Edition 15: Making ground
Welcome to Edition 15 of The Knowledge Tree e-journal. The focus in this edition is on seeing how changes in teaching practice actually play out in learner achievement. How have transformed teaching pedagogies taken advantage of more participatory media to increase learner engagement? The contributions present examples of what learners are actually doing as a result of their teachers/trainers making changes to their pedagogies, as distinct from just employing social and multimedia tools.
In each contribution, teachers have not only provided learners with more participatory tools but have made subtle shifts of focus to engage learners in ways that respond to the contexts within which learners find themselves, both in their local communities and in broader communities accessed through the Web. Greater freedom to use tools that are more culturally and contextually appropriate and which allow them to participate in the creating their own learning, are in evidence.
Barbara Ganley and Barbara Sawhill in the lead article ‘How did a couple of veteran classroom teachers end up in a space like this? Extraordinary intersections between learning, social software and teaching’, ‘…demonstrate how an emergent learner-centric, community-focused teaching and learning model provides a boundary-less series of places where the teacher and the learner, the class and the community outside of the classroom, create and transform knowledge together’ (2007:para.3).
Similarly a community-led approach to teaching and learning, supported by e-tools which encourage participation, permeates the discussion on Northern Territory Indigenous Networks with Cathy Curry, Alicia Boyle and Tania Beattie. The stories presented by Maisie Ward, Lydia Young and Wanyubi Marika provide direct evidence of the applicability of digital tools to age old ways of learning, working and sharing knowledge.
‘Blog for the Dole’ is a digital story, developed by Work for the Dole program participants, which communicates Rupert Owen’s transformation of a compulsory training program through engaging learners in building valuable, personal learning environments. The participants’ feedback on the program and their creative achievements are showcased.
In ‘SurReal Quests: Enriched, purposeful language learning in Second Life’, Howard Vickers explores practical teaching strategies for enriching opportunities for realistic language learning, through the use of virtual learning environments.
On the SoapBox, Sue Waters and friends talk about using Twitter, a micro-blogging tool with near real time connectivity, to give and get help fast, on the Web or on a mobile phone.
A live conversation with lead article writers Barbara Ganley and Barbara Sawhill will be part of the e-Show n Tell Networks event on:
9 November at 12.30 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT - Sydney)
which is
8 November, 8.30pm Eastern Standard Time (EST - New York).
Register at the Networks Events site from 31 October.
Select to participate in the conversation.
Thanks for your support through 2007.
Comments
2 Comments so far
Do you really want me to speak my mind ?
I’d like to see the Twitter plugin in your sidebar. It will realisticall bring in the eorld to this conversation and perhaps a Flickr badge too.
Happy to help.
Thanks Alex,
Always happy to hear from you. J
Will see what James can do.