As I was reading the article assigned for this week, I was thinking to myself that the learning styles sounded familiar. I believe some schools, including the one that I teach at is trying to achieve the learning styles described in the article. However, I am not sure if there are schools that have witnessed the emergence of these learning styles in their students.
I think I have had the privilege to witness a few students who displayed one or two of the learning styles. One common trait that I see among these few students are motivation to learn and keen interest in their work. Most of my other students are either not used to the lack of spoon feeding, looking for short cuts, or are distracted with games, having fun and so on. So, agency is one of the key contributing factors here.
I agree with that which was raised in class about scaffolding as well. The success of this lies in well designed tasks as well as teachers with the relevant skills and experience.
So, to me, it is a great idea but not an easy one to achieve at all. Besides the above,it would also need full support from all involved, including the management, teachers, parents, students, and the policy makers too.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
E learning
The story that I have in mind is a reflection of how parents are so busy today that they tend to neglect their children. The story is mainly directed at mothers to serve as a form of reminder rather than to reprimand or to lay blame.
Basically, I wish to use mainly pictures to invoke memories of one's child from the day they were a foetus and through the years that they grow. I am using Rod Stewart's song, "Have I told you lately" to put my main message across - that is, to get mothers to ask themselves if they have been so busy that they have neglected their children, so much so that they have not told them lately that they love their children.
On its own, the pictures should be invoke nostalgia while the song may be one sung to a spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend. Put them together and they would bring the meaning I intend across.
Throughout the story, I will intentionally not include voice or subjects' direct eye contact with the audience until the end when a child will be seen asking his mother if she would play with him. In doing so, I hope to make this scene the most powerful and strong in that it represents a need for the viewer to take a stand on the issue that I have been trying to bring across.
So here's my attempt at putting it all in a time structure. The double vertical line is a transition effect of flipping the page which is used to signify a new "chapter."
Basically, I wish to use mainly pictures to invoke memories of one's child from the day they were a foetus and through the years that they grow. I am using Rod Stewart's song, "Have I told you lately" to put my main message across - that is, to get mothers to ask themselves if they have been so busy that they have neglected their children, so much so that they have not told them lately that they love their children.
On its own, the pictures should be invoke nostalgia while the song may be one sung to a spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend. Put them together and they would bring the meaning I intend across.
Throughout the story, I will intentionally not include voice or subjects' direct eye contact with the audience until the end when a child will be seen asking his mother if she would play with him. In doing so, I hope to make this scene the most powerful and strong in that it represents a need for the viewer to take a stand on the issue that I have been trying to bring across.
So here's my attempt at putting it all in a time structure. The double vertical line is a transition effect of flipping the page which is used to signify a new "chapter."
Thursday, March 11, 2010
equity and equality- is it possible?
"...technology does not transform learning and literacy by itself, but only in conjunction with other social and economic factors." (Warschauer, 2007)
With issues that stem from social and economic factors, coupled with its' rippling effect on access to and acquisition of multiliteracies that may lead to a perpetuation and extension of digital divide, implementing multiliteracies in the classroom seem so daunting.
However, all is not lost, it seems.
"Competence in traditional literacies is often a gateway to successful entry into new literacies." (Dr Towndrow's slides) I would like to stretch this a little further - if good readers and writers have a better foundation to multiliteracies, then factors and actions that lead to good readers and writers are also the same factors and actions that lead to successful acquisition of multiliteracies.
Here's how I look at it-"students with high SES gain more from at-home computer use." Likewise, studies in traditional literacies have also shown that children from higher SES backgrounds tend to be better prepared and more school-ready when they enter kindergarten, and subsequently performed better academically and socially.
So does that mean that fate is sealed for those who come from low SES families? The good news is that researchers have also shown through their studies that parent involvement and attitude may be a stronger predictor of a child's academic and social performance in school than SES. That is to say that if we compare a child from a high SES family who is mostly left to the care of a grandparent, nanny, or maid, and has little or just some engagement with parents in terms of guidance, discipline, and coaching in terms acquisition of literacy skills with a child from a low SES family with at least one parent who is actively involved in these areas, the child from low SES family may be in a better position to do well academically and socially.
Hence, is parent involvement can have positive influence on traditional literacies, it could have similar positive influence on mulitliteracies.
With that in mind, I think that educators and policy-makers need to influence parent involvement. Parents must see the need for quantity and quality engagement with their children as a key to successful acquiistion of traditional literacies and entry into new literacies.
On top of that, we need to pitch lessons at students' needs, ability, and context. In fact, today's news about Chinese lessons to be tailored to ability is on a similar track. And I understand that many schools in Singapore already group students according to their abilities in different areas so as to pace the teaching based on the students' ability.
With issues that stem from social and economic factors, coupled with its' rippling effect on access to and acquisition of multiliteracies that may lead to a perpetuation and extension of digital divide, implementing multiliteracies in the classroom seem so daunting.
However, all is not lost, it seems.
"Competence in traditional literacies is often a gateway to successful entry into new literacies." (Dr Towndrow's slides) I would like to stretch this a little further - if good readers and writers have a better foundation to multiliteracies, then factors and actions that lead to good readers and writers are also the same factors and actions that lead to successful acquisition of multiliteracies.
Here's how I look at it-"students with high SES gain more from at-home computer use." Likewise, studies in traditional literacies have also shown that children from higher SES backgrounds tend to be better prepared and more school-ready when they enter kindergarten, and subsequently performed better academically and socially.
So does that mean that fate is sealed for those who come from low SES families? The good news is that researchers have also shown through their studies that parent involvement and attitude may be a stronger predictor of a child's academic and social performance in school than SES. That is to say that if we compare a child from a high SES family who is mostly left to the care of a grandparent, nanny, or maid, and has little or just some engagement with parents in terms of guidance, discipline, and coaching in terms acquisition of literacy skills with a child from a low SES family with at least one parent who is actively involved in these areas, the child from low SES family may be in a better position to do well academically and socially.
Hence, is parent involvement can have positive influence on traditional literacies, it could have similar positive influence on mulitliteracies.
With that in mind, I think that educators and policy-makers need to influence parent involvement. Parents must see the need for quantity and quality engagement with their children as a key to successful acquiistion of traditional literacies and entry into new literacies.
On top of that, we need to pitch lessons at students' needs, ability, and context. In fact, today's news about Chinese lessons to be tailored to ability is on a similar track. And I understand that many schools in Singapore already group students according to their abilities in different areas so as to pace the teaching based on the students' ability.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The picture is starting to take shape
Reading the two articles assigned for this week, I am beginning to see digital literacy and its relevance taking shape in my mind. I recall having so many questions some weeks back and I am glad that I am starting to find answers to those questions.
With the use of actual examples in both articles, the concepts, such as how resemiotization is played out in the example of parents moving from iconic to symbolic significance, become easy to understand. Indeed, with the aid of both images and text, the concepts come across clearer than if it had been explained in words alone.
I also noticed that some of the earlier discussions we had in class are presented in the readings this week. Some of which are as follow;
Paige Ware's article
- she said, "...individuals must be able to do much more than decode and encode language..." (p.39) Decode and encode are what I had learnt in my Uni days and it is also what we still teach! It's time to change.
- we did an article about powerpoint at the beginning of this course but the drawback presented here is slightly different and it is definitely something that I see in my students' work. They are doing mere cut and paste, sometimes to the extent that there is a lack of good organisation of thoughts between slides. In Ware's words, this is "information-retrieval learning." I recall sharing this observation in my students previously too.
-on pg 38, she said that "..not all youth participate in the types of literacy-rich, out-of school digital worlds documented in current research, and they therefore have not yet developed a rich base of experience with digital literacy." Some of my classmates raised this point several times in the past weeks.
- on pg 42, she said, "Values in these in-class uses of multimedia presentations were completion, correctness, and coherence. For a typical assessment rubric,..." and on pg 47, "...there is a great deal of pressure to move students through the curriculum swiftly enough to leave time to practice for high-stakes exam." This is about assessment and the society's perception which were raised by Joshua and team during their presentation
Paige Ware's article confirmed the concerns and reservations that I have about ICT as I have experienced it myself in my teaching. At the same time, it sheds lights on how these challenges may be overcome(Discussion and conclusion in the article). "Multimedia exploration does not have to be mutually exclusive with activities that draw explicit attention to linguistics aspects of texts." (p. 49)
Dr Nelson's article
It was a good thing that we discussed some of the terms and concepts raised in this article before the break. Without it, words like heterogeneity, hybridity, transformation, transduction, synaesthesia, and epistomological commitments would have been difficult for me to understand.
- the first line in the introduction reminds me of the outdated encode-decode concept
- on pg 57, Dr Nelson said, "...we do speak and write in re-combinations of the words and ideas of others." This reminds me of Leo Burnett, an advertiser who started his advertising agency in the 60s and whose agency is now one of the largest in the world, said, "The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships." Perhaps this new relationship in today's context lies in multimodality.
- on the same pg, Dr Nelson shared "...the growing salience of non-linguistic forms of communication...is perhaps best exemplified by the ubiquity of the Internet..." This same point was raised when we discussed the New London Group article
- on pg 59, Dr Nelson shared that synaesthesia "refers to a process of emergence, where meanings presented in two or more co-present semiotic modes, e.g. visual/pictorial and oral/linguistics, combine in such as way that new forms of meaning may obtain, in the (loosely) gestalt sense of a whole that is irreducible to and represents more than the sum of its parts." I recall this was pointed out to us when Su and team showed a collage that had a sun and accompanying text
- through the example of Emma and Bonnie, I can now see how transduction helped authors to make certain realisations and understanding, and how students may benefit through the use of ICT in their learning (pg 66 and 67). I also see the possible benefits of "noticeability factor." I am now much more convinced that "...our students and ourselves, need the highest level of understanding of the semiotic workings and affordances of language, as well as of other modes, in order to enact and facilitate powerful personal expression."(p 72)
However, I wonder if I could be as conscious and intentional in creating my own digital story. Can I "recombine these communication resources so as to bend them to her/his expressive will" as Dr Nelson puts it on pg 72?
Was it Ohler who shared that we as educators need to support and facilitate this learning through the use of ICT? Now that I am convinced of this need, my next question is how do I play this role within the limitations that have been raised?
With the use of actual examples in both articles, the concepts, such as how resemiotization is played out in the example of parents moving from iconic to symbolic significance, become easy to understand. Indeed, with the aid of both images and text, the concepts come across clearer than if it had been explained in words alone.
I also noticed that some of the earlier discussions we had in class are presented in the readings this week. Some of which are as follow;
Paige Ware's article
- she said, "...individuals must be able to do much more than decode and encode language..." (p.39) Decode and encode are what I had learnt in my Uni days and it is also what we still teach! It's time to change.
- we did an article about powerpoint at the beginning of this course but the drawback presented here is slightly different and it is definitely something that I see in my students' work. They are doing mere cut and paste, sometimes to the extent that there is a lack of good organisation of thoughts between slides. In Ware's words, this is "information-retrieval learning." I recall sharing this observation in my students previously too.
-on pg 38, she said that "..not all youth participate in the types of literacy-rich, out-of school digital worlds documented in current research, and they therefore have not yet developed a rich base of experience with digital literacy." Some of my classmates raised this point several times in the past weeks.
- on pg 42, she said, "Values in these in-class uses of multimedia presentations were completion, correctness, and coherence. For a typical assessment rubric,..." and on pg 47, "...there is a great deal of pressure to move students through the curriculum swiftly enough to leave time to practice for high-stakes exam." This is about assessment and the society's perception which were raised by Joshua and team during their presentation
Paige Ware's article confirmed the concerns and reservations that I have about ICT as I have experienced it myself in my teaching. At the same time, it sheds lights on how these challenges may be overcome(Discussion and conclusion in the article). "Multimedia exploration does not have to be mutually exclusive with activities that draw explicit attention to linguistics aspects of texts." (p. 49)
Dr Nelson's article
It was a good thing that we discussed some of the terms and concepts raised in this article before the break. Without it, words like heterogeneity, hybridity, transformation, transduction, synaesthesia, and epistomological commitments would have been difficult for me to understand.
- the first line in the introduction reminds me of the outdated encode-decode concept
- on pg 57, Dr Nelson said, "...we do speak and write in re-combinations of the words and ideas of others." This reminds me of Leo Burnett, an advertiser who started his advertising agency in the 60s and whose agency is now one of the largest in the world, said, "The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships." Perhaps this new relationship in today's context lies in multimodality.
- on the same pg, Dr Nelson shared "...the growing salience of non-linguistic forms of communication...is perhaps best exemplified by the ubiquity of the Internet..." This same point was raised when we discussed the New London Group article
- on pg 59, Dr Nelson shared that synaesthesia "refers to a process of emergence, where meanings presented in two or more co-present semiotic modes, e.g. visual/pictorial and oral/linguistics, combine in such as way that new forms of meaning may obtain, in the (loosely) gestalt sense of a whole that is irreducible to and represents more than the sum of its parts." I recall this was pointed out to us when Su and team showed a collage that had a sun and accompanying text
- through the example of Emma and Bonnie, I can now see how transduction helped authors to make certain realisations and understanding, and how students may benefit through the use of ICT in their learning (pg 66 and 67). I also see the possible benefits of "noticeability factor." I am now much more convinced that "...our students and ourselves, need the highest level of understanding of the semiotic workings and affordances of language, as well as of other modes, in order to enact and facilitate powerful personal expression."(p 72)
However, I wonder if I could be as conscious and intentional in creating my own digital story. Can I "recombine these communication resources so as to bend them to her/his expressive will" as Dr Nelson puts it on pg 72?
Was it Ohler who shared that we as educators need to support and facilitate this learning through the use of ICT? Now that I am convinced of this need, my next question is how do I play this role within the limitations that have been raised?
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