In this week, based on the reading materials, I have learned some basic information about the relationship between technologies or social media and education clearly and pedagogical differences between different kinds of media specifically. In my opinion, it will be much more useful, effective, important, and meaningful for people to use different kinds of media or technologies in their daily learning or teaching process. From the article, “Teaching in a Digital Age”, Bates describes that technologies are merely tools that can be used in many different ways; however, what matters more is how technologies can be applied clearly (Bates, 2015). In his opinion, the same technology can also be used or applied in many different ways as well; so it will be important and effective for learners to choose to use proper medias in their learning (Bates, 2015). Also, in his points of view, three main and important characteristics of educational media that may be identified (Bates, 2015):
Broadcast vs communication
Synchronous (live) vs asynchronous (recorded)
Single vs rich media
According to Bates’ opinion, media has tended to become more communicative, asynchronous, and rich (Bates, 2015). Therefore, it can provides both instructors and students more powerful, useful, and effective teaching (or learning) tool. Also, in his opinion, the Internet can be one of the most important, powerful, and meaningful medium because it can encompass all the dimensions of education media through a variety of tools and media (Bates, 2015).
Moreover, in Chapter 7, Bates reflects that there are many different kinds of media, which will be available for teaching and learning, such as text, audio, video, computing, and social media. Social media provides more successful and powerful opportunities for learners to create their own learning materials and assess their learning directly. Also, it will be much more flexible, free, and accessible for learners to seek, use, and apply information over the internet. It also provides more learning opportunities and convenient learning environments for learners directly and clearly.
My Learning Experience
For this week’s personal learning challenge, instead of learning new recipes, I decided to use different media or online tools to learn some basic knowledge of cooking skills. The media I used for this challenge include texts (blog posts), videos, and images. For example, first, I used and read the blog posts from Food Safety and Inspection Service to learn some Basics for Handling Food Safely. The basics for food handling include many different parts, such as shopping, storage, preparation, thawing, cooking, serving, leftovers, refreezing, and cold storage chart. For example,
There are four basic steps of Food Safe:
- Clean — Wash hands and surfaces often.
- Separate — Don’t cross-contaminate.
- Cook — Cook to the right temperature.
- Chill — Refrigerate promptly.
In my opinion, it will be useful and effective for me to have a basic understanding of all the basics of food handling. Second, I watched a few videos about learning basic cooking skills on YouTube (examples are shown below), such as how to cut up a whole chicken and how to cook wild rice.
In my opinion, the videos provide a direct and clear teaching for me to learn new cooking skills specifically. Also, watching videos can capture my attention and make me become more interested in learning cooking skills. Third, I used an online tool, called Kitchen Story to help me with improving my cooking and learning many new recipes directly. Many detailed cooking steps and images are provided in this website in order to help people, like me, who are not good at cooking to learn and follow the cooking steps easily.
From this week’s reading materials, as Bates states, different media can be used to “assist learners to learn in different ways and achieve different outcomes” as well (Bates, 2015). Therefore, in my opinion, the use of different media for me to learn basic knowledge of cooking can not only make me to engage with the content, but also can help me to achieve different learning outcomes specifically.
During this week, when I used different media to learn new skills, I tried to find my interested skills and took notes. However, one of my challenges is that I did not find a good and useful online tool to assess my learning of different cooking skills. I think I should practice more in order to understand different skills.
However, in this week, I have learned the importance of using different media and technologies in learning process. In my opinion, it is very interesting, effective, and engaged for me to use a combination of tools or media to learn new knowledge of cooking skills.
Reference
Bates, T (2015). Teaching in a Digital Age. Retrieved from: https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/
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