Professor Matt Bower

In the latest edition of the ISTE Journal for Computing Teachers there is a useful paper that reviews a range of tools that can be used to learn and teach introductory programming. It reviews Alice, Jeroo,  Scratch, Raptor, Jhave, Game Maker, and Baltie. Worth checking out:

Using Introductory Programming Tools to Teach Programming Concepts: A Literature Review

Educating Learning Technology Designers (Edited by Chris DiGiano, Shelly Goldman, and Michael Chorost), Routledge, New York, 2009

Most chapters in this book were so soft as to be incapable of manifesting any movement in practice. Chapter 11 on Creating Educational Gamelets (By Clayton Lewis and Alexander Repenning, pp. 203-229) outlined ways to support learning and encourage engagement, which would be useful to people like Cathy Howes. Chapter 13 discussed the use of a project gallery reflection system called “Gorp” (http://trails-project.org/webapps/gorp/), however the system is not open source. Chapter 8 provided an interesting commentary on the virtues of “studio” based learning. However Chapter 9 by Chris Quintana (pp. 165-181) was the most interesting chapter by far (in my opinion). Entitled “A learning technology design course, deconstructed”, it outlined the curriculum and resources used for a learning technology design course. Several relevant references included:

• Sharp, Rogers and Preece (2007), Interaction design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction
• Shneiderman and Paisant (2004), Designing the user interface
• Cennamo and Kalk (2005), Real world instructional design
• Norman (1986), Cognitive engineering
• Norman (1988), The design of everyday things
• Soloway, Guzdial, and Hay (1994), Learner-centred design
• Quintana et al (2003), Issues and approaches for developing learner-centred technologies
• Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000), How people learn
• Sawyer (2006), Cambridge handbook on the learning sciences
• Anderson (1996), ACT: A simple theory of complex cognition
• Koedinger and Corbett (2006), Cognitive tutors: Technology bringing learning sciences to the classroom
• Fosnot and Perry (2005), Constructivism: A psychological theory of learning
• Wilson (1996), Introduction: What is a constructivist learning environment?
• Honebein (1006), seven goals for the design of constructivist learning environments
• Oliver (2000), methods for developing constructivist learning on the web
• Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989), Situated cognition and the culture of learning
• Collins, Brown, and Hollum (1991), Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible
• Quintana et al (2004), A scaffolding design framework for software to support science inquiry
• Reiser (2004), Scaffolding complex learning: The mechanisms of structuring and problematizing student work
• Gruen (2003), Storyboarding for design: An overview of the process

The chapter also explains how these are integrated into the curriculum.

A new version of the Information and Communications Technology Training Package (ICA05v3) has been released as part of the continuous improvement process for training packages. As a result the Board of Studies has updated the current Information Technology Curriculum Framework (2006) Stage 6 Syllabus.

The Information Technology Curriculum Framework (2009) Stage 6 Syllabus replaces the Information Technology Curriculum Framework (2006) Stage 6 Syllabus from Year 11, 2010.

A summary of the changes to the updated syllabus are outlined at:

http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/index.cfm/2009/10/7/official-notice-updated-it-curriculum-framework-implementation-2010

Talks about:

• Teachers are excited but students are bored
• Moving from nouns “school” to verbs  “schooling”
• Builds the educational process around a theory of action: System learning surrounds school learning surrounds teacher learning surrounds teacher teaching surrounds student learning
• Refers to Hatties work on “visible learning” which is the synthesises literature on learning over the last two decades.
• Personalisation of the learning process for students
• Schooling first questions: is the child ready, how does the child learn
• w^5 = a^4 – t^2    : Who learns What with Whom When and Where = Anywere, Anytime, Any Place Any Device – TimeTable
• Talks about inviting teachers and students to engage with the school – it is at their discretion whether they become a part of the school (St Marks)
• Mobiles are the studio, youtube is the stage, the internet is the community
• Children search on youtube rather than google because they can find someone to show them
• Teacher as a source of information -> teacher as a source of education:
  physical->virtual
  analytical->creative
  rigid->flexible
  individual->team
  fragmented->integrated
• Collaborative architecture where students can share, contribute, create

Shanti is the Assistant Principal at Sydney Distance Education Primary. She presented an excellent talk on the use of virtual constructionism in teaching and learning. I was also interested in a computer skills test to which she referred – the CLAS assessment. This could be used for some of the in-school research which we are doing. It would be wonderful to get a digital copy of her slides – they contained a great deal of relevant information for teacher education students.