I found my backyard on Flickr!

This is where I live, but I didn't take these photos ... I found them over the internet on flickr!

For me, the two photographs pictured here capture the essence of the beautiful Lamberts Beach at Slade Point in Mackay.  This is where I live and I wanted to share with you what my family, friends and I are priveledged enough to enjoy in our quiet corner of the world.  I have sat on the this very beach and enjoyed watching the sun go down and the moon rise over the horizon - just as in this photo - with family and friends on many different occassions, whether it was over a lovely camp fire or just from the balcony! 

These two images courtesy of flickr

And when the sun has risen over another day, I  have swum in these beautiful waters with my children and watched them play for endless hours at this quiet paradise, making sand castles or fossicking in the rocks.  

Isn't it amazing!  Here I am, not even in my home (I am at a computer in the Library of CQ University Mackay Campus as I get a new roof put on my home) and I am downloading photographs of my backyard that a stranger has put onto the internet for the world to share!

This experience with familiarising myself with flikr really brought hometo me,  in a practical way, just how information is becoming easier and cheaper. To coin a phrase from my previous blog - "The knowledge Economy in all its glory: an economy of knowledge intensity and the instant availability and affordability of information from around the global (Houghton & Sheehan, 2000)."

I searched for, discovered and then downloaded these photos from the flikr website (with consideration and information about copyright!), and added photos of my own to flikr without it costing me a cent!  We have resources through technology at our fingertips and the youth of today, for the most part, know how to use it! The following video which was presented to us by our lecturer Scot Aldred highlights this for us.

Have You Been Paying Attention
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

This was an experience of 'sharing' and it made me feel that I was part of something, even though I was physically alone.  It allowed me to collaborate and become involved.  Search, explore apply, create, share, achieve and learn are all the words I associate with this experience.  I love the idea that I can access them any time, can share them with family and friends, or the world if I want.  Certainly a fantastic example of the CREATE-RELATE-DONATE theory of Engaged Learning offered by Kiersely & Shneiderman (1999).

On a more scholarly note, reflecting back over my GDLT course, as a Learning Manager I have learned that whilst acknowledging their different learning styles and intelligences, I will need to facilitate my learners' learning by designing learning experiences that offer specific content knowledge (curriculum) as well as (not in leiu of) the chance to experience, apply and refine generice skills that will result in them being self-directed and life long learners.  Thomas et al. (2008) explain that "We want to give students in our classrooms the tools to develop their undersanding of the world, not just master specific content areas" (p,24).

As outlined in the Problem Based Learning Specifically, these generic skills include as out outlined in the Problem Based Learning information CQ University (Generic Skills section) these skills include:

• 
  
   Problem solving
•  Cricitical thinking
•  Meetacognitin—thinking about your own thinking processes
•  Ethics
•  Communication
•  Information literacy
•  Life-long learning.

With specific reference here to images in the learning process, I refer to Thomas et al., (2008) in their paper Students and Teachers Learning to See . Here they share with us the misconceptions in the world of education and the learning process that images only havie entertainment value in learning, or are used for illustration purposes only, or as a break from “real or serious” academic work. This comes on the heels of Daley (2003) and Lowe (2000) who offer that written texts and oral communication continues to be “... priveledged over visual communications within ... education”. In essence, the assumption is then that language is thought of as the paradigm of meaning (Mitchell, 1994).

But, as described by Sinatra (1986), visual literacy is “ ... the active reconstruction of past experience with incoming visual messages to obtain meaning” (p,5). Critical engagement with visual images is also part of a broader concern for creating meaningful learning experiences and humane encounters with students (Giroux 1992, Greene 1995; Sarason 1999).    Through the application of working with visual images technologically, Thomas et al (2008) describe that students learn to "...describe, analyse, problem solve, and notice what is significant in a particular discipline or interdisciplinary field" (p,24).  They go further to describe how they found that participating in such learning processes gives the learners the opportunity to gain and refind the use of 'tools', much in the way that experts do and such understanding of tool use aids in the development of complex and abstract ideas.

In summary, this is where everything comes nicely totether for me and sits snugly within the theories and ideas presented to us in the world of pedagogical frameworks. Dimensions of Learning - Student-centerdness, life-long learning, higher order and deep thinking, Habits of mind, RELATE-CREATE-DONATE theories of engaged learning, authentic experiences. Attitudes and perceptions, to name a few.

Kylie B.

Daley (2003) in Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See "http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27

Giroux 1992 Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See "http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27

Greene 1995 in Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See "http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27

Have you been paying attention: http://vodpod.com/watch/2244667-have-you-been-paying-attention

Kearsley, G., Shneiderman. B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning.

Lowe (2000) in Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27

 Mitchell, 1994 in Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27 .

Sarason 1999 in Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27 .

Sinatra (1986) in Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27
Thomas et al., (2008), Students and Teachers Learning to See "http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.3200/CTCH.56.1.23-27"