Archive of ‘student-centered learning’ category

DGBL and digital literacies

Digital game-based learning levels up digital literacies

http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/anotherbyteofknowledge/digital-game-based-learning-levels-up-digital-literacies/

My note: excellent Australian article, which presents a very strong point on digital literacies (metaliteracies, see URL below) from educators (versus library) perspective. Connected with game-based learning, it clearly renders the traditional perspective of information literacy as miniscules and the notion of digital literacy being “information literacy on steroids” as obsolete. It clearly shows that the “xxx-literacies” are clearly not a domain of the librarians and if the librarians do not wised up and allow other faculty who are “not librarians” to equally participate, they might well count with those faculty going on their own (as it is transparent from this article).

connections will be made between  digital game-based learning and digital literacies to show that digital game-based learning is a powerful pedagogy that incorporates the elements of digital literacies. Through the adoption of game-based learning, digital literacies can be taught in context. Digital literacies are the skills that connect the learning content (curriculum) and digital games are the platform that these digital literacies can be practised within a meaningful context.

Digital literacies is an umbrella term that includes a combination of literacies – visual literacy, media literacy, collaborative literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy – that are needed to take an active, participatory role in life, now and in the future (Hague & Payton, 2010, p. 2).

Bawden (2008), cites Gilster (1997), who defines digital literacy as “an ability to understand and use information from a variety of digital sources and regard it as literacy in the digital age” (p.18).

Jisc, identify in their Digital Literacy Guide that it is a concept that is contextual and it is not static.  Change is imminent as new technologies develop “at breakneck speeds” (Becker, 2011, p. 76), therefore, it can be inferred the digital literacies required to use these new technologies need to be adaptable and flexible to these changes (Haste, 2009).

Cooper, Lockyer & Brown (2013), highlight this plurality by using the term “multiliteracies” which can be understood as synonymous with digital literacies.  Cooper et al. (2013), explain multiliteracies is required as a “broader view of literacy” (p. 94), is needed as a result of the diverse range of communications tools, therefore, context is implied.  Ng (2012) also highlights this idea that digital literacy is “the multiplicity of literacies associated with the use of digital technologies” (p. 1066).  The combination of multiliteracies and technologies would also suggest that multimodality is an important element of digital literacy (McLoughlin, 2011) .

7 elements of digital literacy in their Developing Digital Literacies Guide (2014), which can be seen below.

DGBL and digital literacy

 

digital games (Pivec & Pivec, 2011), which can also be called computer games (Whitton, 2011), video games (Turkay, Hoffman, Kinzer, Chantes & Vicari, 2014) or serious games (Arnab et al., 2012) rather than gamification.

Digital game-based learning then is using digital games in the learning environment with the purpose of achieving learning aligned with learning theory.

Cognitive constructivism is a learning theory that game-based learning could be aligned (Orr & McGuinness, 2014; St-Pierre, 2011).  This learning theory builds upon the theories of Piaget and Bruner, therefore, an important consideration in the digital game-based classroom would be that choosing games needs to fit the age and level of intellectual development the students are at (St-Pierre, 2011).

A major focus of the socio-constructivist learning theory is that of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (St-Pierre, 2011).  The learning is designed “just beyond what the learner can do” (Orr & McGuinness, 2014, p. 223) and takes them beyond where their knowledge already exists.

More on digital literacy (metaliteracy) and DGBL in this IMS blog:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2014/11/30/game-based-learning/

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=gaming

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=gaming

 

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/02/20/digital-literacy-2/

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=digital+literacy

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2014/11/27/reframing-informatioan-literacy-as-a-metaliteracy/

big data and student academic performance

Researchers use an app to predict GPA based on smartphone use

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/26/researchers-predict-gpa-with-an-app/

Dartmouth College and the University of Texas at Austin have developed an app that tracks smartphone activity to compute a grade point average that’s within 0.17 of a point.

More on Big Data in education in this blog:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/03/30/big-data-and-education/

Google Keep

Google Keep

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2015/05/how-to-create-edit-and-share-notes-on.htm

After yesterday’s post about making the most of Google Keep I received a few emails from readers wanting to know a bit more about how Google Keep works. To answer those questions I recorded the short video that you see embedded below (click here if you cannot see the video).

alternatives to lecturing

50 Alternatives To Lecturing

Learning Models

1. Self-directed learning

2. Learning through play

3. Scenario-based learning

4. Game-based learning (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=gaming)

5. Project-based learning (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=project+based)

6. Peer-to-Peer instruction

7. School-to-school instruction (using Skype in the classroom, for example)

8. Learning through projects

9. Problem-based learning

10. Challenge-based learning

11. Inquiry-based learning

12. Mobile learning

13. Gamified learning (gamification)

14. Cross-curricular projects (teaching by topic: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/03/24/education-reform-finland/)

15. Reciprocal Teaching

16. “Flipped-class” learning

17. Face-to-Face Driver blended learning

18. Rotation blended learning

19. Flex Blended Learning

20. “Online Lab” blended learning

21. Sync Teaching

23. HyFlex Learning

24. Self-guided MOOC

25. Traditional MOOC

26. Competency-Based Learning

27. Question-based learning

Literacy Strategies

28. Write-Around

29. Four Corners

30. Accountable Talk

31. RAFT Assignments

32. Fishbowl

33. Debate

34. Gallery Walk

35. Text Reduction

36. Concentric Circles

37. Traditional Concept-Mapping (teacher-given strategy–“fishbone” cause-effect analysis, for example)

38. Didactic, Personalized Concept Mapping (student designed and personalized for their knowledge-level and thinking patterns)

39. Mock Trial

40. Non-academic video + “academic” questioning

41. Paideia Seminar (http://www.paideia.org/, http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/paideia/, http://www.mtlsd.org/jefferson_middle/stuff/paideia%20seminar%20guidelines.pdf)

42. Symposium

43. Socratic Seminar (https://www.nwabr.org/sites/default/files/SocSem.pdf)

44. QFT Strategy

45. Concept Attainment

46. Directed Reading Thinking Activity

47. Paragraph Shrinking

48. FRAME Routine

49. Jigsaw Strategy

Other 

50. Content-Based Team-Building Activities

51. Learning Simulation

52. Role-Playing

53. Bloom’s Spiral

54. Virtual Field Trip (http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/scw/)

55. Physical Field Trip

56. Digital Scavenger Hunt  (http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/bi/)

57. Physical Scavenger Hunt

http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/50-alternatives-to-lecturing/

 

 

educational resources

Guide to the Best Homeschooling and Unschooling Resources

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/17/guide-to-the-best-homeschooling-and-unschooling-resources/

* Khanacademy.org

* Hippocampus.org

* Free online college courses can be found on many sites, with directories available at sites like MIT’s Open Coursework Consortium. Big players in the open-educational resources movement include Coursera and EdX, which offer MOOCs. FutureLearn is UK-based, with free online courses from UK and international universities. More information about these can be found in MindShift’s guide to free quality higher education, plusprevious collections of open educational sites and resources.

* iTunes University

* Audiobooks Free public-domain audiobooks, read by volunteers, can be found at librivox.org. (Print versions of public-domain books are available at Project Gutenberg.)

 

 

 

Inquiry Learning

Why Inquiry Learning is Worth the Trouble

http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/29/what-does-it-take-to-fully-embrace-inquiry-learning/

EduCon 2.5

it’s important to question whether alleged “personalized,” “project-based,” or “collaborative” learning efforts are actually helping students and teachers to “hold ourselves in a state of questioning.”

In a true inquiry-based model, how learning happens isn’t as important as whether that learning encourages students to try to learn even more.

“Inquiry means living in the soup. Inquiry means living in that uncomfortable space where we don’t know the answer.”

Increased collaboration between students and increasing student scrutiny of educational content were two other signs Lehmann and the group said signaled the right approach, even if they clashed with classroom norms. For example, collaboration can often lead to tricky discussions about what part of a students’ work are his or her own and what part is recycled. (see IMS blog entry on academic dishonesty: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/05/04/cheating-inadvertently/)

Inquiry-based education should improve student engagement, critical thinking skills, and cross-disciplinary opportunities (see IMS blog entry on cross-disciplinary idea and subjects versus topics equivalent https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/03/24/education-reform-finland/)

Anniversary of Allies march in Germany

The Day of the Century: how Germans experienced World War II

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/world-war-ii-in-cologne-delusion-a-1032115.html
(please go to the site for a full show)

 

http://twistedsifter.com/videos/remarkable-hd-footage-of-berlin-from-july-1945/

 

LMS and Social Media

Presentation for the the 2015 MN D2L Ignite Conference.
Please take the survey. Please share your ideas, suggestions, recommendations, corrections

http://www.brightspace.com/events/regional/minnesota/

LMS (D2L) and Social Media: friends or foes? from Plamen Miltenoff

Social_Media_in_LMS from Georgia Southern University

Using Facebook and Twitter as an LMS from jcritten

education reform Finland

Finland schools: Subjects scrapped and replaced with ‘topics’ as country reforms its education system

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/

Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

The reforms reflect growing calls in the UK – not least from the Confederation of British Industry and Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt – for education to  promote character, resilience and communication skills, rather than just pushing children through “exam factories”. (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/20/labour-calls-time-on-exam-factory-approach-to-schooling)
(My Note/Question: so UK is ready to scrap what US pushes even harder with the STEM idea?)

More on education in Finland and its education in this IMS blog:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=finland

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