Synopsis

Digital literacy according to QCAR is paramount for students to achieve by the end of year 8 (Dep, ed, 2007. As prensky (2001) states, not all learners in the classroom are digitally literate and have trouble engaging with educational ICT’s as their involvement with ICT may have been limited to games, game searches and you tube videos.
As an inspired pre service teacher, exploring students previous interests and computer skills can help design and implement digital and ICT skills. The term “engage or enrage me” has been defined also by Prensky (2005) and is a real and relevant issue that needs to be considered in professional development for all educators.
Lifelong learning skills are utilised by embedding technologies that allow students to work autonomously, connect with the real world , use higher order thinking skills and have the necessary cognitive skills needed to evaluate and reflect on their own learning.
The divide between digital natives and immigrants can also be seen as a disadvantage in the classroom for some learners. Teachers need to acknowledge this discrepancy in positive and constructive ways by scaffolding learning to educe knowledge and understanding from the skills and content that E learning can offer. E Learning represents a new and more intelligent means of generating information to be accessed, refined and transformed by many participants. This mode of demonstrating new understandings developed and presented to particular audiences is valued amongst many educators. Compared to older and more industrial methods of gaining information by transmission, E learning is a great evolvement of the education paradigm and should be utilised in the classroom for all its advantages and rewards that are both extrinsically and intrinsically motivated. . This synopsis will identify four categories that underpin high order thinking skills that are valued in learning through ICT’s:
• Access and gain information,
• Consolidate and refine information,
• Transform information to develop new understanding and
• Present knowledge to an Audience

Wiki
The first category of access and gain information can be well demonstrated in the use of a wiki. In my blog Ward Cunningham (1995) who invented the wiki defines wiki’s as one of the easiest and user friendly tools to use for collaborative learning.
Wiki's are visually presented and promote particapation of ideas and information and engages students creative and original ideas. A wiki allows students to document their ideas and knowledge for other students to add to, refine or organise.
This tool has many qualities for presenting information in a visually stimulating way compared to note taking or dot points. Younger students can use this tool for simple yet exploratory tasks that could be utilised in a class event like an excursion. This sort of task might ask students to develop a list of equipment, supplies and requirements that are needed for the trip. As the information wiki progresses through to a final inventory, students can categorise all the requirements, determine their usefulness and how best to utilise them in a certain topic or situation.
Students can then add to the wiki new and clarified information that might have been uploaded through hyperlinks and other contributions to the wiki, comment and evaluate other students work.
Learning that is constructed by students gives more meaning, relevance and instigates ownership of the task, inspiring intrinsic motivation and lifelong learning skills.
Wiki’s represent phase 3 (Eisenberg, Berkowitz, 2006)Big 6 Theory of learning. access information as well as Kearsley,G, Shneiderman's , B, (1999), engagement theory (relate, create and donate), asking students to enhance their cognitive abilities to comprehend new understandings.
Students are encouraged in this format to add and critique other students work, giving students opportunities to extend and refine information and use higher order thinking skills.
Students and others connected to the classroom wiki can be a source of information as well as a classmate which is another positive aspect of how E learning is helping to change the dynamics in the classroom. A wiki can also provide communication elements between school contexts and home which is becoming more valued and significant in today’s world.
Educators and parents need to keep safe and secure online searching options available and facilitate the search for younger students by keeping this information ready for access.
Students are both peer and teacher supported, essentially, creating a wiki is student centred but giving students the guidance they need when they need it. "By allowing students to be involved in the construction of the task, meaningfulness and relevance and, therefore, students’ level of engagement can increase" (Marzano, 1997).


WEBSITE
Creating a website, as I have mentioned in my blog, provides students with many , creative and worthwhile learning opportunities and would best exemplify consolidate and refine information within a learning framework.
New knowledge acquired through ICT formats demonstrate meaningful engagement through collaborative and purposeful tasks. Students can use websites to access information. learners would use this new information and process it to reach the required criteria.
The process of creating a website utilises a constructivist approach to learning. This form of information acquisition is “experiential and self-directed" (Kearsley, Shneiderman, 1999) which is situated within the engagement theory . This learning process also aligns with the Dimensions of Learning Framework.
From conception of a website to its creation, students are demonstrating many attributes of higher order thinking, from previous modes of lower order skills in the acquisition and understanding of information to analysing, synthesising, and evaluating (Bloom, B. 1956).
As I have mentioned in my blog, using a website to facilitate learning is a tool which ultimately is the best for retrieving information necessary in the 21st century.

Blogs
Blogs present a learning format that fits well into transforming information to develop new understanding. Blogs have been used as an online journal which can be updated and viewed by any person who knows the blogs url address. They can be created by any individual for private or professional purposes and have been used in the educational domain for many years.
As my blog discusses, the collaborative and learning aspects that blogging in the learning environment provides enables students to view other perspectives of a topic, relate their own perspectives to the blog and have the opportunity to discuss and reason their own understandings of that topic.

Huffaker (2005) identified the dual benefits of using traditional forms of learning with educational technology : Digital and critical literacies are promoted, giving students a fluency in digital languages that can only enhance their learning skills in the 21st century.
Not unlike a website, blogs can be used in the school as a means of communicating to parents and other students of the students, class and schools learning journey through pictures videos and presentations.
Homework collaboration between students can also be communicated through this tool to be retrieved after school hours. Learning is transformed by this process of communication and can assist in all KLS’s and in all year levels.
Students ability to acknowledge and critically evaluate other forms of thinking and understandings to enrich and transform their own, are using higher order thinking and reasoning skills to attain a thorough understanding of the topic.
Productive Pedagogies value this form of learning through connectedness with the world, engaging with practical and or hypothetical problems that are not restricted to the classroom (Productive pedagogies,2004).
Blogs would be valued in higher education as students self directed learning is encouraged. Students have a wide range of opinions to consider and their own time and learning style to assimilate new information with known information to enhance new understandings.
Implementing blog writing in a classroom can be a fun, collaborative and enriching experience for all students as they and others become involved in a real world context for celebrating their learning journey. Blogs can also be used to facilitate learners who have poor oral skills to demonstrate their learning, extend and encourage ICT skills and provide an alternative method of presenting information.

Blogs represent an information platform where information can be transformed into deeper understandings in a real world context that is engaging and appealing to most learners. Collaboration is the key element of a blogs function and can be used to acknowledge others views and comments as you can see in my blog comments . As a pre service teacher, I will endeavour to use blogs in my classroom to help communication, learning and connectedness to real world topics and information.

Movie maker
Finally, I chose movie maker to represent the category presenting knowledge to an audience as my blog will further explain. Movie maker is easy to use and because of the explicit steps and elements that need to be addressed, this tool is student centred and teacher guided. Teachers who use movie maker in their classrooms are addressing essential learnings standards promoting positive and pedagogical outcomes for all students.
Creative abilities are encouraged by the tools visual capabilities and student’s prior knowledge of presenting can generate original ideas that they may not have thought of before. As a digital immigrant, my approach to technology has been impeded by the technical skills required.
As Movie maker is presented in a social context, my fear subsided and I began to play with the elements of this tool. My experience and enjoyment felt by using movie maker contributed to self motivation and a personal interest to achieve the desired results.
By using images, videos, sound, text and many effects, students can create engaging and informative presentations. Students have many intelligences that can be discovered and enhanced using a digital format such as movie maker and the learning derived from its viewing or creation can help educators align other KLA's with its use to embed content or conceptual ideas of a topic.
This digital tool is identified as the last stage of Kearsley & Shneiderman’s Engagement theory, donate: and also aligns with the big6 learning framework. frangenheim's revised theory based on Blooms taxonomy suggests students level of ability can also be considered with movie maker in the last stage of cognitive demands, create.
The skills used to produce a movie are valued and an important element of presenting learning outcomes in higher levels of education. Students in lower year levels would appreciate the stimulating effect that a movie offers, but would not yet have the computer or literacy skills needed to create one individually.


Conclusion
ICT’s offer students many opportunities to be aware of their learning progress by the format that information and learning criteria are provided and presented. Students can have an autonomous and responsible role in their learning journey, and can ultimately be independent in their learning with the teacher taking a facilitators role. Students are asked to continually reflect on their work to identify their own understandings. This process is valued as lifelong learning skills are being formed and encouraged as students own self directed learning process becomes self motivated and reflective
We have only been part of this new digital paradigm for a short time and we are still learning the new and innovative advances that are happening all the time.
Today’s educators concur: Literacy has altered from a static construct to a rapid and constant process of transformation in the way we communicate and It has shifted from the traditional print technology to a larger, global mindset.
"We are educating people out of their creativity," which signifies and reiterates what other educators such as Vygostky with his constructivism theory and with Kearsley and Shneiderman,(1999)in their engagement theory about our current level of collaborative inquiry based learning and the ultimate success in our schools at this moment.

References


Australian National Curriculum (ACARA) (2010). National Curriculum Draft. [Electronic resource]. Retrieved May 2010. From http:// www.acara.edu.au

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