Hi All,
My thoughts about the last assignment:
Technology in mind: StudyWiz/Moodle/Google Groups
What do you think is the likely impact of this technology on the students’ perceptions of the quality of their courses, their approaches to studying and their academic performance?
Creating an electronic environment for students benefits in general their performance. It is for them a natural environment and they know how to cope with new technology. We have created Google groups for specific topics in school and so far the participation is promising.
What do you think is the likely impact of this technology on the teachers’ perceptions of their teaching context and their approaches to teaching?
Those who are up to date with new technology will probably use new technology as proper tools in their teaching and therefore guide them into desirable learning processes. Those who are open minded towards new technology will probably learn from their students as well and a specific interaction will occur during the course. For those who are electronically literate support needs to be given, but these teachers will probably use other tools to come to desirable learning processes.
Do you think this technology embodies particular assumptions about the nature of teaching and learning in higher education?
Not specifically in higher education but in education in general. In our Elluminate sessions we came to the conclusion that all perceptions and approaches are valid for education. From primary all the way up to higher education. Steven Houghton (class member) gave a good example of a teacher approach in which we assumed was only meant for higher education.
“Teaching as bringing about conceptual change and intellectual development in the student” was supposed to be an approach only valid in higher education. But teaching science in primary will change concepts too.
I also believe that it depends on where you stand as a teacher. If you are open minded towards new technology, but you don’t feel like an expert yet, I think it is more likely that interaction develops between student and teacher. For both of them it might be an interesting learning process. The ones that feel comfortable in technology based teaching will probably use other approaches.
Are these assumptions likely to promote more positive perceptions, more desirable approaches to studying and better performance on the part of the students?
Teaching is also about reflection oneself. Every time a teacher reflects his/her own teaching it will lead in my opinion to more positive approaches, desirable approaches and finally to better results.
I have experienced this as a pretty difficult week, but let's move on to week 13/14...TMA coming up as well...aaarghhhh
Cheers