Teaching with Technology

Synthesis Exercise:

I had expressed earlier that my interest is to enhance communication and collaboration between individuals from different nations and cultures to support international commerce. I see that global education is a formidable venue to support such endeavors. I view education through networking and collaboration will be an effective tool that will help us bridge cultural and political differences and allow us to better understand each other. Educators will be able to harness more elements of global education when they design their courses with elements that encourage participatory activities among their students as well as among other groups that have interests in the same issues. Interaction among interested individuals cultivates better understanding of the issues and allows more sensitivity to views of others.

Collaboration among participants allows them to develop better meaning of the issues they are working on and provides an opportunity to harness a deeper and clearer meaning of the issues. Effective participatory educational exercises provide and opportunity for the participants to develop new skills or hone existing skills in meaning creation through the “new literacies” that Jenkins outlined such as “Distributive Cognition, Collective Intelligence, and Networking” These skills are the elements that support collaborative learning where those engaged are encouraged to learn with the learning tools that will improve their abilities, to work with others in a peer-to-peer environment where they learn from each other and achieve common goals of learning as well as to have the ability to analyze and share beneficial information with others to enhance their learning experience.

Continued advancements in ICT that are available to students and teachers would support a strong participatory learning environment. Blackboards, webcasts, and video conferencing are some of the many tools that can be used to support collaborative learning among students. Students can work together to integrate their knowledge they acquired from different sources, participate in interactive critical thinking process that allows them to collectively examine accessed information. These efforts enhance the value and results of meaning creation that provides an opportunity for deeper understanding of the materials that are being studied while encouraging the participants to be more sensitive to the different perceptions of others, very important treats of global education.

Participatory collaborative efforts among students should be encouraged and rewarded by teachers. Jenkins had indicated that “affinity spaces” such as facebook or other blogs which address specific topics “allow engagement of participants with different skill levels” which encourages peer-peer teaching. Such mediums provide its participants the opportunity to learn with out the intimidation of f2f environment like the class room. Teachers should encourage free-form brainstorming and participation through a dedicated balckboard, blog or even an open blog dedicated class topics that may simulate affinity spaces.

Webcasts can be useful if they are used to exchange information among different participants in a lecture format that can provide some of the foundational knowledge to direct and frame the participatory exercise. This method is currently being used in the market place to introduce efforts of some organization and to solicit participation of others that have common interests. An example of this is webcast that uses Power Point presentations with voice of the presenter. If you visit the website http://www.us-sabc.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=3649 , (2009), you will hear the voice of “Kayani, Amer a senior commercial officer U.S. describing business opportunities in Saudi Arabia. This web site is sponsored by the U. S. Saudi Arabian Business Council, USSABC-USDOC Webinar on Saudi Business Opportunities. As one of our classmates, Jonathan G. argued that a simple webcast showing a lecturer providing a lecture is actually more distractive and is similar to watching a television program where the viewers will be easily distracted while a Power Point presentation with a voice of the lectures keeps the focus of the participating students and enhance the level of participation.

Collaborative efforts between students and scholars utilizing ICT such as webcasts, blogs and blackboards are good examples of “technology enriched” educational activities. 

Jenckins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., & Robison, A. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: media education for the 21st century. Digital media and learning,

Kayani, A. (2009). Ussabc-usdoc wiebinar on saudi business opportunities. Retrieved from http://www.us-sabc.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=3649
Teaching Assignment:

We need to develop a learner-centered teaching assignment that utilizes the available communication technologies and enhancing the learning outcomes. I am conceptualizing a site that will introduce the learner to specific information and then test their understanding of the topics by answering some questions. This approach will improve the learning outcomes. We can find websites that provide educational information and tests to help users achieve the desired learning outcomes. One website that I have visited is http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ is an example where a learner can navigate the site for topics of interest and can take tests that are associated with the presented topic. Other sites such as http://www.eduplace.com/math/hmm/ are good example of sites that can be used to enhance its user’s knowledge. Although this website is for young children, the same methods can be used with topics that are for higher education topics.

Hanan Alkibsi