Learning


 * __THE WIKI__**

__**Anticipated learning in comparison to traditional methods and tools.**__ According to Prensky (2001) students today think and construct knowledge differently to students who grew up in the absence of new technologies. Therefore teaching practices need to change to reflect these new ways of learning. It makes perfect sense to promote the use of new technologies in the classroom as tools through which children learn as they involve networking, multitasking and multi-layering. The following are examples of the anitciapted learning advantages of a wiki:  ·   Web based and technology based skills are best learned through doing. Wiki’s require multiple technological skills. They are also very interactive and can provide students with the ability to view and edit as they work.  ·   Immediate feedback. Johnson & Lynch (2004), claim that using new technologies allows a teacher to provide valuable feedback while children are on task. This is preferrable to waiting until a report is completed, marked and handed back to the student, by which time they have already forgotten the details of what went into it.  ·   Students can develop critical thinking by investigating the meaning and symbolism in visual imagery. Students should be taught this when engaging with Internet based technology to make them more informed readers of visual imagery and visual literacy.  ·   Develop problem solving strategies. Students will undoubtedly come across many occasions where they have difficulty with the technology and getting it do what they want. Scaffolding from the teacher and strategies from the teacher and peers can help children learn different ways of solving their own technological problems. Such as using the help menu, or checking properties of the wiki sites allowances and restrictions.  ·   Learn about personal safety. Students learn about protecting their privacy/safety which can be compromised to a far greater extent through technology such as the Internet. Wiki's for educational institutions can be protected from advertisements and have access restricted to the author's chosen audience; providing an appropriate opportunity for teaching students about Internet safety.  ·   Students learn more holistically because tasks are multifaceted and interconnected rather than separated and taught in individual components (ie learning about conversions, ratios, percentages in a text book as opposed to converting file sizes and maintaining original proportioning of an image). Learning can take place for a real purpose rather than as a posed simulation.  ·   Deeper learning opportunities; more open to individual creativity in a wider range of ways within the one task. For example, a mulitmedia presentation as opposed to a speech.  ·       Supportive of various learning styles and MI’s rather than simply verbal/linguistic. For example, instead of listening to instruction from the teacher, now students have the added instructions from visual demosntrations on line and on-line help menus (can be text, audio or mixed media as in a video demonstration, visual cues).

__References:__ Johnson, R. ,& Lynch, J., 2005. Change happens: acceptance of 'impermanence' and 'flow' in teachers' professional reflections on technology and change, //Doing the Public Good: Positioning Educational Research// - AARE 2004 International Education Research Conference Proceedings, AARE, Melbourne. <  http://www.aare.edu.au/04pap/lyn04292.pdf > accessed 06 May 2008. Prensky, M., 2001, //On the Horizon,// ‘Digital natives, Digital Immigrants’, University Press, Vol9. No. 5 October 2001.