Forum Getting Started: Re: Looking for people with personal experience using LAMS


 
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3: Re: Looking for people with personal experience using LAMS
In response to 1 11/11/05 12:14 AM
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If you are interested in some current research on the power of questioning and answering techniques, I suggest you have a look at an article by two Macquarie staff - Donna Gibbs and Kerry-Ann O'Sullivan. The reference is:

'Thinking outside the square: Using LAMS to teach a concept'. (Curriculum and Teaching, vol 20, no 2, 2005)


You might already have heard about the maths class described in the paper, but Gibbs and O'Sullivan have closely examined the responses given by the boys. The LAMS Q & A tool was used, and the boys were asked questions such as:
    'In your opinion, what is a rectangle? Write down all the things that you think make a rectangle a rectangle.'
The answers from the Year 7 boys are really interesting, because they show that some students are capable of working at a much higher level than expected. Gibbs and O'Sullivan say:

    'Our analysis of the twenty-seven responses to the question from this perspective suggest they are fairly typical of the kind that would be expected from students across the first three years of secondary school. That these students are all in their first year of secondary school (around the age of 12) and that they are boys from fairly low socio-economic backgrounds, suggest the students are performing a lot better than might be expected, and some are working at quite a high level.' (p50)

The class they looked at was at Kemnal Technology College in the UK, where the teachers have done so much with LAMS - with teachers like Andy Parry and co.

I have seen these LAMS evangelist moments a few times ( in eg Education, Sociology and English) - .....
....you know, when you look at students' writing in LAMS, and go -


'Aha! ....Wow this is good! I've been trying to get this sort of writing and thinking from the students for ages! '

It can even make you forget about the bugs in LAMS that drive you crazy - (you know, the one that will be fixed in the next version!).


This would be great topic for a LAMS chat! :)

Posted by Robyn Philip

5: Questions
In response to 3 11/14/05 12:13 PM
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Thank you very much in advance. This is a great help to me.

1. What grade level(s) do you teach?
2. How strong is your technological level of expertise?
3. What made you want to try LAMS in the first place?
4. What are some of your favorite things about LAMS?
5. What are some things that you would improve in LAMS? What features would you like to see that arent currently in it?
6. Are there any features that it does have that you dont use?
7. Any additional comments that you would like to make about the product.

Posted by Yuri Yakubov

6: Re: Questions
In response to 5 11/21/05 06:28 PM
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1. Undergraduate.
2. Good-ish.
3. Looking to develop a new course with strong eLearning emphasis.
4. Simplicity/sophistication, ease/rapidity-of-use, collaborative ethos in pedagogy.
5. Better graphics support, merging of sequences via import, ability to preview single activities as well as entire sequence, improved annotation, reworked dialogs. I haven't fully exploited the current version so am reluctant to request too much -- best to minimise feature bloat maybe.
6. I've used the scribe-based activities but not much.
7. Yes -- it's great!

Posted by Peter Miller

8: Re: Questions
In response to 5 11/24/05 06:34 PM
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Hi Yuri,
1.I am urrently teaching Early Stage One and Stage One students ( 4 to 7 year olds) in Northern Sydney Region of Australia.
2. I am a competent user of technology and although I don't have any specific university level training (When I went to uni computers took up a whole room!)I have been using technology in the classroom for the past 15 years. Most of what I have learnt has been from colleagues and Department of Ed. inservice training.
3.A colleague of mine had been introduced to LAMS in 2004 and my school was approached to take part in a micro-trial of LAMS run by the Dept. of Ed.
4. Favourite -mmm, so many things are great! I guess the ease of authouring a sequence the fact that my students can access LAMS outside of the school environment are two of the benefits. One thing that is great is the data collection that can be gained from running a sequence. Fantastic assessment tool for use with students to see if they have developed adeep understanding of concepts.
5. For my students it would be great if there was an adiou tool where the students could run a mouse over the text and have it read to them, however this has not been a huge problem as my students work on LAMS using readers and scribes when necessary.I love the new HTML noticebaord although I am still learning to fly it!
6.I don't use chat with my students as they are a little young.
7.I love it. My students are developing ICT skills while having content delivered at the same time. A great time saver and the best bit is I can mark it all from any location on-line!

Posted by Karen May

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