Assignment 2: A Learning Sequence

The Australian Curriculum identifies Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability as one of the seven general capabilities that all students need to develop for the 21st Century. As students learn to access, create, communicate and work collaboratively, they need to learn to 'make the most of the digital
technologies available to them, adapting to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve and limiting the risks to themselves and others in a digital environment' (Australian Curriculum, 2013). In order to provide students with the opportunities to fully develop this capability, teachers need to identify the context of a unit of work and consider the most appropriate learning tasks and technology that will allow for learning to be enhanced and ultimately transformed: the components of the TPACK Framework. When designing units of work, as Mishra. P and Koehler. M (2007) states 'particular technologies have their own propensities, biases, affordances and constraints' and so it is necessary to consider these affordances before deciding how technology will be integrated within the unit.

The opportunity for students to be engaged in authentic tasks that address the General Capabilities and cross-curricular learning goals, enables them to work with real-life issues and develop collaborative problem-solving skills. This learning sequence was developed after a planning process of considering the 3 phases of learning and the pedagogy and digital approaches.

Learning Sequence Overview

Student attendance at the local youth literature festival has started to decline. The Year 5 students have been asked to assist with promotion of a literature festival where popular authors/artists are invited to participate in book talks and performance sessions.

Students work in groups of 4 to create a multimedia advertisement for an author session to promote the literature festival to the local school community.

Phase of learning	Task outline	Pedagogy links and digital approaches
Phase 1 Establishing the authentic context for the unit, task definition and negotiation Units 1 and 6 multimodal narrative	Gather information about the authors invited to participate: work collaboratively to select author to promote. Choose author to promote and character to analyse by exploring author websites and making connections to books of interest or familiarity	Connectedness and student interest Research the scope of the literature festival using  blended approach: online and face to face interviews with organisers Recording of information using online recording tool such as google docs or wiki embedded in class edstudio
Phase 2 Exploration and co-construction of knowledge, analysis	Analyse main character in text, focussing on how language is used to represent characters. (Unit 1 C2C) Analyse author personality using author website and biographical information. Collaboratively develop a concept map to represent the author and the main character.  Use the concept map to assist with writing a viewpoint about how the author’s personality has influenced their character Share this in class blog for peers to provide feedback	Student driven as students decide on author and character to explore Character Analysis templates and author personality templates provided to scaffold task. Online brainstorming tools Socially constructed and Negotiated knowledge
Phase 3 Creation and presentation of solution	Create multimodal advertisement to promote literature festival. This is to be shared publicly on literature festival website so students need to ensure that legal and ethical guidelines are followed when using digital resources.	Interaction within and beyond the classroom to reinforce learning Students provided with options for creating multimodal advertisement Group creates advertisement using Glogster, Thinglink Powerpoint or other chosen tool, shares in class edstudio to receive feedback, consider feedback and address changes if necessary.

Education Queensland provides a suitable platform for the students to use to work collaboratively, store information and share creations. EdStudios are continually being modified and a wider range of digital tools made available, so this platform has been chosen for the students to store and share their work.

For the initial phase of the unit, students are presented with an authentic problem: that school attendance at the local Literature Festival is declining and that the Year 5 students are being asked to promote this festival within the local school community. They will work in small groups to create a multimodal advertisement to encourage more students to attend to ensure that this festival continues for years to come. By tasking each group with choosing a different author and character from one of their books to present using multimodal tools, students are addressing achievement standards of the Australian Curriculum (character analysis and ICT capability). The use of technology for this phase enables faster information gathering as well as collaborative decision making as the groups research the authors attending and collaboratively record and negotiate decisions using a Google Drive table created by the teacher and then embedded into a class EdStudio. The collaborative nature of this task allows students to feel ownership over the decisions for their advertisement.

For the second phase of the unit, students need to analyse one of their chosen author's main characters as well as the author's personality. This information will form the basis of the advertisement, so needs to be done well. The teacher will scaffold this learning phase by providing character analysis templates and exemplars. Online brainstorming tools will be used to show links between how the author does, or doesn't, parallel the character in the book. Discussion boards are created in the EdStudio to enable students to support the members of their group as well as the other groups through this process. The group develops a short written viewpoint about how the author's personality has influenced the character development, shared in the group blog for feedback from peers and the teacher. This feedback is considered to improve the written response.

The final phase of this unit is very student driven as they explore and select the digital tool to create the multimodal advertisement. The teacher responds to student requests for direction to take with creating the presentation rather than providing a set selection of tools that they must choose from. This process allows the teacher to identify groups that require more scaffolding while allowing other groups to develop their own creative solutions. Direction and scaffolding is provided to ensure that safe and ethical guidelines are being used when accessing and using online material. Links to useful websites to help them with this process are made available in the EdStudio. Models are provided on how to locate appropriate resources and attribute materials if necessary. The final presentation is initially shared in the class EdStudio, but then being made available and promoted on the school website. The embedded Glogster is an example of a final product.

For our students to reach their potential, we need to aim for them to be able to engage in higher order thinking processes and skills. When digital tools are used for identified purposes that meet the specific needs of authentic tasks, this gives students the chance to engage in application, analysis, evaluation and creative processes, Blooms' Digital higher order thinking skills. By designing learning sequences and providing access to appropriate digital tools to meet the needs of the task, rather than choosing the technology and then a task to utilise it, we are giving our students the chance to develop the skills needed in this century.

Australian Curriculum. 2013. Information and communication technology (ICT) capability, retrieved 29th March 2014 from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/information-and-communication-technology-capability/introduction/introduction

Mishra, P. & Koehler, M. (2007). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK): Confronting the

wicked problems of teaching with technology. Retrieved 8th April 2014 from www.aace.org/conf/site/mishra_invited.doc

Presenting with PowerPoint and Prezi

There are so many developing and engaging programs and software available to create presentations that it can be easy to spend many hours exploring these tools. The variety of presentation modes is quite staggering and there always seems to be a new tool being developed. As the students that I teach are part of the digital native generation, it is wise to employ some of these tools to ensure that we are providing engaging and relevant tools. I have used Prezi to create a presentation to provide and overview of learning in Project 600.

SlideDog looks like another versatile presentation software and I plan on exploring this further for its benefit of being able to import a wide range of file formats without having to reformat in slides.

After reading the module document on PowerPoint, I decided to explore its features in more detail as I was already very familiar with this software and wanted to investigate what else was possible with this software that all schools have ready access to. The feature that I had not used previously was the ability to create interactive presentations. I was very impressed with using this feature and can imagine a lot more ways that PowerPoint can be employed by both teachers and students. I was able to create an interactive multiple choice quiz and have embedded it below using Authorstream. Click directly on the slide to ensure that the interactivity works as designed.

PowerPoint should not be disregarded as an outdated presentation software. It provides many features that enables it to be used in many different ways and is continually being updated. 

Thylacine Quiz

More PowerPoint presentations from Kylie Joyce

On another point, I was relieved that Authorstream maintains the multimedia and interactivity features of PowerPoint so that it is possible to embed these presentations without losing these features. I used SlideShare to embed my affordances analysis table as this was used for my previous table.

Assignment 1: Reflective Synopsis

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” Dewey, J. 1944.

This quote by John Dewey is just as relevant now as it was in 1944. Even though there have been dramatic changes in education, technology and society since the middle of the last century, there has been a need to look to the future and consider that as times change, so should our ability to provide educational settings and learning experiences that enable our students to develop the skills that are needed for whatever century they are living in. The skills needed to thrive in the 21st Century are different from those of the 20th Century, but there will always be the need for schools to evolve and adopt new instructional approaches no matter the century.
Most of the digital tools and online spaces that are being used for educational purposes have been retasked from their original purpose. In order to ensure that new technologies are being used to transform learning experiences and not just using a new tool to achieve the same outcome, it is necessary to analyse the affordances of these tools and consider how they can redefine the learning task. The DiAL-e Framework  as referred to in The Affordances of Blogs post was identified as a useful tool to assist in this process. By identifying the features of an online space and how these can be practically used, this framework scaffolds the process of making the links between practical features and pedagogical practices to modify and redefine learning, with greater opportunity to develop higher order thinking skills as identified in Blooms' Taxonomy. The benefit of revisiting affordance analysis tasks results in a broadening of the range of learning experiences.
Not only is it necessary to consider personal pedagogy when choosing the most appropriate technology to achieve learning outcomes, it is necessary to realise the new pedagogy is being informed due to technological advances. The understanding of digital pedagogy will enable the classroom to become an interactive environment where the teacher is the facilitator and the students are able to collaborate within and beyond the classroom to become creators of knowledge rather than just consumers of knowledge. As Mishra and Koehler ( 2007, p. 7) state, 'Technological pedagogical knowledge is an understanding of how teaching and learning changes when particular technologies are used.' Our personal digital pedagogy should take into account that the learning outcomes should inform the decision as to which tools and online spaces are utilised in our classrooms and that these tools will change with the purpose of these tasks.
To this end, blogs, images and video were explored to consider the pedagogical and technical features and benefits for 21st Century classrooms. These tools enable students to engage in collaborative and creative processes that are essential abilities of contemporary learners, utilising constructivist approaches to become global learners.
It is essential that as educators we embrace the opportunities that evolving technology affords us and our students. 'The need to know the capital of Florida died when my phone learned the answer. Rather, the students of tomorrow need to be able to think creatively: they will need to learn on their own, adapt to new challenges and innovate on-the-fly (Chivetta, A.).

Daniels, M. (2011). 10 Inspirational quotes for edtech friendly teachers, retrieved 23rd April 2014 from
http://www.knewton.com/blog/teacher-tools/10-inspirational-quotes-for-edtech-friendly-teachers/

Mishra, P. & Koehler, M. (2007). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK): Confronting the
wicked problems of teaching with technology. Retrieved 8th April 2014 from
www.aace.org/conf/site/mishra_invited.doc

Chivetta, A. Retrieved 23rd April from The State of EdTech, http://thestateofedtech.com/ed-tech-quotes/

Video Exploration

With the rapid growth in easily accessible technology that allows us to access and create videos, there comes great opportunity to harness this engaging and creative medium. It is no longer necessary to have a high level of technological expertise to create digital videos that can be used for a plethora of uses. Also, it is no longer a medium that is just beneficial to explore and engage with, it is a necessity. The knowledge creation society that is evolving around us demands that we actively participate if we are to become contemporary citizens.

As many of the students we interact with are known as 'digital natives', many of them view, comment on, share and create video on a weekly basis in their personal lives. The use of video in the educational environment offers the opportunity for them to be involved in authentic tasks and reach authentic audiences, such as their immediate peers as well as a wider audience by sharing video creations online, this increases the value they place on these tasks.

I have explored and used quite a range of tools and software for creating videos, both for personal and educational purposes. The range of either free or affordable tools available is quite staggering and I have enjoy trying out a range of techniques. My 1st venture into video creation was using Windows Live Movie Maker for editing personal home movies. My kids still really enjoy watching the family ski holiday videos that I edited to create a library of home videos. This program is very intuitive and offers a range of editing tools to create really engaging videos. The embedded video below is a short video of a litter of puppies that my dog had edited using Windows Live Movie Maker (or Windows Movie Maker 2012 as it is now known).

Power point is a very powerful tool for creating videos and one that students of all ages can navigate. Most students become familiar with creating power point presentations in the early years, this knowledge makes it an excellent tool for video production. Both music files and audio files can easily be embedded and then the power point saved as a windows media video file (.wmv). 

This video was created using power point and Windows Movie Maker to create sneak peek video for Project 600 and was uploaded to the Virtual Classroom for the students to preview the following week's lesson.

Another option is to record the slide show while recording a narrative with the file then saved as a .wmv file. This facility allows teachers to create instructional or motivating videos that can be used to flip the classroom or provide reinforcement of more difficult concepts. Beyond this, students can create their own instructional videos that can be shared for peer learning or as a reflection tool. If students are tasked with recording a slide show of their creation while 'talking aloud' what is happening in the presentation, rather than just using a script, higher order thinking is encouraged.

Sandy Shannon refers to a screen casting software in her blog post Media 6.3 Video, Active Presenter. I explored this software after she explained how she used it to create an instructional video for the virtual classroom. This is a very powerful tool, even as the free version, that allows for real-time recording of the desktop to create instructional videos of computer programs and websites. It provides some excellent post-editing functions, such as zoom and pan, adding objects and adding annotations, that enhance the quality of the presentation. As Sandy mentioned, the file size is quite large which limits some of the online spaces that it can be uploaded to. I created a video using this software to show teachers how to access the help tutorials and documents for the virtual classroom and another demonstrating how to upload images. As the files were too large to upload to our team site, I uploaded them to You Tube. I will try Sandy's suggestion of using movie maker to decrease the file size.

Another excellent screen casting software is Screencast-o-Matic. One of its most powerful features is that it has an online free version so that it is not necessary to download software. This makes it a very accessible tool for schools and its very user-friendly interface would enable most students to feel capable of using it.

I have participated in several One Channel programs recently to learn about a variety of digital tools. These are live web conferences offered through the Learning Place. I was introduced to some amazing iPad apps that both teachers and students would find very powerful. All students love to create animated avatars.

Tellagami is a simple app that students could easily use to create short introductory videos, provide peer feedback in a group blog, clarify their thinking in response to stimulus questions and the list goes on. This video was created to introduce a web conference that I facilitated today.

Explain Everything is an iPad screen casting app that again is very student friendly. Slide shows, pdf documents, images are some of the file types that can be imported to create videos. This app would be very useful as a tool for students to use to take sequential photos of a group task that can then be annotated and an explanation recorded as a record of the collaborative process. This app can also be be used to annotate and record live websites. I plan on using this tool more in the future.

The multimedia principle that learning is improved through words and pictures (Cisco Systems. 2008) rather than words alone is supported by these programs and offers the opportunity for learning and teaching to be transformed.

Fadel, C. (2008). Multimodal learning through media: what the research says. Cisco Systems, USA, retrieved 31st August 2013 from http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf

Images

'Visual images are becoming the predominant form of communication across a range of learning and teaching resources, delivered across a range of media and formats. The ratio of visual image to text is increasing'. Dr Anne Bamford, 2003 

This statement stresses the importance of ensuring that not only are visual texts used as a source of sharing information, but also the need to ensure that the ability to interpret, use and create visual texts is taught across all education sectors.

As it becomes easier to access, share and download all manner of images, there is increasing access to online repositories of images. Flickr makes this possible while enabling collaborative ways to share and interact with images, either with a select group or beyond our immediate circle of friends.

I am very interested in providing students with the chance to create and edit images as a form of communication. Big Huge Labs and iPiccy are 2 free websites that offer a range of editing modes to modify and create new images. The edited images can be downloaded and saved directly to a variety of devices for students to then use these images in various ways or they can be shared via social media.

The original image on the left had 2 different effects applied to it using the Big Huge Labs website. This activity could be used in art classes for students to demonstrate different artistic techniques or students could change the mood of an image to more closely reflect the mood of a narrative they have written.

Again the original image was edited on the iPiccy website to give more of a stencil impression. This website offers a greater range of editing tools, but would need more instruction to use to its full capacity. An excellent tool for older students to become familiar with.

Dr Anne Bamford. (2003). The Visual literacy white paper, Adobe Systems Pty Ltd, Australia, retrieved 12th May 2014 from http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/education/pdfs/visual-literacy-wp.pdf

BLOGS.....What are they good for?

Up until my involvement in this online course and Project 600 (an online literacy and numeracy program being offered by Education Queensland) my only experience with blogs had been to read the blog postings of dedicated craft lovers to learn new craft techniques or get ideas for craft projects. I found this source of information invaluable in my personal endeavours but didn't envisage how blogs could be used for educational purposes and to modify and transform learning tasks across all school sectors.
After spending time exploring the features of blogs and considering the affordances of these in different educational environments, it is evident that blogs (and other online spaces) provide benefits for increasing collaborative ways of working. My updated Blog Affordances Analysis Table is embedded below.

Blog affordances analysis updated from kjoyc263

The use of avatar videos to provide instructions is an engaging strategy. Tellagami is a free Apple App that was used to create this short video.

Images can also be embedded for instructional purposes, to provide additional information, as a stimulus to name a few. The use of images can also be to personalise the blog space and encourage ownership of this space.
The use of scaffolds to support individual and group responses will help to focus online responses.
An image can be embedded in a group blog or virtual classroom and the students are directed to respond using the PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting) strategy as one example.

Department of Education, Training and Employment. 2013. Contemporary Teacher. Contemporary Teacher Resource, retrieved 1st May 2013 from https://learningplace.eq.edu.au/cx/resources/file/57b36828-bbdd-9c94-0b17-cabfeb278ac4/1/01-Contemporary-Teacher/cs-ct-00.html

In order to share useful or interesting websites, it is recommended to insert a link to the website.

TED Talks Education provides a playlist of 9 videos from various Ted presentations.

The Affordances of Blogs

In order to analyse the affordances of various online tools, I spent a fair amount of time investigating possible frameworks to assist with this process. I will use the DiAL-e framework in conjunction with Bloom's taxonomy-cognitive domain to frame my analysis as I found this approach the most useful for my context.

This process became quite time consuming for me as I took a long time reflecting on how blogs could be most appropriately used and the benefits of them in my teaching context. Blogs are currently used as a response platform as part of Project 600. As Sandy mentioned in her blog, Exploring Blogs, the group blog format used this year has increased the level of student interaction, but the Project 600 team should consider the process we ask students to use when uploading tasks to make it easier for them to respond to teacher feedback. Throughout this process I considered how we could expand the use of the blogging platform to deepen student learning.

Features of the technology	Affordances (activities and practice)	Affordances (examples of pedagogy and designs)
Online log of communication using embedded text, audio, visual materials, links that are presented in chronological order	Supports multimodal learning to share personal learning journey in developmental sequence	Homework tasks are uploaded to their blog Students can use blog as a reflection tool to demonstrate their understanding of new content being learnt Students respond to visual stimulus using prompts provided by teacher Groups of students work collaboratively by uploading separate elements of a group task to provide completed task. Students respond to and edit tasks before submitting final version. Use of student generated multimodal elements encourages creativity Flip the classroom: students watch an embedded educational video as a homework task and respond individually in their blog to facilitate personal understanding. These postings are then used as the basis for group discussion in the classroom. Students then revisit and edit their blog posting to demonstrate their shared knowledge Teachers can support learners individually by providing targeted feedback with prompts for students to reflect
Comments can be posted in response to blog posts and are displayed in chronological order	Supports critical thinking and interaction with anywhere, anytime access. Promotes use of feedback between blog owners and readers
Personalisation of the appearance and structure of the blog either by the use of available templates or advanced features to individualise to a greater degree	Encourages ownership of learning space regardless of technical capability. Those with higher technical knowledge have the capacity to individualise to a greater degree and level of creativity
HTML tab allows for embedding of online elements	Allows for digital artefacts from various online locations to be shared from the one location. Also provides the opportunity for additional features to be added to blog posts
Link to blogs created by the same author within one blog by use of pages links in layout menu	Allows blog owner to provide easy access to several blogs from the one online space
Google+ Hangouts enable groups to have real-time conversations and video chats that can be recorded and uploaded directly to the blog	Supports real-time collaboration amongst peers, students and ‘experts’ from wider community and the benefit of accessing recordings of these conversations at a later date
Various gadgets (also known widgets) are tools/applications that can be added to the blog to enhance the functionality: follow by email, list popular posts, RSS Feed, link list of websites or other blog pages	Followers can receive up-to-date notification of posts. Supports benefit of community by easy access to items that other followers value. Linking to outside artefacts, websites, news articles to expand support ideas
Blog settings allow security settings to be either public or private	Level of access can be determined depending on needs and personal preferences
Permission can be given so that additional authors can add material to the blog	Promotes engagement of learning community and sharing of collective knowledge

N.B. I asked Google how to embed a table in Blogger as I wanted to learn another skill. Mr Google is a wealth of knowledge.
This is the link I used to assist me with this: http://www.ganisphere.com/2013/04/create-table-in-blogger-using-ms-word.html

TPACK Reflections

Content Knowledge
Much of my teaching career has been as a Support Teacher: Literacy and Numeracy. My main role is to support classroom teachers to cater for individual student needs focusing on literacy and numeracy skills. My strengths lie in identifying the necessary literacy and numeracy skills students need to develop to be able to access the class curriculum and to provide appropriate program support for these students. I haven't developed a deep knowledge base all of the Key Learning Areas (KLAs), but instead have developed the ability to identify the literacy or numeracy demands of a KLA in order to provide specific support in these domains. The rollout of the Australian Curriculum and the provision of Achievement Standards that identify the knowledge and understanding that students should demonstrate at particular stages of their education have provided clear starting points for teachers to use when identifying the areas of support for their students. Many teachers benefit from support to be able to select appropriate learning tasks and sequence of activities to assist students to meet the achievement standards as well as cater for students achieving above the year level standards.

Pedagogy
Pedagogical knowledge is an area of relative strength for me. As the focus of my ST:LaN role, I support and work with teachers to provide appropriate classroom tasks to cater for a range of student abilities differentiation of class programs and assisting with whole school data analysis and student assessment. Being able to assist teachers by working with small groups to develop specific skills using a range of teaching methods and approaches is an area I am confident with. Over the last several years, there has developed greater focus on mentoring teachers, so I have strengthened my skills in this area. For the past several years, I have worked very closely with another ST:LaN teacher at 2 schools and this work environment has increased our personal skills as having the opportunity to collaborate on ideas and programs has improved resulted in improved student outcomes. An area of improvement is to develop a larger bank of skills to support high achieving students to ensure student engagement.

Technology
When it comes to technological knowledge, I am confident using a range of software and online tools to substitute, augment and modify learning tasks in terms of the SAMR model. My goal is to develop the ability to redefine learning tasks using technology. My biggest challenge is that I get really inspired by some of the ideas that are being shared, but then feel disheartened when seemingly being blocked by the lack of capable infrastructure and tools that can be accessed in my teaching context. In my current role with Project 600, a significant amount of time is having to be devoted to supporting schools and teachers who are struggling with poor bandwidth and trouble shooting technical issues with the online platform that has recently been upgraded. Trouble shooting solutions with new/unfamiliar tools is an area of strength as I like to always challenge myself to work out how to solve issues and work out solutions for myself, but also find it very beneficial to trouble shoot as part of a team. Unfortunately, too much time and energy is being devoted to this aspect which then reduces the time available to develop programs using digital pedagogy.

Personal Pedagogy Revisited

My personal pedagogy updated

Upon reflection of my pedagogical beliefs in terms of 21st Century pedagogy, I was able to refine my personal pedagogy to link more closely with the social constructivist theory and to acknowledge that the learner can take more control over the learning journey and take advantage of being able to collaborate outside the 4 walls of the classroom.
In principal, the pedagogy needed for learners of any age should focus on contextualised learning experiences that harness the collaborative benefits of ICTs to develop deeper understanding and thinking skills that enable them to apply this understanding and problem solving abilities across various disciplines.
In practice, in order for this to occur within my current teaching context, the infrastructure and professional development capacities have an extremely long way to go. We need to identify what can change now and what needs to change in the future so that we prepare our students for the change that is yet to come.
The critical elements of 21st Century pedagogy (collaboration, flexibility, student centred and driven, networking as some) on face value align somewhat with my pedagogical beliefs as shared in my previous post. When I drill down into my beliefs I am able to make links with collaboration and providing personally relevant learning experiences but within the school/classroom environment. After revisiting my pedagogy incorporating 21st Century skills, I am able to include the pedagogical practices of collaboration to develop socially constructed understanding across a range of learning environments and student control of learning paths as essential components.

Personal Pedagogy in Times of Change

Being discussed across all education frontiers is the notion that we are experiencing a rapid change in the nature of teaching and learning due to the rapidly evolving way 'knowledge' is acquired and that it is necessary to create an educational environment to foster 'knowledge producers' rather than just 'knowledge consumers'. The demands of 21st Century learners are evolving to focus on developing lifelong learners who are capable of adapting to change and knowing 'how to learn' to best take advantage of the technology that is so readily available.

Having started my teaching career in Special Education, working with intellectually disabled students, my goal as a teacher was to assist my students to develop 'life skills' so that they could become as independent as possible and contribute to caring for themselves but also to 'contribute to society'. Even though my teaching journey has found me working in various education sectors, my underlying belief is that I want to empower students to become independent learners and be capable of being productive members of society to their best of their ability. My pedagogical beliefs have evolved throughout my teaching career but at the core of my pedagogy is 'the learner'.

The Dimensions of teaching and learning (DETE, 2013) framework was used to assist me in framing my personal pedagogy, as this approach reflects my personal philosophy that students should be at the centre of our thinking when considering the 'best teaching strategies to support learning' (DoTL, 2013).

As my understanding of the use of ICTs for learning deepens, I find that I need to reflect more on the use of digital pedagogy. There is a need for all teachers to develop teaching practices that will empower students to thrive in the educational environment that is changing rapidly by utilising the power and benefits of technology to change the way students learn, rather than just using technology to do the same things faster.

Sandy Shannon, in her post about personal pedagogy, also referred to a couple of pedagogical frameworks, IMPACT and Symphony of Teaching and Learning, that could assist with making decisions about the use of ICT to support student learning. The IMPACT model goes a long way towards framing digital pedagogy.

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has started a project to address this issue within the changing education landscape. Learning Frontiers is bringing together various education sectors and other interested organisations with the aim of the 'development of new practices that increase engagement in learning' (AITSL, 2014). 

Anticipating the future: professional practices to support a new education paradigm, poses some important questions that need to be considered when discussing how to teach in the 21st Century.

What is the new pedagogy?
11. What is the relationship between teacher subject knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and a focus on higher order skills?

12. What does it mean to pedagogy and school practice to shift student capacity from consumption to production roles?Is there a definable good pedagogy? Can we crystallise what we mean by good practice? Would that practice apply in all learning areas, settings, contexts and classrooms?
14. What is the appropriate balance between form (or process) and substance (content broadly conceived) in relation to both teacher and student learning?
15. How can we assist a greater focus on depth rather than breadth in learning?
16. How effective are specific pedagogical approaches such as project-based learning and learning by design?
17. How much is deeper engagement with a group of students a part of the change we require?

References
Department of Education, Training and Employment. (2013). Dimensions of teaching and learning. Retrieved March 23, 2014 from https://learningplace.eq.edu.au/cx/resources/file/f093f249-05ce-0bde-465a-dbc537683e7a/1/index.html

Australian Institute and School Leadership. (2014). Learning frontiers. Retrieved August 30, 2013 from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/learning-frontiers.html

Australian Institute and School Leadership. (2014). Anticipating the future: professional practices to support a new education paradigm. Retrieved August 30, 2013 from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/learning-frontiers.html

Copyright or Copywrong?

Scenario: An online teacher plans on creating an educational video for students to view prior to the weekly online lessons to give students access to the key content. Power point slides created by the teacher will be converted to a movie of about 60 seconds in duration. Music purchased by the teacher will be added to the movie file. The completed movie will be uploaded to the virtual classroom which is password protected.
Is this breaching copyright laws?

The use of short extracts of music to accompany power point presentations is allowable under the 'Flexible Dealing Exception-s 200AB exception' of the Copyright Act . As the teacher is using the music files for educational purposes and is only using an amount that is reasonable, this is acceptable use and would not breach copyright.

An alternative to using commercially purchased music would be to search for free accessible music that can be downloaded. Sites such as Jamendo provide a wide range of music files. It is possible to search for instrumental music that would be appropriate as background music for videos.
It would be recommended to attribute the music at the end of the presentation.