Ornisa's Blog

Computer enjoyment – Pleasure a student derives from using computers

Computer Importance – The perceived value or significance of knowing how to use computers

Computer Learning Engagement – Students are actively involved in their own learning by using computers

Virtual museum and inquiry-based learning

Virtual museum is a database-driven source where the student can explore and learn in an interactive manner. Students can study an organized collection of electronic artifacts and information resources. A good virtual museum will provide information which the student can perform searches ranging from simple questions to those of greater depth. For inquiry project, students raise a question and do the research to support their assumption. They will have greater depth of knowledge as they can construct their own knowledge. This is a shift of paradigm where in the old approach, teachers give lecture and students bank information in their brain. Virtual museum can be a very good resource for students to search for knowledge to support their ideas.

Some more interesting virtual museums

National Museum of Women in the Arts http://www.nmwa.org/

The Museum of Unnatural Mystery http://www.unmuseum.org/unmain.htm

Virtual Museum of Arts El Pais http://muva.elpais.com.uy/flash/muva.htm?&lang=en This is an award winning site.

Reference: Mindi Donaldson, Virtual Destinations and Student Learning in Middle School: A Case Study of a Biology Museum Online, 2006

Tons of virtual museums can be found on internet. Teachers can create a lot interesting lessons from these virtual museums- another innovative online edutainment. They are very good resources for students to learn with fun element. However, in another way round, teachers can ask students to create exhibit for their personal virtual museums.

The possible activity can be:

At this moment there are 100’s of museums and the like that have created virtual tours of there facilities. After spending some time looking into this tool I realize that the world is at our fingertips.

This will indeed spark great interest in students of all levels. The limits of normal field trips are now forgotten. There can be nothing in between the students and learning. Money and time can now be forgotten as excuses for not going. Of course a power failure could damper the virtual tour!

An example of an excellent tour is the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Online exhibits include AIDS: The War Within; Apollo 8 Command Module; the Big Dig Construction Site; the Coal Mine; Hatching Chicks; Giant Heart; and Animated Industrial Gears. A nice aspect of the virtual museum is the inclusion of exhibits that will appeal to students in grades 1 to 4 as well as exhibits more suitable for older students.

Activity: Invite students to explore the Coal Mine exhibit and then ask them to write a paragraph explaining whether they would like to work in a coal mine, and why or why not. A more complex activity for students in grade 5 o above involves visiting a local business or industry and photographing its operations. Students can then use the photographs as a basis of their own exhibit on the business or industry.

Optional Activity: Have students visit the The Chick Hatchery exhibit and write captions for the online photographs of a chick's birth.

Reference website- http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr057.shtml

This will be my last posting about Flickr. I have taken “Virtual Museums” for my next topic. This week I will talk about Flickr in Thailand from my views and small interview; also I have provided the links to Flickr pages where teachers posted their school works and to a few lesson plans using Flickr.

My Reflection on Flickr

When I first got Flickr for my blog topic, I asked IT staff in my school about it. One of them did not know what Flickr was whereas the other two staff know that it was a kind of online picture storage. They could not state clearly though what it could do in Education. One IT staff gave a useful answer for the use of Flickr in business world. He told me that the company could present their work through Flickr and invited the customers to see it there. It is another way to showcase their work. Do I know it myself in ther first place? The answer was ‘no’. I had to do the research on this and especially what it could help us in education. I found that many teachers have tried to incorporate Flickr in their lessons. What about the teachers in my school? I went to the computer teachers first. All of them have never introduced Flickr to students and never used it. Some of them don’t know Flickr at all. For other subject teachers, I randomly checked the lesson plans and couldn’t find anybody using Flickr.

I think Flickr is not quite popular in Thailand. People use Facebook more for their social networking and photo gallery. If they do use Flickr in the education terms, mostly they do it to show their school work or for other people to keep track of the school’s events. Teachers rarely incorporate Flick into their instruction. So far as I’ve been through a good amount of uses Flickr in the classroom, I will introduce this technological tool to the teachers in my school in the school magazine. I hope that it will help add colors to their lessons and can bring any dull lessons to life.

Links to Flickr Images Relating to Classroom Ideas

• A teacher collects students’ work and presents classroom ideas on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunna/collections/


• Classroom displays on Flickr.
  http://www.flickr.com/groups/classrmdisplays/pool/

Links to Lesson Plans Using Flickr

• Pamela AuCoin, a teacher teaching World History at Queens High School for the Sciences at York College in New York talks about incorporating Flickr in her lesson ‘Propaganda during the Russian Revolution’. Students search for images, post them onto Flickr and then exchange comments relating to the topic. Ms. Aucoin gives a clear steps for the class. See http://www.teachersnetwork.org/ntny/nychelp/technology/flickr.htm


• A teacher assigns students to use Flickr to record observations of the life cycle of a plant. Click here for a complete lesson plan for the class.

Pros:

• Flickr has the ability to promote motivation to learn in students. This is because it is not originally developed as an education tool. Students will feel more relaxed when learning with Flickr.


• Flickr as one of the social networking technologies can foster interaction and communication among learners. It will especially play an important role in online learning courses where students may have limited time or distance barrier for face-to-face interaction. Flickr can be a tool for students to build a network with their peers through photo sharing and commenting. Photos also reflect experiences so the site is where people exchange experiences. Flickr then builds a sense of community.


• Besides a network among peers, students can tie with a community of expert or amateur enthusiasts. Students are exposed to professional experiences.

Cons:

• Flickr is not censored. Instructor should give advice on inappropriate images to students especially young learners.


• As Flickr contains a myriad of photos and people set the names of their albums or photostreams at will, searching for the right images on Flickr may be time-consuming and tedious.


• Like in other vast online information sources, students may be distracted easily from the learning goals by wandering the photo sets which are not related to the learning topics.


• Some of the pictures on Flickr are copyrighted so they cannot be downloaded to be used in other settings.

Below are the sites where people expressed their experience in using Flickr. Check out what they said and you will see more of its benefits and disadvantages from their views.

A student's reflection on her practicum to present a library on Flickrhttp://classes.tametheweb.com/librarybug/category/practicum/

A teacher shared his experience on using Flickr in classrooms. The presentation is on the slideshow. http://www.slideshare.net/michaelc/teaching-with-flickr-presentation

See example 6 “Have students post images they have created to Flickr” on this page. http://cit.duke.edu/services/consult/web20casestudies.html

References:

7 things you should know about…Flickr from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7034.pdf

The Promise of Social Networks By Derek E Baird, November 1, 2005 http://www.techlearning.com/article/4816