Cedric's (Li Kwok Leung) Comments on Posts in E-portfolios of Other Groups

Topic 1 Applications of technology in educational contexts

Group 4                   

TED for me is a good platform to know what’s the hit topic, innovative thinking and new trends in social development. It is a useful tool for adult learning, but I don’t think that is suitable for children even to learn english. And in that kind of public speaking, it includes the skill to convey the speaker’s idea but may not have a strategy for teaching and learning.  

But in fact, I really like this application as a platform to conduct learning and self-improvement 

  

Group 1                

It is really interesting the animation made by this VideoScribe and I have started to learn how to use it in my job. The application can really attack the learners’ eye. On the other hand, I think the shortages are 1. it can only explain the simple idea, but not a complicated one. 2. Sometime I find that the film plays too fast, then learners are not easy to catch the information effectively. 3. One interesting thing is that I find learners are really enjoy the video, but forget the learning objective or the purpose of playing the video. 

Group 3             

Kahoot is a typical example of gamification. But it is better to use it with high speed Wifi, otherwise learner will decrease the motivation because someone may not keep up with the game under a slow speed Wifi. My experience is that some learners may not be as quicker as the others to download photos depending on the quality of Wifi and mobile.  

Topic 2 Technology integration and learning theories

Group 5               

The structure is clear and simple, so it is easy to real and follow. However, I suggest applying the point form to organise the ideas and the explanations for each part and try to use the provided functions like website link, photo attached, note, comment and file link, etc., to enlarge the whole map. On the other hand, if you like you may use the function of arrow to find out whether they have the connections between theories and your reflections. 

Group 4                  

It is very attractive and the photos show the effective explanation of the teaching example. The use of gradient colour is really helpful to express the ideas in different hierarchy, which is a kind of technic of information visualisation to organise the thinking. You have a real teaching example to support strongly your understanding of those theories. You did a great job!!      

Group 1

I really appreciate your application of the arrow to compare the differences between those theories. Basically I agree with your thinking of “Behaviourism”… “shift from external behaviour to internal understanding”…”Cognitivism”. Behaviourism wants learner to change the behaviour through learning just based on the action and reaction with the object and the  influence of environment (Elliott et al. 2000). 

Elliott et al. (2000). Educational psychology: effective teaching, effective learning. . Boston: Boston : McGraw-Hill.

Topic 3 Web 2.0, digital media, and other emerging technologies

Group 4

The explanation is very clear, so I really learn about this topic of mathematics. The interesting point is the application of the story telling approach (Egan, 1985). This approach can be a very effective teaching method especially for child education. Learner can firstly be placed in a real life situation to have a problem to solve. In this case, the learner’s experience and the environment have an important role to help learning where the constructivist approach is applied (Dick, Carey & Carey, 2005; Ertmer & Newby, 1993).

Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2005). The systematic design of instruction, Boston : Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
Egan, K (1985), Teaching as story‐telling: a non‐mechanistic approach to planning teaching, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Taylor & Francis.

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance improvement quarterly, 6(4), 50-72.

Group 5             

In the first part, it can really gain the audience’s attention by showing the photos with the music design and the questions shown on the screen let us have some refections on today situation and convince us to catch up the video to find out the answer. in the next part of presenting the content, the whole structure is very clear by using point form to show the main concepts and the picture arrangement to tell us the recycling procedures. With the abundant information in your video, you may put some key words, pictures or symbols as a conclusion in the end to help audiences to enhance their retention will be much more better, although I know there is the time limitation. In short, the video is really help me to understand and arrange easily all the information and knowledge.    

Group 3                  

I like this application and want to learn how to use it in the class. The whole screen is so colourful, but I feel that the volume of music is as higher as the dubbing. That makes me sometime hard to concentrate on the content. Basically the whole video is divided into four parts. However, the boundaries of each part is not very clear, I am a little bit confused with the abundant information. I suggest that you may emphasise the key word or picture in the beginning of each part and in the middle of the video, the dubbing is not clear.

On the other hand, I like the design that you put the screen on left and the mobile screen on right, in doing so, It helps to understand what will happen between these two screens while I design my game. Thank you so much.

Topic 5 E-learning and pedagogical benefits

Group 5

I like the topic of the course “How to speak so that people want to listen” suggested by Limin. Then I try to look at the course design with the First Principle of Merrill (Cheung & Hew, 2015).  

Firstly, When learner is engaged to solve real-world problems, learning will be much more effective. As Limin mentioned it offers the authentic learning to learner to learn in a real life situation, then this will be a learning through solving problems.

Secondly, the prior knowledge is applied as a base for the learning of new knowledge will help the learning. Limin said this is a foundation course and not very useful for the audiences who know it already. In this sense, if the instructional design of the course can consider how to use the learner’s prior knowledge such as their past speech experience, that will be much more attractive.

Thirdly, this course introduces the HAIL principal and some speaking tools in authentic learning, that will fit to the principle of the demonstration of new knowledge to learner.   

Fourthly, if new knowledge can be applied by learner will promote the learning. The authentic leaning may provide the real situation for learner to use this kind of new knowledge.

Finally, if the new knowledge can be integrated into the learner’s everyday life, this learning activity will be promoted. So, it is based on the learners applying it or not to their workplace.

Cheung, W. S., & Hew, K. F. (2015). Applying «First Principles of Instruction» In a Blended Learning Course. Technology in Education. Transforming Educational Practices with Technology.—Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 127-135. 

Group 3

The suggested e-Learning course by Ray catches my eyes when I open their e-Portfolio. I try to take a look at it with five aspects of Gagne nine events method (Gagne, 1965).

It really gain my attention with those interesting images, graphic designs and videos. Then the objectives are very clear to let me know what I am going to obtain after the course, such as the definition of “coding” and “computer science”, the use of coding block, etc,. In presenting the content, this course takes an interesting way with the videos of different role models and celebrities as Ray mentioned. It is quite convince the learners. Based on the Ray’s description, the course provides enough instructions and guidances to learners to complete the course and assess the performance with different levels to let learners get to higher stage of their learning. Supporting with these five aspects of instructional design thinking, it is strong enough to show us the attraction of the course.

Robert Gagne (1965), The Conditions of Learning.

  

Group 1  

I agree with the Arti’s comment about the structure of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Ronald took only 5 steps to analyse the course objectives. I think the whole contents of the part “Evaluate” can be changed to “Create”, because it really is to talk about the learner’s creation of a websites or mini-games. In doing so, the “evaluate” part may judge or appraise the leaner’s design of the website and the game to follow correctly the design steps learned from the course.

Topic 6 Research on and research with technology in education

Group 1

For this questions, I really agree with your first consideration of an engaging topic to gain the learner’s attention. Then no.3, no.4 and no.5 are similar to the ideas of Gagne’s nine events method of informing the objective, providing learning guidance and assessing performance. On the other hand, I think the guidance of helping learner to transfer the knowledge to their everyday life problem-solving will also be the point to engage learner.  

Group 3

In your group, the point “Learning materials are practical and useful - it can be applied to real life” is the interesting point of about the knowledge transfer which is similar to what I have commented in Group 1 post. That I appreciate.

Group 4

Of course, I always prefer to think about the knowledge transfer between the course contents and the real life application as you mentioned here “relate to real life”. But “relate to real life” means only the contents which is related to the real life, but how about how to apply to the real life? On the other hand, you provide the point that “give autonomy to students” which I absolutely agree. 

Topic 7 Mobile and handheld technologies in education

Group 3

You hit the points that I really concern what are the pros and cons while applying mobile application as a teaching tool. The “accessibility”, “how to login in”, “loading time” and “how many people can use it” are the considerations about the feasibility. In the classroom situation, different students have different types of mobile with different operation system, such as Android, iOs, new version, old version and different interfaces. Then I found they really do not know where downloading the app, how installing it, and how using it to conduct the lesson. Tutor may spend time to help fixing the problem.     

Group 1

I am wonder the helloTalk functions like connecting with over 100 native speakers of different languages and converting between text and voice. I found that this kind of exercise to compare different applications is really helpful to find out what are the different learning strategies they apply while designing a mobile application for education. For example, leaners want to learn language with native speaker or AI; learners learn with a real speaker to talk different topics or learn with AI in different designed scenarios. Those questions will be the indicators to analyse or design the application. On the other hand, based on the analysis of those different strategies, we may consider which application is suitable for teaching and  learning in a specific situation.

Group 4

Based on your analysis of advantage and disadvantage of word recitation app, we can conclude some basic components what I think are necessaries. 1. pictures or video to help recitation; 2. example sentences coming from famous public speaking or literature; 3. test; 4. learning from media, such as radio and TV News; 5. learning schedule setting. Then I suggest the app may provide some international competition platforms as a hub to connect different learners in the world. All the learners can join the word game to gain badge and  promote to a higher level. They may share the learning method and experience to beginners. I like this kind of comparison to find out the shortage of the application, then we may modify it in a creative way.

Topic 8 Evaluation of technology integration

Group 5

Firstly, the topic is really interesting to me, then it absolutely can attract my attention. Secondly, the content is presented clearly that I know what to do and what to know during the lesson. The use of technology is attractive and helpful to let me catch the knowledge of the topic, especially the 3D animation of course is very suitable to explain the contents about the universe. I like it very much. The problem is that it doesn’t have enough time to explain the procedure and how to use the device to let me join the lesson, but in the time-limited demonstration, it is understandable. Obviously, it is a good design and a workable teaching plan. 

Group 1

I like this topic very much and I often use my mobile to take photo. The lesson can provide useful information for the beginners, although sometime it is quite hard to follow your explanation. On the other hand, after finishing the explanation of how to use mobile to take photo, you may introduce to us an application as a tool to make photo effect. There are lot of free apps helping to make photo amazing, then learners can practice and edit the photo simultaneously. 

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Group 3

The story and the pictures catch my eye. It is excellent that we can answer the question in different ways, drawing, typing, etc., so it really tests verbal and non-verbal communication in the lesson. But I am not sure children can clearly answer the question or express their thinking with picture, especially use drawing to express some abstract concepts like “what can you learn from the story?”.