Using Music on the Web

I visited the Incompetech web site and easily downloaded music to my hard drive. Students can use music in their presentations or role plays they do in class. If they were creating a PowerPoint slide show on the topic of space a mysterious dark piece of music may be appropriate to add to the presentation for additional effect. The slide show may begin with a variety of scrolling images to engage the class from the beginning. The music and the images together portrays an inspirational interpretation on a particular topic. A global warming presentation may seem more relevant and realistic if they can be inspired or effected in someway through the power of music. Music is something we can all relate to. We don't have to know how to play, read or write it but we can be entertained by it.

If a class was doing a unit of work on bush rangers they could demonstrate through a role play the actions and consequences of the Ned Kelly gang. It would involve the class separating into groups to depict different characters and stages of Ned Kelly's life. It would involve the student's beginning from scratch, they would have to write a script and act out the portrayal. Including music which is(and music which is safe under the copy right laws) dramatic, emotional or mysterious will add to the story line to portray a particular scene. The students are involved in a project which is their own, they are making all the choices and they are working and presenting it collaboratively as a whole class. Oliver's (1999) Learning Design framework can be a guide for an activity like this. The framework has three main elements, the task that being the role play and the resources the students have worked with and the support provided to assist learners to engage with the tasks and resources. The role play must come at the end of the unit of work, perhaps after they have spent many lessons researching and completing a range of tasks across all key learning areas then they can conclude with a role play presentation at a parents culminating day. Music is a powerful tool for our personal expression within our daily lives-- it helps "set the scene" for many important experiences (Brewer, 1995).


I believe the early childhood years of schooling has much more scope for using music in the class room. You only have to look at the television programs aimed at this age level and the songs and music used to aid in the development of younger ones. There is a song to remember the alphabet, the seasons, the oceans, numbers....the list goes on. Songs, chants, poems, and raps will improve memory of content facts and details through rhyme, rhythm, and melody. Teaching these to students or having them write their own is a terrific memory tool! (Brewer, 1995)


Downloading particular music to use as background noise in the class room can be beneficial to students learning. Levy (n.d)states some amount of background music may in fact be helpful in the learning process, both in a structured school setting and under self-directed homework conditions.
Brewer (1995) says playing music as students enter the classroom or as they leave for recess or lunch totally changes the atmosphere. Depending on the music, you can enliven, calm, establish a theme or even give students content information with content-songs! Being made aware of the Incometech website provides me with a positive learnig tool to assit in using music in the classroom. I am inspired by the research and positive outcomes that music has on the class room and on the individual student.

File Storage

I navigated my way around the Media FIre web site and was able to upload a file. It was the English scope and sequence PDF document.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=853274aad88c5d01e7ba8e3c6e11ce200e9cf9c00908ae9d5621d66e282a0ee8

A website like Media FIre allows you to keep all your files you wish to share with others. The concept is easy. A cohort of teachers could use this technology to share resources and lesson plans. Additionally student's can store files during their time at school and University for a safe storage option to access in the future.

Wikipedia

During my experiences thus far in schools Wikipedia is definitely the main resource students utilise to research topics. It is one of the first web sites to appear when you google search however I had never navigated my way around the Wikipedia homepage. I selected science as my subject area and narrowed the search down to space and then onto planets of the solar system. Sub categories allowed my to them research individual planets, features and images. This is where I also became familiar with the Wiki Projects in the community portal page.

For a unit of work on space the students can create trading cards on a particular space topic. On the computer they create a template which includes a title, an image on the left side and key points on the right side. The trader cards are only as big as your hand and each student researches their topic through wikipedia to write their key points. The researched topics are aimed as grade 5 and they are not to be on the planets, it has to be on not so well know aspects of space such as meteors, the big bang theory, constellations, stars, milky way etc. Something new that the students have not previously covered in earlier years. They then print and laminate the cards and trade them with their peers to collaboratively learn about different features of space. The lesson could also be extended to include the children creating a new planet they have discovered and they create a trader card for their new planet. The criteria of this lesson relates to Oliver's (1999) learning design framework. The task of creating a trading card is supported by the wikipedia research work and the teacher's instructions and feedback. The students see this task as a direct/purposeful experience and according to Dales cone of learning this is the most effective method of active learning (Active Learning, 2000).

The Korean International School developed their own history text book. It was a creative and engaging way for student's to learn about a time in history. They wrote their own text, did their own research and chose their own images. The text book even included video. An important part in the text book was the student's own reflection. They were able to make sense of it for themselves. In addition the students also posted the text book on a blog and anyone from anywhere around the world could comment on each other's reflection. If I were to ask a student if they would of preferred to write an essay on world war 1 I am confident of the answer being no. Through using wikipedia to create a text book they have a more meaningful learning experience and deeper understanding is achieved. It is authentic and has an outside focus. Deeper understanding is demonstrated by their success in producing new knowledge by discovering relationships, solving problems, constructing explanations, and drawing conclusions (Queensland Government, 2004).

Web Quests

March (2004) describes a Web Quest as a scaffold learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the World Wide Web. It includes an authentic task to motivate students' investigation of an open-ended question, development of individual expertise, and participation in a group process that transforms newly acquired information into a more sophisticated understanding. March's definition correlates exactly with Kearsey's and Shndiderman's Engagement Theory who imply that learning activities occur in a group context, are project based and have an authentic focus.
Dodge, (2007) claims tens of thousands of teachers have embraced Web Quests as a way to make good use of the Internet while engaging their students in the kinds of thinking that the 21st century requires. The fundamental idea of the Engagement Theory framework is that students must be meaningfully engaged in learning activities through interaction with others and worth while tasks linked to technology based learning and teaching.

The first web quest depicted in this section is Antarctica Ice to Water Australia. It provided background information regarding Australia's drought and the possible suggested solutions. The task was clearly published. It consisted of a specific question "should Australia harvest ice bergs from Antarctica to replenish the flow in the Murray river". The web quest then provides the information of how this question is going to be answered and the goals to be achieved. The topic is very well researched, the developer has a comprehensive understanding regarding this topic. The activities were specific and I liked how it provided the links for students to visit to find out the information on Antarctica. It takes the students directly to the information they need to answer the question. The collaboration of this activity saves time, keeps the students motivated and at the conclusion they have the most eight important issues related to Antarctica. Like any environmental issue there are multiple opinions and perspectives. It is a great idea for each group to assume the role of an environmentalist, farmer, hydrologist engineer etc. This highlights the different concerns related to the community. This web quest is informative, interactive, motivating, inspiring and educating. The task of developing such a web quest is time consuming but once complete it can be utilised each year and shared among colleagues. It could contain assessment tasks across a range of key learning areas with in a unit of work.

The Freedom Fighter or Terrorist web quest engages you from the start with the video links. The focus question is clearly stated at the beginning; "What is terrorism? Is there such a thing as a just cause?" Again Tom March provided specific links to the information, if students were left to google in general a lot of time would be taken up actually navigation your way to the specific information. The students have a common understanding of what terrorism is they then look at specific examples and apply the definitions to the real world. The focus question is complex and collaborative learning allows different groups of students to be involved in solving a complex question. This web quest in comparison to Anarctica Ice to water Australia has less visual cues, it contain much more text. I presume it was designed for an upper high school class. The personal reflection section is a thought provoking way to conclude the quest. The students can write about the big idea, the truth and the emotion. Islam Remembers September 11 contains powerful,inspiring, sickening images. The war continues and terrorism continues.

The specific elements of a web quest provide for a learner; creativity, high order thinking and natural curiosity which contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is facilitated on tasks that learners perceive as interesting and personally relevant and meaningful, appropriate in complexity and difficulty to the learners abilities(McInerney & McInernrey, 2006). Teacher's can encourage and support learners' natural curiosity and motivation to learn by attending to individual differences. This delivery technology has tremendous implications for the class room, once the initial out lay of time and research is spent developing the web quest it can be a valuable resource to utilise repeatedly, changes can be made for different year groups and additions can be included for the gifted and talented students. If each teacher developed one web quest and posted it on a nation wide blog then we could have a wealth of resources to share.

Google Earth

What an invention, you see things like this and wonder how society coped without this technology. This could be used in a class room in so many areas. But for one example The SOSE Essential Learnings (QSA 2007) by the end of grade 5 in the strand of place and space state:
"Global environments are defined by features, including landforms, location markers (Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn and the Equator), countries, regions, continents and climatic zones"
This is an exciting Essential Learning to achieve when you have Google Earth at your finger tips. This style of lesson can incorporate Oliver's (1999)Learning Design Frame Work to guide and design the choice of learning tasks, learning resources and learning supports. In younger grades the tasks could involve locating your home, school or a famous landmark and drawing your own map. The older grades could involve plotting with longitude and latitude markings, a written report on a specific area, a piece of visual art work...the list goes on. To achieve the above mentioned Essential Learning the assessment task could be to create an itinerary for your family holiday, taking in specific countries and landmarks in Australia.The children will collaboratively design a map of Australia with the specific locations. They will research these areas and provide information on each. I would like them to include on their map the distance between each place and if they are in different time zones. This project provides for collaborative learning, to create their own project with the value of making a useful contribution while learning (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999)
The students can accept this as an authentic task, they can presume their family can actually take this trip.
The Internet provides a wonderful resource for collaborative efforts as it is easy to quickly uncover a lot of information about any topic (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999).

I am passionate about landmarks in Australia both famous and not so well known. I found Wave Rock in W.A, the Great Australian Bight and the Nullabour Plain, the most southern point of Australia, South Cape, and the most northern on the Cape York peninsular on Google Earth. I have been fortunate to have visited all these areas and I realise not everyone has or will in their life time but if I can bring attention to it in the class room then the students are going to acquire awareness about their own country and this knowledge will benefit students for their future endeavours.
I am excited to find out if my school has access to Google Earth to start planning some lessons.

You Tube

I recently had to explain to students the movements and directions of the Earth, Sun, and Moon in relation with each other. I used a lamp and different size balls to visually demonstrate this to the students. I backed up the information with a You Tube clip titled Physical Science 9.2a- The Earth, Moon and Sun Sysem. (access to an embeded code was denied so I have embedded another clip titled A day on Earth which would also be appropriate to use). The students knowledge learnt was reiterated but also extended. The clip was able to visually show a representation of the actual distance the Earth, Sun and Moon are in space in relation to each other. This aspect could not be achieved with my resources. Constructivist approaches to learning strive to create environments in which learners actively construct their own knowledge, rather than recapitulating the teacher's interpretation of the world. Learners cannot learn from only listening to the teacher since they don't share a set of common experience and interpretations(Jonassen, 2000). A You Tube clip is a valuable tool to add to a lesson to provide students with a deeper understanding of what is being taught. I have to teach a science lesson next week on gravity and I am currently searching for a u tube clip I could use to help students with the exact knowledge they need to receive in order to have a meaningful understanding of gravity in order to conduct an experiment. A delivery technology such as u tube can scaffold new forms of thinking and reasoning in a students zone of proximal development, the zone between learners' existing and potential capabilities. The Vygotskian perspective stresses the functional reorganisation of cognition with the use of symbolic technologies (Pea, 1985).
Thinking ahead to my gravity lesson I could follow Oliver's (1999) Learning design framework to design a lesson which involves a task, resources and supports. The task is to observe the effects of gravity of similar and different size objects. For the student to describe what they think may happen they need to have background knowledge on gravity, what it is and how mass effects the force of gravity. I can only achieve this by utilising resources such as U Tube clip and props. I would constantly employ learning supports which would involve instruction, demonstrations and instigation of class discussions. Following this framework I can vision my class achieving the intended learning outcome.

Class Marker

This was my first experience of creating a personalised quiz on line for my students. The steps were clear to navigate my way through to produce a test for a class I created. I was impressed with the options the program gave you regarding the "rules". Choosing if the students are allowed to go back to a question, if they can save it and return later or if you want to advise the pass mark etc. I designed a number facts quiz. To view the quiz go to www.classmarker.com and log on as gemma313, the password is mccarthy.

I recently did a lesson on note taking with a grade 5 class in which they were separated into 6 groups to each read a different piece of text on Satellites. The task was for them to write the key points of the text. After they did this I asked them individually to write a key point down, it had to be different from their peers. Half the class was then to stand in a circle facing outwards and the remainder of the class to form an outer circle facing a partner. The outer circle told their partner the fact and moved clockwise to tell each student in the inner circle the fact. The circles then swapped positions and repeated the activity. I then asked each student to tell the class a new fact they had learnt. In the future I would now like to add a class marker quiz to conclude the lesson. I would group them again but differently so each group had a wealth of different facts from the six pieces of text and collaboratively the students would answer the quiz. McInerney & McInerney, 2006 advocate collaborative learning as a constructivist method for fostering cognitive processes because peer discussions help the coding of information into memory through the need to explain, elaborate and summarise to group members. Additionally the mix of abilities, learning styles and view points towards the learning task within groups fosters divergent thinking. Shneiderman and Kearsley, 1999 also propose the Engagement theory is based upon the idea of creating successful collaborative teams. It emphasises collaboration among peers contributes to meaningful learning.