Week 1 Responses and Thoughts

Response – What is e-Learning

Gen Z begins with people born from 1995 (is that inclusive? I was born in ’95 and never considered myself in this group…) and the results of research on this group has apparently been shocking. Personally I think this generation has been largely shaped by technology advancement, such as the increase in online shopping, shorter attention spans and becoming entrepreneurs (Sparks and Honey, 2015). With the ability to now remain connected easily all over the world, there is also pressure to fit in (again, I am young so I don’t know how it was previously, but I know that I personally felt incredible pressure from Facebook, even getting bullied in high school because my Facebook account wasn’t open enough). It is amazing what this generation may yet achieve, they have a much broader access to knowledge and may yet change the world with this wealth of knowledge.

It is therefore important that teachers continue to educate using these technological tools, as not only do current students already know how to use and learn from them, but they are far more likely to engage with these tools. It is also important teachers recognise that students often have a broad range of knowledge and have shorter attention spans, incorporating debating or short videos into the classroom for example may prove more effective than an hour long lecture.

Response – Learning preferences and the brain

Main messages from the video that I could perceive (Edutopia, 2011):

•  Student’s brains go into a state of stress when bored – definitely explains why they have trouble sitting still when bored, it is a form of stress!
•  This can cause the information to be sent to the ‘animal’ part of the brain, where it is no use.
• Students should not feel stressed in class, whether it be from boredom, fear or any other stressful event. No one can think during a stressful time, why expect children or teenagers too???
•   Create curiosity in the classroom.
•  Create signals for when you want particular attention. Eg, write something in green, also creates novelty.
•   Create a safe environment! This again reduces the stress as noted in the first bullet point.
•   Attempt to develop student’s problem solving and analysis skills.
•   Scaffold learning (this is something I found effective in my first prac, I set three levels of learning for each activity, and students were to work through at their own pace. If they struggled or got questions incorrect, they completed more questions from that section).

Ways I would incorporate these ideas into a classroom (other than already mentioned), would be to have short videos on the content for in between sections as a transition, ask more open questions, or to have mini whiteboards for the students so that I can receive feedback at a class level without the stress on students of failing.

Response: Digital Technologies and ICT in a range of contexts

Brief thought as I was reading, there really is a way to incorporate ICT into any subject. Two examples from when I was in high school:

• 1.       Maths: We logged onto accounts that the teacher had set up that had us answer sets of questions as quickly as possible. He was able to monitor everyone’s progress from a master account, and we were able to get corrected answers and automatically increasing difficulty. He could see exactly where we were, and we competed to have the most answers correct, the quickest time or just to improve their own results.

• 2.       English: We used Sparknotes to compare the books we read with those that were similar. We could understand the basics of a book in a much shorter time, and we were all challenged to find and justify our own examples.

In a classroom that does not utilise ICT as often, I imagine the planning and scaffolding would be a great deal harder for the teachers, and students would not be as engaged. Students like variety and technology, why not use that to the best advantage?

Edutopia (2011). Big thinkers: Judy Willis on the science of learning. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/big-thinkers-judy-willis-neuroscience-learning-video

Sparks and Honey (2015). Meet generation z: forget everything you learned about millennials. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/sparksandhoney/generation-z-final-june-17