Voki Introduction

Week 1 | First blog posting

Image by Cool Text: Free Logos and Buttons - Create An Image Just Like This

What struck me as important from the video and the reading is that learning is not a linear process. If you look at the images of the brain and where the highlighted sections are, they do follow a somewhat linear looking pattern. 

Source: Google Images

However when you understand where that information goes once it enters the brain, it would appear anything but linear. 

This is because, the learning that takes place in any given lesson is made up of a number of elements that include hearing words - background noise or an audio file, speaking in teacher or student discussions, seeing words - displayed as cool graphics (size, shape, movement and font type) and finally the thinking about words. These words form patterns and shapes or are embedded on an image or print, they include wordles like the one below.

Source: Google images

Source: Google images

As teachers begin profiling their students, it could be beneficial to consider this type of information processing the brain experiences, in addition to the learning styles of audio, visual and kinesthetic, when designing lesson content. Because, the brain responds to a host of different stimuli and processes it according to past experiences. Armed with this knowledge, teachers would then be able to design effective learning outcomes, creating a foundationally solid student in the future.

The use of I.C.T's in the classroom would change student's learning if used at a transformative level. That is, learning that would allow for significant redesign, and tasks previously inconceivable such as me, a voki, to talk to you about learning design. The adaption of "frequency of words used", appear in shapes and patterns like  wordles, or allows literary tasks, like writing narratives or performing a play, to be presented using a digital story program, like Alice Animate.

The four major learning styles discussed in this weeks blog are; Behaviourism The reaction to stimuli. Learning occurs through observable behaviour. Influencing factors are reward, punishment, stimuli. The role of the memory is wired to repeated experiences where reward and punishment are most influential. Cognitivism - Acquiring and storing information. Learning occurs socially, created by each learner. Influencing factors include existing schema and tapping into previous experiences. The role of the memory is to encode, store, and retrieve information. Constructivism - Constructing subjective reality. Learning occurs structured and computational. Influencing factors include engagement, participation, social and cultural. The role of the memory is to tap into prior knowledge which is then remixed to current contexts. Connectivism - Specialised nodes or information sources. Learning occurs through a network, is social, and technologically enhanced, recognising and interpreting patterns. Influencing factors include a diversity of networks. From the memory connectivism recognises adaptive patterns representative of current states existing in networks. These learning styles are still a fundamental profiling tool employed by many state and territory teachers to assist in planning and implementing of quality lessons. But as researchers are suggesting, teachers might be better looking at whole brain learning, not only their students learning styles as a way of producing high-level thinkers ready for the new world jobs of the future. And while many classrooms exhibit solid foundations of a tech savvy environment, the simple truth is that when it comes to using information and communication technologies (ICT's) effectively, many are still underwhelmed by funding and attitudes, and overextended by student's needs, and this means that they never really make it out of the "enhancement' level of the SAMR model, simply using technology to complement existing practices with little or no substantial improvement to student learning outcomes.