Community Practice

New technologies are emerging at a rapid rate and are continuously providing platforms for students and teachers to teach and learn in the way the future demands them. Employers have opted to integrate more advanced technologies into workstations to improve the overall output of daily operations. Hence, the chain goes back and it becomes the prime responsibility of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to produce graduates who have sound knowledge of the use of technologies. Although technologies or digital tools used during teaching and learning may not be directly used in the work field, some hands-on experience will surely help graduates adopt more advanced technologies.

In recent times, it would be difficult to have a course offered by an HEI without using any technology. The use of technology in the course opens more options to teach the same content in multiple styles maintaining the standard to the highest level. Not only that, integrating technology enables more student engagement and allows students to take responsibility for their personalized learning. However, if this process is not given careful thought, it may seriously affect overall student learning. The readings from session 1 highlight the use of theoretical framework and models for technology enables learning, the important parameters such as the community of inquiry (Col), technology pedagogy and content knowledge (TPACK), and technology integration matrix (TIM) while discussing the role of technology in education. While technology is embedded in courses, the quality of education still spirals around the quality of teaching. And for this to happen, the two key parameters of technology-enabled learning must be included: how to use the technology and the right pedagogy that needs to be employed during lessons. Take for example, an observation of students coming out of high school who are mainly taught using traditional methods often find it difficult to cope with USP foundation courses mainly because of various technologies embedded into courses. It takes them some time to get familiarized with digital tools they tend to become better learners from semester 2 onwards.

The new technologies are slowly enabling the education system to change. The rate at which it is integrated will surely transform teachers to be just a facilitator where learning will be mainly through an artificial intelligence system which will be available at all times. Teachers will need to review their teaching philosophy which should reflect on the importance of technology combined with pedagogies in lessons to achieve higher results with students. In the future, students and technologies will be at the center with the perception that online tools and technology are not distractors but are essential elements of education.  

This blog can also be downloaded using the following link: 

https://avikesh-ed403sessionblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/technology-enabled-learning-and-future.html

The common goal to make quality education accessible to all irrespective of their physical demographic ensured continuous growth of distance learning. The advent of latest technologies supporting such learning continues to improve day-by-day that now many are more comfortable learning outside of traditional classrooms. This led to an escalating demand for more online educational platforms by educators and learners to ensure active engagement and quality learning taking place. Using online educational platforms, quality and enriched lessons are delivered in real times (synchronous) via some conferencing tool or recorded and shared (asynchronous) so that students are engaged at their comfortable chairs. It becomes extremely important for the educator to ensure the learning goal and pedagogies used along with the digital tools are kept at the focus of learning instead of incorporating a tool that does not support quality learning. Hence the focus of session 2, “Learning Resources and Technologies” discussed most of the aspects of digital tools and invaluable information on open educational resources (OER). The activities designed in the session allowed me to explore and learn multiple web 2.0 tools and OERs that I can incorporate in my current MAF11; Foundation Mathematics A course offered by College of Foundation Studies at Pacific TAFE.

Web 2.0 is a dynamic, user-friendly tool that provides enormous opportunities for teaching and learning which focus on user collaboration, sharing of user-generated content, and social networking using various means (Konstantuinidis, Theodosiadou, & Pappos, 2013). They are the internet tools that allow users not only to receive information but allows to create and interact with content. Some of the most popular web 2.0 tools that we are frequently involved with are Google Drive, Twitter, YouTube, Wikispace, Facebook, and Moodle. The features of these tools continuously allow interaction and promote a customized learning environment rather than students passively receiving information from teachers in a traditional classroom. Since there are lot of materials and contents in this tools, it does not guarantee quality learning if the right content is not identified for students by the educators. One needs to understand that these tools can help improve the teaching and learning if it is used for the right purpose, which is done by outlining clear learning outcomes. One of the web 2.0 tools I found very useful is GeoGebra. It is a mathematics software for all levels of education that is available on multiple platforms including applications, desktops, tablets, and the web. It is a comprehensive software that provides a different learning experience on topics such as geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing functions, statistics, and calculus. It was developed in 2002 by Markus Hohenwarter, which was his master’s thesis project at the University of Salzburg for which he was awarded the Microsoft Education Award. He has used Java and HTML5 to develop this software and provided a CC-BY-NC-SA license. Since then, the software is currently available in 52 languages, used in about 190 countries, and is downloaded on average by about 300,000 users each month (Hohenwarter & Lavicza, 2010) and have received several educational software awards in Europe and USA.  Geogebra software provides students and teachers with basically three tools; classroom resources, Online Calculator, and a teacher to create lessons for students. GeoGebra brings a lot of educational value to teaching and learning. It supports teachers to improve students’ understanding and build confidence in mathematical concepts through effective teaching and learning (Azucena, Gacayan, Tabat, Cuanan, & Pentang, 2022). Azucena et,. al (2022) further state that GeoGebra provides an excellent learning experience for students by allowing them to discover and visualize mathematical concepts. The other benefits of using Geogebra can be  documented from page two of the journal titled “The use of Geogebra software for teaching mathematics”.

The other key learning from session 2 was on OERs. OERs are created for teaching, learning, and research materials that are made available in the public domain and have different types of licenses to allow users to use, re-mix, improve, modify, and share content (Bell, 2017).  In present times, OERs are highly accepted by teachers and students and are considered equal in quality when compared to traditional teaching and learning styles using textbooks (Weller, Arcos, Farrow , Pitt, & McAndrew, 2017). OERs treasure the culture of engagement, teamwork and sharing. There are lot of OERs present at current times and it becomes imperative for educator to identify and share the best content that is aligned with the learning outcomes of the course or topic they are teaching. The short course on understanding OER offered by Commonwealth of Learning (COL) was something very resourceful. It provided opportunity for me to locate, identify, learn about copyright policies and understand the degree of openness of licenses while evaluating an OER. Using the skills learned through this short course, I was able to identify 5 different OERs that I can incorporate in the Foundation Mathematics Course I am engaged with at CFS. These OERs are directly linked to the lesson objectives and will surely assist students in understanding the concepts covered in those topics.

Reflecting on session 2; Learning Resources and technologies, I note the importance of using the right OERs in lessons. These OERs provide different ways to teach the same content and help me develop more professionally and academically.  It allows me to learn and share best teaching practices of certain content which will definitely my future students. Learners can benefit similarly by reaching out to educational materials which is of highest quality and suits the way they want to learn. These 21st-century learners tend to be more engaged in digital tools than books and hence these digital tools should become the means to impart knowledge and make them learn. At last, this session allowed me to learn some new web 2.0 tools shared by the Ed403 participants which were indeed very interesting, useful and applicable to me for future work.

You can also download my blog using the given link: 

https://avikesh-ed403sessionblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/technology-enabled-learning-and-future.html

The inclusion of technology and digital tools into the education system is slowly hauling away the traditional style of teaching and learning. Today’s learners are more comfortable using digital tools and prefer to learn online than to sit in the lecture room with books clearly outlining a bright future for E-learning and M-Learning for higher education. According to The Economic Times, (2023), E-learning is based on some formalized teaching using electronic materials with the help of computers or smart devices and internet connectivity to enhance and support learning. Amongst other higher education providers, the University of the South Pacific  (USP) has continuously invested in ICT that many programs are offered online or using blended mode. Following a strong commitment towards E-learning and M-Learning, USP has rolled out numerous initiatives such as proving tablets and laptops to first-year students, use of SMS feature embedded in LMS, professional development for staff, and providing compulsory units for students such as UU100. This really helped when University was forced to go on lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and students were able to complete the programs online. Academic staff who hesitated to use digital tools before the lockdown are now sharing those best practices and incorporating tools for engaging and active lessons. This is actually great not only for students but University at large. The success of E-Learning and M-Learning typically depends on the platform used which should be user-friendly and should guide students just like a traditional teacher guides students in class.

The success of teaching indeed should enable lifelong learning. However, in reality, the assessments drive and control the learning in the classroom. Assessments provide a realistic picture of learners’ ability to apply concepts in solving real-life problems. Just like assessments in a traditional setting, e-assessments allow teachers to track students’ performance, identify areas of difficulties, and re-strategize so that students have a better learning experience. One thing best about e-assessment is that through various settings, marking and feedback can be automated and results can be tabulated with the click of a computer mouse. It saves a fair amount of time compared to assessments done in a traditional setting.

Once students are engaged online, different components of learning analytics can be deployed to determine the effectiveness of the lesson. There are four levels of learning analytics which are measurement, evaluation, advanced evaluation, and predictive and prescriptive analytics. Embedding learning analytics in the course alone will not bring about miracles in teaching and learning. Instead, LA should be supplemented by robust communication between the facilitators and students so that lessons are more active and engaging. One major issue that many students face is the accessibility of smart devices at the institution. Hence, students are usually encouraged for BYOD to ensure learning continuity. BYOD can result in an excellent educational tool if used correctly for the purpose. However, often it is considered a major distractor in cases where students are on sites where they should not be. All this needs to be carefully looked into by the instructor so that lessons are of the highest quality.

Overall, todays learners are considered digital learners and we educators need to use this as a tool for more engaging and active lessons using various teaching pedagogies. They can be easily distracted online so it becomes a challenge for instructors to have lessons that can engage them throughout the learning. In conclusion, E-Learning and M-Learning are the future of higher education and it surely prepares advanced technological students for the future workforce. 

You can also download this blog using the following link: 

https://avikesh-ed403sessionblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/ed403-session-3-e-learning-trends-in.html