The use of mutli-modality to support and enhance discovery learning (An exploratory approach)

1. The use of mutli-modality to support and enhance discovery learning(An exploratory approach) Doug Dickinson Independent ICT Consultant

2. Software A 30 day version of the software used in this presentation can be downloaded from www.softease.com/downloads.htm At the Singapore IBO Convention please consult: Eugenie Morley Business Development Manager Direct line:  +44 (0)1335 343421 Ext: 238 Mobile:  07747766781 Tel:  +44 (0)1335 343421 Fax:  +44 (0)1335 343422 Email:  emorley@softease.com Web:  www.softease.com Mail:  Softease, Market Place, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 1ES

3. Who am I? doug@dougdickinson.co.uk www.dougdickinson.co.uk www.softease.com

4. Mono-modality ? The video I wanted to play here was too big to be transferred easily. Click on the image for the link please!

5. Enquiry Learning • Enquiry learning has occurred ever since human beings looked around at the world and wondered what life was all about. • However, in the context of nineteenth and twentieth century schooling, it is a revolution. The legacies of expert or authority-led learning to meet external requirements are still pervasive. • Teachers and learners are increasingly adopting a 'new' paradigm: enquiry learning. • Why? • because it frees creativity, facilitates dialogue, generates mutual respect and leads to productive engagement with the world. • So what is it?

6. Enquiry LearningWe use the term to mean any approach to learning that is: • founded on the realities of an individual's, group's or community's experience of their everyday life and practice .... authentic learning • engages imaginatively with the world • involves critical reflection on experience • involves critical dialogue with others • explores the experiences of others in relation to one's own • explores the creative means by which to engage with the experiences of others • seeks to identify, create and explore alternative ways of seeing, thinking, believing and being with others • employs a research based approach to analysis, interpretation and formation of theories, explanations and understandings • explores the conditions for implementation of changeand thus, and this for me is critical, is sensitive to political and ethnic processes Enquiry learning can be employed in any sphere of life. Indeed, what is at stake is life and how it is lived.

7. PYP/MYP

8. Multi modality • In the wide world outside electronic communications we receive our information in a multi modal fashion • We see, we hear, we touch, we smell, and we taste. • Our experience of the world comes to us through the multiple modes of communication to which each of our senses is attuned.

9. Gunter Kress Click the image to listen to Gunter’s presentation on ‘Multimodality, Representation and New Media

10. Today’s children • Today’s children are growing up in a world where they receive their information multi-modally in text, graphics, sound, video and animation, sometimes all at once and sometimes a bit at a time. • They also expect to interact with this information in a variety of ways often dependent upon their particular learning style. • This opens a debate concerning ‘new literacies’.

11. New Literacies • These are powerful tools: how they can be used to develop the enquiry ethos which is fundamental to the five essential elements of the PYP and beyond, needs to be explored, discussed and moved forward. • Children/students of all ages should be empowered to realise their learning through powerful technologies and collaborative efforts. These should be open and transparent applications that allow freedom of expression.

12. Wikipedia • Multimodal interaction provides the user with multiple modes of interfacing with a system beyond the traditional keyboard and mouseinput/output. The most common such interface combines a visual modality (e.g. a display, keyboard, and mouse) with a voice modality (speech recognition for input, speech synthesis and recorded audio for output). However other modalities, such as pen-based input or haptic input/output, may be used. Multimodal user interfaces are a research area in human-computer interaction.

13. RUWeb2 ? • RU Del.icio.us ? • do you Flickr ? • what’s your blog ? • Skype me ! • do You Tube ? • ZOHO ? • and are you prone to crazy talk ? • Well …. Do you/are you/have you/will you …THEY are!!

14. Those working with these new literacies need to appreciate the variety of effects that can be gained by utilising multi-modal technologies in creative and expressive ways. They also need, through their engagement, to appreciate the responsibilities that come with such publication.

15. It is, of course, not all about the learner. • The blended teacher/learner role and the specific teacher role here are important. • Multi-modality and the interactivity which comes with it supports the recognition of and the adoption/adaptation of the wide variety of learning styles needed to engage and develop today’s learners. • The challenge that this brings to conventional forms of ‘writing’ and ‘assessment’ needs to be addressed.

16. A Convention focusing on Information Literacy Across the IB Programmes is an open invitation for such discussion to take place with contextual exemplars and evidence of work both from inside and outside the IB community.

17. So let us talk …(or read) • ‘Multimodality … attempts to theorise these multiple forms of communication, identifying how multiple modes such as images, words, and actions all depend on each other to create whole meanings. • A very good example of this is provided in Kress et al's Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom3. • They analyse a short sequence of actions in a science classroom as a teacher attempts to describe the workings of the human heart. Variously, the teacher uses spoken words, a freehand line diagram drawn on a whiteboard, a rubber model of a heart, a textbook illustration, and his hands to communicate with his class.’

18. In Textease Studio CT we have the means and the capacity to utilise: • text, in all of its formats • text read • the spoken word in one or more languages • video • animation – in a variety of forms including Flash • drawings that can be static or dynamically changed • information charts which can be equally dynamic or static • clip art, diagrams, photos • dynamic measuring tools • presentation both linear and branched • traditional painting • image manipulation • hyperlinking to objects, documents, web pages, • concept mapping • timeline construction • generate dynamic Logo programs … and all of this concurrent and displayed on the same page.

19. There is also the essence of collaborative work here. • This is not content, but ideas in progress which can be saved, adopted, adapted and innovatingly transformed.

20. The software establishes the ownership of the contexts with learners and teachers alike and allows a unique discourse to take place within the catalyst of the page structure. • It is a place to think, to experiment and to explain. • Its content free environment allows for freedom of creativity and openness of thought.

21. Variety within multi modality • Electronic multi-modality is not just about text, graphics, sound and video … it is about capturing all the functionality that we use and moulding it together to make dynamic, exciting communications • Developing and authoring such communications is an expression of understanding of content and audience

22. One for the early years You will need to have Textease Studio CT installed to view these files Click on the pictures to activate From Rachel To listen to the podcast subscribe to this url: http://www.dougdickinson.co.uk/podcast/Y11603070844/PodcastRssFeed.xml … and my reply

23. PYP … You will need to have Textease Studio CT installed to view these files Click on the pictures to activate

24. MYP Investigating triangles • Using this software it is right and relevant to dynamically generate a scalene triangle and change it into an equilateral triangle and to automatically measure the angles to check the shape.

25. You will need to have Textease Studio CT installed to view these filesClick on the pictures to activate

26. A spreadsheet can then be added to the page and the data for angle size can be inputted so that the sum of the angles of the triangle can be calculated automatically. • All measurement is approximate and the default will measure to +/- 1 degree. • This can be altered to measure more accurately to a number of decimal places which can be reflected in the spreadsheet.

27. You will need to have Textease Studio CT installed to view these filesClick on the pictures to activate It is also right to confirm this by automatically measuring the length of the adjacent sides of the triangle.

28. This triangle is, of course, a specific case and more triangles can be added to the page (and more spreadsheets) to check for generality of concept. • This can be verbally explained by selecting a triangle and a voice recording of the concept added. • Text can also be added to the page and any significant labelling can be easily generated and positioned. • The triangles can, of course, be identified by colour etc. • All of this could be done in a presentation so that the thought processes and the conceptualisation can be followed in progression.

29. LOGO You will need to have Textease Studio CT installed to view these files Click on the pictures to activate

30. You will need to have Textease Studio CT installed to view these files Click on the pictures to activate

31. You will need to have Textease Studio CT installed to view these filesClick on the pictures to activate

32. Textease Studio CT is therefore a truly electronic multimodal and multimedia tool with the potential of supporting and enhancing the various knowledge components of any trans-disciplinary theme supported and balanced by subject contexts.

34. Web references • Multimodality 1 • Futurelab • Discovery Learning • Back in 2002 … • Intuilab definition • 2006 Third International Conference on Multimodality • Mirandanet • The National Council of Teachers of English • Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom