Spring 2005

Online teaching & learning

Virtual practice creates new skills

Digital resources developed by The Le@rning Federation to support the Arts and Technology curriculum explore opportunity, entrepreneurship and vocational learning. SUSAN ATKINS reports on school trials.

‘I thought it was a good game to learn. I did not want to get off. It is a great game for learning about produce. It gets you thinking.

(Caitlyn and Tom, year 7)

INTENDED FOR USE AS TRANS-DISCIPLINARY LEARNING MATERIALS, the Arts and Technology set of learning objects focuses on developing creative skills and critical and aesthetic appreciation of artistic techniques and technologies in media, music and the visual arts.

In the ‘Sonic’ series of learning objects, students explore and manipulate sounds, video and images to create their own compositions. Exploration, analysis and synthesis of this process is encouraged to develop an understanding of the different purposes of the creative arts in real-life contexts.

During trialling, student discussion was clearly focused on identifying and choosing sounds and on the temporal structure of the soundscapes the students were designing. Reflective questions integrated into the learning resource allowed students to capture their thinking, ideas and understandings and to review and evaluate their creation with peers and the teacher. As one teacher from Smithfield noted: ‘students were very interested, confident and keen to create different soundscapes … the second and third times through they were discriminating between sounds to include and thinking about the order of sounds’.

Opportunity and vocational learning

These learning resources are designed to immerse students in environments that provide opportunities to undertake and enact entrepreneurial roles. Students are able to explore and synthesise the many components of enterprise environments. Environments are underpinned by industry challenges, resource management and innovation potential.

The definition of enterprise education by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) is: Enterprise education is learning directed towards developing in young people those skills, competencies, understandings and attributes which equip them to be innovative, and to identify, create, initiate, and successfully manage personal, community, business and work opportunities, including working for themselves.

Enterprise education seeks to foster in students the relevant skills and values that will assist them to integrate different perspectives on schooling and opportunities beyond, such as:

• creativity, innovation and self-reliance
• the ability to generate, recognise and seize opportunities
• greater appreciation of the need for lifelong learning
• personal development that will help them to be more adaptable.

The effective interaction between schools, business, industry and community is a key element in enterprise education. The active support and engagement of businesses and communities provide students with the opportunity to put into practice the skills and values they have learnt through their enterprise education activities.

Students as users

The ‘Buds’ series of learning objects immerses students in an environment as small business operators. Students are encouraged to discover opportunities to sell and innovate on their product to win an award for finding business opportunities.

This series of digital learning objects relies on the visual power of the digital medium with minimal textual content. Students are compelled to take risks, explore opportunities and engage in entrepreneurial pursuits.

‘Buds’ was trialled and evaluated with year 7 students in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. The learning resource was received positively by students and teachers in all schools. The lack of textual or verbal instructions delivered the intended requirement of users to explore and discover the purpose of the game and its outcomes. The game enabled students to develop strategies and enhance their level of competency through multiple uses. All feedback indicated that users understood the generic intention of the learning experience and were able to articulate the intended learning outcomes to various levels.

At Beaconsfield Upper Primary in Victoria the ‘Buds’ level 1 version (product and costs in units of 10) was trialled with prep and year 1 students. When the teacher, Heather, had first viewed the ‘Buds’ learning resource she found the task complicated and took some time to understand the learning purpose. Heather introduced the resource to the whole class via the interactive whiteboard and asked students to help her complete the task.

Heather pointed out that the flower farmer was trying to sell his products to win a business award and that the farmer could go to various buildings (businesses) and ask the occupants to buy his product. Working in pairs students were able to complete the activity and determine that to be successful in the business you needed to make enough money from sale of your product to continue your business activity. The visual representation of information allowed pre-literate learners to actively participate in running the business.

At this level it was clear that the students were able to grasp the ‘rules’ of the game; however, articulation or identification of the conceptual business principles on which the game is based was minimal. The students were able to determine that growing flowers costs money and to be able to grow more flowers (stay in business) they needed to sell flowers or flower-related products. Through class discussion students demonstrated that they grasped a basic understanding of the following:

• different flower products had different values and costs to produce and prices in the market also varied
• people differ in what they are prepared to buy
• altruism can have rewards.

Heather believed that if the learning object was used in conjunction with existing enterprise education units of work on ‘Farms’ or ‘Shopping’ that this would provide an opportunity to put the basic business management concepts into practice. She thought that, within the current units of work, business management principles are glossed over and that a virtual business management resource such as this provides the opportunity for students to discuss and trial different ideas and ways of improving business activity.

‘After struggling myself to work out the strategies required to successfully complete the “Buds” task, I was more than a little amazed at how easily the children coped with it. They were very keen to have a go and happily shared their discoveries with each other. There was a constant dialogue between the children and myself about the task and the concepts underlying it. Overall, an exciting, enjoyable and intense learning experience!’

Having the opportunity to actively engage in enterprise programs involving real businesses, industry or the community is not always a possibility. Virtual simulated enterprise learning resources provide a meaningful alternative for students attaining and putting into practice the enterprise skills and values underpinning enterprise education.

References

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA). ‘New framework for vocational education in schools’, available at www.dest.gov.au/sectors/career_development/programmes_funding/ programme_categories/key_career_priorities/ Enterprise_education/default.htm

The Le@rning Federation
www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/tlf2/ showMe.asp?md=p&nodeID=2

Susan Atkins is director, Online Learning for The Le@rning Federation.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au