Assignment 1 - Reflection 3 Week 4

This week's blog is on Multimedia in the Classroom. 

Outside school, students are exposed to digital technologies on a grand scale. Most have mobile phones, are connected to social media, use a digital camera or most recently, upload movies and TV series from Netflix.

Rock Concerts by Conscious Consumerism

Image sourced from: Facebook

Students feel comfortable learning from these platforms as it is a part of their everyday lives.  It seems only natural to further develop upon their prior knowledge in these areas to create pedagogical applications of new modes of communication within classroom contexts (Walsh 2009, p. 5).

A report conducted by the Metiri Group, claims that when the average student is engaged in higher-order thinking using multimedia in interactive situations, on average, that student’s percentage ranking on higher-order or transfer skills increases by 32 percentile points over what the student would have accomplished with traditional learning (www.eschoolnews.com).

I have designed this week's blog around the theme of Rock Art at Kakadu National Park. It can be related to a unit of work on Austalian Studies in my key learning area of English, investigating the past, present and future of Australia.

It incorporates the use of images and techniques involved to resize them ensuring that that optimal online usuage through MobaPhoto.  We also visit Flickr and some of it's functionality. Podcasting is also a useful tool in the classroom for using audio files and MovieMaker has been used to draw in elements of both images and sound to create a digital image. Images, audio and the digital video produced for this blog, can also be viewed at :

Images, Audio and Video of Kakadu National Park in Wiki

To make my images of Rock Art at Kakadu easy to download on the internet, I first uploaded my photo's to Mobaphoto.  Mobaphoto is free tool that allows you to organise your digital photo collection.  MobaPhoto allows you to batch, resize and rename your photo's.  It also has some basic editing tools such as red eye reduction and crop.  It can also be run from a USB flash drive (www.wiki.appvisor.org).  Perhaps the most useful tool of MobaPhoto is it's ability to resize images in different formats for web publication.

Image sourced from: www.mobaphoto.en.softtonic.com

I uploaded my 14 pictures after resizing them in Mobaphoto for optimal online usage. My images sizes were typically reduced in size by about a third e.g. the original size of one image filed started out at 150kb and and after Mobaphoto was down to 55kb in size.

After resizing my images in MobaPhoto, I could then store and organise them in Flickr.  Flickr is a free image hosting and video hosting website that allows users to share and embed personal photographs.  It is widely used to host images that researchers and bloggers embed in blogs and other social media (www.wikipedia.org). 

I have outlined some PMI's in the diagram below relating to Flickr.

PLUS	MINUS	INTERESTING
Storage limit of 200MB for Photo's and 1GB for video. Access to edit photo's in Aviary. Interactive 'photopage' that contains photo data, comments and facilities for embedding images on external websites. Excellent range of images available to share. Creating batches allows you to collectively add tags to the photo's in the album, instead of individually. Geotagging functionality.	Can be slow to load when searching for generalised topics eg Kakadu National Park. Accessibilty outside of school may not available to all students. Issues with definition when embedding, as opposed to attaching a photo. For a fee, you can also access extra's like creating wall art, photobooks and extra storage.	Users can give images titles, descriptions and tags. If licensing permits other users can also tag photo's, making images interactive Integrating technology to allow facilitating a real experience. Creative Commons allows free access to licensing your images. Ability to easily share photo's via mail and social media, with code embedding functions.

In Flickr, I created an album called Kakadu Indigenous Art.  To assist in Flickr functionality, I then created a batch to collectively add tags to the photo's in the album, instead of individually.  Tags were added as single words but I was able to use "quotation marks" when I wanted to keep words together eg "Kakadu National Park" instead of 3 separate tags of Kakadu, National, Park. I then Geotagged the photo's at the two different locations in Kadadu that the photo's were taken - Ubirr and Nourlangie. I also added an 'All rights reserved' to my photostream.

The link below will take you to the images that I have uploaded onto Flickr.

Rock Art Kakadu on Flickr

Another feature of Flickr is the Creative Commons. This is a free tool that allows users to select a level of copyright that they wish to adopt for their images. Researchers or bloggers can open an image and view the level of restrictions relating to how they can use the files.  You can click on the licensing icon and you are navigated to another page that clearly outlines the use and intent of the image. Users can also perform an 'Advanced Search' pertaining to the level of licensing you require.  

The information below has been taken from the Creative Commons website and it outlines the licensing terms of use.  

This image below was sourced in Flickr and was also taken at Kakadu National Park. The licensing of this image stated that users are free to share and adapt this image as long as there was an attribution and that you must distribute your contributions under the same license if you remixed, transformed or built upon the original.

Ubirr, Kakadu NP by Michael Whitehead

Image source: Flickr

Find this image in Flickr

As I did not make any amendments to the image and it was not used commerically, I must only ensure my attribution is intact. The use of this image includes:

• credit the creator
• a title of their work;
• the URL where the work is hosted;
• Indicated the type of licence it is available under and provided a link to the licence (so that other's can find out the licence terms) and;
• Kept intact any copyright notice associated with the work

 (www.creativecommons.org.au)

A podcast is audio file that is placed in a publically accessible website and that can be downloaded (Howell 2012, p. 153).  Podcasts are a great tool for information, primarily because you can access them on the move.  I like to listen to podcasts whilst out walking the dog or in the car.  A friend of mine listens to podcasts whilst working on the tractor.  If I ever made it to the gym, I believe they'd be trending there too.  The beauty of podcasts is that you can listen to them anywhere, at any time.

Podcasting in the classroom is a valuable tool that a multiple of tasks can be assigned to e.g. Interviews, reviews, presentations and as an alternative to reading print-based texts. Podcasting improves digital fluency and the end product can be engaging and motivating for students.

Podcast by derrickwa

Sourced from Flickr

In the theme of Rock Art, I have embedded an ABC Interview with Professor Brad Pillans from the ANU, on the topic of protecting the Rock Art at the Barrup Peninsula in the Pilbara, WA.  Pillan and his team claim that the Rock Art is not only the largest and diverse but perhaps the oldest.  He discusses the rates of erosion and the progression of styles of the art over time.  He hopes findings will allow the area to be listed as World Heritage.

Pilbara rock art the grandaddy of them all - ABC North West WA - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Continuing in the theme of Rock Art at Kakadu, I have created a brief podcast.  It was created by using the Sound Recorder function on my computer and audioBoom, which is a free download.  You can listen here Kakadu Rock Art.

listen to ‘Kakadu Rock Art’ on audioBoom

Assigning tasks that incorporate video production in the classroom can provide many desirable outcomes.  Some of these include the development of skills in the areas of affective, metacognitive, higher ordered thinking, communication and presentation, literacy, organisational, teamwork and movie making (www.moodle.cqu.edu.au)

To create my own digital video, I synchronised my Flickr images with my sound file on audioBoom on Rock Art in Kakadu.  This was processed via MovieMaker and it was relatively issue free.

There are many avenues from this unit that scaffolding learning could place and lead to an evaluation piece.  Below is a learner-based example of how this theme, Rock Art in Kakadu can be used in the classroom using Multimedia.  The example below links the SAMR model with a unit of work to include different platforms of multimedia.  It clearly demonstrates the inquiry cycle and is learner-centred.

Multimedia in the classroom not only enhances how students learn in the classroom but can also transform education and desired outcomes.  Simple traditional classroom tasks of reading and writing still occur but with the intergration of multimedia, can take on the form of listening, viewing, responding, talking, designing and producing in an online environment. The use of images, audio and digital video optimises the learning design as it appeals to student's schema's.

There are many benefits for using multimedia in the classroom including engagement, accessibility and flexibility.  Student's are exposed to and use technology outside of the school and are comfortable do so.  It only makes sense to integrate and improve technology in the classroom to allow for authentic experiences and interactions to be used in the real world.  Improving technology in the classroom allows for real life teaching and learning experiences.

I have embedded a small vodcast to include in my blog by Sir Ken Robinson on Talks on Teaching.  He recognises the importance of technology in the classroom and the opportunities technologies present to engage students. Robinson (2010) also mentions that technology offers "highly customised forms of teaching and learning".

Vodcast sourced from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUatQQYha3w

REFERENCES

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2013). Pilbara Rock Art the Grandaddy of them all.  Retrieved on 31st March, 2015 from http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/04/18/3739790.htm

Creative Commons (2015).  Attribution-ShareAlike. Retrieved on 30th March, 2015 from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Creative Commons (2015).  How can I share CC content? Retrieved on 31st March, 2015 from http://creativecommons.org.au/content/attributingccmaterials.pdf

Digital Video in Education from CQUniversity e-courses EDED20491 - ICT's for Learning Design.  Retrieved on 31st March, 2015 from https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=15642

E-School News - Daily Tech News and Innovation (2008).  How Multimedia can improve learning. Retrieved on 29th March, 2015 from http://www.eschoolnews.com/2008/03/26/analysis-how-multimedia-can-improve-learning/

Facebook (2015) Rock Concert Image.  Retrieved on 31st March, 2015 from https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousConsumerism?fref=photo

Howell, J. (2012). Teaching with ICT: Digital Pedagogies for Collaboration and Creativity (1st edition), South Melbourne Vic: Oxford University Press.

Walsh, M (2009). Pedagogical Potentials of Multimodal Literacy. Retrieved on 29th March, 2015 at http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/195676/Chapter_3_Multimodal_Literacy_M_Walsh.pdf

Whitehead, M. (2010). Ubirr, Kakadu NP - Image.  Retrieved via Flickr.com on 31st March, 2015 from https://www.flickr.com/photos/mwhitehead/4380732013/in/photolist-7F7p1i-a3tNdF-8hz5xo-8hvP88-8hvNyr-8hyXXL-8hvGp2-8hvERe-8vXsn1-8hz5qd-8hvMQg-8hz3KW-8hz3q9-8hvM3x-8hz36Q-8hyYyw-8vUu5R-8vUeiH-2cBUzA-8vXA2C-8hvMXB-8vXsyq-8vXppo-8vUjzr-2cBVbG-8vXdu7-8vXhvG-8vUmHF-2cxhWi-2cBMYd-2cBQch-2cxjyT-2cxhLM-2cBMNy-2cxhfz-2cxgYR-2cxgQe-2cBLYf-2cxgsc-iqY2nF-8vXkQh-8vXeG1-5GsBgW-oHUQ5t-6VYady-8vUsWR-6VUaPt-8vXqRf-ayVF35-8vXFGu

Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia (2015). Flickr. Retrieved on 30th March, 2015 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr

Wiki AppVisor (2015).  Mobaphoto. Retrieved on 1st April, 2015 from Mobaphoto http://wiki.appvisor.org/MobaPhoto\