Maori Learners

Maori Learners
collaboration

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

Can social relationships and digital technology induce intended and unintended consequences that could affect student learning?

In order to develop a rich and meaningful learning experience, communication between peer and facilitator is very important. Through communication we develop a social relationship. “Technological revolutions and the expanding use of computers are rapidly changing the nature and scope of pedagogy in all fields of knowledge” (Sotillo, 2000, p. 1).  

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) generates high levels of interactivity where learners construct knowledge, skills and abilities, collaboratively. There is always an ongoing participation at any time of day. (independent of time and location).

However, one must be aware of the types of communication that takes place and the consequences that could affect student learning. There is an unequal level of participation because of the diversity of students and their ability to express themselves. It may be that English is their second language and therefore cannot express themselves eloquently. Some may even have a poor command of sentence construction because of a lack of reading. Also many are not coherent enough to understand the instruction.

If a student is an introvert, difficulties could arise where there is a need to “know how to use technical tools and how to obtain technical assistance” (White, 2004, p. 103).  Here digital technology induces unintended consequences that could affect student learning.

By understanding the function of the online community, the social interaction could be dampened if through the collaborative process, the students’ form of communication reflects bad intentions, values and insights. This too could be a form of social relationship that could induce unintended consequences that could affect student learning.

Students should be able demonstrate Key Competencies such as managing self, active participation and values to become digitally capable and this could help to create a social relationship among peers and facilitator and a strong cyber community.
Reference
Sotillo, S. (2000). Discourse functions and syntactic complexity in synchronous and asynchronous communication. Language Learning and Technology.4 (1), 82-119. Retrieved March 16, 2012 from http://llt.msu.edu/vol4num1/sotillo/default.html
White, K. & Baker, J. (2004). The student guide to successful online learning: a handbook of tips, strategies and techniques. USA, Pearson Education Inc. ISBN 0-205-34104-7

Saturday, 21 April 2012

Prior knowledge gives rise to new learning experiences.

Interesting information that I found was from an article: Improving English Language and Computer Literacy Skills in an Adult Refugee Program. by Henriette Janse Van Rensburg.

She speaks about ways of improving English language and computer literacy skills of adult refugees in Australia. The main teaching strategies used for this group were repetition, content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and computer-assisted language learning (CALL).

They used the computer as an educational tool and Web-based language learning (WBLL) activities. These adults had minimal schooling and arrived with little or no literacy in either a first or second language and had no exposure to computers.

They were excited about using the computer yet had no idea how to use the computer.

These adult first did a pre-test about labeling the parts of the computer and then went to the introduction of computers by means of learning new terminology about computers, how to turn on the computer and the function of the keys on the keyboard.

Initially they found it difficult to type the given Web addresses, but after mastering that, they found looking at pictures very fascinating and could then associate it to the prior knowledge. They even mastered puzzle building using the web. Van Rensburg (2010) states “It should be important to keep purposes, content and target population in mind when selecting a suitable and appropriate CALL activity”.

They were asked to list topics or keywords of things they were interested in and the pictures they found on the web reflected the images that were uppermost in their minds. Because they carried cultural baggage from the trauma that they experienced in the past, they always returned to the images that captured malnourishment of children and adults.

A post test was done after a number of weeks and Van Rensburg argued that “the exposure to and immersion in the language program have improved the participants' English language proficiency” and the computer, as an educational tool, was successfully used. Adult learners were actively engaged in the online activities and they could relate to the purpose of learning. Van Rensburg could see an improvement of literacy and computer skills over the short period of time and states that “future opportunities have been created and confidence and dignity have been restored”.

REFERENCE:
Van Rensburg, H.Janse. (2010). Improving English Language and Computer Literacy Skills in an Adult Refugee Program. International journal of pedagogies and learning. 6(1),  69-81.

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

The Reflective blog as a learning tool.

The question a colleague posted is:
I am wondering if anyone has found any research conducted in N.Z. with Foundation learners (Adult LLN learners in LLN courses or Level 1-3 courses) showing use of Web 2.0 tools and benefit for learners. Benefit being positive engagement with the course, increased LLN levels and/or positive spin offs with social and/or work goals. What was the Web 2.0 tool and how was it used?

Some adult LLN foundation courses have been using Web2.0 in their programmes.
The most common and familiar Web 2.0 application are blogs (Wolf, 2010). The definition of a blog, according to the Oxford English dictionary is: ‘a frequently updated website consisting of personal observations, …and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary” (Oxford University Press, 2008).
During my investigations, I have found that adult LLN learners have been using blogs as a reflective journal by documenting and evaluating their past week’s activities such as research projects based on market research of iphones. These students had to search the web for information and then recall what they had discovered by documenting their finding on the blog. Their peers could look at their work and pass comments. This is a form of a collaborative learning style which is a philosophy that I have adopted because this active, collaborative learning is part of my pedagogical values of constructive learning and that through the use of technology, new possibilities can be offered to students.

Initially some students found difficulty in understanding the Web 2.0 technology, the brief as well as expressing themselves while reflecting on what they had done. But with peer support, answering questions, giving ideas, feedback from questions and concerns that they have with their own research, it gave the individual adult learner more confidence and self-efficacy. These students were also building content for the course itself. Hamilton (2006) states that online learning tools are "basic, communication tools that has gradually been happening over the last 20 years, is part of a bigger paradigm shift in our understanding of learning as part of situated social practice" (p. 1).
Bandura's Self – Efficacy
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For the lecturer, it brought about consistency and quality of teaching when adding all names of those adult learners in the various classes because the lecturer was able to see all blogs, reflections and content. 
Reference

Hamilton, M., Hillier, Y., & Tett, L. (2006). Introduction: social practice of adult literacy, numeracy and language. Adult literacy, numeracy and language : policy, practice and research , ch. Maidenhead : Open University Press.
Oxford University Press. (2008). Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Author.

Wolf, K. (2010). Bridging the distance: the use of blogs as reflective learning tools for placement students. Higher Education Research & development. 29(5), 589-602. England: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.502292

Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Web 2.0 and the benefit for adult learners.

The question a colleague posted is:
I am wondering if anyone has found any research conducted in N.Z. with Foundation learners (Adult LLN learners in LLN courses or Level 1-3 courses) showing use of Web 2.0 tools and benefit for learners. Benefit being positive engagement with the course, increased LLN levels and/or positive spin offs with social and/or work goals. What was the Web 2.0 tool and how was it used?

Web 2.0 is described as the “basic communication tools that has gradually been happening over the last 20 years, is part of a bigger paradigm shift in our understanding of learning as part of situated social practice” (Hamilton, 2006, p.1).

Chan and Ford (2007) report on trials at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology that set up a support system for workplace-based learning that integrated m-learning portfolios with Web 2.0 applications aligned with Moodle and utilised learners' mobile phones to send and receive assignment information. “Young people have embraced mobile phone ownership and the mobile phone is seen as an essential accessory to maintaining an active social life” and by using “mobile phones and the Web 2.0 applications available online provides workplace based learners with the opportunity to connect, create, collaborate and network”.  (Chan & Ford, 2007, p. 56).  Active, collaborative learning is part of my philosophy and pedagogical values of constructive learning.


During my research, a few practitioners have mentioned that has been an increase in online resources. The Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool is an online adaptive tool that provides information such as assessments linked to the learning progressions and which practitioners have used and are using in their practice. There are key skills that students need to demonstrate and while “LLN was being embedded into vocational programmes, measuring LLN success could not be separated from social and personal outcomes”. ( New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 2010,  p. 2). There are also TEC pressures to gain unit standards and “learners should be allowed to focus on some ‘soft outcome’ self management skills for the first three months without being accountable for unit standard outcomes”.( New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 2010, p. 58.)

References:

Chan, S., & Ford, N. (2007). M learning and the workplace learner: Integrating Mlearning Eportfolios With Moodle. Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT).Christchurch, New Zealand Retrieved March 23, 2012. from: http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Molta/Chan.pdf


Hamilton, M., Hillier, Y., & Tett, L. (2006). Introduction: social practice of adult literacy, numeracy and language. Adult literacy, numeracy and language:  policy, practice and research , ch. Maidenhead : Open University Press.


New Zealand Council for Educational Research (2010). Engaging young people/young adults in literacy, language and numeracy skills development. Retrieved from http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/research/youth-literacy-report/youth-literacy-report.pdf

Monday, 9 April 2012

The future of education


I subscribe to the Tom Daly academy and he sent me an email the other day stating:
 “I wanted to share something with you that I found quite inspiring . . .

It was a "60 Minutes" piece on the Khan Academy” and I wish to share this inspiration clip with you.
It is about student engagement and how we can revolutionise the classroom.
Khan has a website … see link below.

This note below has been copied from the website.
A free world-class education for anyone anywhere.
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.
All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.


If you watch the YouTube clip Khan Academy: The future of education.


you’ll discover how collaboration and student engagement takes place. The teacher is the facilitator.
The learner masters concepts before they move on, they become excited about their learning and this method takes the passivity out of the classroom. The teacher is able to track the progress of the learner. Because the teacher is the facilitator, the teacher is able to use his/her time more effectively and is able to address the needs of the learner.

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Dialogic Spaces

It is interesting to note that dialogue as a learning space is where we develop intellectual ideas. We are always speaking about collaborative learning where we share information yet dialogic critique is overlooked by academics. Is it because of a lack of time?

Dialogue occurs in various forms. Written or oral communication is a form of dialogue. Even blogs are written communications that the reader understands and this is regarded as a dialogic space. A space for intellectual debate, reactions and critique.


I watched a You Tube clip:  Section 9: What are the tools and techniques used to create a reflective, dialogic space?
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The query is that online dialogic spaces does not allow for
  • seeing emotions while chatting.
  • continuous way of speaking because you have to wait for the typing and turn taking on live chats
  • the true expessions and the way one really conducts oneself
By reading a book by:

Savin-Baden, M. (2008). Learning spaces: Creating opportunities for knowledge creation in academic life. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill.

one is able to get a broader picture of Dialogic Spaces and and an understanding of how to conduct ourselves when participating with dialogue and that "new dialogic spaces are emerging through online discussions" seen in wikis and blogs.



Friday, 23 March 2012

How has the learning styles of Maori learners and their Tangata (people) allowed them to gain access to e-learning?


“Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants”.(Prensky, 2001, p.1). Pressures from TV purchasing new technology and pressure from Māori social groups, produces the urge to learn and be informed in e-learning.
Technology and its appeal to adults, offers the potential of Māori gaining access to e-learning. Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their Māori students. This mind-shift that is required should not lack imagination, world approaches, meaning-making relevant to the learners own experiences, success in what the learners are doing, and socialization. By doing this, it could create dynamic learning environments for Māori, the educational practices and approaches to instruction.
A change in methodology is by understanding the two types of content. “Legacy” content includes reading, writing, arithmetic, logical thinking, understanding the writings and ideas of the past, “Future” content is to a large extent, not surprisingly, digital and technological. (Presnky, 2001, p.4). It not only includes software and hardware,  it also includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them that relates to Māori.

Constructivism is a philosophical perspective where individuals arrange their own knowledge so that the individual becomes an active participant and organises experiences with prior knowledge and does not learn facts in isolation and I this ties in with my philosophy where collaborative learning is part of my pedagogical values of constructive learning.
Engaging with new technologies provide adult Māori learners with knowledge and skills but these “genres of technologies such as Social Networking, Digital Gaming, and Simulations are more than just entertainment”. (Klopfer, Osterweil,Groff, & Haas,2009, p.1).

There are different learning styles that learners use to engage in learning, for example, kinesthetic, reading and writing, aural and visual. The Māori people are the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the marae is important in their way of life. Their culture is rich and varied with a fascinating mix of traditional and contemporary arts. Traditions such as carving, weaving, kapa haka (group performance), whaikorero (oratory) and moko (tattoo) are practised throughout Aotearoa, New Zealand. The older generation pass on the history and traditions to their children and the children to help the adults to learn and integrate tradition with new technology.

By using artefacts it evokes the adult learners’ learning styles. It gives adult learners opportunities to apply what they experience in their daily lives to their learning that ispurposeful, goal-oriented, rule-based activity that the players perceive as fun” (Klopfer, 2008, p.4). The artefacts include: weaving exemplars, photographs of mokos taken with a digital camera, newspaper cuttings, mobile phones showing kappa haka taken at Pasifika festivals, iPods, post cards, emails, social networking sites, the use of calculators and story-telling (whaikorero).

The adult Māori learners can then exchange information with the peer students and show each other how to go about accessing data and information via computers and other forms of online material by using the artefacts as starting blocks. This is a form of collaborative efforts by adult Māori learners forming social constructs and ways of communicating using technology. It builds up their computer confidence and competence and allows Māori adults to gain access to e-learning. Google has also presented the interface in Māori language and by integrating tikanga and te reo  Māori,  it makes e-learning more accessible and understandable. There is also a Māori language pack for Moodle which is a system for teaching online and that assists teachers in their presentation of lessons to Māori adult learners.

You Tube Maori Ako
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REFERENCES:


Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., Groff, J., and Haas, J.  (2009). The instructional power of digital games, social
           networking and simulations and how teachers can leverage them. The Education Arcade.
           Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 Klopfer, E. (2008). Augmented learning: Research and design of mobile educational games. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
.

New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER). (2004). Critical success factors and effective pedagogy for e-learning in Tertiary education. Ako. Aotearoa updated Feb, 7, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2012 from: http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/node/344

New Zealand Culture – Maori . Retrieved on March 20, 2012 from
             http://www.newzealand.com/int/article/new-zealand-culture-maori/

Pihama, L., Smith,  K., Taki,  M.,  Lee, J.  (2004). A literature review on kaupapa maori and maori education pedagogy. The International Research Institute for Maori and Indigenous Education.


Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9, 5. MCB University Press, October 2001.Retrieved March 18, 2012 from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf