ICT TOOLS Deriving Value from ICT

ICT TOOLS Deriving value from ICT This document was created in Beacon.by (Tool 2) Tool appraisal frameworks Table of Contents This introduction is slightly larger than the main body text to help catch the reader's attention. The SAMR model 1. Top 10 ICT tools 2. Tool 1 - Zapworks Studio 3. Tool 2 - Beacon.by 4. Tool 3 - 3D printing and lasercutting 5. Tool 4 - Camtasia 6. Tool 5 - Lumen5 7. Tool 6 - Trinket.io The TPACK model 8. Tool 7 - Edison Robot 9. Tool 8 - TinkerCAD 10. Tool 9 - Senstone 11. Tool 10 - FOCI 12. A few other considerations The TIM model Preamble This is not a list of the top ten tools that might suit every teacher. This is a list of the top ten tools that will make a difference in my teaching. As such there will be items included here that might not suit everyone. I am not good at coding nd to be perfectly honest I do not enjoy coding. What I enjoy are the results of coding. When I can find someone else's code and use parts of it as boilerplate my satisfaction level is high. Where do I use code and where do I look for code? I use code in a lot of places that you might not expect: on websites, when designing in Tinkercad and when creating graphs in Trinket. I use code to program robot behaviours. Related to coding is the creation of macros. Macros are very much under-rated and being able to review macros and create macros is a skill that many teachers stand to benefit from. In particular I routinely use macros in mining (CAD) software and I use macros in Adobe Creative Suite. This begs the question: are macros and code ICT tools? I would argue that they are. They serve as instructions between layers of computing abstraction. We can take the surface layer - the user interface and record or adapt what we see based on a set of rules. The computer can then be told to repeat the process on batches of files or data while we sleep or get coffee. The next question is whether or not we should consider tools in isolation. Tools work better in stacks, clusters and suites. Complex and powerful workflows can be built by leveraging more than one tool together. Think of it this way: you are in a workshop cutting a plank of wood. You could hold the wood with one hand and the saw in the other or you could fix the plank to the bench with a vice and use both hands to guide the saw. The second solution is more likely to produce a delightful result. ICT tool use is the same: this report is being produced in beacon.by while the graphics are being created in Adobe Creative Suite, with an EOS digital camera that is mounted on a focus-stacking focusing rail. The image results are passed through Helicon Focus before being manipulated in Photoshop. No one tool or vendor performs all of these functions. What is wrong with simplicity? Chalk does not require a power-supply. Chalk is often legible and it comes in a range of colours. It is cheap. It just works. By contrast when I set my smartboard camera up to record a session on my whiteboard there are many settings that need to be just so before I can begin. Kaptivo is a wonderful tool because it allows me to broadcast what I am writing on my board to anyone with access to a browser and a high-speed connection and to some degree it fosters collaboration, particularly when it is used in conjunction with Skype. Still, there is the rub: the modem needs to be working, the client modem needs to be working, the Kaptivo needs to be paired with the router, the Skype session needs to be loud and clear, the laptop driving the whole session should be working efficiently without any other programs drawing on the computing power. There are a lot of places where the technology can go wrong. A Substitute for Quality? When we use ICT tools are we applying spit and polish to unworthy content? Is the use of the ICT tool a way of distracting students, supervisors and ourselves from the nagging doubts we share about why we are in class in the first place? Teachers are a lot of things but they are not ICT professionals first and they are not entertainers first. Some teachers try to juggle ICT while showing their frustration and the audience begins to question what else the teacher is struggling with. Choosing the Right Tool for the Audience Students are often "treated" to TED talks, Youtubes and other movie-like content. When we consider Marshal Macluhan's mantra that the medium is the message are we not actually telling children that they should sit back, switch off and take in some entertainment? We think that the Crash Course provides a subject matter introduction that we could not possibly hope to beat, but do we consider that we should develop our own ability to be interesting and be truly present to our students instead of passing off the task of instruction to a recording? The French Army Knife Some ICT tools are prohibitively expensive and yet we like the features that they offer. When we see a product that looks similar at a much discounted price we jump at the chance to use that tool. The result is choices like Weebly.com for website creation. Weebly is deeply flawed; it is the website building tool equivalent of a French Army Knife where various corkscrews are provided for wine varieties. The danger of using such tools is that they may limit our expectations of what is possible and worse still, they may limit our students’ expectations of what is possible. https://webflow.com/ is an example of a website-creation tool that pushes boundaries. The code that is created is clean. The tools encourage creativity, they don’t stifle it. https://www.webydo.com/ is another tool that offers something novel – complete control over how a page will look – to the pixel level. We hear all kinds of promises when it comes to ICT in Education. The sales materials for edu-tech promise savings in materials, flexibility in content delivery, robust design and build – and such claims may feature grains of truth. Our pupils take part in a world that values how to think, how to focus, and how to navigate social interactions. Part of our duty in choosing ICT tools is the assess the degree to which such tools add and subtract from such goals. Teaching and learning is hard work – and this work is not always made simpler by the introduction of ICT. Teachers should seek to remove technologies that are harmful to educational goals. What works? Chalk works. When did we decide that we should not “Keep It Simple”? Technologies promise a simpler path but as we introduce them we must ask if they recede into the background or if they merely make life more complicated for teachers and for students. I firmly believe that we are about to see a dramatic change in how content is delivered in classrooms. XR will be the next big thing because it will help teachers to create student-centred learning that focuses on skills. We need to think about what comes naturally to students without all of the hogwash that goes along with “digital natives”. What is becoming clear is that students are craving face-to-face interaction even while their faces are glued to mobile phone screens. Social skills are being lost and as teachers we must help students to rediscover them. If we can find technology that supports this goal then fine, but that is a tough ask. Screen time comes at the expense of social interaction so we should consider what ICT we have at our disposal that does not interfere with face-to-face activities. Resource Guide This guide performs a variety of functions including hinting at steps and strategies for teachers and students to implement - as well as a list of things they can buy or subscribe to for free. Some Tools are "Givens" We have deliberately not included MS OneNote, MS Word, MS Excel, Google Docs, or Adobe Creative Suite as the author feels that familiarity with these tools are a given in any well-developed educational environment. Some tools are out of reach We have been experimenting with VIVE, and Aryzon however it is not reasonable to expect that students or schools, for that matter, will be able to afford anything beyond Google Cardboard. Google Daydream WorldSense may effect a change in the education landscape, however, as it promises to make external-sensor-free XR affordable. Some tools require high levels of supervision We love Littlebits and tools like it however where such tools are used in the classroom care must be taken to ensure that all assets are returned to the teacher at the end of class and in good working order. Advances in machine learning image analysis may soon make such a librarianship task simpler and quicker. Batteries not included Some tools, such as Vex Robotics and Edison Robots require batteries. Supplying rechargeable batteries is the only environmentally responsible approach however care must be taken that batteries are kept charged and that batteries do not "go missing". Tool 1 - Zapworks Studio Studio is the more complicated of the two authoring tools that Zapworks offers. In Studio you can create rich AR experiences once you have got your head around the logic behind the design tools.

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