Comments on Never Too Late’s blog

Comments on Never Too Late’s blog:

On ‘Session7: Mobile technology in school or workplace’

Referring to your example about providing automatic feedback using mobile technology, you are absolutely right that it can really help teachers and students save a lot of time. I am just wondering how mobile technology stands apart in this example. It seems that automatic feedback can be done effectively even with non-mobile technology.

On ‘Cases of applying IT in TnL around the world’:

A really great site. Just watched a video about how some schools in the U.S. collaborate with professional communities to organize informal academic and interest groups for students after school (http://www.edutopia.org/citizen-schools-after-school-program-video). Students appear to have their generic skills enhanced. A must see for the EDB which advocates the generic component in the new curriculum.

On ‘Our potential research topic’:

Totally agree with your justification. It seems that a lot of the local primary and secondary schools are only using ICT to enhance staff communication but not teaching and learning.

Two things may be added, including students’ perceptions and learning behaviour, which makes the proposed research more process-oriented. Sometimes what students have gained (e.g. becoming more confident, using more learning strategies) may not be reflected in the learning outcome.

Btw, I am wondering how we should deal with ‘effectiveness’ and ‘efficiency’ in this research. Effectiveness means ‘doing the right thing’, whereas efficiency means ‘doing the thing right’. I think learners may really not do the right thing all the time when using ICT (i.e. not effective / there is off-task behaviour such as not talking about the writing topic but other topics), yet it is possible that it may enhance students’ social presence or sense of belonging and thus eventually make the students even more effective and then more efficient. IT-enhanced learning has been criticized by many as creating a socially-isolated environment and thus reducing learning motivation and hindering knowledge construction. The aforementioned ineffectiveness may actually (and sarcastically) be a possible solution for the problem.

On ‘The main areas of research on and with ITE’:

I think within the domain of ‘with ITE’, there can be two sub-domains, namely ‘for the learners’ and ‘with the learners’

For the learners: how teachers develop IT platforms or IT-related materials for the students and how students use these platforms and materials to enhancing learning (i.e. more teacher-centered)

With the learners: how students explore IT applications and use them to explore knowledge (i.e. more student-directed).

On ‘Google Map with HK Street Views (Chinese Version)’:

Great! I am thinking about how to use Google Map in teaching and learning.

A simple activity in an English grammar lesson can be as follows: students describe what they saw in Google Map in English and practice how to use prepositions of place.

A more complicated activity in an English writing lesson can be as follows: students are real estate agents and asked to write promotion leaflets. They browse Google Map in groups and describe an estate and its surroundings. This is great for those who consider field trips as not a very viable teaching option.

In these two cases, Google Map provides students with an authentic context, which may be highly motivating.

On ‘Introduction to Voice Thread‘:

This is great stuff, but it seems that the free version of voice thread has got some technical limitations, like unstable recording, poor recording quality and being unable to cover original track when making a new one. Not sure whether the first two problems are just due to my network and computer.

On Photo Story 3 - complementary tool to Movie Maker”:

True, Regina. The EDB should allocate more funding to schools to develop / redevelop IT. The school that I worked for a few years ago needed to organize fund-raising events for buying new computers for the students! And the computers for the teaching staff are just good enough for opening IE and a few Microsoft applications and would lag to death when we used video-editing software.

On ‘Digital Storytelling - Movie Maker Trial’:

Right. This is a great software. You can add and modify elements of a video such as subtitles and transition effects within a few simple steps. One of the limitations is that it is not very flexible when adding subtitles (subtitle is a crucial element in educational videos I suppose). For instance, the places that you can put the subtitles are more or less fixed and you cannot retain the subtitle of the previous slide in the current slide.

And you are right, Kui. I believe, however, that the Windows Movie Maker is one of the simplest and most user-friendly video-editing software, as compared with other software like Pinnacle or Adobe Premiere.

On ‘A Learning Object for the 'Scientifically Challenged'’:

Learning object is truly a present for learners. In a learning object, complicated concepts can be visualized and can be acquired by learners in an interactive manner. If Albert Einstein was still alive, I think he would love it, as he had dyslexia and learnt by visualizing things.

But of course, a learning object should be treated as a supplementary learning element. I believe that knowledge should be and can be best constructed via social interaction.

On ‘Limitation of Short-term Memory and Dual Coding’:

Great summary and reflection. Just that I am not sure about your phrase ‘enhance the short-time memory capacity’. It seems that short-term memory has a finite capacity / memory span (i.e. the capacity / memory span cannot be increased). People may improve their short-term memory through chucking (i.e. increasing the size of the items memorized in the short-term memory), but the capacity / memory span is still the same.

It is good to raise the issue of using PowerPoint to deliver verbal and non-verbal information. Some teachers in Hong Kong, however, just use PowerPoint as a kind of ‘electronic blackboard’, that is, they only use PowerPoint to present textual stuff. They may have to be reminded of the benefits of presenting audio-visual information.