eLearning...is what exactly?

The term eLearning is an interesting one.  For a start I couldn't even decide how to spell it as it changes depending on who and what you read. I went for eLearning, like the iPad iPod thing really.  Anyway back to the important stuff.  ELWa suggest eLearning is ' the use of electronic technology to support, enhance or deliver learning'. I would challenge that a little further though an insist that the enhancement needs to include, engagement too. So eLearning is the use of electronic technology to engage the learner and enhance the learning.

This Prezi is demonstrates some excellent issues involved with the whole eLearning process and highlights some of the important aspects that we as educators need to address.

Inspirations

Yesterday afternoon I began a short course of ICT to support teaching and learning with a foundation degree police cohort.  As normal there are a range of confidences and competencies in the group, although I think it is mostly confidence! We began by discussing transferable skills that we have developed though use of ICT.  Interestingly enough most of the skills discussed were not ICT skills at all.  The top three were: problem solving, confidence and literacy.  We discussed literacy skills and the need to ensure that, children in particular, didn’t lose fundamental literacy skills that are in danger of extinction, such as spelling and grammar.  Something that I feel passionate about is the need to teach a broader range of writing skills though.  I think that unless we actually teach and embrace the new types of writing, such as texting, tweeting and emailing, we don’t capitalise on how useful these skills can be.  More to the point we need highlight that there is a vast difference in the way we write for these new technologies and that even within each of these there are formalities that need to be conformed to.  It isn’t enough to simply say this is the way you text or email, if you are texting or emailing your boss or your teacher, you should consider the language is different from that used if you are texting or emailing a friend.  So if it isn’t taught how do we expect students to just know?

Prior to the 21st century, literate defined a person’s ability to read and write, separating the educated from the uneducated. With the advent of a new millennium and the rapidity with which technology has changed society, the concept of literacy has assumed new meanings. Experts in the field suggest that the current generation of teenagers - sometimes referred to as the Net generation - possesses digital competencies to effectively navigate the multidimensional and fast-paced digital environment. For generations of adults who grew up in a world of books, traveling through cyberspace seems as treacherous and intimidating as speaking a new language. In fact, Prensky recognised “such non-IT-literate individuals as burdened with an accent - non-native speakers of a language, struggling to survive in a strange new world.”

Image is from http://fall11-eng-02.wikispaces.com/

ICT is a dynamic and ever changing subject that opens up many different future pathways for students to follow and the subject content will stay with them throughout their lives.  I expect students to develop, maintain and stimulate their curiosity, interest and enjoyment in ICT, as I encourage them to have an open and enquiring mind.  I expect students to become autonomous users of ICT with associated skills to support lifelong learning.

Experimenting with Scratch to create animations

This is a simple animation that has been created in Scratch. Today my students explored the online version of the application in order to develop their programming skills, alongside their keen social development and caring, sharing nature! The idea of the online community is that you explore the projects that have been created by other ‘scratchers’, create your own and then share! Simple. I’m afraid that my effort is very simple, but to be fair, she explains(!) I kept editing mine. When anyone asked how something was done I would have to play about with my code to see how it would work, honest! The great thing about allowing you to embed the code into your blog is not only to entertain your readers, but you can edit your scratch project anytime and it will be updated on your blog. Cool saves having lots of versions all over the place and it allows you to respond to the comments left by your readers in terms of suggestions for improvement. Win, win!