Twitter Chat Experience

It seems fierce while I am joining the topic What is School on twitter today from 5pm-6pm. My twitter was registered in 2010, but never got chance to twit anything. Within the one hour, I have twitted 21 twits and following four cool guys from this topic, simultaneously, the number of followers increased to 21.

There are six questions relating to the topic: What is School? (http://mrkempnz.com/2015/02/what-is-school-ethical-and-safe-learning-environments.html)

1) What are the most important elements of a safe & ethical learning environment?

2) What does your current learning environment look and feel like?

3) What does your ideal/dream learning environment look and feel like?

4) What ethical considerations are important when establishing a learning environment?

5) How do you ensure your learning environment is safe for everyone?

6) How can you use student voice to create the ‘ultimate learning environment’?

My twitter responses: 

It was an enjoyable experience of discussing with twitter. I have subscribed this topic and followed this person, Craig Kemp. Highly recommend! 

Worked Examples with Spontaneous Projects

              This week in my class, we have talked about the principles of worked examples. From the reading we did before the class, The Worked Examples Principle in Multimedia Learning by Alexander Renkl (University of Freiburg), which lists six principles of utilizing multimedia in classes design as attached below.

            Based on the principles,  students are encouraged to make an introduction video with iMovie. They have the flexibility to choose what topic they like to present in the classes. In the aim to create spontaneous projects, students have to master the principles listed in the reading and apply them to the video projects. Simultaneously,  I tried the  websites of spontaneous projects listed in the article Preparing Students for the 21st Century, and Kidproj stimulate an idea that my students could share their video projects with the real-field teachers there. And the website offers many professional topics:
http://kidlink.org and teachers could join the discussion in specific Facebook groups.

In this way, they are not get ideas from class readings, but also could get connection with teachers all over the world. I am looking forward to see how it works in my class. 

How to "Make" a Meaningful Learner with Multimedia Instruction

" How to make a meaningful learner?" this question stays in my mind these days.

in a fortuitous situation, I encountered the book Cambridge Multimedia Learning Handbook, which inspired me with utilizing technology in classroom teaching. "Meaningful Learner" is a term mentioned in the book. "How to make students meaningful learners in K-12 level teaching" becomes a question in my classes recently. 

Besides "meaningful learner", students and I also discussed "multimedia learning and instruction", "behavioral activity vs. cognitive activity", " Technology-centered vs. Learner-centered", " two goals of learning" and "three kinds of multimedia learning outcomes"

I asked each student to teach me a word within 20 seconds using multimedia instruction. And I learned "bae", "emoji", "exotic", "syzygy", "swag", "xenphobic", "impavid", "pyrophoric" and "pretzel". 

However, I haven't reached "meaningful learning" yet, which asks for a good remembering as well as good understanding. But my students and I are going to "dig" it more with multimedia teaching/learning

The picture attached is the word "emoji" presented with multimedia. 

Goals of Taking 880J

The topic of TEAC880J is Technology Integration on Language Arts. As the rapid development of technology as well as its gradual-vital role in education field,  integrating technological teaching strategies is a research-worthy and practical-worth area. Furthermore, the learning of utilizing technology into classroom teaching and learning never ceases. I am interested in learning how to integrate technology into classroom teaching and what the difficulties teachers and students encounter in the high-tech literacy environment.