The reality is that technology and teaching tools are constantly moving as new developments are introduced, and while it can be overwhelming in some respects it can also be extremely rewarding to come across a tool that enables engagement and improved learning outcomes for our learners.
2016 has seen the Ministry of Education for New Zealand driving a shift in building digital capabilities in New Zealand schools. Their definition of digital fluency is:
Broadly speaking, digital fluency is a combination of:
2016 has seen the Ministry of Education for New Zealand driving a shift in building digital capabilities in New Zealand schools. Their definition of digital fluency is:
Broadly speaking, digital fluency is a combination of:
- digital, or technical, proficiency: able to understand, select and use the technologies and technological systems;
- digital literacy: cognitive or intellectual competencies, which include being able to read, create, evaluate and make judgements and apply technical skills while doing so;
- social competence, or dispositional knowledge: the ability to relate to others and communicate with them effectively.
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| http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2015/10/what-is-digital-fluency.html |
The following case study from our very own Rochelle Thorn at Wellington campus is a story of mindset and of working towards inspiring other teachers to embrace the possibilities.
Flip the learning in Practice..... (Case study by Rochelle Thorn)
"In the English department at Westmount Wellington I have been incorporating a range of digital technology tools to enhance teaching and learning; developing the 21st century skill of collaboration in particular; and to further develop and embed 'flip learning practice.'A few of the tools I have introduced to the students have been:"
Edpuzzle
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| www.edpuzzle.com/ |
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| EDpuzzle is a site that allows users to select a video and customize it by editing, cropping, recording audio, and adding questions to make an engaging presentation or lesson. |
Screencast-o-matic
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| Screencast-o-matic is a screen capture software that can be used to create video from your screen (i.e. short lectures or course tours), and it doesn't require any downloading or installing. |
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| https://screencast-o-matic.com/home |
Bubblus
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| https://bubbl.us/ |
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| Bubbl.us is a simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online. Using Bubbl.us you can: Create colorful mind maps online. Share and work with friends. |
Sway
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| Office Sway is a presentation program and is part of the Microsoft Office family of products. Generally released by Microsoft in August 2015, Sway allows users who have a Microsoft account to combine text and media to create a presentable website. |
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| An example of a Sway using the Project zero conference photo's and learning. (Nicole Peterson) |
Ed puzzle in particular has been a useful tool to edit short film clips and embed with questions, quizzes, and teacher audio so that students are not simply passively watching a film clip, but are actively engaged with it, through the inclusion of tasks.
The great thing is my students (from other campuses) and I have been able to collaborate on this document also!"
STUDENT COMMENTS
"Sharing word document has been extremely helpful for group task. This way we can work on it together and help each other if needed. We have also used it as a class and this way we can see what everyone is doing and get help. Bubbl.us has also been helpful as we can bring our thoughts together in a colourful and organised way."
"Bubbl.us has been a big help and I thought It was very easy to use. As you are able to print it off. It makes creating a mind map a lot easier."
"I have found bubbl.us a massive help and now use it in some other subjects other than English. It is an efficient way to plan and easy to use. You can share mind maps with classmates and teachers so they can see what is going on and can help out."
"Sway is very useful because multiple people could work on it at once. This was great for collaborating between me and my class mates. You can share your thoughts with others and it made working on the documents after school together easier. When it came to presenting if someone was away there was no excuse saying "its on her computer" as it was shared between the three of us therefore we all had access to it. Overall this was an excellent tool to use."
"Screencast-o-matic is a tool that I have found to be of great help to me this year in English. It has allowed me to access documents with commentary on them from our teacher at any time. This has helped strengthen my understanding of ideas and tasks that were given to us to do"
(Shared by Rochelle Thorn, Wellington)
So my challenge to you as practitioners in the classroom is what are you doing to build your digital fluency and that of your students?
The following is the one page strategic overview from the MoE for schools to support them build digital fluency. As a practitioner have a look and reflect what you are doing and how it aligns with the direction being led within the state sector.
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| http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Towards-Digital-Fluency.pdf |
Pause for a sec....
Having been spouting the belief for some time that schools/ teachers should follow a model to extend just replacing paper and pen and actually use the tools to extend student thinking, reasoning and skill level. I would suggest before you go experimenting, that you hold in your mind the question "How can I utilise this tool using SAMR?" (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification & Redefinition).
Substitution
In a substitution level, teachers or students are only using new technology tools to replace old ones, for instance, using Google Docs to replace Microsoft Word. the task ( writing) is the same but the tools are different.Augmentation
Though it is a different level, but we are still in the substitution mentality but this time with added functionalities. Again using the example of Google docs, instead of only writing a document and having to manually save it and share it with others, Google Docs provides extra services like auto saving, auto syncing, and auto sharing in the cloud.
Modification
This is the level where technology is being used more effectively not to do the same task using different tools but to redesign new parts of the task and transform students learning. An example of this is using the commenting service in Google Docs, for instance, to collaborate and share feedback on a given task task.
Redefinition
If you are to place this level in Blooms revised taxonomy pyramid, it would probably correspond to synthesis and evaluation as being the highest order thinking skills. Redefinition means that students use technology to create imperceptibly new tasks. As is shown in the video below an example of redefinition is "when students connect to a classroom across the world where they would each write a narrative of the same historical event using the chat and comment section to discuss the differences, and they use the voice comments to discuss the differences they noticed and then embed this in the class website".
