Assessment 4, Part A: Context for digital storytelling project

Digital Tools

The digital story ‘Australian Indigenous people as scientists’ covers a variety of Indigenous scientific areas including plants, astronomy, seasons and technology. The project has been created using Google Slides as students in NSW DET schools have access to G Suite for Education. Google Slides can integrate with other Google apps (such as Google forms and Jam) which can be used to assess student knowledge and assist collaboration. Hyperlinking sections increases student engagement and motivation. The use of Google Slides allows for the project to be published to the web for easy viewing. However, for use in school it would be shared on the teacher’s shared drive for access to all staff. Teachers could then share it on Google Classroom, enabling students to complete the activities on their own copy of the slide.

Design

The resource has been created to give teachers background knowledge and resources on Aboriginal knowledge and application of science. It is also designed as a stand-alone resource students in stage two upwards could use independently. The project also aims to increase a sense of belonging and pride for Aboriginal students and impart knowledge to other students.

Copyright regulations have been complied with and modelled by using images available under Creative Commons, sites requiring no attribution and the author’s own images and recordings. Videos have been referenced at the end of the project. Using images from these sources and embedding videos into the Slides (rather than download) ensures that the project can be shared digitally with students and they can make a copy of the work (Smartcopying, n.d.).

Students are easily distracted on the internet, many looking at off-task information (Wu & Xie, 2018, p.244), embedding videos decreases this risk. Slides also presents videos without any advertisements and allows the creator to choose portions of the video to show. Direct links to website pages have been used when required to also minimise student distractions.

There are optional links (shown by symbols) on the project so users can choose to get an overview of the story or delve into further enrichment resources and activities. The use of symbols also helps to orientate the user within the slides and provide choice of direction.

The aim of this project is to impart cultural understanding and make learning more authentic using local knowledge for that Country. This is achieved by using videos containing mostly Aboriginal people speaking of their culture.

Rationale

Indigenous peoples have been portrayed for a long time as ‘primitive’. However, this is not true, as vast amounts of scientific knowledge have been demonstrated throughout Indigenous cultures. Even when recorded, Indigenous knowledge has been discounted. For example, Blandowski’s work over 10 years (1849-1859) recording Aboriginal classification knowledge was never published (von Zinnenburg Carroll, 2014). This perpetual stereotyping of Aboriginal peoples has led to a lack of esteem in culture, particularly in science. Indeed, some Aboriginal people see science as not relating to them, with a belief that “Aboriginal people are not good at maths and science and all that” (Ball, 2015, p.14). It has also left a gap in Australian’s knowledge of it’s First People.

Digital story telling (DST) can be used for intercultural understanding by comparing cultures and experiences (Malita & Martin, 2010, p.3061) The aim of this digital story is to help students (both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) to become more aware of how Aboriginals peoples use/used science in their culture. This will bring more of an understanding of Aboriginal culture to all students and may increase Indigenous student’s self-confidence and sense of belonging.

It also aims to assist teachers in integrating Aboriginal culture into their lessons. In 2018, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) introduced 95 new elaborations for Aboriginal scientific practices into the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, n.d). Teachers are time poor and often do not have time to search for additional resources, so this digital project aims to provide resources for teachers.

Teachers often feel they have little knowledge about Aboriginal people (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011, p.65). When non-Indigenous people teach about Aboriginal knowledge it is usually as a unit on certain aspects of Aboriginal knowledge and may unintentionally be stereotyped about particular styles or locations of knowledge (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011, p.70), for example boomerangs and the Northern Territory .

As Aboriginal culture is not heterogeneous, the resources have been drawn from a variety of Country groups to show diversity of practices. Even though the learning is not presented by an Indigenous person in local context, it is hoped it will provide an insight into the use of scientific knowledge of Indigenous peoples. The best way for students to learn is from an indigenous community member or elder about local country (Harrison & Sellwood, 2016, p.208). Providing learning in this way makes it authentic and meaningful as it is produced locally and relates context to place (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011, p.74). Therefore, it is best if the suggested activities can be adapted to include local Indigenous knowledge.

References:

ACARA (n.d). Australian Curriculum: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures.  https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-histories-and-cultures/

Ball, R. (2015). STEM the gap: Science belongs to us mob too. AQ: Australian Quarterly, 86(1), 13-36. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/stable/24363666

Harrison, N., & Greenfield, M. (2011). Relationship to place: positioning Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives in classroom pedagogies. Critical Studies in Education, 52(1), 65–76.  https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2011.536513

Harrison, N. & Sellwood, J. (2016). Learning and teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Smartcopying. (n.d). Flexible dealing.https://smartcopying.edu.au/information-sheets/schools/flexible-dealing

von Zinnenburg Carroll, Khadija. “What Would Indigenous Taxonomy Look Like? The Case of Blandowski’s Australia.” Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (2014), no. 12. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6292 .

Wu, J. & Xie, C. (2018). Using time pressure and note-taking to prevent digital distraction behavior and enhance online search performance: Perspectives from the load theory of attention and cognitive control. Computers in Human Behavior, 88, 244 – 254.   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.07.008

Digital Learning Environments

Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash

When thinking about digital learning environments (DLE) there are many factors to consider. According to Research Shorts (2016) DLE’s have expanded. Traditionally they used learning management systems (LMS) such as Moodle, Blackboard and Canvas, however, they now also include YouTube, FaceBook groups, Twitter and Skype.

When designing a DLE there are four considerations designers need to take into account:

  1. Organisation structure – is it going to consist of groups (such as using an LMS with start and end times and heirarchial structure), networks (entry, exit unrestricted, connections) or communities (similar to networks but with more commitment and continuity)?
  2. Design – needs to be effective, meaningful and have impact.
  3. Guidance – how much instruction and support is going to be available? What scaffold do you provide?
  4. Lack of neutrality in technology – considering how the software design impacts learning (accessibility by students, interaction capabilities etc), how does it impact teaching?

Kunkel (2011, slide 4) proposes that the ADDIE model be used when designing for DLE’s. This model breaks down as such:

A – Analyse – work out the difference between performance and needs

D – Design – decide learning objectives, plan training and develop evaluation

D – Develop – make the course

I – Implement – make course available/teach it

E – Evaluate – for effectiveness of learning and impact

Innovative Learning (2009) places the emphasis in DLE’s on interaction. ‘Dumped’ content is boring and learning occurs best in a social context with others so effective design needs to take this into account. There should be a blend of content, learner to learner and expert to learner categories, with more emphasis on the learner to learner category. When designing the course a deliberate decision has to be made on how to involve more interactions with the learner to learner and learner to expert. This does not only include the tools used to facilitate this (such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, wikis and discussion forums) but also how they will be used.

Applying these three factors to teaching I believe currently that flipped online learning would best suit the learning audience (students) as a detailed analysis of their current knowledge and learning needs has not been undertaken. Based on shallow formative assessment students are lacking in the basic fundamentals of the information search process (ISP). As this is the case flipped learning could provide materials on elements of the ISP (such as plagiarism and referencing etc) then students could use class time for gaining more in-depth study into inquiry questions, spend more time on research etc and allow more learner to learner and learner to expert time.

Innovative Learning’s (2009) comments that there should be learner to learner interaction got me thinking about my teaching style in general. In the past my lessons have been delivered face to face with learning supported by technology tools such as YouTube to help teach context, with the teacher as the expert with little or no learner to learner interaction. More learner to learner interaction could be incorporated by the use of activities such as a Socratic circle and using tools for a backchannel chat and in future could use Google Classrooms for communication between students. Perhaps in the future other tools could be added, for example, Twitter as learning takes place more in a DLE.

What makes learning effective for you in a digital learning environment?

References:

Innovative Learning. (2009, October 13). Designing online learning [online video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/Zv-_GCFdLdo

Kunkle, M. (2011). Instructional design principles: A primer [slideshow]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/MikeKunkle/basic-instructional-design-principles-a-primer

Research Shorts. (2016, June 18). Digital learning environments [online video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/-7UI-dTbMr0

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