Embedding Indigenous Perspectives

I’m going to follow up on the first blog that I did based on a news article that I read. The article basically highlighted the need to cater for cultural diversity when you’re teaching, in particular indigenous students. One of the questions that I posed is how do we address the issue of introducing new forms of technology to Aboriginal students? Having asked this question some months I feel like I have better insight into answering that question.

The first thing we need to address is that it has traditionally been seen that Aboriginal people are hands on and observant when it comes to their learning. Obviously this not apply to all Aboriginal people, it is just a general view. It has also been suggested that Aboriginal learners do not attempt something new in front of others due to their fear of failure and shame if they get it wrong. Having said all of this technology is very personal and using computers to teach Aboriginal people is a great way to help them attempt to learn without the fear of shame. If they get something wrong than no one will know.

After having a class discussion with Scot Aldred we were told of a program in the Gladstone region that was used to help Aboriginal students below the basic literacy and numeracy standards. The program involved the use of computer programs and the students engaging in these programs. After a couple of months it was shown that many of these students had reached the required standards of literacy and numeracy. I suppose it could be said that the students were able to engage in their learning without the feeling of shame put on them by other students. Scot has also made a recent blog post about an upcoming trip to the Cape York where he will be doing contract teaching. He said that he will focus on engaging students in developing a learning package that will teach Australian students how to manage marine resources. I suppose what I have gained form this is that is important to incorporate the use of ICT’s with culturally significant issues.

This being said it is important to have the resources to help facilitate the learning. Carolyne Thornton suggested that there are many school, families and individual students that do not have technology to engage them in their learning. Distance, finance, social and cultural factors affect the availability of ICT.

After reviewing this post I still feel like the questions that I had posed in my first post have still not been answered, but rather what I have showed what has been successful. However I feel I have learnt that it is important to teach indigenous from an indigenous perspective. Let me know what you think? I am all over the shop with this post but I felt it necessary to follow on the topic.

Digital Pedagogies!

What an eye-opening week for me in regards to the teaching profession. Since leaving High School in 2003 I cannot believe the steps ICT’s in Learning Design have taken. I consider myself to be fairly young and fresh out of the school system and would have the ability to say this is where the teaching and lesson design is at. But over the past seven years there have been some amazing innovations that have incorporated both ICT’s and learning pedagogies.

The first thing that I am amazed at is the use of blogs by teachers and the great things you can do with them. Blogs are a great way of promoting analyses and evaluation of the topic content you have taught, they can basically be a discussion board for you classroom to analyse the declarative and procedural knowledge you have taught. Here is a great YouTube clip that highlights the advantages of incorporating blogs in your teaching.



The use of wiki’s can also be a great way of incorporating ICT’s into your teaching and promoting higher order thinking. I have just created a Wiki for a committee that I am in, and I hope that the wiki will be an effective tool for both planning and coordinating events and highlighting key dates for the year. Here is a great You Tube clip that explains Wiki’s in a very simple term.




There are other amazing forms of technology that I have applied this week such as Google reader and voki’s that I will talk about in future posts. The one valuable piece of information that I have taken away from this week is that the use of ICT’s can help foster ‘life-long learners’ and develop valuable skills such as creativity, complex thinking, effective communication and understanding. I am looking forward to potential using what I have learnt this week and applying it in the classroom!

Habits of Mind Case Study: Me!

After reading Costa’s descriptions on our habits of mind and how it relates to our intelligence I decided to evaluate my habits of mind when I was problem solving then executing a certain task.

Recently I moved and put together a bed in a new house. When putting the bed together again at the new house I realised four bolts where missing that were integral in putting together the frame. I searched vigorously for them but could not find them. These bolts were fairly unique and I felt the next step was to go down to the hardware store and see if they had replacement bolts or bolts that were fairly similar. The Hardware store did not have the bolts I was looking for however they had a similar one that was 5mm longer than the screws that went missing. Thinking this was my only option I bought the screws and took them home.

From here I decided to file down the bolts to the desired length. I considered cutting them down however I realised I did not have the right tools to do this. It took a total of two hours to file down the four bols to the desired length and to my relief they worked and I was able to put together the bed. Two hours later I found the missing bolts in the bedside draw!

I used a number of different intelligences or habits of mind in problem solving for the whole bed situation. The first habit of mind that I believed that I used was my impulsivity, at the time I believed that I had looked everywhere for the bolts and that they were lost for good. I didn’t manage my impulsivity well and went straight to the next step to solve the problem of finding alternative bolts. After conceding that I would not find the bolts I used creativity and innovation by going to the hardware store and finding a bolt that was similar to the ones that were lost. I used creativity and innovation again in finding away to alter the longer bolts. I looked at the tools at my disposal and came up with a plan to file down the bolts to the correct size. When coming up with the idea I used my past knowledge and skills as a labourer to implement the changes needed to reduce the bolts size.

The process of filing down the bolts was tedious however I was persistent and continued with the job until it was done two hours later. After finding the initial bolts that were lost I did not see the humorous side however I did evaluate my actions and the way I went about problem solving, I believe this is a form of metacognition, I was thinking about my thinking. I thought about what I could have done better, like managing my impulsivity to get the job done as well what I did well such as applying previous knowledge.

I hope you found the case study of myself interesting and a little bit amusing. One thing I can take out of the whole experience is think before you act!!

Sydney Uni, My School and Abraham!

Through my study in ICT’s for learning I have found Google reader to be a very useful tool. Everytime I jump onto the Computer I like reading online newspapers from across the country to catch up state issues as well as the news in Sport. Using Google reader helps me find the news stories that I find interesting alot quicker as I am not going to individual sites. This morning I found another interesting article that I would like to blog about.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story on the University of Sydney’s proposal to introduce quota system that sets targets to increase the number of disadvantaged and regional students (Link: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/quotas-planned-for-uni-students-20100318-qiff.html ). It is suggested that this quota system will put less importance on HSC results and more importance in identifying skills such as leadership skills and general academic aptitude. There was also a plan to give applicants that come from designated disadvantaged schools a five-point bonus to their Australian Tertiary admissions rank. There are varying views on the proposal with some people believing that are always going to be disadvantaged students in every school, while other arguments suggest that many Universities hold prejudice against students coming from certain disadvantaged schools.

Research by Abraham (2006) suggests that the first stage of a recruitment process is based on data such as IQ, GPA’s or HSC’s. This first stage does not look at an individual’s overall emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence includes an individual’s perceptions on linguistic, special, numeracy, environmental and body smart intelligence. Abraham (2006) also suggested that many applicants that make it to the second stage of the recruitment process lack qualities such as interpersonal skills, compatibility with the firm, oral communication skills, enthusiasm and maturity.

Another interesting issue that relates to the Article on Sydney University and Abrahams research is the My School website (Link: http://www.myschool.edu.au/ ). There has been criticism of the website by the Australian Teachers Union on the validity of the results shown on the site. The NAPLAN test used to collate data on individual schools does not suit the data generation given by the My School website. Another issue is that schools can compared, however when the compare application is used results can show a school like Geelong Grammar being similar to a small primary school in country Queensland. This argument about the My School website highlights that the results and conclusions cannot be made of one standard test.

My point of view on the article directly correlates to the views shared by Abraham (2006) and his studies and conclusions. To many recruitment processes rely on data produced from test that do not paint the whole picture to an individual’s intelligence. I am all for the University of Sydney’s proposal to introduce a quota system for disadvantaged and regional students. Hopefully with this quota system desirable emotional intelligence can be identified rather than relying on one of tests that may not suit an individual learner. It could also avoid alot of upper high school teachers teaching to a designated test.

Dealing with Diversity and ICT's

Welcome to my first blog for this GDLT course. I hope you all enjoy and find my views interesting in relation ICT’s. I also want to post my views on teaching in general and I hope to cover issues such as diversity in the classroom, different forms of pedagogy and issues facing literacy and numeracy. I will always try and relate these issues back to ICT concepts.

After reading through online newspapers this morning I noticed an article on an AFL player (I am a massive fan of AFL for those people that don’t know) and his struggle over the past four years. If you want to read the article here is the link.

The article was based on West Coast Eagles Indigenous player Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls and his poor performances with his former club Richmond over the last four years. In 2005 Oakley-Nicholls was picked up by Richmond with pick No.8, a very prestigious honour being picked so early. A large percentage of players picked in the top 10 go on to have very successful careers in the AFL. Oakley-Nicholls in his four years at Richmond played only 13 games out of a possible 88 and never reached his potential. After a number of poor performances Oakley-Nicholls was cut by the club.

Fortunately for Oakley-Nicholls the West Coast Eagles picked him up and put him on their rookie list for the 2010 season. When arriving at the eagles it was discovered that Oakley-Nicholls had profound learning difficulties that were holding him back. He struggled to pick up literacy and numeracy. According to the article Oakley-Nicholls is now flourishing at the Eagles mainly due to procedures but in place by the clubs Indigenous Liaison Officer Phil Narkle. Oakley-Nicholls struggled due to the modern day practice of AFL clubs using data to evaluate performances and to explain desired playing styles. Narkle suggested to the eagles coaching stuff that they should draw what they want Oakley-Nicholls to know and execute. With this help Oakley-Nicholls is one of the prime candidates to fill one of the vacant spots on the Eagles main playing list.

This article highlighted the need to identify and manage diversity within a learning group. Being from an Indigenous culture Oakley-Nicholls struggled to embrace the new technological forms of learning due to the fear of shame if he did not do it correctly. It has been said that majority of aboriginal students are visual/kinaesthetic learners, they like to observe an experienced individual convey the procedural knowledge. Once they feel they have all the procedural steps in place they then feel that they are capable to attempt and engage with resources.

So the question we should ask is how do we address the issue of introducing new forms of technology to Aboriginal people? Research compiled by McLoughlin(1999) suggested that web based instruction should accommodate diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds among the learners expected to use it. From searches that I have done I have discovered little scholarly research on integrating technology and aboriginal culture. The McLoughlin (1999) study also suggested incorporating cultural knowledge academic knowledge and computer skills into one multiple learning zone. It can be said that the research by Mcloughlin is dated however it would be interesting to see if some of the theories from the study have been applied by other researchers. Do we incorporate practices involved in Aboriginal culture into technology? As learning managers it is up to us to address different learning styles by employing different pedagogical strategies.

There are a number of different questions that I have posed that I am hoping to answer in future blogs. If you have any information that you may have found on the topic please comment. I hope you have found this blog somewhat insightful please feel free to comment I look forward to reading them.