- Reflections of some employers: Individuals’ understanding of the nature knowledge and the creation of knowledge may be two of the major factors affecting employees’ attitudes towards e-learning. Harteis, Gruber & Hertramph (2010) found that employees who agreed that learning is connected with negotiation of meaning and with the distribution of knowledge had better quality of e-learning process. More investigation will be need to find out how many failure cases e-learning contributed of employees’ belief system towards the understanding and creation of knowledge.
Reference:
Byrne, R. (2009). The Effect of Web 2.0 on Teaching and Learning. Teacher Librarian, 37 (2), 50-53.
Chen, C. (2007). Cultural diversity in instructional design for technology-based Education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(6).
Harteis, C., Gruber, H., & Hertramph, H. (2010). How Epistemic Beliefs Influence e-Learning in Daily Work-life. EducationalTechnology & Society, 13 (3), 201–211.
Kaufman, B. (2011). Don’t stop thinking about the future. University Business, February issue, 45-48.
Plowman, L., McPake, J., & Stephen, C. (2008). Just picking it up? Young children learning with technology at home. Cambridge Journal of Education, 38(3), 303-319.
Sugar, W., Crawley, F., & Fine, B. (2004). Examining teachers’ decisions to adopt new technology. Educational Technology and Society, 7 (4), 201-213.