It's not the end

After watching the numerous presentations by my coursemates, it dawned on me that we are all set to bring about about changes in our classrooms. The new understandings that we have gathered from the course and the interaction among ourselves have set us apart from those who simply think that digital literacy equates to knowing how to use powerpoint or technology. Even though we might not create a macro impact on language education, we are able to do so in our own ways within our means in our own classrooms. The end of the course signifies the beginning of a responsibility in educating our students what it means to be digital literate.

Re-thinking my DST

For the digital story on seven deadly sins, I managed to find a lot of suitable images. However, finding a suitable music to go along with the images is difficult. What proves to be most challenging is that I find it an upheaval task trying to connect with the digital story I was working on even though this is significant as it is work-in-progress during the Lenten season.

So, in class last Wednesday, I asked two coursemates for advice regarding my digital story. Based on their comments and after watching their digital stories, I decided to change the topic and work on the story based on my maternal grandmother instead. As suggested by Rach, to compensate for the lack of still and moving images, I could use other pictures to narrate the story instead which I did. Choosing the song was easy because I had in mind a song which is apt for my story after watching a charity programme. Most importantly, I feel a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment, and joy while working on the project as compared to the digital story on seven deadly sins.

For this project, as an adult learner, I have the liberty to change topics or themes but if this piece of assignment is given to students, I wonder what kind of leeway do teachers have to allow room for personal preference of topics. As it is, alternative assessments are not very well-received by teachers because of they perceive it as having more work to do. There is a need for paradigm shift.

For the DST on my grandmother, while planning, I referred to Ohler's (2001) annotated visual portrait of a story and came up with this:

Proposed Title: Grandmother
Proposed Duration: About 2 mins
Target Audience: Self and family members
Purpose: To remind myself of my grandmother's love for me

Genre: Narrative
Modes:
- For visual: still images and text.
- For audio: music

Overall Design

Beginning: I will first begin the story by having a title page that will signal to my viewers what they will be watching. Then I will introduce my grandmother by using a photograph of her when she was young.

Middle: The story develops with a series of images of her and me and other images that can metaphorically represent her love for me. By using a photograph of her and me first when I was a child then to one that was taken when I was an adult show the progression from childhood to adulthood with her as my caregiver. The conflict is introduced by showing a series of images that portray anguish and sadness.

Closure: The resolution comes in the form of reconciliation with her death and by dying she has conquered death, and is reunited with God.

Reflection on DST Project

Working on the DST project has made me realised that it is not as easy as I had thought! Initially I thought that the project is to simply put together a slideshow of pictures with effects and music. However, I soon realise that a lot of thought process goes into the creation of the DST. Despite the fact that there is planning during the conceptualisation stage of the DST, there are constant changes made to the initial ideas while working on the project on Windows Movie Maker. The orchestration of the various semiotic modes are made after much consideration.

One aspect which I think is helpful is the workshop session on using Windows Movie Maker. During the session, I was able to ask my coursemates for advice on using certain functions of the program.

Linking to the school context, I think that when teachers decide to get students to work on a multimodal text such as a DST, they need to provide scaffolding during various stages of the project. The kind of scaffolding depends on the profile of the students - the younger they are, the more help they need, especially in the using of software such as Windows Movie Maker. Other than ensuring that they are competent in using the software, teachers need to ensure that students know the process involved in the creation of a multimodal text. Only then is learning meaningful and purposeful.

Harnassing Digital Technology in the Singapore Classroom

Sometime back, a reader wrote to the forum page (article and MOE's response can be found on http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/forum/2010/03/in-the-letter-whats-the.php#update-digital-learningof The Straits Times applauding Crescent Girls' School for its innovative digital learning technologies and at the same time raising his concerns regarding MOE's digital learning initiatives. His concerns are not unfounded. One question raised is whether there are other success stories on the use of e-books in other schools. From personal experience, the piloting of the use of tablets in my school has not been that successful and the programme has since been phased out. Reason for doing so? Students download games and instead of using the device for learning, they used it for gaming. This is the other concern which the reader has and I'm sure a real concern for other parents. Monitoring students' use of tablet is difficult because teachers cannot be nannies. Such an initiative works well with the high ability students because they are motivated to learn and are likely to be more disciplined. The perceived benefits from learning technologies are not immediate and it will take time before any gains are evident.

Reflection on the use of WHD

In a National Education (NE) course which I attended, I had the experience of using WHD in a fieldtrip. This fieldtrip which I attended is identical to the one which my students will be going through as part of their NE coursework in their CCA. WHD in the form on Omnia handphones were given to us and each group were given three. I took one and started navigating using it. The tasks were rather simple because I had to do was to open the web browser and download information from a sever, answer the questions posed when I reached the site and transmit the answers to the server. At the end of the learning journey, marks were tabulated and answers revealed. I remembered commenting to my colleagues how badly designed the task was because the Omnia handphone was used merely as an internet browser and a data transmitting device. There was in fact no real need for us to be physically present at the site to complete the task because the information search could be done in an air-conditioned room using the computers with internet connection instead of out being in the rain or sun. This goes on to illustrate that learning tasks need to be well-designed to optimise the potential of WHD as a learning tool as well as students' learning.

Implications of WHD in the Singapore Context

Dieterle et el (2007) states that there are five affordances for WHDs that support neomillennial learning styles: collaboration, authenticity, role-playing, mobility and self-directed learning. What I understood from the article is student-centred pedagogy. What we can't do in the Singapore classroom is to customise learning programmes and activities to suit individual students due to the huge class size, we can instead provide mass customisation to best suit the learning needs of our students. When we do that, we are taking into consideration the neomillennial learning styles.

Indeed technology has opened up a world of possibilities for educators in the design of innovative pedagogy. Technology, such as WHD if harnessed effectively, is able to engage our students in learning given our understanding of the neomillennial learning styles. In harnessing the potential of WHD as a learning tool, the design of learning tasks is critical to optimise learning. Tasks should be meaningful. Since it requires the use of WHD, it should be unique in the sense that WHD should not be used as merely a device to transmit or download data. Instead, it should be as interactive as possible, allowing students to work on tasks on sites which they wouldn't be able to without the use of WHD.

Assessment

The session on assessment is helpful and provided insight on assessment. After reviewing Brenda's DST using the rubric given by Phillip, it dawned on me and my colleagues that there isn't one standard rubric for the assessment of projects and in this instance, our DST. For example, the given rubric does not take into account the overall design meaning given that the product being assessed is a DST project. When we were given the opportunity to design our own rubric, we took into account the objectives of the course as well as from our understanding of assessment. When we used the rubric which we designed to re-assess Brenda's DST, we had many questions regarding her decisions to use certain modes. Just by examining her end product alone isn't adequate. I realised that the product and reflection should be marked holistically given that the reflection is the articulation of the process involved in designing the DST. When I give my students a project to do in future, I'll be sure to design a rubric together with my colleagues to assess that particular project rather than just take one off the internet.