Encountering E-Learning Education

Last week during our e-learning block we conducted an interesting and intriguing interview with Deborah Evans via the internet using Skype. She works at the Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre and is a professional on LAMS. She quotes…”LAMS has become an integral part of many aspects of Macquarie ICT Innovation Centre in developing, implementing and evaluating innovative ways of enhancing learning through the application of dynamic and emerging information and communication technologies”. Matthew Kearney had set up a class interview with her in order to give us a better understanding of the pedagogyand scope of LAMS sequences.

Debbie informed us that initially LAMS was designed for distance higher education learning and it was her role to adjust it for primary teaching contexts. She trialled LAMS on her stage three class and after six months introduced it in the context of online homework tasks. This was revolutionary for the time and really was thinking out of the square as the school was situated in a rural area. After three years LAMS was embedded in the homework system. Students thoroughly enjoyed this new learning framework and would rush home to complete their LAMS homework. Debbie could only assume that they were highly engaged in the learning. Additionally LAMS was integrated into classroom learning.

As LAMS improved she designed learning sequences which were more experimental. She taught collaboratively with another stage three class and created a live chat buddy program. She found forums were a particularly popular tool. One instance was when the boys created a “for boys only” forum. Forums were also used by the parent community for planning social events. She also found that votes were another useful tool. Debbie would sometimes use live edit informed by the results of class votes.

Her tips to us were keep it simple and rich. Have a few gates to allow for class discussion. Use live edit to manipulate the direction of learning. Once you’ve designed a good template, don’t be afraid to re-use it, particularly for younger students. Use LAMS across the KLAs such as themes in English texts, bullying within PDHPE or peer support activities. Overall it was an extremely helpful and valuable interview.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS