Interactive Learning and Hypertextual Understanding: Developing Emerging Literacies
St Michaelís Grammar School is an Independent Co-education P-12 school in Melbourne with 1300 students. The School has a 128k ISDN link to the Internet and a fibre optic network services the campus with ATM switching capacity (155m/bit). There are three networked laboratories, intelligent classrooms, library and LOTE computer laboratories and a student notebook programme. All staff have been provided with notebooks and staff studies are networked with individual connections. Members of the school community have open access to the Internet and all students have their own Internet account with password facility. The School conducts a wide range of technological workshops, seminars and conferences for subject associations and corporate sectors.
The School has established a vital business relationship with NEC. This relationship brings to the School the latest in innovative technology and informed consultancy services. The extensive resources of NEC ensures that emerging technologies such as Video-on-Demand and Picture-Tel video conference facilities are a reality for educational and business sectors. St Michaelís Grammar School is also an official training centre for Scala multimedia and in April this year, we hosted EduNet97 an International Internet Conference for Schools. Keynote Speakers included prominent politicians and leading educators from Australia and the USA. Over 250 delegates from all states attended the four day conference/workshop programme. The programme included papers from over 50 presenters. Online proceedings can be viewed at: www.stmichaels.vic.edu.edunet97/index
The School/Education St Michaelís has developed a fine reputation in the educational community with regard to offering quality and meaningful training/consultancy programmes. Education St Michaelís has already offered extensive Professional Development to both the educational and commercial sectors.
Interactive Learning
Emerging technologies have not only changed the appearance of our classrooms, they have also issued a challenge for teachers to reassess and modify their educational objectives and learning strategies. The subject faculties rather than only Information Technology teachers have influenced the technology solution at St Michaelís Grammar School. The staff is committed to making meaningful use of the Internet and multimedia in their classrooms. The Internet is used in classrooms for research, electronic publishing, collaborative projects, video conferencing, virtual classroom administration and most recently in the development of hypertext documents.
The introduction of company style multimedia presentations allows the students to consider real audiences in the development of their projects. In cross-faculty initiatives, students are beginning to develop multimedia resources for local business clients. Several teachers are also extending electronic curriculum resources by transferring units of work to CD-ROM which operate with enhanced Internet functionalities.
Many teachers who have embraced the technology use e-mail to broaden learning experiences in the form of international collaborative projects, Keypal exchanges, text-based virtual reality forums, research and educational newsgroups. Students are also taught specific search techniques to attain relevant resources from the Web.
Students are encouraged to evaluate the range of information sources before selecting the most appropriate resource. Successful integration of the Internet with existing information, centres on the edict ëthe right tool for the right job.í The Web is also used as a facility to electronically publish student work in teacher-mediated sites and to help with virtual classroom management. The Internet has been used in the development of hypertext documents and the recent installation of video conference software will enhance collaborative learning. St Michaelís has not fallen ëfor technology in an adolescent rushí; curriculum concerns continue to drive innovative and meaningful use of the technology.
Our teachers are in the process of modifying teaching practices to broaden learning experiences and outcomes. Traditionally the teacher assumed the role of an authoritarian, directing all learning processes with tightly structured learning outcomes. The emerging technologies, however, have encouraged self-paced education as the students begin to assume responsibility for their learning. The teacherís role has become more sophisticated as they guide their students in using the Internet (and related multimedia programs) more effectively, including the discrimination, evaluation and synthesis of information.
Several of our teachers are exploring ways of enhancing traditional learning processes. The linear medium ie. a prescribed start and a definite conclusion characterised by sequential development underpins much of our teaching. We are currently endeavouring to apply a more conceptual and divergent mode of thinking to our educational initiatives. As a consequence, the English Faculty has introduced the program Story Space to promote conceptual/hypertextual learning environments into the curriculum. Story Space allows the students to express themselves incorporating written text, visual imagery, linkages between blocks of data and specific word extensions. While textual content is traditionally important, students are encouraged to think beyond this static learning base and link, then label these connections. The program facilitates display of work via a range of options. The display/presentation options are important as the student must decide if the work is to be used as a resource for an oral presentation or submitted to the teacher as a work task.
Students are encouraged to use the hyperlink function in the Microsoft Word package to broaden traditionally word-processed documents. The program allows links to other text files, images, photographs, WWW sites and all other networked resources. Similarly, students and teachers are also using Web page creation to express themselves in a more dynamic hypertextual environment.
Teachers and students are in a transitional stage where students are given the option to produce conventional work tasks or responses using a form of multimedia. This transitional stage is vital as the staff modify their curriculum and work practices and review assessment procedures. As we are committed to an evolving curriculum, we incorporate and develop relevant technologies rather than being simply subservient to change. There has already been a noticeable impact on how and what we teach, including:
Staff professional development has been integral to the successful integration of the technology into all areas of the curriculum. By the conclusion of 1997 all teachers will complete over 40 hours of training and professional development and they will come closer to owning the technology in their classroom.
Tony Carrucan ©, 1997. The authors assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.