After Introduction-course

The goal of this course was for me to get know what educational technology is and how different softwares can be applied in teaching and learning. After the course I know generally the main concepts, the hottest research in the field and I know how to use softwares. Still, I think that I don’t have a deeper understanding about how to tech and how to learn more effectively with technology. I guess that knowledge is reached mostly in practice. For example I know that making mind maps will help me with perceiving the big picture but it takes much time to make them so mind maps are not the best answer in every circumstances.

Luckily I hadn’t much timetable troubles so, if I remember right, I missed only one group work lesson. I was able to concentrate in lectures but I didn’t participate so active as I would like to. I still have difficulties to verbalize my thoughts and find the word to express myself in English. After all, I have got the courage to try and that’s what I’ll need also after these studies.

Classrooms, lecture halls, learning environments and materials were suitable for the meaning. Articles were usually easy to find, teachers were easy to contact if needed and timetables didn’t change too much. If I had a chance to change some things during the first course, I would write more often blog posts and be more active in lessons. In general,  I’m happy with my working.

I made a popplet about things I have learned.

First Pecha Kucha ever

In one night I made a mind map or ”idea tree” about Pecha Kucha-presentation. I should have planned something more to say for our presentation but as always I’m really good at making up surrogate activities. I think I’m not the one who likes to bake, wash laundry and clean up the whole apartment when deadlines come closer… This Coggle min map looks a little bit like notes I make when I exercise for exams. I still think that Popplet is easier to use than Coggle or Mind mup.

Despite the fact that planning Pecha Kucha wasn’t easy presentations were fun and great succeeded. Before the presentation I thought that time would run out but actually we could have even more to say. For me it is always exciting and unnerving to speak in front of the audience but I think that we have a good atmosphere in this course so it wasn’t overwhelming. Pecha Kucha-method was totally new for me and it was refreshing to watch pictures and listen instead of seeing black and white power point dias full of text.

Emotion regulation and SR

PhD student Kristiina Kurki was speaking about young children’s emotion regulation. We also reflected our own emotion regulation by thinking about some challenging task and answering a questinnaire. I thought about my Bachelor thesis which I wrote in spring. I was then really frustrated and confused but also happy and reliefed when I finished it. I felt frustrated when I didn’t get enough feedback and at times when I didn’t know what to do next. During the process I was pleased and excited when I reached my short term goals and was able to concentrate in writing.

I have studied special education and already know something about linguistic development and what troubles abnormal development can cause. Developmental delay can cause problems with cognitive, social and emotional skills and with language or speech. When a little boy hits other child it doesn’t  necessarily mean that he likes to hurt other kids or that he is naughty. Maybe he doesn’t have words to say ”Can you play with me?” or ”Can I borrow your toy?”. Social interaction don’t work out and it is harder to make friends. The connection between linguistic skills and emotion regulation is for me easy to understand.

Also parenting styles including disciplinary strategies and communication styles and temperament affects emotion regulation. Kristiina talked about child’s temperament but I think parents temperament may have an effect on child’s emotion regulation as well. Also trait of extraversion-introversion is  used often to describe human personality. Temperament styles can help parents to undestand their children but also theories can be harmful if parents see their children only through specific behaviour profiles.

 

Posters 4.10.

For last Friday’s jigsaw lesson I chose an article Toward learning societes and the global challenges for learning with ICT published in Australian Educational Computing in 2007. I decided to pick this article because it explains simply global challenges for learning with ICT. Text completes and gives more information about themes that we have learned in Intro-course. The article introduces the essential learning skills in the 21st Century, a little bit history of ICT for learning, tells about digital natives and digital immigrants and also explains new learning needs for students and new understanding of how people learn.

Based on four students articles and previous understandings we created together a poster with a title Global perspectives in educational use of ICT. We had to use the SWOT-method which was new to all group members. SWOT means Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the matter. We misunderstood the meanings of the concepts so the outcome of the poster isn’t so explicit as it should be. It wasn’t easy to instantly discover the difference between opportunities and strengths, or threats and weaknesses. Maybe the most important thing is that we discussed about the theme and the poster looks nice (it can’t be hard to guess that there were four girls selecting colors).

Panel discussion

My preconceptions before the panel discussion?

Panel discussion gave me new information about global and cultural aspects of learning and technology. I didn’t know much about Romania so watching the video a day before the panel discussion made it easier to understand the differences between countries. The economic situation of Spain has been constantly on news so my preconception was that Spain doesn’t put much effort on technology in schools at this time. I didn’t know about education system in Russia but my thought was that there are big diffences between good and bad schools.

How my understanding changed?

As I supposed Sasha from Russia told that there are differences in quality of teaching and using ICT in schools depending on location and if the school is public or private school. That was surprising that in Russia grades are in a huge role and grades are given almost everyday. ICT is used mostly for self-studying and students might think, as also teachers do, that ICT is TOO FUN for school and only for entertainment.

A student from Spain highlighted that Spanish culture have an affect on school system and using ICT in schools. He was also very excited about Open source softwares. People are interested in technology but projects in Spain are not well organized. Teachers doubt the effectiveness of ICT and scare that it is waste of time.

Situation in Romania is interesting because the country has developed a lot in few last years and use of ICT increased widely. Still some schools don’t have electricity in classrooms and buildings are in a bad condition. In those circumstances money is needed for basic things and ICT is not on top of priority.

What made me wondering?

The situation in Finland was of course familiar to me but I started to think about using students own technology devices in studying. It would be fun for students but it might increase the inequality in schools. A precept in Finnish schools is that education is free to everyone. How about the only pupil in classroom whose parents can’t pay a smart phone for their child? Do teachers have enough knowledge and skills to monitor learning of students when it happens online and do they understand the new technology?

I found interesting news about the young and smart phones (in Finnish). I have to admit that I have realized that my own reading habits have changed since I started to use smart phone and tablet to read news and search information. I can check emails right away when I see a new mail icon in my phone screen and log in Facebook when I am waiting at the bus stop.

http://www.3t.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/teknologia/alypuhelimet_tekevat_nuorten_lukemisesta_silmailevaa

http://yle.fi/uutiset/tanskalaistutkimus_alypuhelimet_stressaavat_nuoria/6612286

Maybe a bus stop like this would make me raise my eyes from my phone and smile in the dark October morning.

Accidentally being a self-reflective student

When I was travelling last weekend to Lapland one of my friend had the local newspaper Kaleva with her. When I browsed the newspaper in train I noticed one text related to LET-studies. There was an article about pre-primary education in a reception centre in Oulu. A mobile phone company had donated for the group tablets. A teacher of the group thinks that using tablets will help childrens to learn. The big challenge is that kids speak many different languages and are in a new country. This is also the first pre-primary group in the reception centre.

We discussed about the article and I told my friend I have started to study educational technology this autumn. She asked me what educational technology means and why on earth I study it. I have learned during this Introduction course something about definitions of educational technology and applications of it. She was also interested how teachers have enough to say about educational technology for 25 credits. She thought that I am taking only one single course about this theme. When I tried to explain the meaning of LET minor studies I understood better what I already know, what are my own expectations for studies and how my pre-conceptions have changed. I also put my attention to news I would not noticed before LET-studies.

You can read a short version of the article here (in Finnish).

Searching for my own expertise

For someone it is mathematics, teaching or scuba diving. Expertise can be power to change things or a way to help others. I believe that being an expertise in some field brings lot of joy to life. Expertise is a willing to learn new things and develop own skills and knowledge.

At the age of ten I have read all the dog books I could found at our local library. Six years later I interested in psychology and tried to memorize books and watched documents on tv. One thing that have come with me always is reading and writing. Now I’m searching my own expertise in education sciences. I have learned scientific writing skills, summarizing texts, giving and getting feedback and planning my studies. It’s still after three years studying hard to answer the most common question: What do you become when you graduate from the university?

I’m interested in learning, growth and society. I’m studying things that should develop my thinking and give me tools to understand more about these things and help me search more information. I haven’t got much chance to learn more in practice. My professional know-how is not strong so I wouldn’t call myself an expert. My perception and understanding about being an expert includes practical, formal and reflective knowledge about the the field of expertise. If I was an expert I would have connections to other experts and silence knowledge as well as interest and education.  I still think I’m good at some things I love. Maybe I’m more like ”a proficient performer” than an expert.

Week 38

Lecture on Thursday 19^th

Professor Sanna Järvelä started a lesson saying that we need educational technology to know what technology to use and why use it. Based on the lecture the key concepts in learning are deep learning and collaborative learning. Learning is a hot topic and aim is reach more and more effective learning. She gave a convincing example of using tablets in a classroom. Learning is active when students have to focus on task and put the answer down. Teacher can’t know what students think when they are only staring at their school desks and a chalkboard. Tablets can make learning more active.

The other lecturer was Paul Kirschner from Netherlands. He talked about his enthusiasm towards educational technology. He compared teaching to cooking and he really had his personality in performance. After Thursdays lecture I felt excited about my new minor studies.

First jigsaw class

For Fridays jigsaw lesson I read an article about designing learning environments. In home group my task was to explain key ideas of the article to people who knew nothing about it. In expertise group all students had read the same article and we had to summarise the text and make conclusions. After all, three main ideas of article might be 1) There needs to be alignment among learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered and community centered environments 2) Feedback must be given often so you can develop your skills and knowledge and 3) ICT can be in every perspective (learner, knowledge, assessment, community centered). In home group we combined our thoughts in this text:

Learning must go beyond Skinnerian definition; learning is more than just observable behaviour, it must take into account internal, metacognative processess and transferance. With the use of technology the three elements of the design of learning environments (knoweldge centred, student centred and assesment centred) can be combined to deep and active lesrning processess. Technology can further support transfer of knowledge by visualizing real life connections.

How my understanding about educational technology has developed?

In the spring I wondered which minor studies to apply. Before LET studies started my preconception about educational technology was studying computer programs and play children’s learning games 😀 We have sat in computer labs but half of the time we have been in lectures. I have learned that technology isn’t the most important thing. It’s essential to discuss how to use technology in relevant and pedagogically wise way. That’s a reason why study learning theories and read articles.

During this Intro-course I have maybe become more positive with technology trends and testing programs. For example in last week I have finally updated my smart phone, used iPad for studying and done ICT workshop assigments patiently. My own experiences might be out of date so I have also tried to ask my little brother how teachers use technology in teaching. That didn’t made me much wiser because the answer was ” Yes, we have tablets in school and we filmed once some videos.”

Technology and me

On Fridays lecture we discussed in small groups about our own experiences and current understanding about learning and educational technology. We used for the first time iPad app Popplet  which is a easy tool to create mind maps. Here is a picture about our mind map. If I have made it on my own, it would have seemed different. Everyone had own thoughts and ideas so combination tells something about every student.

In our mind map the first concept is LET which leads to learning, education snd technology. Learning includes words growth, self-regulated, collaborative and skills. Education is a title for education in school and at home. When we thought about technology, words like new, expensive, convenience and generation gap came in our minds. I think that the mind map describes pretty well a common understanding about learning technology.

In everydaylife I use technology for fun and for study. Of course I also use technology to stay in touch with my friends and family. Technology is huge concept but when I talk about technology I usually talk about smartphones, Internet, tv, tablets and computer tools. Maybe my assumptiom will change during LET studies. I’m not a technology lover or nerd but I think that I learn quickly and also loose my nerves in ten seconds if something doesn’t work as it should. Sometimes I get obsessed with some stupid game or spend hours reading blogs but at the same time it’s not hard for me to spend a whole day without Internet or my phone. I always consider technology shopping for a long time and I don’t like to spend much money on it.

Here (click!) I tell more about my relationship with technology in Finnish. It’s not natural for me to write in English but I hope it will get easier day by day.

Hello world!

My name is Jemina. This is my first post.