This is a reflective journal that was written for my post-grad certification in Higher Academic Practice. I specifically focused the research on the current generation of students, “Gen-Y”, Participatory culture & 21st-century media technologies. This study has led me onto a Masters in 21st Century Media Practice.
2004 Myspace started,
And I had started University in the September of 2003, my friends and I all followed and chatted to each other on MSN messenger & organised our students nights by communicating through text message and calls. Then someone said ” Hey check out this site, sign up and add me”
I log on, typed in www.myspace.com, signed up and was greeted by this guy.. Tom
A Raspberry Pi is a plucky little computer about the size of a credit card. Its fairly simple in its set up, all you need in a computer monitor and a Linux computer.
The capabilities in the device are down to your own imagination and all you need to kick-start this is a little bit of knowledge in program languages such as Python.
Due to its capabilities it has been used to track weather currents, music machines and for some kids- parent detectors.
Community learning and hack labs are ways in which programmers come together to develop new ideas and projects.
A great introduction into the wonderful world of Raspberry Pi, is the Raspberry Pi Educator course at Birmingham City library. Supported by google and the Raspberry Pi organisation, it brings together teachers and educators from a wider range of curriculum together.
My final observation as part of the PGCE was like having my first ever observation again. The reason for this was my lecturer was observing some online learning materials, for flipped and blended learning that I had created as part of some CPD using Adobe voice.
I felt a little concerned about the whole observation and the way that I was delivering the content. I have never been observed with an online course, I had lots of questions, such as;
How long should this video be?
How can I create tempo and tone to the video, so that the learner doesn’t become bored?
Do I need to be in the observation while my lecturer is observing a video?
It was a totally new experience.
So the content..
I went and saw my colleagues Thomas Evans delivery a session surrounding neuropsychology applied to consumer behaviour. Obviously this is not in my field so firstly the for me to the content to the teaching and learning taking place in the room was I believe easier to do.
The room that was used was laid out in a scaled down lecture theatre, with desks lined up facing a white board and projector.
Tom started using a PowerPoint had clear learning objectives laid out to the classroom at the start. There was a clear tempo in the room and the session was broken up into manageable chunks with small group activities.
Ian has noticed a gap between staffs and students using these tools, either as a new skill or failing to engage and see beyond the “social” ideology use of it.
The project is looking in the research stages currently and is supported by the DMLL.
I wanted to blog about this because I understand this challenge that Ian is trying overcome, both on the ethical and participation gap of skills and knowledge.
My new to you innovation for me had to really focus on developing students as media professionals using softwares and digital to their full capacity.
There were 4 key objective statements that the model would aim to achieve.
1. To develop digital media literacy skills in a particular software’s.
2. Create and build a digital portfolio within a creative network.
3. Shape a tangible creative community within the school
4. Build, enhance, create and fulfil.
The outcome of my new to you project would then have to be reported in the form of an academic poster, I chose to design this with Adobe Illustrator.
Flipped Classrooms have a bit marmite situation, as an educator you will either love it or hate it, you may not understand it and maybe a little scared about it.
However ‘flipped classrooms’ personally I believe is nothing new…. It’s been around for a while it just a couple of teachers decided to theorise about it. When I was 18 and a student ( about 10 years ago) Youtube was very much in its infancy stage. My lecturers would use Youtube as a platform to share technical video tutorials that they may have created on Adobe softwares. These tutorials would fill in the important skills that I would need in order to complete my assignment and develop my skill set.
Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005 describe flipped learning that represents a cross between ‘blended’ & ‘distance’ learning.
…”The use of videos or other digital technologies to deliver content outside of class does not guarantee that anything different will occur during class time. However, due to the emphasis on students becoming the agents of their own learning rather than the object of instruction, the Flipped Learning model can enable educators to make the shift from teacher-driven instruction to student-centered learning. “… (N.Hamdan and P.McKnight, 2013)
http://elearninginfographics.com/wp-content/uploads/21st_century_classroom.jpg
Part of the PGCE requirement is to be observed by a colleague and for myself to observe one of their sessions. This blog is a reflection upon my colleague Dr Adriana Ortiz from the school of Engineering, Environment and Computing.
Her feedback is invaluable, firstly on the actual teaching practice and principals and secondly because we work for different schools the environment in my school is very different engineering, so it is interesting to compare the two and see what practices we can both adopt, in our own pedagogy.
In the Nov/Dec 1995 Barr & Tagg realeased the article; “From teaching to learning : A New Paradigm For Undergraduate Education.” This study stirred up a change within education; 20 years on from this study how are universities in the modern context using and implementing the learning paradigm?
This article discussed and identified a teaching paradigm that was adopted by many universities. Whereby the teaching approach is instructional in its delivery and is conceived in the activity of a stereotypical lecture, the students were also expected to do self-paced learning, outside of the lecture.
So the question is, where is the learning investment from the students?