Week 4 - Digital Media

Digital Media

Digital media covers many types of media, including text, images, videos and audio. This variety of media allows students to explore any topics introduced in classrooms in further depth. Students would have access to videos, podcasts or the ability to study images. Each individual student has a learning style that they benefit from the most, however, from my experience, most students tend to benefit more from kinaesthetic and visual learning styles as the predominant pedagogy. Using auditory instructions does assist students, but making them sit still with no physical engagement proves to be more detrimental to the developing mind. The website MindTools has an excellent explanation on the Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic (VAK) learning styles and the strategies that can be utilised in study situations to benefit those learners.

Using sites such as Canva allows a student to create their own media like posters for class tasks.

Apps similar to Paint3D allow a person to draw or edit their own images*.

*I am not an artist.

Exploring the creations of other people on the internet inspires individual creativity. Students creating their own images or posters should be encouraged to find examples and references first.

Some creation sites allow sharing through their own system. Sharing digital media can also be accommodated via social media networks or through private networks such as email or messages. A creator can also customise their own blog or website to house their creations. This blog or website could then be shared amongst the social media networks.

In an example above, I used Paint3D to create my own drawing, I could continue to alter it until I was happy with the final product, or I could find another image and choose to customise it instead.

As you can see, this is the same image as before, however it has been edited. With these creation sites and applications, a person can use pre-existing images. They do not have to start from nothing, as I did.

Some apps, such as Canva and Paint 3D are very easy to use. They have easy instructions and when someone is struggling with an aspect of the app, they can easily find help to solve the issue. With some other apps like Adobe Photoshop and Clip Studio, they are more intricate creation tools and therefore become more difficult to operate correctly. To properly utilise these higher-end creation tools, a student may have to watch several instruction videos.

As mentioned throughout the blog, some of the easiest creation tools to use are Canva and Paint 3D. Other apps such as Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio and Procreate are more advanced tools to use, however, they are significantly better tools for an experienced user.

Safety Using Digital Technologies

The main consideration with the safety of students whilst utilising digital technologies would be to ensure that everything they are creating is respectful, safe and following moral codes. Teachers would also need to be aware of the sites students are accessing to ensure no misinformation is passed onto them unknowingly. Teachers should reinforce the concept of always checking sources and comparing the information with multiple websites.

The SAMR Model

In Mathematics classrooms, the substitution level of the SAMR model could be implemented in the shared OneNote of the class, where a teacher would provide the content and example on the computer for the class to have consistent access to.

The augmentation level of the model may be implemented as allowing the students to enter all working onto their own OneNotes, allowing they have touch screen devices and styluses to work with. The direct input of working into the OneNote allows for easier study time, easy access to the working for the teacher and the students would not have to bring their books or pencil cases to the classroom, as they have no use for them.

The modification level could be designed to allow students to create images for the questions being asked. A simple example would be for the student to draw out a table or diagram of the question. Students could create these images using Canva or Paint 3D.

The final step of redefinition could be designed to encourage students to create their own questions, design a poster with only the question, then design a secondary poster that provides the answer, how to solve and any visuals that might have assisted them in their solution. Their question, answer and posters could then be posted on their own maths blog for their teacher to see the progress made on the topic.