WEEK FOUR REFLECTION

TUTORIAL
This week in the tutorial we spoke about keeping safe, legal and ethical in the classroom, mainly regarding media permission slips from parents. 

Without permission from parents for their child to be photographed, you cannot take a photo of a student especially for media use. To avoid hear say, all teachers should go directly to the office for a class list of who has and who hasn't obtained media consent from their parents. This is extremely important for students and families who are in "hiding" from another person or in the foster system etc. 

In regards to other ICT tools we discussed the "green screen" method, claymation with MovieMaker or iMovie along with podcasting and other forms of digital audio. I have included an example of podcasting in my blog.

READINGS

Multimodal Learning
From reading chapter three of Pedagogic Potentials of Multimodal Literacy (Maureen Walsh) it is evident that combining audio and images with text enhances learning significantly.  

(www.youtube.com)

Article - Analysis: How multimedia can improve learning
I found this article very interesting, particularly the following:

"...a few tips for educators on how to teach students using multimedia:
 
(1) Know the importance of the attention and motivation of the learner. The “scaffolding” of learning–the act of providing learners with assistance or support to perform a task beyond their own reach–by reducing extraneous diversions and focusing the learner’s attention on appropriate elements aligned to the topic has proven effective.

(2) Know the importance of separating the media from the instructional approach. A recent meta-analysis in which more than 650 empirical studies compared media-enabled distance learning to conventional learning found pedagogy to be more strongly correlated to achievement than media. The media and pedagogy must be defined separately." 

(http://www.eschoolnews.com/2008/03/26/analysis-how-multimedia-can-improve-learning/3/) 

Podcast
I found a great podcast that would suit the level of my early childhood learners.