Ida’s blog

This chapter address's the issue of how can students be authentically and properly assessed.

 In times gone bystudents were measured against strict provincially set standards that a student had to measure up to, either thestudent had the skills or knowledge looked for or they did not. Students were evaluated accordingly. As part of my learning in the E.C.E program, I have learned about new ways to assess students, which look more at the students demonstrated abilities, looks at the whole child and gives a more personal look at the child. This approach entails putting together a  portfolio of the child. This is a detailed looked, where the child's background, samples of work done, pictures,demonstrated strengths and weaknesses are recorded as well as many other important information. It is put together and displayed in an interesting way to share with parents or with  other professionals as the need arises.These  assessment approach is used in the assessment of children with special needs. It provides a more balancedlook and realistic look at each individual child.

I remember my knowledge being assessed in some of my College E.C.E courses. One of the assignments entailed developing a toy for an infant which would be developmental appropriate for a child that age. It was so challenging
that I remember breaking down in sobbing fits. The project had so many standards that I found it hard to meet those
extremely high standards. For instance  because it was suppose to be for an infant I had to remember to
use a especially safe method of binding the parts together. This meant that I had to sew each and every individual
piece. Even though this project frustrated me it made it super clear to me concepts I had learned in class. While,
developing the toy I had to think about each and every concept and shape it into reality!
!
I was please to read that preferable a Rubics should be developed collaboratively between students and teacher. I
certainly can understand the rich learning experience of such an exercise. The students would get a great opport-
unity to learn and discuss why each element of the rubrics is important to include and would probably do well on their assignments because the reasoning behind doing well on each element would make more sense because they would of constructed it themselves. I also like the emphasis of using the gathered information as input for reflection on the performance, instead of a form of punishment for the student. This is a very healthy way to look at correcting mis-
takes, one that saves the self esteem of the student.
I say hurray for performance assessment!!!!

This chapter is about the "numerous computer based learning systems" that
are now available for students,(Jonassen etal pg 210).I learned that these programs encourage students
to use their problem solving abilities through interaction with a variety of multi media.  Through
this process they learn in a meaningful way about the topics presented.  The array of available
programs was amazing, and can range from story book problems, usually used in math and
science to open ended investigations, also in science and social science, and to experiments
usually done in applied sciences. This variety extends to the amount of choice the student has,
some of the programs are pretty rigid where the student doesn't get much choice what to learn
and the answer is pretty precise, to a scenario where the student has a lot of choice and could
decide on what they are going to study, and in what order.

I remember having to finish story problems all during primary and into junior and high school,
even though I found them confusing at times especially when they involved sophisticated measurements
or formula's I found them a welcome change to the endless worksheets. I was not surprised to find
out that research shows that students are not very successful in transferring their abilities to solve
problems in the story problems to other problems in real life. In my own experience this is because
not enough time was taken by the instructor to further explain the connection between the story
problem and real life. They were meaningless to me therefore I could not use them in other scenarios.

I found it interesting to learn about different types of mathematical instruction available to students.
The first approach is to first explain functions to students and then have them apply what they have
learned to solve problems. I like the fact that immediate feedback is provided as well some that will
help students know how and where they are making mistakes. "Tutorials in Problem / Solving" sounds
like an interesting program. I like the idea of a tutor available to the students and the idea of "Worked
examples.", where an expert shows students how the problem could be solved  sounded like a great
program as well

Virtual labs

I was curious about virtual labs, so I went to ( Thechemcollective)at http://www.chemcollective.org/applets/
 vlab.php and tried the virtual tutorials and chemistry labs. I was quite impressed. Since
I know very little about chemistry, I was curious to fine out how they would tutor someone with my
poor skills. I like their tutorial very much, after a brief introduction they showed a video that presented
the concept they were trying to inform me about in a simple manner. They used a concept familiar to me,
and matched it with a new concept, thus using constructivist principles. I tried the virtual lab as well and
found it very interesting. Although I quickly found out that I would need more time to learn the basics about the virtual lab I  realized how it could be useful in a classroom situation. First it would solve problems of  lack of  the
 proper equipment, and the quality and quantity of available equipment. It would alleviate the problems of
having real students work with dangerous chemicals and make experiment's, 100% safe.
Also It would be useful for the teacher, they could assign students who needed more work on a particular
 experiment extra experiments on the virtual lab. The student could keep working on experiments in this
 lab over and over, and hopefully master concepts.
I was amazed at the rich learning experiences "Astronomy Village" provides it's students. The students
 work collaboratively in groups, students get to choose from and carry out investigations on topics
 to do with space exploration. The village supports it's students with a rich selection of articles,
 images and video interviews. Through this process students get to learn and use many tools from the
Internet and which they need to put together and present their project.
 
 The Nardoo River multimedia program seemed to be a very interesting way to teach students about
ecological systems. It's wonderful how students are encouraged to  construct their own knowledge
about ecological issues through manipulating a complex virtual environment  and through  activities  that
 involve  situations where students have to use their  problem solving  abilities,  and  seek information
 and conduct  investigations.
   I was encouraged to find out that the educational program" The Voyage of the  Mimi"encourages
  student's interest in scientific and mathematical concepts by giving the students  opportunities to
  observe their use in real life situations. Students get to met real scientists who use science and math
   every day in their work.
    I learned a lot of inspiring ideas of how to teach with Problem - Based Learning Environments, in
    in this chapter!!!!
    

During reading Chapter 7 I was surprised to learn that interaction with these tools resulted in "meaningful learning". Admittedly I had very little experience with these type of technologies. My sons love to play an on line community game called the "World of Warcraft". I asked my sons what they liked about it. They had the following comments,
" well it has cool graphics and you can be different characters. You can change characters and try different types of tribes of  creatures and go on neat quests". Just between you and I the title of this game has turned me off since the first day I heard about it. You see I am a complete pacifist and dream of peace on earth. I have no tolerance for all forms of violence or talk of war. In actual fact my oldest son has not let me forget that I would not let him have a tiny water pistol when he was a child. I would not allow them to play with sticks or even use their fingers to simulate weapons. This has not stopped them from engaging in some form of rough play, so be it wrestling, play fighting or the occasional real scermish. I don't think I am much different than most educators who are against all forms of violence.
Is that why our children are turning to virtual representations of real events to make up for our hypervilgance against all forms of violence?

To get back to the idea of microworlds and virtual realities being an effective way for children to apply their learning of abstract concepts, I am plesently surprised. My understanding of this process is that these concepts such as mathimatical operations or language arts components or scienctific or social facts are used in the stimulating muti- sensory and interactive arena of these worlds. Therefore, the child's learning is reinforced and made meaningful in the process. An example is the microworld funschool by kaboose at:http://funschool.kaboose.com/faq.html. I explored this site and was amazed at the fantastic graphics and sound quality. I also enjoyed the relevant and diversified topic selections, such as: global rider,formula fusion, fun blaster arcade and time warp.When the participant clicks on one of these categories it takes them to sub activities which the child can participate in. For instance, if the child was to click  on fun fusion, fun earth day activities would show up for the child to do. There are also sections where the child could focus on basics like math and language games as well as a pre - school section.

One of the best things about these virtual worlds, was that it was very hard to fail.  They were done in such a way that the user is not made to feel bad about getting it wrong.  When you make a mistake, the computer cheerfully informs you to try again,  it is usually low key.  I feel they are ideal for students to try out thier newly acquired skills since they are free from heavy criticsm, which avoids making the student feel like a failure, like some of the traditional exercises end up doing. 

After having a ball and becoming lost several times in some of these sites, I was able to make a meaningful understanding of the authors ideas that high levels of realism and interactivity, contribute to students that are able to construct mental models.  These sites are very appealing with the use of animation, voices, video and music.  Furthermore; in those sites, where the user is interacting with people and environments, this often leads to learners exploring various cause and effect relationships.(Jonassen et al p 190)  The best thing about micro worlds is that students learn by doing, it's a simple as that.  This active participation leads to learners who direct thier own learning.  This leads to development of higher order thinking and superior problem solving abilities. (Jonassen et al p 191)  

I learned a lot about the possibilities of multimedia as yet another way in which students can represent their own
learning and topics which are meaningful to them. The idea from the text  of "hypermedia as environments" where students can construct their personal knowledge and to learn with,(Jonassen et al, pg 170) really resonated with me. The reason is, this matches my own personal experience of learning, which is: students will not learn unless they are interested or enthusiastic.

I learned ways to encourage students to create their own hypermedia knowledge bases and I learned about some of the hypermedia projects currently being used with students. One of the ways is through story telling, students can use hypermedia to make stories come alive and have more meaning for them. This gave me the idea that I could use this technique with my own students, maybe I could help students pinpoint one of their favourite stories and they  could possibly make their own videos about the story or put illustrations of the text on slide shows accessed by the computers. What is wonderful about this is that I agree with the text, that children who have not been successful learning in traditional ways might blossom through the collaboration which hypermedia entails.

Another technique which  I  learned about  is  providing  students  with  real -  world tasks  or simulated tasks  that  are  problem  based  which  students  need to  solve  through  the use  of  hypermedia. The example they used is students having to come up with hypermedia to compliment a zoo's animal information stations. Finding real - world problems for the students to solve may prove to be time consuming for the teacher, not to mention the time it takes to organize and setup these problems.  They are worth while because they are deeply rewarding  both educationally and personally to the student.

I found out about another interesting concept;  students as Ethnographers. Ethnographers as described by the text " are persons who investigate the custom, habits and social behaviour of races  and peoples" (Jonassen et al, pg 179).  Students investigate topics of interest to them and then co- construct their knowledge of the topic using multimedia programs. Students engage in conversational and reflective learning through this process, this results in a powerful learning experience for the student.  This idea, called learning constellations was created by Ricki Goldman-Segall (University of British Columbia 1992 and 1995)(Jonassen et al, pg 179).

I was reminded of using School or personal homepages and virtual schoolhouses as another way for students to use hypermedia. Some school websites that I know of in Toronto are Winona Drive Senior School (my 13 yr old son's school), Hillcrest Community School (my two younger son's school) and Oakwood Collegiate (where my husband works).  The good news is that they exist, but the bad news is that there is not much substance, although a couple of them are being renovated to improve them.  Don't get me wrong, I agree that having students work together to produce a school home page or classroom page could be deeply rewarding both personally and educationally for the students. They would have the opportunity to share elements of curriculum with the rest of the school or grade. They may wish to share information of personal relevance to them such as: pets, new baby in the family or vacations - the possibilities are endless.

 Although I found many of the project ideas interesting and I could  understand how they could result in meaningful and enriched learning experiences, I had many questions as the ideas were presented to me. One of the biggest questions I had was how would an average teacher gain enough skills to assist the student in the operation of the desired multimedia. For instance; I would imagine that the teacher would have to know how to operate StorySpace from Eastgate Systems before the students attempted to use it in Language Arts Units. Additionally, I have a question  about the cost of  the multimedia software mentioned in the chapter. Can educators use them free or do they cost money to incorporate into the classroom? If most of them cost money then other things need to be considered such as: time in order to get the funds to purchase the materials and time to recieve and install them.

After exploring the fact that multimedia has been around for decades in education, in the text book and through viewing Mrs. Clarks introduction to  the vintage Paranorama multi -media tool, memories of my own experiences with these tools came to mind. I went to school in the 1970's and I remember film strips. Although I found them interesting and a welcome relief from lectures by the teacher, the frequent technical difficulties were very frustrating for me. First of all very often the film would not arrive when the teacher needed  it for a lesson so in that case we were disappointed. The teacher would make up for it by showing it as soon as it arrived, which sometimes turned out to be a week later. By this time if the lessons had moved on to another topic then the film would be meaningless to us. Another annoyance was the way the film projector or film would break down, it seemed like very often. Our viewing would either be delayed while the teacher fumbled with the machine or called for help from another teacher. On the other hand when the film was delivered at the appropriate time and was of a high quality I did learn more because it's presentation was multi - sensory. The Panorama mutimedia tool reminds me of  the instructions I got about other countries when I was a child. There was a focus on geography, and cultural and traditional facts and many sterotypical pictoral depictions. Many of these facts depicted were so erroneous, which would outrage educators of today.

As I think of the idea of community I remember what my mom told me what  her community in  Teceira, Acores, Portugal  was  like when  she  was  a  child  in the  1940's  and  as she grew,  into  the  mid  1960's. She often spoke about everyone having the work together in order for everyone to survive. Your would go over to your neighbour for some bread or trade some potatoes for something else. Your mom would send you over to your elder relatives or neighbours house to give them something or other because they were too sick to go out. You would give your neighbours who had children younger than yours some carefully preserved hand me downs. Everyone spoke the same language and was the same religion. You had your rich people, you had your poor people. You had your enemies and your friends. Your mom would constantly warn you to watch what you did and said because you had to keep up the family's perfect reputation. My mom told me, "I should not of cared because everyone knew my business anyway."

We all wonder some times about the "good old days" were they better than they are now? Well, in my opinion in some ways yes and some ways no. For instance, there were many instances where  people  would work together to build up structures or achieve things they could not do alone such as: bring in a crop or raise a barn. But I would imagine that there where plenty of times when people felt or were isolated. For instance when they lived in a remote part of our country or they were out casted for some reason. (p.s there were more instances of prejudice or discrimination than there is nowadays.)

Nowadays there are still plenty of examples of  people working together in communities. My community in the Hillcrest village part of the city of Toronto is a good example. We have a street party every year where the whole street and other family and friends share a day of fun and friendship in the sun. Our community school also has much community support, this community got together to build an awesome children's playground( fundraising was done through local residents.)

I really enjoyed reading about the potential for "Learning Communities" for students on the World Wide Web. I like the idea of The Telecommunication networks which connect learners around the world in order to share common learning objectives such at: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/. I checked this web site out and was quite impressed. It was very bright and organized, there was a section where children could ask animal experts about the migration of the animal of their choice. There was a mystery club section where children worked together in their own classroom on projects posted in this section like: Watching the Earth's Equinox. There were more sections where the children could further explore this subject.

I was very interested in the on line communication environments that have been designed to support student's attempts to converse. I like the idea that users are allowed to create a knowledge building community, I went on a tutorial of one of these environments on http://www.knowledgeforum.com/. I followed the links and ended up on a case study done by the University of Toronto's Cognitive Department. They posted comments made by a student. He said that he had found it fun because he could learn things on his own  or with a partner without listening from a  teacher. He said he learned a lot by sharing notes with other students so there seems to be a lot of collaborative learning going on. Another student added that it helps to improve on your weaknesses. He said other people come along and gave suggestions about how you could improve on something or achieve it. Yet another student commented that it keeps you organized. Since it gives you questions to answer as you go along, he also liked the fact that you can ask people for help when you are stuck. That's another form of collaborative learning.

Wow this is like what we have been reading about in this course, in action!!

I was very surprised to discover through reading this Research Report[Children as photographers:an analysis of the

photographic behaviour and intentions in three age levels by Mike Sharples et al,2003] : that there is empirical

 evidence for difference by age of the photographic abilities of children, and that there is a  Five Stage Theory  of

 Aesthetic Development by Parson.Mike Sharples et al,2003]

  The authors state that their  study was the first attempt to systematically study and analyze

 the photographic activities of children. It was fascinating to read about the differences researchers found in the

behavior, intentions and understanding of children from three age groups.[Mike Sharples et al 2003]  They found

that Children's photos are not only a representation of how they see their world but it is a way to construct their

 identity in relation  to that of their parents and peers.

It is ironic,that the  top topics of children's photos  were:  people, buildings and animals. In my experience

as an Early Childhood Educator,  I found that these are also the top themes in toys that almost all young children from

age one to even past Ten  years of age enjoy playing with.

Furthermore: Researchers  found, that photos tend to reflect the type of physical , and social environment, and homes

children of a young age live in.  Children had a distinct way of taking pictures which was noticeable different from the

 way adults take pictures. Researcher found that as  the age of the  child increases they tend to move away from

 staged scene to those of a more natural feel. Furthermore they found that all children enjoyed to take pictures without

adult constraint.[Mike Sharples,etal, 2003]

This reminds me of when we try to take pictures of our family. My husband and I tend to like to set up the environment

so that  the occasion and the best features of the family members are showcased,This causes much groaning and

 antics by the children who become impatient and silly. Us grown ups start to feel that the children are purposely

trying to ruin the picture. When my children get a hold of the camera they then to take very silly photos much to our

disapproval.

 The Researchers attempted to tied Parson's Five Stages of  Development  with their findings.Parson's five

stage theory is  used to put  value in discribing photographic abilities in  terms  of the Interactional aspects of

photography.They argued that through photography the children physcially and socially interacts with their

environment.[Mike Sharples,etal, 2003]

Furthermore since the child attempts to capture aspects of their environment through the photography and later tries

 to make sense of this representation of this image with what they already know, this

interactionist theory is appropriate to use in order to make sense of their findings.I understand how Parson's theory

 could be used to make sense of the findings. Especially since they tied each stage to one of the age groups and

showed connections.

  In  Parson's second stage children are concerned with beauty and realism. The photo is considered better if the

subject matter is attractive, children would usual want to change the subject matter of the photo. In this study

Researchers found that yonger children (7 year olds) liked or disliked photos depending on the subject matter. Many

7year old's took pictures  of toys and objects indoors and which are important to them such as their toys or games.

[Mike Sharples,etal, 2003].

The  focus of third stage is expression: A good image would invoke an emotional feeling or experience.Children tend to

 like images that are creative and spontaneous. The fourth stage focuses on style and form, the children is concerned

about the image and the medium Researcher for the photos taken from 11 year olds in their study reflects

these tendencies.  Eleven year old's pictures tend to be outdoors of people and senery. This reflects their emerging

developmental interest in the outdoors. They also have the following characteristics: more pictures which are of exhibit

quality and are artistic and unusual and natural (unstaged). Mike Sharples,etal, 2003].

Stage five Parson calls "autonomy" the child is concerned with personal judgement and social aspects.Mike Sharples,etal, 2003].

 The child wishes to raises questions about their experience and explore their relation to the social world. The fifteen

year olds the Researchers studied exhibited similar characteristics.They found the photos taken by 15 year old tend

to be diverse with very few recurring content or location theme. They tended to notice the aesthetics qualities and

formal composition of images. They took more pictures with subjects the same sex as themselves or groupd  mixed sexes of children.

 The researchers found that as the age of the child went up the number of pictures taken of family

members went down and friends went up.Their photos were sillier than those of younger children. Taking photos are

part of teenage social ritual. The art of photographying becomes an interesting social event.A boundary object(Star,

1989). Mike Sharples,etal, 2003].This sure sounds accurate with my personal experience with teenages. What's more

 important to them than their friends?

WHAT AN AWESOME ARTICLE !!!!! I SURE LEARNED ALOT!!!!

Learning from the Internet: Bringing concepts to life.

I admit before taking this class I knew very little about the Internet. I thought It was useful for looking up: important information for course assignments or on topics I knew nothing about and needed to find information on.

 Now, after exploring the idea of the Internet as a medium of learning throughout this unit I am utterly blow away at it's potential for constructivist learning.

 I now understand why  the  authors state," that the Internet's potential as a learning environment to support constructive learning is often underutilized."(David H. Jonassen...(et.al.) 2003,pg 32) They argue that it could  potentially,"..immerse students in stimulating, challenging, motivating, vibrant learning experiences"(David H. Jonassen...(et.al.).2003,pg32) .Furthermore it has the added advantage of the student learning how to use the different functions of  computer  and  engaging in meaningful  ways.

One of the ways in which I discovered that the Internet could enrich a student's learning is through the use of "Web Cams"I learned that these are small video recorders which can provide live video of diverse subject matter.

I decided to type in the link provide in our text to Earth Cam (http://www.earthcam.com) I was surprised at the diversity of web cams available. Some examples: places of the world, focus on animals, fish, one that gave me a chuckle was a web cam focused on watching cheese age!!! I visited the web cam on Dakota beach in the U.S.A. It  provided me with  a good idea of what it's landscape, landmarks etc...are like through the various web cams. Since it was presented visually, and with brief script, I felt it came alive for me, much more than a traditional book would or lecture by a teacher. I also tried the web cams on animals such as: Tigers, and monkeys and parrots. I found the tiger web cam a bit disappointing,since the picture was very small and the tigers would go out of the screen frequently. I found the monkey web cam disappointing as well since it was not live feed and the picture was blurry. The web cam of the parrots was very interesting since they had prepared short videos of their behavior and the video was up close and colorful.

 I think web cams could be useful in children's learning in the following ways: Enrichment of the children's learning by expanding on what they are already learning through lectures from the teacher, or books. For instance if the children are learning about butterflies they learning of the metamorphose process could be enhanced if they could log on to a web cams  of this process daily,  and observe record and share their interpretation of what's happening. Better still the class could create their own web cams of  caterpillars metamorphosing into a butterflies and share it with each other and children around the world.

Through further exploration, I also discovered a site for kids where they can view educational web cams

 at http://www.earthcamforkids.com/ I checked it out and found an index of educational web cams children could use with appealing and diverse subject matter.

 Another subject presented in the chapter and which I found fascinating was the concept of  preselecting  web sites for students. I learned that Bernie Dodge developed WebQuest Model in 1995. My understanding of  a WebQuest:" it is a inquiry - oriented activity in which some or all of the resources the students are accessing are from the Internet". It is a good way for teachers to incorporate the Internet into their programs and could be done on a short or long term  basis.(David H. Jonassen...(et.al.) 2003,pg 45).  I goggled WebQuest and discovered a   wonderful resource for teachers at.   http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/webquest/webquest.html. Under a sub - title Teacher's Helper's. I found a article entitled "WebQuest in our future.The teacher's role in Cyberspace.(Kathlyn Schrock 1995 - 2007) I found this a wonderful resource where I learned a lot about this subject including a discussion of what is a WebQuest, links to other web sites which feature this subject, actual WebQuests which one can view or access to use with children. I would like to recommend  the following collection of WebQuests resources put together by Midge Frazel at http://midgefrazel.net/lrnwebq.html. I explored this collection and found it an excellent resource for students from K-3 .It is divided into curriculum areas and topics of interest.

 I am very excited about WebQuests . I feel it's an excellent way for students to learn information in a stimulating and interesting ways. Later the students can work together presenting the information they found to other students." This joint knowledge building can result in an end product that is much richer more complex and of higher quality than what an individual would create".(."(David H. Jonassen...(et.al.) 2003,pg  48)

I  found this chapter very informative. I understand what the authors are trying to convey when they state that for a student to learn mean fully, they must be willingly engaged in a meaningful task . I have seen real life examples of this tendency through my work with Child Care Children of all ages, especially with school age children. The times when I was able to follow their lead in terms of interest and deliver activities or materials to support their interests, were those where the children seemed to learn and remember a lot from it. Those times when I am trying to encourage or lead them into learning about subjects which do not seem interesting to them and I am not able to capture their interest, are times when I am constantly re - directing them back to  the activity, it may turn into a power struggle at that point. Furthermore,  they seem to forget what they "learned" fast and seem not to be able to apply it in a real way. This is often true of when I am asked to help them with homework which mostly consist of dittos. Students leave their seats constantly, lose focus and seem quite reluctant to do their work. The times I am able to bring these dittos alive using
concrete materials are the times their interest is likely to return and the task completed.

 The authors state that learning to solve problems  should  be the main focus of learning activities in formal educational settings. They believe  that this should be education's focus because real life requires competent problem solvers. Furthermore, we should import problems from the real world and work on solving them in the classroom since  problem solving is more interesting way of learning than the traditional way of  memorizing information. I agree strongly with the authors opinions since I experienced both forms of learning styles. I remember experiences where we had to find out about certain topics, and then we had to come up with creative ways to represent our knowledge. I remember an enriching experience when I was in grade six. We did a whole unit on Star Wars. We not only got to watch the movie but we were encouraged to represent what we saw through clay, drawing, and cognitively and socially through, board games, and  even teacher made learning materials. In contrast I remember period after period of trying to get through workbook lessons which bored me stiff.

  I found the  information on how to lead students through Intentional  information searching on the Internet, very interesting, and I am certain it will help me in my work.  In the planning  stage of a search  educators need to help students through the process: Identifying what they need to know. Articulate their intentions and verbalize what they are looking for. They need to ask themselves why is this information needed?  The student needs to use search strategies which the teacher  would  model. This process consists  of asking questions Why, Who, Where? Later the student has to go through an evaluation  process where they will be evaluating the relevancy and credibility of the information they got from the web. Later the student would be encouraged to use reflective thinking to evaluate the usefulness of the information gathered and construct mental models of what they learned.  Through technology students may also engage in decision making and designing which  requires applying knowledge from multiple domains.  That's a far cry from worksheets and dittos.

I was deeply moved by watching the 1940's video and the kid's 'N ' clay video and I learned a lot through the Hacking Human's article. First of all watching the first video brought back a lot of memories since my very early years were spent in a rural setting in the Acores Portugal. I remember arriving in this country - a girl of 4 years old and going into a Canadian kindergarten classroom. I absolutely loved it even though the reading materials and everything else was new to me. I remember the reading textbook at the time had diverse subject matters some I had experienced and had first hand knowledge of and some totally new to me. I loved every lesson and learned to read quickly, since every subject interested me greatly. This goes for the other areas of the classroom which I enjoyed greatly although it was a totally different environment from the one I grew up with and which I had at home.

The kid's 'N' clay video was very well done and it showed children deeply involved in creating with materials. I remember working with clay when I was an adolescent. We went through the whole process, creating, using proper tools, glazing and firing it in the kiln. It was a deeply satisfying experience, I learned alot through the creative process and a lot about colors, through being allowed to apply me own. I was a bit disappointed with the results but I never forgot this enriching experience.

The Hacking Humans article was quite shocking but not surprising. Personal security is the main reason I do not use the payment options available on the Internet. What could stop a hacker from stealing my personal information and causing havoc in my life?

The chapter explores the question; "what is meaningful learning?" I find it ironic that as educators we spend our time trying to get children to learn one thing or another but rarely stop to ask ourselves: What exactly is learning? How do we make learning meaningful for our students? The fact  that  there are  diverse  volumes of learning theories out there, each possessing a piece of the puzzle of the enigma of learning and none of them having the whole answer was explored. I agree that this is due to the complexity of the human organism. The idea that all of us humans; from toddlers through experts, naturally construct theories,about how the world works is appealing to me. For example :I have observed how a toddler constructs knowledge about how a shape sorter works and have observered how I construct knowledge about how my computer works. We construct knowledge in similar ways although my ways may be more complex.

 The authors express their view that schools should foster learning  and that  should  be the most important outcome of schools. The authors go on to say that the main goals of schools should be helping students to learn how to recognize and solve problems, comprehend new information, and construct mental models of this information. Furthermore, in new situations the students should be able to set goals and regulate their own learning [learn to learn]. [Jonassen,et al ,2003]
In other words the students should be engaged in meaningful learning.  As Educators we should use technologies to engage students in all five attributes of Meaningful learning. These attributes are: Active [Manipulative/Observant].This attribute recognizes that learning is a natural, adaptive human process. Students are actively engaged in meaningful  tasks.  An example of this kind of learning would be: Apprenticeships of all kinds. This brings to mind a student of mine who became a good baseball player by playing the game hours on end and adjusting the way he played different aspects of the game in order to become more successful at it.

Another attribute would be Constructive [Articulative/Reflective]  Learners must express what they have accomplished and reflect on their activities and observations in order to learn their lessons. Yet another attibute is that learning must be Intentional[Reflective/Regulatory]. These means that all human behaviour is goal directed. An simple example from my experience is a toddler getting a stool in order to reach a bowl of ice cream or a schoolager practicing their dance moves so that they can preform well in front of their friends.

 Furthermore learning must be  Authentic [Complex/Contextualized]. We need toTeach knowledge and skills in real-life, useful contexts. For example: a math activity where the children have to add the price of real produce and use real money to pay for the items.

Finally there is Cooperative [Collaborative/Conversational] learning.  The authors believe that in order to learn, students should be teachers representing what they know and  what they are learning.Technology would act  as a partner in the learning process.

In response I would agree that  learning is an enigma explored by many theories with no one answer. We are all constructing knowlege of how our world works no matter who we are. As educators we should ensure that we should be engaging students in meaning learning with all it's attributes. We should work with students and technology to bring about and facilitate learning.