Reflection 3 Week 4 ICT for Learning Design David Grimshaw

Reflection 3 Week 4

ICT LEARNING DESIGN (GDLT)

Flickr Exploration

Picture 1. Rachel Carson, famous scientist.

To demonstrate that I have explored Flikr, and have an account with them, as required this week, I have downloaded this photo off the "commons".  Not all the photos of famous twentieth century scientists are on Flikr "commons": I was unable to find James Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia theory; Tim Flannery, prominent Australian scientist and author of Future Eaters; James Watson or Francis Crick, discoverers of DNA.  That demonstrates to me that the "commons" is still in its infantcy with its photo library. I remember another good web-site, Wikipedia, was also the same in its infantcy in 1996. This photo is of Rachel Carson, author of one the most famous science books in history: Silent Spring,1962.  The photo seems to be from 1951 when she wrote The Sea Around Us.  I also explored other sites on Flickr, such as the Queensland Library;  they have historical photos of Queensland on Flickr's "commons".

Figure 1.  Concept map of using mulitmedia.  Use in classrooms

Photos and Videos

It was our task to only unpack one of the media types between Photos, Videos, and Podcasts.  I am unable to adequately write a decent length on one of these.  Images and video are closely linked in their pedagogy techniques that I have wrote briefly on both.  Images (photos) can be used in movie-maker, for example, to create a slide show with narration and therefore have similar outcomes to video.  When viewing the benefits of images in the reading materials one can draw the same outcomes for video.

<Note to marker: A video was made with all the text read out on the track, but blogger will not upload it. It is a WMA file and it seems that blogger won't support it. I am unable to save it in a different format. More about this needs to be discussed in class. I cannot find a help link for blogger. A ridiculous amount of time has gone into this blog. As mentioned before, I just cannot continue this way: the other subjects are suffering too much.>

Photos.  Images are a good way of giving information.  They are static, allowing you to explore the whole image thoroughly rather than concentrating on the central object/character in a movie.  Being static also allows you to study the photo while it is being explained to you.  As shown in Stransbury (2008) (required reading this week) when the image is combined with words close to the picture, learning gains are beneficial; pictures with narrative are better.  A series of still images can tell a story very well.  Historically, not everything has been filmed due to the monetary cost of film movies; and, indeed, even a olden-days still camera was used sparingly due to the cost of developing film.   Taking pictures was expensive! That is why, in my experience, older people only have a small amount of photos of their youth and unless they had photography as a hobby, have very little photos in total compared to their digital camera days.

Figure1: Good quality film camera of the old days.

(https://www.google.com.au/search?q=35mm+movie+camera&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=pDsDem99ZymuFM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQ4wLw3afxVuMp1hSxyI1RctZupNp1_qLk-svr9pne0dfKnZEh7Fg%253B500%253B492%253BSlnn35Jd7AzS1M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fpetapixel.com%25252F2011%25252F12%25252F07%25252Fstar-wars-movie-camera-auctioned-for-a-record-setting-625000%25252F&source=iu&usg=__KCp6HwotAT_XUxs_HU1yG7yCmRM%3D&sa=X&ei=-YArU7mhJNKbiQfkp4CIDA&ved=0CEIQ9QEwBA#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=pDsDem99ZymuFM%253A%3BSlnn35Jd7AzS1M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpetapixel.com%252Fassets%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F12%252Fstarwars_mini.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpetapixel.com%252F2011%252F12%252F07%252Fstar-wars-movie-camera-auctioned-for-a-record-setting-625000%252F%3B500%3B492)

Picture 2 :  Film used inside camera’s to take an image.  Film had the costs of purchase and developing.

(https://www.google.com.au/search?q=film+35mm&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=RyUFNkP2nlaesM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcSO1vkgumWK1WuRcm17R97BJJmrx000Sn5ZJBjK9Qb5YKl9mVBBUA%253B4291%253B1720%253BTSOBIkafmn4R4M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.thegiggity.com%25252Farticle.php%25253Farticle%2525253Dwhy-is-your-screen-169&source=iu&usg=__CbYW8FuWQjvGX0DZcAuEgmbHt3A%3D&sa=X&ei=up4rU5GgN46ekQWI9IHADQ&ved=0CE4Q9QEwAg#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=RrcTCh-2Q1wIVM%253A%3Bv3HsCs2gN7KoaM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.wpclipart.com%252Fcamera%252Ffilm%252F35mm_Film_Roll.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.wpclipart.com%252Fcamera%252Ffilm%252F35mm_Film_Roll.png.html%3B600%3B239)

Keeping the idea of the old film days, to take a decent movie, that could be shown on the big screen, the sixteen millimetre (16mm) format size, at minimum, needed to be used; thirty five millimetre (35mm) film was better.  These sixteen and thirty five millimetre cameras were large and expensive items and therefore not regularly used.

Picture 3. Good quality 35mm film movie camera of the old days.

(https://www.google.com.au/search?q=35mm+movie+camera&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=pDsDem99ZymuFM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQ4wLw3afxVuMp1hSxyI1RctZupNp1_qLk-svr9pne0dfKnZEh7Fg%253B500%253B492%253BSlnn35Jd7AzS1M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fpetapixel.com%25252F2011%25252F12%25252F07%25252Fstar-wars-movie-camera-auctioned-for-a-record-setting-625000%25252F&source=iu&usg=__KCp6HwotAT_XUxs_HU1yG7yCmRM%3D&sa=X&ei=-YArU7mhJNKbiQfkp4CIDA&ved=0CEIQ9QEwBA#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=pDsDem99ZymuFM%253A%3BSlnn35Jd7AzS1M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpetapixel.com%252Fassets%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F12%252Fstarwars_mini.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpetapixel.com%252F2011%252F12%252F07%252Fstar-wars-movie-camera-auctioned-for-a-record-setting-625000%252F%3B500%3B492)

Photos and Video. In modern times, digital photos also have the advantage of small data size so that they can be shared easily through the web, email, and even stored on ones computer.  The photos used in this blog have been down-sized using software so they load quickly and do not cost much of your download limit. Many computer users have download limits on their web service; a recent experience for me was some video footage I wanted off a friend -- I had to personally visit them with a USB storage device ("stick") and load the video as the file was too large to be sent on email.     Still photos can also be used in slide presentations easier than video, and most of the presentations I have experienced, in the modern-age of computer delivery, have been slide shows.  

Video.  Movies, such as documentaries, are also a good source of multimedia delivery; it is certainly a relaxed way to absorb something.   With modern movie-making programs a movie can also be made out of a set of still photographs with narration.  My impression from the Stransbury article (part of the required reading this week), however, leads me to believe it only puts learning into the short term memory.  I have watched many documentaries in my time and I have trouble recounting the specific figures quoted in them; this is likely due to the fast pace that these facts come at you in a film where-as in a still format one can take time to absorb the information.  There is also the problem of ‘attention blink’ stated in Stransbury (2008) where concentration is lost for a second or two and the student loses the story line.  This is improved, however, when viewing on the computer: one can stop the video and wind it back a bit.  The way a video or movie is crafted makes a difference in absorbing the material.  Sesame Street, an American children’s education TV show, uses association to pair entertaining images and names to help children memorize the letters and numerals(Schwartz, Heartman (date unknown)).  An analogy can also be used to help people understand; for example, "the trade winds are like rivers in an ocean of air" (Schwartz, Heartman (date unknown)).  It has been mentioned in the readings for this week that exposure to violence in entertainment movies and computer games could be a cause of concern to younger people;  it is not the intention of this blog to unpack this problem but to rather acknowledge it exists as a concern.

Picture 4.  GoPro cameras are the new way to record your activity.  They mount on chest, on helmets, dashboards of cars, and many other places. 

(https://www.google.com.au/urlsa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgopro.com%2F&ei=hvMrU-ieBcbDkwXO2oCABw&usg=AFQjCNF_k7eKDmlny5zW9cpg5qELy2wCnw&sig2=xiIRyplK2RM-oYhdKX5KAg&bvm=bv.62922401,d.dGI)

Commentary or interpretation is a powerful way to supplement video, as is often the case with news magazines and sports broadcasts (Schwartz, Heartman (date unknown)).  Schwartz and Heartman also talk of expository (explain) videos which are explicit at developing a sustained account of some set of facts, as in the case of documentaries.  It should be mentioned that Schwartz and Heartman mention that a ‘talking head’ is only a useful educational tool when students have some prior knowledge about the subject.

The video makes it possible to present a problem with a level of complexity that is too hard to match with a word problem. Film and video has long been used in sport to explain complex moves that would be otherwise a very long word piece; it is also much easier to absorb the film than to read the text.  The use of these videos before attempting a full-blown performance makes them very useful.  Here is a video of how to get back into a capsized row boat, which is something the author had to learn; it is obvious that this would be very cumbersome to describe using written word.

Video 1. Re-boarding a capsized row scull. (2:30)

In modern times video or movies can be used in a multimedia setting for Information Communications Technology..   For example, a series of films, that would otherwise not make a coherent story, can be placed on a web page, and linked with written identifying stories.

Collaborative Learning.  From the weeks course readings it is noted that one of the classroom pedagogies for using photos and video is class groups making a project and/or producing a movie.   M. Walsh’s Chapter 3, set in the course readings (I am unable to correctly reference it as the details are unknown), it was interesting to see that with adequate scaffolding, a teacher can set a project using ICT and the class will enthusiastically work on the task.  It is clear that with the use of the different types of media (spoken, written, visuals, manual) combined with the multimedia tools in ICT, that the students interest in the task was held.  Clearly literacy can mean more than the written word on paper, and this article shows that is true.  The chapter used for the reading clearly shows what we Graduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching students have been taught in class, that is: the teacher as a facilitator to the learning and provide students with tasks that are just beyond their reach.  It was good to hear of this success story, but I wonder if it would work in every class; specifically the troubled ones.  I am wondering if much of our learning is based on the elite students.

	*Pedagogy is More Important than the Multimedia Used*

Benefits of ICT in Classroom.  Stansbury’s 2008 article in eSchool News (part of this weeks readings) shows that using multimedia improves learning compared to text-book style of learning.  Her article states that non-interactive multimodal learning increased by twenty-one percent compared to book learning.  Interactive multimodal learning increased by a lesser amount, nine percent.  When multimodal learning is mixed with higher-order thinking learning gains increased by thirty-two percent compared to book learning.  Stansbury noted that it is important to scaffold the learning to have attention and motivation of the learner.  She also noted that pedagogy is more important than the media used.

Conclusion. From the readings it is clear that students can learn better with ICT. It is also clear that the role of the teacher has not been superseded, we are still required to provide scaffolding at a minimum. Videos, photos, and podcasts (podcasts not explored in this blog) have an expanding future in teaching. In cases where classes are flipped, they are of increasing importance. With increased learning gains, the future of computers used for multimedia is secure.

D. Schwartz, K. Hartman (date unknown), It Is Not Television Anymore: Designing Digital Video for Learning and Assessment, School of Education, Stanford University.

(http://aaalab.stanford.edu/papers/Designed_Video_for_Learning.pdf)

Meris Stansbury, (2008), Analysis: How Multimedia Can Improve Your Learning, eSchool News, March 26, 2008.

(http://www.eschoolnews.com/2008/03/26/analysis-how-multimedia-can-improve-learning/%20)

Author’s note: the correct referencing information for this article is unknown.

M. Walsh, Chapter 3, Pedagogic Potentials of Multimodal Literacy, (http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/195676/Chapter_3_Multimodal_Literacy_M_Walsh.pdf)