Title: Engaged Learning: Using concrete simulations to teach about an online world

Presenters:

Michael O'Brien
The University of Melbourne

Intended Audience and degree of expertise required:

IT and Teacher Education academics; no IT expertise required.

Objectives:

This workshop takes as its focus the Innovation Theme, looking at Creative Solutions to Overcoming Limitations in teaching about Emerging Technologies.

When IT resources are scarce or in high demand, whole class or large group activities using learning technologies can be logistically challenging. A response to this challenge is to devise creative 'low tech' teaching strategies that can still powerfully explore terminology and issues encountered in the online world.

In this workshop, participants will be introduced to activities that have been used successfully with teacher education students in the University of Melbourne';s B.Ed Primary course's "Computers and the Primary Classroom" subject.

These activities have been used with Primary School students, and as part of inservice activities for practicing Primary School teachers.

Format:

This workshop uses concrete simulations to teach about an online world.

The workshop will be supported by a PowerPoint presentation featuring images and video of the activities the participants will take part in.

Identifying the Problem

Whole class or large group activities using learning technologies present logistical challenges when IT resources are:

• scarce
• or in high demand

Responding to the Problem

• Educators can devise creative 'low tech' activities that can still powerfully explore terminology and issues encountered in the online world.

Passive vs. Engaged Learning

• Discuss the differences between engaged and passive learning (Project Pegasus,1999).
• If computer resources are limited - or even non-existent - the challenge is to find or develop materials for students that will engage them and enable them to gain an understanding of and confidence about online technology.

Introduce Activities

• Used with teacher education students in the University of Melbourne's B.Ed Primary course's "Computers and the Primary Classroom" subject.
• Also been used with Primary School students, and as part of inservice activities for practicing Primary School teachers.
• They are effective because they start with existing reference points the students understand.
• Abstract concepts such as hosts, packets, glitches, security, anonymity, confidentiality, acceptable use, 'spam', the perils of 'chatrooms' and even cyclical redundancy checking become clear when students use concrete objects such as balls, pens and
• paper, and each other to explore the issues.
• By engaging in the learning process, the students are able to gain an understanding of issues relating to being online and how the Internet works, in ways passively listening to a lecturer standing at the front of the room - or even watching a slick multimedia presentation - cannot.

PaperNet Activity

• Activity co-developed by the senior author (O'Brien & Nicola 1998) is a 'pen and paper' exercise that introduces issues raised by online chat and email.
• If an organisation is developing an Acceptable Use Policy, active engagement in this exercise could help the participants involved understand the implications of such a document.
• Workshop participants will take part in PaperNet Activity (approx. 30-40 minutes)

PaperNet Discussion

Following the activities, complex issues can be discussed and explored further. During a debriefing discussion questions that might arise include:

Should we give our personal details out over the Internet?

Comments by student participants

Discuss comments by Year 4, 5 and 6 students (aged 10-12 years) who played the PaperNet game.

At the time - as the school was embarking on an ambitious project where it would eventually serve as a model for 'best practice' in new technologies (EkinSmyth, 1998) - none had ever used email or chat before.

Other Activities

• Introduce Stephen Gard's The Internet: a resource for Australian Schools (Gard 1998) as a useful resource.

Internet Ball (Gard 1998)

• Activity demonstrates the original purpose of the Internet: to create a highly reliable system for data communication. If one host in the system is knocked out, there is always another to turn to and the message gets through.
• Workshop participants will take part in Internet Ball Activity (approx. 15-20 minutes)

Packet Panic (Gard 1998)

• Game that demonstrates how messages are passed over the Internet in 'packets', with 'error-checking' to ensure that the whole message has been passed, and that its parts are reassembled in the correct order at the receiving end.
• The activity vividly demonstrates that modern data transmission techniques ensure almost error-free message handling (cyclical redundancy checking).

Note similarities to the childhood game where a child is given a message and it is whispered to the next child and so on until the last child tells the group the message they received, which after passing through a succession of players invariably ends up different to the original.

Workshop participants will take part in Packet Panic Activity (approx. 15-20 minutes)

Identify where differences lie.

Further Discussion of Activities

Students must learn to use technology well in context.

By immersion in engaged learning activities such as these activities and others like it, students create a scaffold of understanding by operating within paradigms they are comfortable with. Abstract concepts can be explored, discussed, and dissected.

Technology novices can gain confidence and awareness of what awaits them in the online world, even before they have access to a computer or the Internet.

Workshop Presenter's qualifications:

Michael O'Brien
Dip.Teach, B.Ed (Prim), M.Ed Studies

• PhD candidate, Department of Science and Mathematics Education, University of Melbourne
• Tutor/workshop leader for B.Ed Primary, B.Teach and Dip.Ed IT Education courses
• Course co-designer "IT in Primary Schools", 4^th year B.Ed subject.
• IT Education consultant for Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates
• Screen Literacy consultant for Cinemedia, Victoria
• 1996-1997 Garth Boomer Scholarship fellow, Australian Childrens Television Foundation
• Former primary school teacher (8 years)

References

EkinSmyth, C. (1998) Rethinking Learning and Teaching: The Navigator Schools' Experience (Melbourne: Education Victoria)

Gard, S. (1998) The Internet: a resource for Australian Schools (Sydney: MacMillan)

O'Brien, M. & Nicola, P. (1997) PaperNet. Metro Education: Approaches to Teaching Media & Communication, Journal of the Australian Teachers of Media, 13. [Also available online at <http://www.bayswaterps.vic.edu.au/teachers/obrien.htm> accessed 16^th March 2001]

Project Pegasus(1998) Quality Learning with Technology, Project Pegasus, Edmonton Public Schools (Alberta Canada), <http://www.epsb.edmonton.ab.ca/pd/pegasus/seminars/quality.htm> accessed 16^th March 2001