“Teachers today are working with students whose entire lives have been immersed in 21st-century media and technology culture. Today’s students are digital learners. They take in the world via the filter of computing devices including mobile phones, laptops, tablets, game consoles and handheld gaming devices. In many countries today’s students are referred to as ‘digital natives’, and today’s educators as ‘digital immigrants’.” (Teachers Talking Technology, 2011). As I reflect on my 6 weeks of Managing E-learning, I still feel like a ‘digital immigrant’, trying to make sense of a world I probably won’t ever fully understand and teaching it to a generation who has much more of an understanding than I do. In saying that, I feel much more prepared to tackle the wide variety of techno-tools now that I have completed this course. I will be able to apply the skills I have learned in this short amount of time and endeavour to educate my class on useful tools and maintain my students’ safety whilst using those tools.
Students learn best when they are actively involved in the process. (Davis, 1993). When students are able to be hand-on and engaged in the learning process, they are more likely to absorb the material they are being taught. ICT tools are fast becoming the best way to engage students as we enter into the technology century. As teachers, we must adapt and change to suit our students’ needs; this includes changing our teaching methods to include ICT tools. As someone who technology does not usually agree with or work for, the following tools were easy to use, fun to learn with and I could see myself using them in my future classroom.
Firstly though, let me begin with safety on the internet and how teachers can ensure that safety within the classroom and in the wider school community. The following was taken from a government site and would be perfect to use as an introduction to safety on the internet. It could also be put up in the classroom as a post to remind students what to look out for when surfing the web.
Tell your Mum or Dad if you see something online that upsets you, or if someone makes you feel unhappy. You can also talk to a trusted adult like a teacher: they can help.
Hide your password. Only ever share it with your parents – never with your friends. Someone else could go online pretending to be you and do something that could get you into trouble.
Interesting websites can be fun. Check with Mum or Dad if a site is okay to use before you visit. Sometimes they can set up a good list of sites just for you. 
Be Nice to people you talk to on the internet or phone. Name calling or being mean is not cool. Look out for yourself and for others.
Keep your special personal information safe. Never give your real name, address or phone number to anyone you don’t know in the real world. Use a nickname in chat rooms or when you play games on the computer.(Commonweath of Australia, 2009)
As a learning manager, it will be my responsibility to monitor student activity on the internet but I think it is more important for students to be able to monitor their own thinking and actions when engaging in online activities. In saying that, making sure a website is appropriate for students to view is an imperative part of teaching with ICT tools. As a student myself, I encounter many pages when ‘surfing’ that would be inappropriate for a child to view. This is where the think strategy could come into place. As students’ become more familiar with the THINK concept, they will become more independent in their online adventures.
ICT Tools Unpacked
Tool One: Blogger
Blogs are fast becoming the new ‘dear diary’. I found this blog to be simple to use and easy to personalize. As a learning manager, I can see the benefits of using this tool in the classroom including using it as a place to communicate with parents, as a place for students to go to get clarification about homework or assignments. As I worked through the blog, I found that adding photos and video was a simple process. There was also a tool on Blogger that enabled you to re-size images once they had been uploaded. This tool would be simple enough to use with year one or two and in collaboration with the parents/guardians of the students. Tool One
Tool Two: Voki
This tool would be prefect for the start of a lesson or as a hook into a lesson. It can be personalized to look like you (as the teacher of the class) or to look like a famous person/ person from history that you are studying with your class. Voice can be recorded into the Voki or you can type text and it will read it in the accent of your choice. This tool is one of the few I found that would work with auditory learners. It is also easily embedded into your blog, if a class blog was going to be started for homework/assignment purposes. It adds a little something extra to a presentation instead of simply ‘talking at’ the class. Tool Two
Tool Three: Glogster
I must say, this was one of my favourite tools to learn about and use. As I am a visual learner, Glogster immediately sucked me in with its bright colours and effects that I could play with and change to my heart’s content. This is similar to Blogger in the fact that it is a ‘blog’ but it’s so much more than that as well. There are so many possibilities with this tool to use in a classroom. It would also work well with the interactive white board, as children could get up and add their own items to a class Glogster and personalize it to their own style. It could be used in conjunction with making classroom rules that can be accessed by parents at home, again with the class’ own personal spin put on the layout. Tool Three
Tool Four: Scribble Maps
As an Early Childhood major, this tool appealed especially to that side of me. For children to be able to ‘scribble’ (no pun intended) all over a map of their school or city just makes it all the more fun and engaging. This tool could also be used in conjunction with the interactive whiteboard as a whole class demonstration/lesson. It has many tools to play with and you can label your own school with a personalized tag. You can circle it, colour it in and draw a school building on the map to indicate where it is. Overall it is an extremely engaging tool that would suit a geography lesson in early childhood to a tee. Tool Four
Education Queensland identifies digital pedagogy as being "a new way of working and learning with ICT to facilitate quality learning experiences for 21st Century learners. Digital Pedagogy moves the focus from ICT tools and skills, to a way of working in the digital world". (Education Queensland, 2008). As studying teachers, we must keep up with technology to offer our future students and the future generations the best of technology and the best of ourselves as teachers.
Works Cited
Teachers Talking Technology. (2011, August 9). 40-41. Mackay, Queensland, Australia.
Commonweath of Australia. (2009, August 19). How to be cyber smart! Retrieved August 26, 2011, from Cybersmart: http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/Young%20Kids/How%20to%20be%20cybersmart.aspx
Davis, B. G. (1993). Tools For Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Education Queensland. (2008, August). Smart Classrooms Bytes . eLearning For Smart Classrooms, p. 3.
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