Final App Project – Past Present and Future of Singapore

What I plan to have app user do with app:

Learners will download the app into an android phone allocated to each group by their teachers. They will be brief on instructions on safety and movement around as a group and how they can contact any teacher if they encountered challenging situations in the outdoor settings. They will complete 1 question before they can move on to the next question. Each question contain a street view of the location they are supposed to visit. There are altogether 5 locations. When they complete all questions, they will report to the teacher at the meeting point allocated by the teacher.

Each group will answer the questions by keying in the answers. The app will check for wrong or correct answers and give feedback accordingly.

 Challenges in Development

It was quite a challenge to figure out how to work with activating different screens within the app. I wanted a first screen to introduce the name of the App, followed by a second screen to display the instructions and the final screen to reveal the questions. I tried to google around any tips on the internet and spent almost 2 hours to analyze the different approaches. Finally, I decided to work on using the component visibility element within the App Inventor.

It was challenging to work in the design interface. While I have drawn up the plan last week, I really had to draw the graphics from scratch this week. Some elements (such as clipart of Singapore flag, taxi and 2 persons) are found from creative commons sites, I still had to layout them in an attractive manner for the learners. I can imagine learners being put-off by a boring introduction screen.

Finally, the introduction screen is up

Next, I had to work on the instructions screen.

The next challenge is to layout the question screen so that the question background text/image, google map street view and question answer box can be laid out within 1 screen without being too cluttered.

Overall, I had fun with the development.

You can try out the app below

Digital Story – Making A Difference

This digital story is about the gap between the children of the developed and developing/under developed countries, and how we can make a difference in small and big ways. I wanted the viewers to be able to reflect on their own experiences and put themselves into the lives of others around the world whom are less fortunate.

The personalization principle was applied using narration statements that are paced and spoken in a personal manner, accompanied with slow paced instrumental music to promote reflection.

I tried not to use text (except for the video title) so that viewers can focus on the images and narration.

Coherence Analysis

 

1) Coherence Principle  involves the removal of excluding extraneous information from learning materials. (Clark & Mayer, 2011). Its most important criteria is that no media of any form (sound, graphics, etc) should not be introduce if it does not promote learning.

In my workplace – a vocational training institute, we have a lot of teachers who have developed instructional slides for use in a face-to-face classroom.

2)One unsuccessful attempt to apply the coherence principle
One of the teachers was teaching the topic of turbine gas engine when he placed a loop animation of airplanes flying on the top right hand corner of the slides, while the video on the turbine gas engine in the middle of the slide. I felt that the loop animation of the airplanes is not required, and it definitely distract the learner from focusing on the main video in the middle of the slide. This has violated what Clark and Mayer (2011) have described, “Coherence Principle 2: Avoid e-Lessons with Extraneous Graphics” (p.159).

One successful attempt to apply the coherence principle

Another teacher was teaching the topic on how to use the hairdryer properly in the context of a hair salon. On her instructional slides, she only included a photograph of the hair dryer, with clearly defined labels that help learners to relate to parts and functions of the hair dryer. She did not include any extra media that hinders learning. The slides was clear and contain just enough information for the learners based on the instructional objectives.

3)Relationship of Coherence Principle to other Multimedia Learning Principles
I would describe Mutlimedia Principles, Contiguity Principle, Modality Principle, Redundancy Principle as the key foundational principles to guide the designer to know HOW different forms of media should be included in the learning resource. Whereas for the Coherence Principle, it will guide the designer to know WHAT forms of resources/media are to remove from the learning resource. It is almost liken to the analogy of a gardener, who decides which part of the plant should be pruned away to promote better growth and fruiting of the plant.

4)Relationship of Coherence Principle to Fundamental Theories of Psychology
Based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, Clark and Mayer (2011), explains that extraneous sounds and graphics can caused unnecessary overload in the cognitive system, thus impairing learning. This is basically the coherence principle in which the learning designer should avoid unnecessary sounds and graphics that does not contribute to meeting in instructional goal.

To better understanding the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, we must revisit the assumptions of the theory by Mayer (1998). This theory proposes three main assumptions, one of which is that there are two separate channels (auditory and visual) for processing information. Thus the coherence principle is basically built upon the psychology of how the mind processes information.

5)What do I personally like or dislike about this principle?
First of all, since this principle is based on evidence-based research – I appreciate that the principle is not based on just mere cognitive formulation of ideas by the writers. I felt that it does help the learning designer to consider again what they should exclude.

One of the constraints bought out by the writers is that the research is mainly based on learners who are novices. A further research was carried out by Muller, Lee and Sharma (2008), to study how the coherence principle can be generalized to real learning environments such as students in the university. From the study, “adding approximately 50% extra interesting but irrelevant information to a multimedia treatment did not result in lower achievement on a post-test as would be predicted by the coherence principle.” (p.9). One of the possible reasons specified is that the extra interesting but irrelevant information could have accounted for  maintaining learner’s attention in the authentic learning settings employed within in the experiment.

Secondly, Clark and Mayer (2011) also brought out the fact that not adequate research is being done to discuss about the coherence principle in games design.

When I took the Edtech module in Educational Games and Simulation last semester, I learnt about the importance of using Games as an “Emotioneering” Tool. This means we can use the games visuals, music etc to guide the learners into a state of emotions that is usually not possible with non-games resources. I felt the coherence principle was not able to adequately guide game developers to decide what is considered “extraneous”, which is quite an area of subjectivity in terms of opinions from different subject matter experts.

 

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). e-Learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (3rd ed.). Pfeiffer.

Mayer, R. E.; R. Moreno (1998). A cognitive theory of multimedia learning: Implications for design principles”. http://www.unm.edu/~moreno/PDFS/chi.pdf

Muller, D. A., Lee, K. J., & Sharma, M. D. (2008). Coherence or interest: Which is most important in online multimedia learning. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 24(2), 211–221.

“My (Story) – Toy – Puzzle – Game”

In this game, students will be in the virtual world of a medieval village. They take on the role of a normal civilian, but will be allowed to make choices to enter sub-villages to face various challenges and opportunities. In the village, they will meet fellow villages who can help them to solve the challenges together, and they may also face threats from outside in the village. The students role in this story is to learn how to deal with such challenges and make use of opportunities to make the village a better and stable place to live it. Within this game story, the students are allowed to change their roles to that of a farmer, a resource retriever, a warrior or even study under the guidance of wise men of the village. The students will be rewarded with coins and resources for his good work, and he is allowed to purchase items for himself or to build up the village.

Below is the tentative flow of the game story:

You can also access this flow chart here

Professional Learning Network Plans

From the construction of my PLN, I realised that I gain most of my network links from Boise State University, especially from the Edtech 501 course.
Some networks are mainly obtained through colleagues in my workplace (E.g. Delicious Network, Twitter), as well as my own personal findings through relevant searches.

I felt that I could consider expanding my networks with professional associations, such as exploring student memberships with

• AACE, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education

• SITE, Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education

• AECT, Association for Educational Communications and Technology

• AERA, American Educational Research Association

• EDEN, European Distance and E-Learning Network

These professional associations often contain peer reviewed articles, books, videos and related resources in the use of Educational Technology.

Secondly, I hope to seek out other professional associations in the asian region, such as Japan, Hong Kong or Taiwan. One of the reasons being the profile of students in the asian region might be similar, and I can gain better insights in the use of technology among asian students by studying their technology needs in the present and near future.

Thirdly, I felt due to current time constraints because of work and study commitments, I was unable to contribute much to learning networks outside of Boise State University. I aim to be able not only learn from others by reading their contributions, but also to personally contribute my ideas and views to the Learning Network.

Finally, I hope to be able to learn from my Edtech 501 about their own PLN. Perhaps through my classmates, I can also gain insights to other networks that I can link up for my professional growth and development in Educational Technology.

Tech Use Plan Presentation

This presentation covers an overview of the following aspects of the technology use plan.

• Rationale
• Planning Team
• Process
• Vision Statement
• Plan Goals
• Needs Assessment
• Staff Development
• Evaluation
• Timeline

The presentation contains 13 slides with audio narration.

You can access the presentation at AuthorStream below

Edu-Vantage? Advantages of Using e-Portfolios in Education

To access my full paper, click this hyperlink

The full paper discussed the use of e-Portfolio in education, and how technology has enhanced the experiences of learners, instructors and the larger community, compared to the use of traditional portfolios.

In this summary, a brief introduction of the six key advantages of using e-Portfolios in education are describes as follows:

Access to Wider Audience

Traditional portfolios have limited distribution of artefacts of the learner. Portfolios are mainly accessible within small groups of peers and instructors. With the use of e-Portfolios, sharing of artefacts can be done in an online presence to audience within and outside of campuses. Online collaboration and exchange of views on artefacts can be facilitated using built-in commenting tools in the e-Portfolio application.

Expression of Learning Experiences through Varied Media

E-Portfolio enables a wide variety of online documents and media formats to be published and shared with the world. Students are no longer restricted to a few forms of physical media, and are further trained to consider which forms of media best facilitate the information of specific information.

Progressive Reflection

Learners can easily add personal comments to existing works-in-progress artefacts as well as completed ones. This is definitely a better alternative to traditional portfolios where adding of information after the completion of the portfolio is considered tedious due to space and physical limitation.

Development of Critical and Organizing Thinking Skills

Employers value critical and organizing thinking skills in new hires. Critical thinking skills are developed when the learner is required to review and critic his peers’ artefacts within the e-Portfolio.On the another hand, organizing skills are developed when the learner built and construct categories within the e-Portfolio.

Academic Advising and Review

Academic advisor can easily access a students’ e-Portfolio and track that he is moving towards the academic goals. Evidences of artefacts also provide a basis for the department to review the effectiveness of instructional strategies.

Lifelong Professional Development Tool

Even after the individual graduates from the institution, e-Portfolio can facilitate on-going professional growth by using the platform as a means to link up with peers, colleagues, experts in the subject area.

 

 

Teacher Professional Development Models

How might you define TPD?

TPD is defined as an approach to which policy makers communicate goals, visions, information and give guidance to educators (Gailble & Burns, 2005).

What are three common models of professional development?

The three common models of professional development are (a)Standardized TPD, (b)Site-based TPD, (c) Self-directed TPD.

Standardized TPD is considered as the approach which is most centralized among the three models. Training-based approaches like workshops and sessions are often used as instructors can share information with a larger number of educators. It is found to be effective in the context where we need teachers to be aware of new ideas and approaches in teaching and learning, but lack of after-training support can result in low adoption rate. Sometimes, a few teachers who received standardized TPD based training serves as “multipliers” in their own school by training their own colleagues in basic TPD.

Sited-based TPD tends to be more focused on local needs , and build local expertise. This is sometimes cultivated through the Community of Practice (COP) where there will be a significant core group of teachers being involved in professional development activities and sharing of expert knowledge. However, the school need to be aware that site-based TPD can be time intensive and involves recurrent expenditure.

Self-directed TPD, on the other hand, little or no cost to the school’s budget, as the teacher himself will bear the cost of the professional activities. Among the three models, self-directed TPD offers the most flexibility and opportunities for advanced-skilled teachers who want to improve on their skills and knowledge. This model is often used together with Standardized and/or Site-based TPD.

Which models are currently being used in your school?

In my institution, Standardized TPD and Site-Based TPD are currently being used.

In terms of Standardized TPD, being a vocational technical education institution, we organised an annual Teachers’ Conference event, where subject experts in teaching and learning are invited to share good practises with our teachers. Workshops and training sessions are also conducted every three months for expert teachers to impart teaching and learning strategies to novice teachers.  The training introduces and builds awareness of effective strategies in lesson planning, learner-centred instructional strategies, authentic assessment practises, and use of LMS (Learning Management System).  Teachers are also encouraged to attend training organised by other institutions, whether locally or overseas, to further enhance their knowledge in technical education.

For Site-Based TPD, each novice teacher (or mentee) is assigned to a mentor, who is actually often and experienced master teacher within the institution. The mentor will work with the mentee to identify professional development needs, as well as to work actively towards enhancing the mentee’s skills in teaching and learning. The duration of the mentoring will last for a period of 12 months, with various meetings and discussions to address specific growth points of the mentee. The mentee will also observe lessons of the mentor and other expert teachers, thus building a network of sharing ideas.

What are the needs of teachers in your school, and how might teacher professional development (TPD) address these needs?

As a vocational technical education institution, most of our teachers come from the private industries, with expert knowledge in their trade area. While they have the expert content knowledge in technical skills, some of them may be lacking in effective teaching and learning strategies if they do not have prior teaching experiences. Mentoring, as one possible application of Site-based TPD, gives these novice teachers an opportunity to learn from the master teachers (Smith, 2002). Mentoring also tends to evolve around professional development activities such as classroom observations, coaching, feedback which can positively result in enhancing the teaching skills of the novice teacher.

“Teacher learning is most likely when teachers collaborate with professional peers, both within and outside of their schools, and when they gain further expertise through access to external researchers and program developers” (King & Newmann, 2000, p. 576). This is in alignment with the Standardized TPD, through which the annual Teachers’ Conference event and other training opportunities (local and overseas) become a platform for teachers to gain access to new information.

Which of the three models of TPD are most appropriate to the needs of your teachers?

At this stage, I felt that there is no single model of TPD that will be adequate to fit the needs of all teachers within the institution. Differences among the community of teachers and school administrators can uniquely affect professional development processes of the institution (Guskey, 2003).

In my view, an integrated approach of Standardized TPD and Site-Based TPD Model will be adequate for most of the teachers’ needs in the next one to two years. However, I felt that the Self-directed TPD can be developed within the institution from the third year onwards, given that we take the next two years to specifically identify teachers with high level of expertise, high levels of motivation and autonomous, and who need opportunities for professional development that are not otherwise available.

In conclusion, to have the greatest impact on teachers through TPD, professional development should be designed and implemented to meet the needs the teachers within an identified setting.

References

Gaible, E., & Burns, M. (2005). Models and best practices in teacher professional development. In Using technology to train teachers: Appropriates uses of ICT for teacher professional development in developing countries (pp. 15-24). Washington, DC: infoDev/World Bank. Retrieved from http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.294.html

Guskey, T. R.(2003). Analyzing lists of the characteristics of effective professional development to promote visionary leadership. NASP Bulletin. 87(637), 38-54.

King, M. B., & Newmann, F. M. (2000). Will teacher learning advance school goals? Phi Delta Kappan. 81(8), 576- 580.

Smith, S. (2002). Teacher mentoring and collaboration. Journal of Special Education Technology. 17(1), 47-48.

RSS Feeds

Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator that enables syndicated web content (such as news and blogs) in a single location for easy access (Frazel, 2010).

Efficiency

Before I learn about Google Reader in the Edtech501 course, I used to spend a lot of time surfing a number of frequently accessed websites for research information.

The concept of RSS feeds and how I can pull relevant online information to my personal Google Reader page is almost liken to the concept of an online “newspaper” that is customised for my own reading needs. Instead of browsing through numerous websites and sieve out the content that is of interest to me, I can simply subscribe to RSS feeds which fit my professional learning needs. I can subscribe to blogs and websites which focuses on educational technology and learning pedagogies, keeping myself updated on latest trends and needs in teaching and learning.

Teachers could also explore getting students to create their own Google Reader page. Students could subscribe to feeds of a particular subject interest to them for their own learning and development. Teachers could also consolidate the RSS feeds from the class by setting up a Class Google Reader page. In this way, students could easily access the information found by their classmates.

Portability

Google Reader is also very portable compared to traditional Desktop RSS Reader. I can simply access my Google Reader as long as I have a device (example: Laptop, Smartphones, Ipad etc.) that is connected to the internet. This is extremely helpful as my work requires me to travel to different colleges in the country and I can simply read the RSS feeds wherever I go.

Community of Practice

I really like the fact that I can share items in my Google Reader and allow others to subscribe to my feeds. This supports the concept of Community of Practice (Wenger, 1999), where individuals with a common interest in a particular domain can share information and experiences to develop themselves professionally as well as personally.

Wenger also later wrote:

“Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavour: a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope. In a nutshell: 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.”(Wenger 2007)

Likewise, in my area of work, research is often conducted to find out about emerging technologies in the field of education. This is often done in small teams of about four to five colleagues. Traditionally, my colleagues and I look for relevant articles and readings on our own, and save the necessary information on our own computer. Then we proceed to collate the information for further evaluation and discussion. Very often, we found that the information we have saved are often duplicated. This could most likely happens as we do not know what each other have found till the point that we come together to consolidate our research information.

Moving ahead, if my colleagues and I are to share our research information using Google Reader, we could easily build on each other information during the process of research, rather than at the end of it. Google Reader can also become a good platform for mapping the knowledge we have obtained and identify the gaps that are currently in place, thus making the research process more efficient and collaborative.

Frazel, M. (2010) Using Google and Google Tools in the Classroom. Teacher Created Resources, Inc., Westminster, USA.

Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press, New York, USA.

Wenger, E. (2007) Communities of practice. Retrieved from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

Annotated Bibliography

Cunha, M., Raposo, A., & Fuks, H. (2008). Educational technology for collaborative virtual environments. Paper presented at the 12^th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design, 2008, Xi an, China. doi:10.1109/CSCWD.2008.4537066

Researchers at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, explored the use of Second Life as an environment for collaborative learning and user-generated content. A pilot project involved the construction of a virtual business school known as “IAG”, where global visitors and students interact in the form of avatars. Activities in Second Life were also reported externally to a wiki, where user-generated content are collaboratively constructed for the sharing of experiences and research. Without the use of educational technology, students will not have greater access to the local and global learning communities, thus limiting the opportunities for academics and business partners to co-share ideas and innovation.

Klas, W., Friedl, R., Preisack, M. B., Rose, T., Stracke, S., Quast, K. J., & Hannekum, A. (2000). Virtual reality and 3d visualisations in heart surgery education. Paper presented at the Third Annual Meeting of the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery, Altanta, Georgia. Retrieved from http://www.cs.univie.ac.at/upload/00000.Cardio-OP%203d%202002.pdf

Researchers at the University of Ulm, Germany and University of Vienna, Austria, developed an interactive virtual model of the heart for the training of medical students and professionals. Interactive 3D visualization of the heart enabled medical students and professionals to acquire strong foundational knowledge in anatomical structures, which is crucial for planning and executing surgical procedures accurately. This technological approach to learning is more effective from traditional methods of video recording of surgical procedures, where the movement of the surgeon’s hands hide important observations, as well as 2D drawings and photographs, where spatial orientation and anatomy of internal organs could not be effectively visualized.

Sielhorst, T., Obst, T., Burgkart, R., Riener, R., & Navab, N. (2004). An augmented reality delivery simulator for medical training. Paper presented at the International Workshop on Augmented Environments for Medical Imaging-MICCAI Satellite Workshop, Rennes, France. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.106.4165&rep=rep1&type=pdf

The researchers from Institute Fur Informatik, Germany and University Hospital Balgrist, Switzerland, with the support of Siemens Corporate Research, United States and A.R.T. Gmbh, Germany, developed an augmented reality delivery simulator for medical training of doctors in birth delivery medical procedures. Traditionally, medical students depend mainly on textbooks and video recordings to learn about the procedures of the delivery process. However, with the use of augmented reality stimulator, accurate visualisation of the process of delivery and reception of realistic haptic feedback increase the realism of the learning environment relative to the actual working environment. With the use of educational technology in the area of augmented reality, learners can be better prepared for recalling the medical procedures under realistic environment.

Thornton, P., & Houser, C. (2005). Using mobile phones in education. Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education. Retrieved from http://astro.temple.edu/~heimbach/readings/Thorton_Houser_2004_Wireless.pdf

The researchers at Kinjo Gakuin University in Japan used data from the survey of 333 Japanese university students to test the effectiveness of using mobile phone as medium for delivery of foreign language vocabulary lessons. Traditional teaching materials are usually given to students in the form of books and papers. Pre-tests and post-tests were used to determine student’s learning over the two week cycle to compare students who use mobile learning technologies and those who use traditional paper-based lessons. It was observed that while 48% of the students using paper-based lessons improved their score on the post-test, almost 88% of the students using mobile learning improved score on the post-test. This reveals that delivery of foreign language vocabulary lessons through mobile phone is much more effective than traditional paper-based lessons among Japanese university students. Though this study was conducted in 2004, the number of students owning mobile phones has increased significantly over the last six years. This is evident even in Singapore, whose mobile phone penetration rate was at 143.6% in December 2010 (IDA, 2010). Educators should continue to explore the use of mobile phone in learning to better engage learners in both formal and informal learning settings.

Yeung, Y. Y. (2004). A learner-centered approach for training science teachers through virtual reality and 3d visualization technologies: Practical experience for sharing. Paper presented at the Fourth International Forum on Education Reform, Bangkok, Thailand. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.129.4865&rep=rep1&type=pdf

The science educators at the Department of Science, Hong Kong Institute of Education used 3D and VR (virtual reality) technologies to create self-learning resources. Studies have shown that 3D and VR technologies can enable students to better visualize and mentally construct complex scientific data, compared to traditional 2D images. The use of these technologies also support students ‘constructivist approach to learning as they can self-explore the learning materials to clear misconceptions and reinforce prior knowledge.  This observation is consistent with the study of the use of VR and 3D visualisations in heart surgery education (Klas, Friedl, Preisack, Rose, Stracke, Quast, & Hannekum, 2000).