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Critique of Research Journals for ELPC G1

When beginning my Research Journal for ELPC G1 I was very unsure as to what was being asked of me and how I should go about it. This was mostly due to my lack of knowledge and research in the area and so my first research journal wasn’t quite as successful/engaging as I would have liked. The topic was far too broad, my findings weren’t very detailed at all and the majority of my sources were out of date. However with some help and guidance from Megan Poore I was able to begin my second research journal for ELPC G1 with a much stronger idea of what I wanted to achieve and how I would go about it. For these reasons this critique will be mostly based on my second research journal with only a quick summary as to how I would have been able to better my first.

Topic 1: ICT’s effect on teaching and learning. From the title it is evident that the topic that I chose for my first research journal was not going to be successful. Already there are many questions that can be asked. For example: What part of ICT is in question? Which technologies are being used? How are the ICT technologies being used? etc. ICT is an ever-evolving topic and issue (Prestridge, S. 2010) therefore if one is to write about it and make conclusions/informed opinions this must be done with recent sources of information. As previously mention my sources for this research topic were out of date meaning that they weren’t relevant to my topic due to new research and developments done in those areas. For my second Journal I made an effort to provide relevant and up to date sources with the oldest reference only being from 2008. In this reference White and Johnston (2008) discuss how social computing tools such as Moodle and WebCT are reliable and resourceful tools for students. These tools are still being used today even by us which is what makes it an appropriate source for that topic.

With these issues in mind I tackled my second topic of research: ICT within rural and regional education. I chose this topic because I thought it was a relevant issue within ICT and Education today as it not only addressed the problems that rural and regional schools have within education but the impact and benefits that ICT can have in those schools for both students and teachers. The main issues that were covered in this journal are the application of ICT within rural and remote education, how using ICT may enhance educational opportunities within rural and remote communities and how ICT is not only educationally helpful for students but also for teachers.

Although there has been a significant increase in the use of the Internet by Australians continent wide, there are still some significant gaps and inequities that need to be acknowledged if not resolved (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2010, Miniwatts Marketing Group 2010). With this in mind I chose for my first entry how ICT is applied within rural and remote education. To begin with I outlined how there is an increase of ICT in rural schools, however there is still not enough. I then explained how the National Broadband Network (NBN, 2010) attempted to reduce these inequities by providing equal distribution of broadband Internet to rural and remote areas. I chose only one area of ICT and that was the Internet connection. In hindsight, although I mentioned it in the post, further examples and further research in the following areas would have provided a better understanding for readers as to how ICT is being applied within rural and remote education. What determines the amounts of computers per schools, how to improve comprehensive support both technically and economically for schools attempting to integrate ICT into their teaching and learning as well as how to upgrade the infrastructure for networked communications.

My second topic discussed how using ICT might enhance educational opportunities within rural and remote communities. This topic I believe was covered quite well with two examples of how ICT enhances educational opportunities within rural and remote communities and both examples being supported with reliable and recent sources. One thing I could’ve reiterated in this post was although there are all these positive opportunities; these opportunities are still along way from being distributed equally and appropriately (Shaw, 2010). The third topic that was covered referred to how ICT is not only educationally helpful for students but also for teachers in rural and regional areas. Teachers can sometimes experience professional and social isolation when living in rural or regional areas due to the location and resources available to them (Trinidad 2010). Examples were given as to how these problems were overcome using ICT not only in Australia but also rural China. These two examples clearly illustrate how ICT is also educationally helpful for teachers, not only students. Further research could’ve been conducted on Readings (2010) forum on his Professional Learning Model in order to gain a deeper understanding of this model and to clearly demonstrate how it helps the teachers involved.

In summary, the first Research Journal presented for ELPC G1 was more of a test run in an attempt to clarify what was being asked as well as how to go about researching and presenting the topic I chose. The feedback that was given after the first research journal was submitted proved to be worthless in my preparation for the second research journal. It clarified a majority of things and presented me with a more defined set of instructions as to how to go about the second research journal entry. This critique was focused mainly on my second research journal because it was of a higher standard academically but also because of how the trail and error of the first journal helped me shape the second.

Resources

· Australian Bureau of Statistics (2010). “Household Use of Information Technology, Australia.”

· Miniwatts Marketing Group. (2010). “Australia Internet Usage Stats and Telecommunications Market Report.” from http://www.internetworldstats.com/sp/ au.htm

· NBN. (2010). “NBN Co announces next rollout locations.” from http://www.nbnco.com.au/publications-and-announcements/latest- announcements/doc/nbn-co-announces-next-rollout-location

· Prestridge, S. (2010). ICT professional development for teachers in online forums: Analysing the role of discussion. Teaching and Teacher Education Vol 26.2, p 252-258

· Reading, C. (2010). Using ICT to increase professional connectedness for teachers in remote Australia. Australian Educational Computing Journal. Vol 25.2 p 3-6

· Shaw, G. (2010). Getting There: Teacher experiences in applying ICT in rural and remote education. Australian Educational Computing Journal. Vol 25.2 p 17-21

· Trinidad, S. (2009). Using social computing tools to connect regional and remote teachers and students in Western Australia. In Proceedings of the International Symposium for Innovation in Rural Education (ISFIRE), Innovation for Equity in Rural Education. Vol 12. p. 254-263

· White, B., & Johnston, S. (2008). The impact of using social computing tools to teach physics across two campuses. Australian Council for Computers in Education, p 626-631

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