Now That's how you use ICT's to develop higher order thinking. Even in this inherently one-sided example, notice how Salman scaffolds the listener while he solves a dreaded quadratic equation. This is fairly advanced Maths in a secondary school context, but notice how he is able to explain his methods in such a way that the process seems straightforward? Using video like this has the huge advantage that, among other things, a struggling student is able to pause and rewind the difficult parts and watch repeatedly until they are confident enough to attempt some problems on their own. The screenshots below shows an aspect I call the problem tree for some strange reason, seeing it's more usual to call something treelike when it looks like the bit that's on top of the dirt. Anyway, the right image is just a more zoomed-in picture of the left. Here's a link.
(remember this is a student now.)
Ok, first question, here we go...
I know how to do this, let's get this started (I'm still a teacher between parenthesis, and I have to admit to cheating a little by choosing a faster set of problems to solve than I showed you in the video, If I had more time I promise I would do the quadratics!). Hmmm... I recon the answer's gotta be the top one, let's see...
Oh bother and gosh darn it! (this particular student is actually a time traveller from the 1950's, which explains his, um, interesting vocabulary) It wasn't the top one after all. Oh well, I still have these two options to choose from. I can decide to ask for a hint, but I know that costs me extra questions I have to get right before I can move on, and that can take ages! Or, I could just watch the video again. I know that I can watch the video as many times as I like, and I don't have ta do extra problems that way... Hmmm... which one'll I choose? Asking for a hint is easier, but it might take me much longer to finish this set of problems and move on to the next one! And I can see my best friend Sam has almost finished, Jane too! Boy she bothers me with her silly freckles! Well, I guess that settles it, I can't let myself get beaten by a girl! Looks like it's the video again for me. I guess it's just as well that teacher has made all these videos, I wonder what on earth people used to do before, when there was only one teacher and us kids forgetting to pay attention sometimes, and missing out on an important middle-bits while he was explaining how to solve these annoying math problems.
Who needs to know about stinking MATHEMATICS anyway when we've all got calculators now! They're about a million times faster than those stupid slide rules that I had to use when I was young! Whoops, I forgot I still am young, haha! But I really do feel like I'm from the past, all my friends have these knew fangled things called Iplods or something stupid. They all recon that that some genius scientist or engineer or sumthin really boring figured out how to jam a whole compooter into that little thing! Now I don't really know what this big boxy thing in front of me is or how it works, but I heard Sam call it a compooter, and it sure is one hella lot bigger than one of those little Iplods! And if they are really little compooters, they must be a million million [do numbers even go that high‽] times smarter than that old slide rule that I couldn't hardly work half the time anyways!
Gee wizz, I'd better get practising so I can keep up with all the other kids, they make me feel so old 'cause of how quick 'n easy they use them stinkin Iplods, I wish I could just SMASH 'em all to little bits and pieces sometimes you know! Argh bleeding heck, Jane just started watching the video for the next set of problems. You know, she keeps looking at me funny, and when I look back at her she looks away real quick, like she thinks I don't know she's always starin at me. It's enough to drive a cobber stir-crazy it is! Hmmm... that silly Sam looks like he's stuffed up more than a few questions in this set, he's gonna be here forever at this rate and we'll be a man short for footy practice at lunch! I guess I could give him a hand for a little bit if he doesn't get his work finished by the bell. Heck, it's no different to yesterday, and once last week too, seems like I do more learning when I'm helping him than over here on my own!
"Sorry Sir? I didn't catch what ya said, 'cause I was thinking about how to do this problem." Hehe, sucker, I wasn't really. "Just about Sir, I can almost remember how to do it, I'm just a little bit stuck 'cause I can't remember this one little bit. I do remember whereabouts it is on this video though, and I'll have it in front of me before you could even get here! Why don't you help Sam? He's gunna be stuck here 'till christmas at the rate he's going! Me and Jane here can just watch how to to it on the video."
I guess I should get back to my studies or else old Sammy might beat me after all, and I don't even want to know what the rest of the the team would say about that! I do wish I knew something though; what on Earth did Sir and all the other teachers do before Sam, Jane, and everyone else had these compooters to teach us mathematics?
And I do wish that flippin Jane would stop lookin at me!
The End
Hi there, it's normal me, back again. I have been trying to think of a way to get all the ideas that seem to prefer being on inside of my head, on the outside. My approach was research-based, and I discovered some scholarly reference material that showed a type of brainstorming involving free-form creative writing to be superior to other brainstorming methods in both individual and group settings (Furnham, Yazdanpanahi, 1995). I am always looking for, and experimenting with different methods of expanding the literacy and numeracy potential of myself, with the aim of applying them in classroom situations.
I make it my goal to improve the literacy and numeracy levels of each and every one of my students because That is the stated objective of the Australian Cross-Curriculum Policies on Literacy and Numeracy.
I have some very interesting reflections on the outcome of this free-form creative writing, as I can honestly say that I have never been able to spontaneously write anything even remotely like that before. I knew very vell the message I wanted to transmit, but couldn't think of a way to get it down 'on paper' without drawing up a step-by step pictogram of how the Khan Academy worked, which would obviously be tedious for myself and the reader. I look forward to experimenting with this technique while I continue my learning journey through further research.
I noticed a small shortcoming in the design of blogs as I typed my free-form fictional brainstorm. The problem lay in the way blogs evolve in real time, and automatically erase whatever existed before a change. I'm interested in exploring the chronological records of a Wiki using this method because a Wiki is different to a blog in this regard. In a Wiki, permanent records are kept of all changes made to the Wiki. A Wiki is structured differently for the obvious reason that, owing to its nature, maintaining a Wiki who's changes were permanent and could not be undone would be completely untenable.
THis leads me into a completely different discussions on the pros and cons of blogs v Wikis v Websites, which I think I might carry on over at my Wiki. I've just thought of some interesting new tricks I might try out if enough time remains. Honestly, this assignment is neverending, I actually wish I had a word limit at the moment!
Here is a straight-forward description of the story above.
If I've misjudged my chosen genre please accept my apologies. I have been trying out new techniques, which is always risky. The story is one of parallel metaphor, where a few different stories are referred to indirectly.
One is a story of a time travelling young boy who is learning about ICT, but through they eyes of an adult, not necessarily born in the 50, but before his classmates.
Another depicts the layout of the Khan Academy, the tool I selected from the fourth group.
Thirdly, I tried to imagine, examine, analyse, pull-apart and re-construct. Basically I just did the best job I could at getting into the head of a typical student who has been put into a mathematics class that has ICT integrated to the best of my current ability. To imagine what a student in the position of our protagonist, let's call him Charlie, might be thinking if I'd done my job well.
I hope I have been able explain clearly enough now, that in the story, I was playing the part of the teacher. (please excuse me for the fact I didn't encourage Charlie to do more than a couple math problems for the duration of the story, it was a necessary foible of my character's) In this fictional classroom I had created I was able to closely examine the interrelationships of different Pedagogies, and learning theories. I focused first on the online tool I was to examine for this project, The Khan Academy. I made sure I linked, embedded and referenced well, using a number of different Technical tools Such as linking a picture from my Picasa album to my wiki, then linking to the link that's now Wiki from my blog. I wanted to see what would happen if I linked my Blog to a ghost-link on my Wiki. And now I know.
"Individual brainstorming" is the use of brainstorming in solitary. It typically includes such techniques as free writing, free speaking, word association, and drawing amind map, which is a visual note taking technique in which people diagram their thoughts. Individual brainstorming is a useful method in creative writing and has been shown to be superior to traditional group brainstorming.[12]
Research has shown individual brainstorming to be more effective in idea-generation than group brainstorming.[2]
Furnham, A., & Yazdanpanahi, T. (1995). Personality differences and group versus individual brainstorming. Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 73-80.
"Productivity Loss in Idea-Generating Groups: Tracking Down the Blocking Effect". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 61 (3): 392–403. 1991.
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