learning with technology

A trying to post from other site into my blog. Simply go to the milestone paper about Web2.0, there is a lot of web2.0 buttons. Just click share to my blogger, the whole paper link is posted to my blog. Technology is changing our saving habbit. What Is Web 2.0 - O'Reilly Media Posted using ShareThis

Back to my notebook and continue my sharing. Actually it is not purely about iTouch, it is about iTunes. Last month I met a friend using iPhone, but seldom use iTunes. He is losing a great fruitfull learning resources for connecting to huge resources of learning materials. From iTunes, you can access US site and then iTunes U. In the iTunes U, you will find that a lot of World top Unveristies has created a lot of free audio or video learning materials there, including Oxford, MIT, Open U etc. If you subscripe those audo or video learning materials, those newly produced episodes will automaticaly download to your computer. You do not need to go to that sites, the materials go to your computer instead. Out of your expectation, RTHK has uploaded a lot of programmes in iTunes U of US site, you can then subscribe RTHK with your iTunes. The most amazing part is that the iTunes software is free for download. You do not need to buy any i-pod/iTouch/iPhone, you can use iTunes in your PC. Of cou...

I am the one who has contributed to the first millionth English word. Reviewing my blog, I have 3 tagging of "web2.0". In my del.icio.us, I have 20 tagging of using "web2.0". I never think of making a record by individual contribution. However, this is what the mindset of "web2.0" about, everyone can contribute, share and at the end, knowledge is constructed. Now web2.0 is collaboratively constructed as the millionth English word. Great.

Online discussion has been implemented in higher education sectors for many years but how students can learn with on-line discussion is still under debate. A phenomenographic research conducted by Goodyear and Zenior has provided some insight for further discussion. However, I like their contribution in integrating Popper three world perspectives with Bereiter’s knowledge building and conceptual learning into the explanation of learning through online discussion. According to Bereiter (2002), Popper (1972) has defined three world of knowledge: World I: the objective physical world World II: the subjective inner world of mental states, feelings and beliefs World III: world of ideas Bereiter further elaborated that student learning at school mostly is under world II. Both WI and WII assumed that mind is like a container where knowledge is something that can be moved from teacher’s mind to student’s mind under the industrial age society. The world I objective physical knowledge has been t...

What is invisible learning? Academic Commons ( http://academiccommons.org/ ) provide a valuable resources about invisible learning and visible learning. In their project "A collaborative case study on technology and learning, from the Visible knowledge project", a lot of research reports are given showing the importance of inquiry, new ICT platform and evidence of leanring. In traditional classroom, teachers design a teaching objective, with appropriate teaching strategies then students demonstrate their learning in assessment. We only know that students' learning through assessment, the learning process is invisible. Academic Commons claim that the new ICT platfrom provide an important platform turns the invisible learning into visible knowledge which demonstrates the evidence of learning. With inquiry on current issue, we are shifting students to learn with multidisplincies and all the learned knowledge can be recorded and stored in the latest technological platform. A ...

How to learn with multimodes? It is quite difficult to explain. However, shifting to the digital world with the powerful and convenient of Internet, a lot of learning opportunities are created. Just look at this link. http://tts.imtranslator.net/3lKN This is really learning with multomodality. You can learn with ICT technology, learn native English access, learn with visual and audio and even write your own essay and read by native speaker. What a wonderful world.

It is under hot discussion whether there is new way of learning. At the beginning of March, CITE of HKU organized a 3-day Research Symposium: Learning Communities and Technology. On the second day eight presenters gave various speech about using Web2.0 for teaching and learning activities. The Q&A time raised a hot debate on whether there is a new way of learning. Of course, all Web2.0 is about user generated knowledge rather than knowledge transmission. It will of course trigger a lot of disucssion as most of the teachers in HK get used to tradition instructional approach, using web2.0 for knowledge construction is out of their comfort zone. Yesterday, Prof Nicola Yelland gave a speech in my Institute on topic about "Critical issues for learning in the 21st Century: Multiliteracies, new technologies and knowledge building". Nicola also touched on the issue about new way of learning. Our education system is mainly developed for industrial age, should we consider to chan...

HKU has developed a new platform called RISAL which combined learning objects, social bookmarking and social networking functions. An integrated platform that can share bookmarking, audio, video and files to each other while at the same time, it can perform similar function as Facebook. http://risal.cite.hku.hk/?view=recent The posting in this platform can have an embedded link back to blog, here is my posting in embedded blog link.

Jewitt (2008) has made it very clear that multimodality has redefined the concept of literacies and learning. In traditional classrooms, literacy refers to learning with written mode. Students learn from verbal teaching, text books and express themselves in verbal presentation and written examination. Language is the major mode for teaching and learning. Student learning is conducted by verbal communication and written examination. Literacy is defined as the competency to express oneself knowledge in language (Jewitt, 2008). Shifting to the ICT world, the context has been changed. Students are not limited to express themselves in traditional language mode (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Yue & Yuen, 2005). Nowadays students are called digital natives (Prensky, 2001) as they are actively participating in producing visual and media artefacts out of their school lives (Burn & Durran, 2007; Jenkins, 2006; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). Kress & van Leeuwen (2001) named the new w...

Roland, a ed tech scholar from Canada, visited our Institute in this week and we had a short sharing with him. He is a fully student-centered scholar and very keen on talking about the nature of knowledge. He adapted a full framework from Carl Bereiter as there are three knowledge of world. World one is the physical world and we can learn from experience. World two is the conceptual world that we learned from schools and books. World three is the artifacts that we built from interaction with W1 and W2. Under this framework, our teaching and learning should be shifted from teacher-centerd focusing on W1 and W2 to student-centered on W3 faciliating students to create their own knowledge by constructing artifacts. How can the teachers in HK can adapt such framwork? Roladn said he faces the same problem in Canada as in HK, but it is his belief.