The Emerging Use of E-Learning Environments in K-12 Education

Virtual learning environments (VLEs) and managed learning environments (MLEs) are emerging as popular and useful tools in a variety of educational contexts. Since the late 1990s a number of ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions have been produced. These have generally been targeted at the tertiary education sector. In the early years of the new millennium, we have seen increased interest in VLEs/MLEs in the primary and secondary education sectors. In this chapter, a brief overview of e-learning in the secondary and tertiary education sectors over the period from 1994 to 2004 is provided, leading to the more recent emergence of VLEs and MLEs. Three models of e-learning are explored. Examples of solutions from around the world are considered in light of these definitions. Through the case of one school’s journey towards an e-learning strategy, we look at the decisions and dilemmas facing schools and school authorities in developing their own VLE/MLE solutions.

Knowledge Management, Communities of Practice, and the Role of Technology

This chapter reviews the current work in knowledge management (KM) and attempts to draw lessons from research work in situated cognition about the nature of knowledge which can be useful to the field of KM. The role of technologies and the issues of literacy in technology are discussed in the context of communities of practice (CoPs) and the KM framework with some examples described for K-12 settings. Implications are drawn in terms of how teachers and students can be a community of learners-practitioners through technologies which support their work and learning processes.

Demystifying Constructivism

This chapter introduces constructivism as a pedagogical construct from which educational professionals might begin to analyse new technology exploiting learning-teaching interactions. Following a brief history of constructivism as both epistemology and pedagogy it presents an overview of published literature through an analysis of the characteristics of constructivist learning and learning environments and the characteristics of constructivist teachers. Finally, seven principles by which teachers might begin to analyse practice are proposed and discussed via the deconstruction of three fictional, new technology exploiting, learning-teaching vignettes. In this way it is hoped that educators in a variety of contexts will be able to engage in reflection concerning the theory and practice of constructivist pedagogy as related to personally held professional positions.

Literacy in K-12 Teacher Education

Midway through the first decade of the new millennium, teachers are still facing considerable challenges in dealing with the complex forms of literacy that are increasingly required for success across the K-12 curriculum in Australia. Three critical areas in particular need to be addressed in teacher education in this regard: teachers’ knowledge about text structures and about how language functions as a resource in the construction of a range of spoken, written, and multi-modal genres; teachers’ understanding of language and text as critical socio-cultural practices and how these practices build disciplinary knowledge across the K-12 curriculum; and teachers’ capacity to choose models of pedagogy that allow learners to master new literacy practices, transform meanings across contexts, and reflect substantively on learning through language. In this chapter, I will outline how a video-based interactive CD-ROM entitled BUILT (Building Understandings in Literacy and Teaching) was developed for use in teacher education to address these concerns. I will conclude by signalling some of the challenges that remain for teacher educators training novice teachers to scaffold, through ICT, their K-12 students into an important range of literacies.

Teachers and Technology

This chapter focuses on the pedagogy necessary in critically considering technology development for K-12 teachers and their students’. Three key questions frame this analysis: First, what literacies are necessary in the learning and use of technology? Second, what methods or processes are most effective in developing and implementing such technological literacy? Third, how do teachers best develop skills in using computers which ultimately ensure the development of skills and knowledge for students in classrooms? The chapter will illustrate, through the author’s work in professional development settings, pedagogical techniques and strategies that have been implemented successfully in building capacity among new and experienced teachers in using technology for lesson planning, teaching enhancement, and portfolio development. Finally, Pailliotet and Mosenthal’s (2000) four “I’s” of media literacy—identity, intermediality, issues, and innovations—are utilized to analyze the case studies and provide a framework for implementing student-centered processes for technology use and literacy development.

Using Technology to Create Children's Books for Students by Students

This chapter describes a children’s book project in which high school students used technology to create e-books for younger students. The benefits of the project for both younger and older students are discussed. Older students developed technology and writing skills; younger students developed letter writing and reading skills. The process is also detailed in the hope that others who might be interested in replicating the project in their own classroom would be able to do so.

How to Teach Using Today's Technology

This chapter reviews the benefits and challenges of five approaches for integrating technology and teaching. Three of the models involve distance learning, while the two others utilize technology as a teaching aid. The first model is a lecture-based course also available through a Web site. The second is a fully online asynchronous course. The third is synchronous distance learning. The fourth combines a virtual laboratory and visualization with regular teaching, and the fifth fuses technology with different teaching methods. The pedagogical and operational aspects of the five approaches are discussed. The main pedagogical aspects discussed are: applying active and interactive learning principles, using multimedia, organizing the course and its lessons, and providing immediate feedback to students about their progress. By comparing the advantages and challenges the different models offer, teachers in K-12 will be able to match the appropriate model and its teaching strategy to their learning goals.

Let Them Blog

This chapter introduces the use of blogs as an educational technology in the K-12 classroom. It argues that blogs can be used to promote verbal, visual, and digital literacy through storytelling and collaboration, and offers several examples of how educators are already using blogs in school. This chapter also reviews issues such as online privacy and context-setting, and ends with recommendations for educators interested in implementing blogs with current curricula.

Digital Literacy and the Use of Wireless Portable Computers, Planners, and Cell Phones for K-12 Education

Wireless technologies have transformed learning, teaching, and leading in K-12 schools. Because of their speed and portability, laptops, planners, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and cellular telephones are major components of digital literacy. In this chapter, current international trends in the educational uses of portable technologies will be discussed. The implications of newer hardware specifications and educational software applications for laptop computers will be analyzed, including inequities in student access to the handhelds. Next, the role of planners and PDAs as more recent instructional and managerial tools will be evaluated. This study also includes a review of the current debate over whether or not cell phones, especially those with photographic capabilities, should be allowed to be used by students in schools. Finally, potential uses of wireless technologies for interactive learning and collaborative leadership on a global basis will be investigated.

New Paradigm of Learning and Teaching in a Networked Environment

This chapter introduces a new paradigm of learning and teaching that aims to develop students’ contextualized multiple intelligence (CMI) and create unlimited opportunity for students’ lifelong independent learning through a triplization process including individualization, localization, and globalization in teaching and learning. In particular, the chapter illustrates how students’ self-learning can be motivated, sustained, and highly enhanced in an individually, locally, and globally networked human and ICT environment. Different from the traditional emphasis on delivery of knowledge and skills in planned curriculum, the new paradigm pursues the extensive application of ICT and enhancement of teachers and students’ ICT literacy in building up a networked environment for students’ individualized, localized, and globalized learning and CMI development. It is hoped that students equipped with the necessary ICT literacy can become borderless learners with unlimited opportunities for learning and development in a networked environment.