My key learning moments during phase 1 of my artefacts production and how design decisions were made.

While organising my thoughts around assessment two, I examined the concepts of ICT discussed in class and the various tools and software available to me to produce a successful artefact. My goal was to integrate technology to cover multiple aspects such as the theoretical, pedagogical and methodological as supported by Mishra & Koehler (2008). I wanted to avoid using technology for its own sake; rather, my goal was to learn new skills to appropriately integrate technology in my lessons.

Initially I wanted to create a WebQuest as I had created one previously and found it interesting for both myself and my students. I then decided to look at Storybird for my artefact as this was new to me and felt I could further develop my ICT skills with this program. It proved to be challenging and after many attempts to incorporate clips and interactive tasks I had no choice but to scrap this and explore my final idea to learn Prezi. I decided to produce a lesson for my Stage 4 Geography and Stage 6 Business Studies class and differentiate the lessons to cater to each level.

When producing my artefact, I had many key learning moments such as learning to navigate my way around the Prezi screen, creating pathways, inserting YouTube clips and even creating voice over’s and inserting animal sounds for different slides through the use of Screenr.  In the beginning I found navigating Prezi overwhelming and often frustrating, however after the first hour and many errors, things finally began to make sense. When presented with difficulties, I turned to technology to solve my problems by googling “how to use prezi” and “how to use Screenr” which allowed me the success I was after.

My final goal was to ensure there would be authentic learning with this artefact (Reeves, 2002). I wanted to create relevance and a real world connection which is the reasons for the newspaper articles in my senior lesson. Authentic learning strategies and incorporating ICT will support students’ developing deeper understanding of these topics.

The Geography lesson on Deserts was a complex assessment task requiring investigation by students over a sustained period of time. Both lessons provided opportunities for students to examine the tasks from different perspectives, using a variety of resources. These lessons provided students with options in the design decision process as they had a choice of what animal they could create, or what articles they could examine and Stage 4 were able to complete their reports using various formats, thereby satisfying many components or authentic learning as outlines by Reeves (2002).

While supporting the belief ‘If you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them’ Gladwell (2000), I believe these artefacts’ will be successful in achieving all the syllabus outcomes and while supporting my students’ developing deeper understanding on these topics.

References:

Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Mishra, P. & Koehler, M. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for teaching knowledge. Teachers College Record 108 (6), 1017–1054.

Reeves, T. (2002). Authentic activities and online learning. HERSDA, 562-567