My Personal Learning Environment

Learning contract

Topic: How to make the Linzer Torte

Purpose: Since I am staying in Linz for almost half a year and the Linzer Torte is a local speciality, I would like to learn how to make it. I love baking as well as consuming sweets and I would like to prepare the cake for my family so that they could taste a bit of the country I was staying in.

Resources: web-based tools - wiki to find more information concerning the cake, blogs to read some personal experience with making the cake, youtube to see how to make the cake, flickr and google pictures to find inspiration how it may look like, convert-me.com to convert the ingredients into the format I know, caloriecount.about.com to count the calories in my cake
technological resources - computer with Internet access, kitchen utensils, camera (to take a picture of my product)
human resources - diners, my mum - for giving advice

Strategy: 1. finding some theoretical/historical background about the cake - why is it called the Linzer Torte and what is the story behind it? (maybe my diners will be curious and ask me some inquiring questions), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linzer_torte, http://www.linz.at/english/tourism/873.asp; 2. finding the suitable receipe - I guess there are many different receips available, so it might be useful to compare them and find the suitable one - the critera for this is to be close to the original receipe and the availability of ingredients - I would use a searching engine to find the receips and personal blogs to get advice; 3. watching some videos on youtube concerning making the cake, taking notes; 4. finding the ingredients - what is the cake made of? and what is the proportion of the ingredients? where can I buy them?; 5. deciding on the design of the cake - how will it look like? how am I going to serve it? - finding some pictures and ideas on the web; 6. getting all the ingredients, finding the place where I can bake it and the appropriate kitchen utensils; 7. start doing it

Outcome evaluation: The diners taste my cake and give opinions/critique. I will expect or ask for the comments on the visual side of the cake as well and also ask them if their expectations came true. I will compare my expectations with the outcome, too.

3 articles on changes in learning and teaching

1. article: Three Trends That Define the Future of Teaching and Learning

I found this article on the blog which is called MindShift. Its author, Tina Barseghian, is a journalist and - as she mentions - the mother of a grade-schooler. Her blog explores the future of learning mostly in the context of cultural and technology trends.

The 3 trends that will define the future of teaching and learning can be abbreviated as CTB - Collaborative, Tech-powered and Blended. Let's explore these trends one by one.

Collaborative means sharing information and connecting with others. You can do this easily with social networking sites as well as with open-source sites and you can even be collaborative when you are offline using team-teaching and professional learning networks organised by schools. The advantage of collaborative learning and teaching summarises the veteran educator Chris Lehmann from the Science Leadership Academy: “If you’re teaching something that’s usually bland and you insert a simple tool that allows students to connect with each other or their peers in other schools and countries whenever they want, you just see kids’ faces light up.”

Tech-powered is not only about using various gadgets and aps in the classroom, but it also means to teach your students how to operate and create them. Students can also make digital portfolios to show their progress which may be faster and more interesting for them than writing piles of papers for hours and hours.

Tina explains blended learning as combining computers with traditional teaching. The way how to do it is left up to the teacher. You can assign some projects to be done at home or you can have your computer time directly in class or you can combine these two ways. Blended learning saves also money on books and supplements.

The whole article to be found here: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/02/three-trends-that-define-the-future-of-teaching-and-learning/

2. article: Technology Is Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say

This article was published on The New York Times websites and its author is Matt Richtel. He presents two surveys which were conducted on the topic of technology influence on child's attention. On one hand, the outcomes of the studies may not be reliable enough since the findings represent the subjective views of teachers who were interviewed, however, on the other hand, such data are significant because teachers are very close to the students and spend hours a day observing them. As a premise for the research might be taken the findings of Vicky Rideout who has shown that teenagers aged 8 to 18 spend twice as much time with screens each year as they spend in school. Such exposure to digital technology may hamper the attention spans of children and their ability to hold on when doing a more challenging task. 

And this is exactly what the majority of teachers agreed on in the survey - they said that more and more they feel like an entertainer who has the hard task to capture and hold child's attention. However, most of the teachers perceive technology as a useful educational tool with a positive impact on student's researching abilities. The other side of the coin is that digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans.

The whole article to be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/education/technology-is-changing-how-students-learn-teachers-say.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

3. article: New trends in teaching that make learning fun

This article was published on the websites of dna which is an English broadsheet launched in Mumbai. The author of the article says that big bags full of text books and notebooks are not "in" anymore. He stresses the importance of schools as they are powerful institutions with the ability to shape and change one's mind. The schools may have their limitations, however, the author proposes two fundamental bricks which should constitute their credo and that is experience and technology. 

Following Confucius who said: "What I hear I forget, what I see I remember and what I do I understand," the feeling process would definitely make the learning process more enjoyable and the gained knowledge more stable. Moreover, giving practical examples is another way of making the learning experience more close to the real life. The use of videos, films or technology in general also positively fosters one's learning.

The whole article to be found here: http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/1291890/report-new-trends-in-teaching-that-make-learning-fun

Changes in my learning experience

When I think about my learning experiences and their changes throughout time, I think that there has been changed a lot. When I was at the primary school, I have had one teacher for almost all the subjects except for English. He was an amazing man and a great professional with a lot of experience. His way of teaching was like from the old school times when the teacher wanted his pupils to strictly obey the rules but at the same time he always managed to spice up his lessons with humour and he was able to evoke interest in the field. He was a great authority for us. We never got homeworks because everything was done at school. On the other hand, he required a lot of discipline and if you disobeyed, you could get a little slap. That is something which would not be possible today since the parents would possibly sue you for physical abuse at the European Court of Justice. But at that time, some 18 years ago, it was still possible to be more strict with the children at school and I think that it made more good than harm because especially small children need a teacher who is a synthesis of authority and friendliness. So my learning at that time has been done exclusively in the school environment with the guidance of the teacher. 

Later on, at the grammar school, the more and more stuff to learn appeared. I got there various teachers whose teaching style varied. The most of them had though a feeling that their subject is the most important one in the world and that when we didn't learn everything in detail, we would probably miss a lot. However, self studying was a common way of getting information. Technique and practical applicability in the real life was not used much, most of the things were done in a theoretical way with little relation to real life. Unfortunately, this trend continued and is still in progress also now when I am studying at the university. I think that I have to study quite hard and do a lot of seminar papers but most of the seminars are theoretically based with loads of information but little practice. I miss also a feedback from our teachers. Great many papers I have handed out throughout my studies weren't provided with any feedback, just with a little note saying "passed".

To sum up, I think that the way of teaching of most of the teachers I met in my life was still quite a traditional one with a little use of technique, feedback, interactivity and open-mindedness. I think that it is because they established some kind of teaching style which they like and which is comfortable to stick to. On the other hand, the younger tutors and doctorands we had at the university were mostly open to changes and their lessons were usually more interesting. As if the new trends were just slowly approaching the younger generations. My own way of learning hasn't changed much since I got at the grammar school - I have to process a lot of information but traditionally with a little relation to their practical applicability.