Here is our mind map of learning theories.
Create your own mind maps at MindMeister
Link here for the full map.
Key reference:
Keesee G.S., Learning Theory and Instructional Design/Technology, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://teachinglearningresources.pbworks.com/w/page/19919565/Learning%20Theories
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
Module reflection
Please refer to the following link for our group reflection on MITE6024B module.
(The content has been composed collaboratively by the members of the group)
Friday, November 16, 2012
Consider uses of mobile technology in your school or workplace.
Mobile technology has been widely used in school environment and workplace.
For the university which Janey studied in her first degree, Chinese made social media like Renren was being used by faculties as a main communication media between faculty and students. In between classmates, communication tools like Weixin, QQ and Whatsapp are very common tools for peer or even teachers’ communications. Group chat is now very common. In HKU, mobile APPs were created to facilitate teaching and learning. CEDARS has an APP to deliver important information to students via mobile devices so that students won’t miss any of them (e.g. career opportunity).
Mobile technology has also been widely used in workplace. For Abby’s internship as an account executive in an advertising company, QQ for mobile was being used for workgroup discussion, it became very useful as most of the team are working on fields. Another example is an APP for property agent. Abby also involved in an APP development project which is about property agency. The APP provides brief introduction of the property for sold or lease, the latest progress,the price and privilege of the property, etc. Her colleagues were all asked to experience the app and gave some feedback and advice.The mobile technology is used in the commercial as an promoting tool.
Peter shares his experience in the school he worked before.Between the students and himself, he used to mobile version of Skype to keep in touch with them. He made a new account, just for teaching use (He didn’t want the students to have his personal account name!), and had his students add him as contacts. This way, the students could instantly voice chat with him, or send him text messages if they needed help with their homework. Additionally, they could take pictures of problems they were having. For example, if they couldn’t solve a math problem,Peter would ask them to take a picture of what work they had done so far and send it to him. Instead of just giving them the answer, Peter could show them where in their work they had made a mistake and help them find the correct answer for themselves. This way, Peter helped assure that more students brought their homework in on time than had before he started using Skype.
One of the characteristics of using mobile technology is its mobility. With the wide coverage of mobile and wi-fi network, people can access to information anywhere anytime. Communications for mobile is no longer limited in speaking, but rich media like text, video, and audio. Mobile learning can breakthrough the geographical constraints of learning. On the other hand, the ease of use of mobile provides unique advantages to mobile learning over other media. Traditional computers interface is often more complicate to use compare to mobile device. User interface of mobile device is usually more simple. On the other hand, mobile devices are more instant available, i.e. you don’t have to wait before you can use it. Also the power consumption of mobile devices is much less than traditional PC or notebook., which make it available all the time. As a result, mobile technology would still have a great potential to growth a lot further.
For the university which Janey studied in her first degree, Chinese made social media like Renren was being used by faculties as a main communication media between faculty and students. In between classmates, communication tools like Weixin, QQ and Whatsapp are very common tools for peer or even teachers’ communications. Group chat is now very common. In HKU, mobile APPs were created to facilitate teaching and learning. CEDARS has an APP to deliver important information to students via mobile devices so that students won’t miss any of them (e.g. career opportunity).
Mobile technology has also been widely used in workplace. For Abby’s internship as an account executive in an advertising company, QQ for mobile was being used for workgroup discussion, it became very useful as most of the team are working on fields. Another example is an APP for property agent. Abby also involved in an APP development project which is about property agency. The APP provides brief introduction of the property for sold or lease, the latest progress,the price and privilege of the property, etc. Her colleagues were all asked to experience the app and gave some feedback and advice.The mobile technology is used in the commercial as an promoting tool.
Peter shares his experience in the school he worked before.Between the students and himself, he used to mobile version of Skype to keep in touch with them. He made a new account, just for teaching use (He didn’t want the students to have his personal account name!), and had his students add him as contacts. This way, the students could instantly voice chat with him, or send him text messages if they needed help with their homework. Additionally, they could take pictures of problems they were having. For example, if they couldn’t solve a math problem,Peter would ask them to take a picture of what work they had done so far and send it to him. Instead of just giving them the answer, Peter could show them where in their work they had made a mistake and help them find the correct answer for themselves. This way, Peter helped assure that more students brought their homework in on time than had before he started using Skype.
One of the characteristics of using mobile technology is its mobility. With the wide coverage of mobile and wi-fi network, people can access to information anywhere anytime. Communications for mobile is no longer limited in speaking, but rich media like text, video, and audio. Mobile learning can breakthrough the geographical constraints of learning. On the other hand, the ease of use of mobile provides unique advantages to mobile learning over other media. Traditional computers interface is often more complicate to use compare to mobile device. User interface of mobile device is usually more simple. On the other hand, mobile devices are more instant available, i.e. you don’t have to wait before you can use it. Also the power consumption of mobile devices is much less than traditional PC or notebook., which make it available all the time. As a result, mobile technology would still have a great potential to growth a lot further.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Learning Activity-Web 2.0 In Education
Here is our group's presentation about learning activity:
http://themeefy.com/abby_114233/learning-activity-web-2-0-in-education-1/read/#/page/1
Here is a simple example of using Themeefy to support language learning.
http://themeefy.com/Janey_115204/theme-115241/read/#/page/1
Session 6.0 Research Activity
How IT can help to facilitate language learning
Background
Language teaching has been a very popular topic for hundreds of years. Learning learning as an academic subject has somehow become compulsory for students from young to elder. It is even common to learn a second language apart from the native language a person speak. For example, in Hong Kong English Language Learning is a core subject starting from Kindergarten to senior Secondary level. In recent years studying Putonghua becomes another compulsory subject in Hong Kong. In higher education there are even some other foreign language subjects available, e.g. French, Spanish, Japanese, etc.
However, ways of conducting language teaching did not change a lot for hundreds of years. The common practice of it is face-to-face teaching with an instructor / teacher talking to the class and students response. Until about 20 years ago with the evolution of technology some aiding materials became available to language teaching and learning. The most common tool should be audio tapes which have recorded some demo speeches for students to learn. As technology evolution continues the ways of conducting language learning is reaching some new horizons. There are still some other factors contributing the needs for using IT. For example, there is time constraint for a student to spare time attending classes. There could be geographic constraint to a person to learn how native people speak. People always say the best place to learn a foreign language is the place where native people speak that language, e.g. Japan for Japanese, Beijing for Putonghua, etc. On the other hand, the chance of practicing for the learning language is somehow limited within the classroom.
This research attempt to study how IT has been used to assist in language teaching. How people has been using IT to learning foreign language and whether there is still other constraints which are waiting to be addressed.
Methodology
Research will be carried out in both qualitative and quantitative directions. Qualitative research includes focus groups, interviews and observation where quantitative research includes online survey. Groups of teachers and students from related disciplines will be selected and invited for collecting ideas about how they have been using IT for language teaching and learning, how they found it useful and what are the constraints they have come across. Class observations will be followed to compare the collected results against our own observations. With the collected information, a survey questionnaire will be prepared and conducted for further analysis.
Plan procedure
A list of literatures in related topics have been identified and selected for reading. They will be reviewed to identify the common issues of IT in language learning, i.e. difficulties of current way of language learning, current IT that is being used in language learning, and identify unaddressed issues. It will be followed by confirmation of designed research methods to tie up with our intended research outcome. Research procedure planning is to be followed. After that a timetime of the research will be scheduled and the actual research will be carried out. The collected information will be analyzed for the final research report preparation.
Reference
HKU research guide, retrieved November, 30, 2012, http://lib.hku.hk/general/research/index.html
Writing a research paper, retreived November 30, 2012, http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/tools/report/reportform.html
Robson C. How to do a Research Project, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/researchproject/weblinks.asp
Basic steps in the Research Process, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/
Literatures review
Wang, SUPPORTING SYNCHRONOUS DISTANCE LANGUAGE LEARNING
WITH DESKTOP VIDEOCONFERENCING, 2004, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.134.2099&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Hampel and Mirjam Hauck, TOWARDS AN EFFECTIVE USE OF AUDIO CONFERENCING IN DISTANCE LANGUAGE COURSES, 2004, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.125.14&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Chinnery, Emerging Technologies - Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning, 2006, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num1/pdf/emerging.pdf
Murray and Mcpherson, Using the web to support language learning, 2004, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.ameprc.mq.edu.au/docs/research_reports/twnt_series/Using_the_Web.pdf
Ruschoff, Language Learning and Information Technology State of the Art, 1993, retrieved November 30, 2012, https://calico.org/memberBrowse.php?action=article&id=552
En101 Learning Japanese, retrieved November 30, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViHlTQvFt-4
Language learning - Skype, retrieve November 30, 2012, http://community.skype.com/t5/Language-learning/bd-p/Languages
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Cloud Computing Solution: Amazon Kindle
Source: Amazon Cloud Reader
Kindle Cloud Reader is an application for Amazon subscribers to access to their ebook online. Every user is provided with an account. All of their purchase is being stored in a cloud environment provided by Amazon. Once they login, they can access to their ebooks stored in the cloud. If they want to read it offline, they can download the book into their devices on hand for further reading. The device could be Kindle, ipad, or other device with the said application installed. With the cloud environment people do not have to worry about losing their ebook due to hardware failure or some other reasons. The Amazon cloud provides a high availability solution for users. Also the reading would not be limited on a single device.
However, unlike other cloud solutions available for education context. A key element is not in their blueprint of Kindle Cloud Reader, i.e. sharing. The cloud reader is designed to allow only a single account to access to a single book. It is most likely a business concern instead of a technology constraint. Allow sharing of a book means the sales would drop dramatically. In fact intellectual property is one of the major concern of publishers move for digital. They are afraid their sales would drop and at the same time, serious the privacy issue. In fact there are some other problems behind the scene, authors would lose their royalty, again reduce their revenue. It is a chain which affect a lot of people. As a result, it is expect that there would be a lot of tools developed with sharing functions. However, when it comes to anything related to sales or intellectual property, we don’t see any possibility of the said functions to be developed in the near future.
On the other hand, another major concern of cloud computing would be its data security. It is no doubt that cloud service providers would spend a fortune in IT development to ensure the data is safe. However, organizations are worry about whether they information, clientbase, financial information would be leaked for whatever reason. For example, would it be leaked due to political reason, i.e. would you expect Chinese government to put anything confidential into an American based company? Definitely not! Still it doesn’t mean Cloud computing would not success. It is only a matter of what to put in, and for what purpose. For reading purpose like Amazon Cloud Reader, it wouldn’t be a problem at all. The same apply to Google Drive and Docs which web 2.0 elements are even stronger. It is expected that people won’t put something confidential onto Google Docs neither. But as a students like us to put our work there, it is an excellent tool.
Kindle Cloud Reader is an application for Amazon subscribers to access to their ebook online. Every user is provided with an account. All of their purchase is being stored in a cloud environment provided by Amazon. Once they login, they can access to their ebooks stored in the cloud. If they want to read it offline, they can download the book into their devices on hand for further reading. The device could be Kindle, ipad, or other device with the said application installed. With the cloud environment people do not have to worry about losing their ebook due to hardware failure or some other reasons. The Amazon cloud provides a high availability solution for users. Also the reading would not be limited on a single device.
However, unlike other cloud solutions available for education context. A key element is not in their blueprint of Kindle Cloud Reader, i.e. sharing. The cloud reader is designed to allow only a single account to access to a single book. It is most likely a business concern instead of a technology constraint. Allow sharing of a book means the sales would drop dramatically. In fact intellectual property is one of the major concern of publishers move for digital. They are afraid their sales would drop and at the same time, serious the privacy issue. In fact there are some other problems behind the scene, authors would lose their royalty, again reduce their revenue. It is a chain which affect a lot of people. As a result, it is expect that there would be a lot of tools developed with sharing functions. However, when it comes to anything related to sales or intellectual property, we don’t see any possibility of the said functions to be developed in the near future.
On the other hand, another major concern of cloud computing would be its data security. It is no doubt that cloud service providers would spend a fortune in IT development to ensure the data is safe. However, organizations are worry about whether they information, clientbase, financial information would be leaked for whatever reason. For example, would it be leaked due to political reason, i.e. would you expect Chinese government to put anything confidential into an American based company? Definitely not! Still it doesn’t mean Cloud computing would not success. It is only a matter of what to put in, and for what purpose. For reading purpose like Amazon Cloud Reader, it wouldn’t be a problem at all. The same apply to Google Drive and Docs which web 2.0 elements are even stronger. It is expected that people won’t put something confidential onto Google Docs neither. But as a students like us to put our work there, it is an excellent tool.
Interactive Map: Lamma Island Tourism
Here, we have created a tourism map of Lamma Island. You can click on the icons to see what they represent, or look at the full list of features on the left sidebar.
See the map here!
(Created collaboratively by our group)
See the map here!
(Created collaboratively by our group)
Learning Object: "Flight to Freedom"
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1S4hqs2GvVqas5myuZu_6VA7v3D8-9dV1poNyGwcvzG4ptOmCKP9at1r3DJzBM7KfM2fEecaS3X_Fgb8gJ-3wt9Q2OMXws2Fna1hgddV2N5xJl1d2HAc8B-S0Duk4KxRPbvpIjZ2w7SZ4/s320/flighttofreedom.jpg)
In this game, students first learn about the origins of 9 real-life slaves in the South of the United States, during the period 1815-1865. During this time, slavery was legal in the South, and these 9 men and women were able to escape their masters and go to the North, where they were able to be free.
To play the game, students select one of these 9 slaves as a "starting point", and then are allowed to make choices about where to escape to, whether to keep running or rest for 1 day, and depending on their choices and which cities they choose to go to, they may or may not be successful in escaping. By following the real-life choices of these slaves, students will successfully escape their masters and the game will inform them why these choices worked and why others didn't.
According to Churchill's classification of LOs, this game is a combination of an information object and a contextual representation.
It is an information object because it gives historical information about the lives of the 9 slaves, as well as the cities they visited. It tells the student what the status of slavery was in each city, and what factors made those places helpful or dangerous to escaped slaves.
Next, it is a contextual object because it provides an authentic scenario, based on real-life history, for students to experiment with different choices and decisions, and to see how those impact the final outcome of successfully escaping slavery, or being caught by the slave masters. Players have the option of where to go next, to wait or rest, and which city to go to. Based on their knowledge of slavery laws in the 19th century United States, students will either be successful or unsuccessful in their attempt.
Studying history could be boring for some of the students, unlike other subjects, such as science, where there could be simulations or even experiments available for students to try. Most of the time teachers who teach history would simply deliver the information, and students would receive passively. Through the LO students are allowed to learn proactively, and using this type of activity can deepen their learning. For teachers, it allows them to bring up some discussion topics and elicit students to discuss.
(Written collaboratively by our group)
Reference:
Churchill D., Towards a Useful Classification of Learning Objects, The University of Hong Kong.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Week 3 activities, Web 2.0 tool
Identify an effective use of one Web 2.0 tool that can be applied in teaching and learning that takes advantage of the chosen technology affordances. Add your thoughts to your group blog. Reference to other readings where possible.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Air Pollution E-Learning Review---Abby(Ruyan Yao)
Our group choose the website about air pollution to do the e-learning review. I’d
like to analysis this website in the following three parts:
1.
about the website’s outlook:There are
four circle pictures which are buttons can be clicked to new links in the website.
This is a relative interesting and attractive way to stimulate students’
motivation to learn the knowledge about air pollution. But the obvious shortages
are: firstly, the picture shading is not suitable and good-looking; secondly,
the configuration of
titles about each part is lack of logic.
2. about the details: There are
four parts of the content. Except for normal sections the meaning of air
pollution, the impact of air pollution, the ways to protect air and a project,
there are some patulous links about some air protection organizations to rich
the content and broad students’ horizon.
It’s quite specific and logical for the details. But the whole substance
of this part is still delivered in traditional teacher-oriented mode without students’ own idea.
3. about the project: It is a good way to evaluate how
much the students learn from the website by doing group project. The project’s
demands are meticulous and specific which limit the students’ creativity and
the ability how to design a project by themselves. In my opinion, it’s not necessary
to set the form about the feedback project. We suggest a project students can
do if they want, but more own-designed activities are welcome, such like making
model about the process of the air pollution, designing and sending air
protecting posts or brochures.
My biography---Abby (Ruyan Yao)
Hey everyone! I’m
happy to get the chance to show myself to u
guys. My name is Yao Ruyan u can call me Abby. I’m from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province,
Mainland China .I just graduated from university in June so I don’t have a form
working experience except an intern work in an advertising company.
My major in university
was advertising which I love very much. But after working as an intern in a relatively speaking great company in Hangzhou for six
months, I was hesitant about working in this area. Because I worked overtime almost
everyday for at least 2 hours, sometime I still needed work at weekends. The
working pressure was too much to handle and I thought this was not the work
that fit for me. That’s a part of the reason why I chose ITE to get my master degree.
I like listening to the music,
watching movies, reading books and practicing
calligraphy. When doing all this kind of things, I really feel relax and comfortable.
Optimistic,positive, insist ,those are all my things. Hoping to have a good time with
all of u.
My Biography - Steve
This is Steve Yong. I have been working in various IT
sectors throughout my career. Since 2005 I joined a multinational publisher in
capacities of IT and operations. My publisher has been publishing textbooks for
local K-12 schools in Hong Kong for the past 50 years. In recent years the
local government has been promoting the possibility of publishing e-books to
replace traditional printed textbooks in order to lower the textbook prices. We
have been facing challenges on dealing with such move; i.e. textbook contents,
the way to teach, school IT infrastructures, teachers’ readiness, school
support, etc. I would like to enrich my knowledge on related disciplines. Not
only on IT matters but also how people can really make use of IT to facilitate
learning. I have opportunities to visit UK to see how they are doing in ICT and
have been exploring how other countries are doing; but it seems like they are not
really far ahead of us. There are a lot of examples that can be found on higher
education sector but it is rare to have successful cases in kindergarten and
Primary school sectors. With the uniqueness of our curriculum and culture it is
very likely we have to rely on our own to find out solutions in relevant
disciplines. I really hope that I can complete this master program, not only to
obtain a well-recognized qualification from a well-known university but also to
learn more on IT in education so that I can contribute to my company. I would
also treasure chances of sharing with students from different industries and
countries, which will only benefit to my way of thinking.
Air Pollution e-Learning review---Janey (Jiani HU)
I think the
e-learning activity of air pollution is quite good but has its limitation. I
will state my opinion divided into three parts: advantage , disadvantage and conclusion.
Advantage
1.
Give
out a clear list of aims, it let students understand what to learn quickly.
2.
Give
out the resources’ link, it let students to learn more about the topic.
3.
Divided
the whole learning into four parts: introduction of the air pollution, impact
of the air pollution, measures of keeping the air clean and a project for students.
It made the learning logical and suitable to cognition and constructivism.
4.
The
flashes make the introduction intuitionistic and easy to understand.
Disadvantage
1.
Enough
chart and pictures but too many words. Students who join this activity may not
so patient to view all these words. Maybe it should use flash or movie to
instead.
2.
The
whole e-learning activity works like a lecture. Doesn’t let students to collect
information and think out the solution themselves.
3.
The
last part of project is too huge, it should let students think about the
individual contribution.
4.
Doesn’t
reach all goals effectively.
Conclusion
Refer to the SOLO system, if it could also
be a standard for this situation, I think this e-learning activity can reach
the level between 3 and 4 (between Multiple unrelated points and
Logically related answer).
Logically related answer).
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