New Pedagogies – Digital Tools and Resources - Assessment Task 4: Reflective Writing
The first assignment of the module is designed to be a multidisciplinary learning experience (MLE) where students of different disciplines collaborate and get involved in the efforts of rejuvenating and promoting the heritage tourism of the chosen destination, Lembah Bujang (also known as Bujang Valley). It was my first time participating in an MLE project, hence, I was excited to work with students from different schools. The schools involved were the School of Education (SoEd), the School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events (SHTE) and the School of Architecture, Building and Design (SABD). Mixed groups comprising students from each school were formed to work collaboratively. Within each group, students of each school had different roles and tasks. As students from SoEd, our assignment was to produce an infographic that educates the public on Sungai Batu, an important location within the area of Lembah Bujang.
The biggest challenge of this assignment was the limited information about the selected heritage destination. The information available on the web remains on an introductory level. Despite having a handful of articles and postings about Sungai Batu, the content is very similar and even repetitive. Moreover, there weren’t even many photos and images that we could use. It was pretty frustrating at first because I felt that the lack of information might cause the infographic to appear empty and unappealing. We reached out to the members of other schools for more information but they faced the same challenge as well. In the end, I learned to accept the circumstance and shift my attention to fact-checking and ensuring the information presented is factually correct. I took it as a challenge to utilise my creativity in designing an interesting and informative infographic with limited resources and materials on hand. Figure 1. shows the final outcome of the infographic.
As the group members continued to work on the assignment, we exchanged more ideas about the conservation efforts of Lembah Bujang. In one of our conversations, we talked about the integration of virtual reality into heritage tourism of historical and archaeological sites. Tourists can 'visit' the historical sites through virtual simulations and scenarios created in virtual reality, providing them with memorable and immersive experiences. It was a heated discussion and we all agreed that it was a great idea for promoting the heritage tourism of Lembah Bujang. The experience reinforced my understanding of the importance of communication and collaboration between peers for ideating and developing new perspectives and solutions. I found this assignment insightful and meaningful as it introduced me to different fields of study and provided me to learn and communicate from different perspectives.
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| Figure 1.1 The three selected digital tools for Assessment 2. |
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| Figure 1.2 The TPACK Image. Source: http://matt-koehler.com/tpack2/using-the-tpack-image/ |
Assessment 3 is another group assignment that required students to design a lesson plan that incorporates a particular type of technology based on the TPACK framework. Before we began working on this assignment, I took the time to revise the TPACK framework. It is a technological integration framework developed by Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler in 2006 which aims to help educators understand how to incorporate technology in classrooms to enhance students' learning. By incorporating the framework, we should have a deep understanding of the subject matter and learning content, form the appropriate practices of teaching and learning, and evaluate and integrate appropriate tech tools to enhance the teaching and learning process.
Our group is rather diverse in terms of educational backgrounds as it consisted of students from different programmes and specialisations. I felt positive about the diversity of the group and I viewed it as a strength of our group as we could bring in different perspectives and learn from each other. However, upon starting to work on the assignment, we encountered the first obstacle which is to decide on the subject of the lesson plan. We went through a long discussion, suggesting and filtering out subjects we were confident to teach. In the end, we decided on the subject of science and topic “State of Matter”. At first, I did not feel comfortable about the selection because I lack in the content and pedagogical knowledge of the subject matter. It made me feel less confident in designing the lessons and learning activities. Nonetheless, the eagerness of the members to work on the selected topic has convinced me to take on the challenge. We were aware that the members were not all familiar with the subject. Therefore, we ensured everyone was well-supported by giving constant feedback and encouragement for the work done.
Due to my lack of content and pedagogical knowledge of the topic, I had to devote more time and energy to get equipped with the necessary concepts and theories of the subject matter. This is an important step as I need to ensure that the content prepared is correct and accurate. I did not have many ideas for the lesson activities, so I turned to the internet to look up existing teaching and learning resources. In the end, I decided to adapt some learning activities to suit the demographic of the lesson plan. Although my initial goal was to come up with a novel learning activity, my current capability has forced me to opt for making adaptations of existing resources. By combining my prior knowledge of materials and lesson adaptation with my new acquisition of the concepts of the state of matter, I was able to produce appropriate lesson activities with the integration of technology.
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