MIE/ WIKI

WIKI, comes from the Hawaiian word meaning “fast” or “quick” and it is a website where users can contribute and edit text. In relation to last week’s learning a WIKI is a form of asynchronous communication as one person writes on the page then others can view and edit it. The website is a form of communal constructivism as a number of people are all sharing and contributing knowledge. I think this collaborative practice would be a useful organisational tool and will aid people to add and share knowledge.

The next area we looked at was Moving Image Education (MIE) in Creative Scotland (2009) explain this teaching method on their website, “Moving Image Education is about helping young people to question, analyse, explore and understand the meaning of what they’re watching and hearing.” (no page given). Firstly, I related this to my own teaching practice and where I used it in my previous experiences. In one lesson I used a lesson a video clip of World War 2 to introduce a dance lesson. It was highly effective as I told them to imagine it was them in that position and the moving images really contributed to their imaginations. From this I also elicited their movements; this gave the pupils a sense of ownership as they felt like they had decided them. In future, I would like to have the opportunity to work with MIE within the study of films. MIE would fit into the Curriculum because it is developing numerous aspects of the language experiences and outcomes and it also incorporates ICT into learning and teaching. Scottish Executive (2006) explain the increasing relevance of MIE in the Classroom “Traditionally defined as the ability to read and write, literacy is now understood to be the ability to locate, evaluate and communicate using a spectrum of media resources including text, visual, audio and video.” (p.7). This demonstrates how technology is taking a principal role in the modern day classroom.

References

http://www.movingimageeducation.org/analyse [Last accessed 27/01/12]

http://www.scottishscreen.com/images/documents/MIE_ACfE_for_ScottishScreen_email.pdf [Last accessed 27/01/12]

It is important for teacher to be educated about the medias of today as children are exposed to technology and have been for all their lives. Prensky (20011) explains, ( as cited in Gibson (2007)) explains, "They have been referred to as “digital natives” because they are all “’native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet”.  (no page given). Therefore, a teacher must be aware of the technology which pupils are using and try to incorporate it into the learning environment. With the aim of engaging pupils, making it more relevant to them, which is one of the outcomes of the Curriculum For Excellence.

 Today we began by discussing synchronous and asynchronous communication within social media tools. Synchronous is simpler meaning at the same time and we gave examples such as Skype and Facetime, whereas asynchronous is more complex and means not at the same time, such as emails and Facebook. Communities of Practice was the next area of learning today and Wenger (2006) gives a definition, “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” (no page given). I had previous knowledge of how they could be used from the social justice unit in first year but I wanted to build upon my knowledge and make them seem more relevant in the classroom setting. 


We then discussed Belbin’s Model of team building and how this could be applied in the classroom. The manger role would be undertaken by the class teacher and this would be managing, organising and facilitating the learning to aid the pupils. Assigning children different roles would have an impact on the successfulness of the task as each child would have strengths and weaknesses. This group collaboration would induce social constructivism in the classroom as the pupil’s would be learning from one another and progressing in their development.

Here is a picture of the roles which Belbin suggests.

embedding a video

First blog

Testing, testing 1,2,3....
This is my first ever blog. We have been learning about ICT and social media.