Reflection: How Experience using Picknik fits into pedagogy frameworks

Today's experience using Picknik was far better than my day trying to upload photographs from Flickr! I found the picknik site to be extremely user friendly, especially for the technologically impaired such as myself! I actually had a lot of fun cropping and rotating different photos and even managed to get some family snaps edited and printed out for myself! although I am sure that this was not the aim of the activity as I cannot justify how doing this fits into pedagogy frameworks!

So how does Picknik fit into the frameworks? I will admit that after feeling especially brain dead and tired today after a late night with a sick child the only idea I could think of for using this program in class was as an easier alternative to photoshop for editing things such as yearbook and class assignment photographs. So I did a quick search and found this wiki which, if you scroll down to section III, has some awesome ideas for incorporating picknik into lesson plans for both primary and high school students.

One of these ideas for primary school students involves using picknik to practice grammar and using picknik for students to create their own postcards which, at the risk of repeating myself from the last blog on using flickr, encourages collaborative learning amongst students as they are learning by using the software and interacting with each other, this in turn incorporates Kearsley and Scheidermans Relate, Create, Donate theory as students have a real world application for their learning experience in the form of a postcard which can be sent to family and friends.

Along with this,  using picknik in the classroom for an activity such as creating a postcard also addresses Mode 2 level of Learning  from  Heath, G 2001 Teacher Education and the New Knowledge Environment,  part of the definitions for Mode 2 learning stated that knowledge is produced in the context of application and characterised by production is teams. Using Picknik in groups for students to complete this activity certainly covers these two areas of mode 2 learning.

In conclusion, as with all of the ICT;S we have had the opportunity to learn and experiment with in this course, picknik is defiantly an application to be used in the classroom to encourage student/learner centered learning. Use of technologies such as picknick, flickr, slide share, blogs, vokis, wikkis and countless more also incorporate Dimension 4 of Marzano and Pickerings Dimensions of Learning as these applications give students the opportunity to take what they have learned and Use Knowledge Meaningfully in a real world application.


Reference:

Gregory Heath, (2001), Teacher Education and The New Knowledge Environment. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-course EDED 20491 ICT’S for learning design http://e-courses.cqu.edu.au

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (with Arrendondo, D. E., Paynter, D. E., Blackburn, G. J., Brandt, R. S., Pollock, J.E., Moffett, C.A & Whisler, J. S.). (1997). Dimensions of learning teacher’s manual (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.