Picnik

Picnik is a really exciting way of encouraging learning, especially for visual learners! From the lecture notes in for Topic 2, Scot Aldred suggests, 'Consider the kinds of learning experiences that you will design for students--will you spend all day telling them "stuff" and making them read, or will you provide them with hands on active and meaningful activities?''. Picnik is an excellent way of providing a creative, hands-on approach to teaching.

An Active Learning (Input, Process, Output) example:

Picnik may be an effective tool to teach students about the seasons. They could given a lesson on the seasons, helping them understand the sensory cues related to each season (Input). This may include touching crunchy, Autumn leaves, or looking at images of snowflakes with so many different patterns (Process). They would then be able to further reinforce this information by recalling it to make a piece of art in Picnik for one of the seasons using visual information (Output).

I hope I am on the right track! I am beginning to make more connections regarding how ICTs can be used with the pedagogical frameworks.


Christie


References:

The Abilene Christan University Adams Center for Teaching Excellence (2000).
How does Active Learning Work? Retrieved April 7, 2010 from http://www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/howdoes.htm.

Scot Alred. (2010). Week 2: Learning Design Fundamentals, Contemporary Learning Design. ICTs for Learning Design. Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia. Retrieved on 7 April 2010 from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=44470