Alignment and transfer of learning for young people

The bigger picture

Within the context of the New Zealand Ministry of Education’s e-learning action plan, (MoE 2006), WickED contributes to the provision of a wide range of relevant, high-quality educational content in the form of digital learning resources and curriculum materials for younger students and their teachers.

The effective use of well-designed digital content across a broad range of learning activities is known to have a positive effect on student engagement and student learning outcomes. (MoE, 2006). In order for WickED to align with the current Ministry strategy outcomes for ICT-use for school age learners there is a need to offer,

• High-quality digital content for age-targeted-learners and teachers. The targeted learners are emergent as both independent learners and as independent users of the internet and online learning.
• Easily accessible digital content for age-targeted-learners and teachers.
• Relevant and engaging educational contexts for all New Zealand students within the target age group including resources for te reo Māori, and Pasika languages.
• Knowledge-of and knowledge-about high-quality software and digital resources that support and enhance learning for both teachers and students. 

As a resource portal, WickED was developed at a time when it was appropriate for resources to be compiled together in an easy-to-access, one-stop website. Reasons for this included:

• concerns about quality assurance, age appropriateness and educational value
• concerns about student safety online
• issues of connection speed
• limitations regarding search capabilities

While the first two points remain valid concerns for educators, developments in the technology have reduced the barriers of access speed and search capabilities to the extent that students and teachers are able to access a plethora of resources using a basic search engine such as Google. The challenge for sites such as WickED will be to continue to engage learners through the provision of high quality resources and learning support in ways that reflect their expectations and the behaviours they have developed through being online.

Support for wider educational goals / landscape

High-quality digital content for age-targeted learners and teachers.

The primary aged student group targeted by WickED are emergent as both independent learners and as independent users of the internet and online learning. The role of WickED is to cater for the needs of this group within a personally secure environment. A vital role is to allow for exploration of what is achievable with online tools for the age group and this includes interactives and tools for social interaction.

WickED provides both quality assured resources and links to QA resources and this feature of the site is appreciated by learners and teachers. However resources also appear to vary in quality and in educational value. This variability was commented on in a number of ways by teachers and was also an observation made by the research team. Many resources are excellent, others are more difficult for young independent learners or their teachers to use.

Easily accessible digital content for age-targeted learners and teachers.

For those teachers and students who have easy access to computers and the internet in the classroom and at home then most site content on WickED is readily accessible. However technical issues such as an inability to logon and slow download speeds are still an issue for many and can make embedded use in the classroom very difficult. It was interesting that adults commented in the Nielson Netratings report (p.66) that one of the greatest barriers to use of the site is limited student access to computers and the internet from both school and home.

Confusions for students and teachers about what some of the digital content could do and how it could be used for were apparent. Some were only aware of the interactives and were not aware of some of the other site functionalities available such as the forums.

Many of the students and teachers interviewed found locating relevant information was not easy – one said, ‘it seems a long winded way of getting to where the students wanted to go’ and most were simply using Google to search for topics because it was easier to bypass WickED.

Relevant and engaging educational contexts for all New Zealand students within the target age group including resources for te reo Māori, and Pasifika languages.

The Nielsen NetRatings report indicates that WickED has a good level of appeal to many students in lower decile schools. The original intention for WickED to provide resources for children in lower decile primary and intermediate schools appears to be a continuing feature of the site even although the purpose and intentions of WickED have broadened and there has been a desire to become more inclusive of a wider audience. Children in higher decile schools tended to be more frequent users but also to indicate a slightly lower level of happiness with the site (Nielsen NetRatings 2006, p 11 & 21).

Boys were also more frequent users of the site but also tended to indicate a lower level of happiness with the site (Nielsen NetRatings 2006, p 11) that may reflect differing approaches to the ways girls and boys prefer to learn. Where WickED encourages more browsing and exploration to find resources, AnyQuestions for example utilises a much more targeted approach for information location.

The site is also appealing to the original age group although there are a higher number of users in the upper end of the age group than expected. (Nielsen NetRatings 2006, p 18)

WickED has an important contribution to make to be inclusive of various cultures within New Zealand. Students can enter the site using English or te reo Māori or can email in a variety of Pasifika languages and will be responded to in their language of choice. Although the site is mostly used by English speakers, the Nielsen NetRatings report indicates that there were also a good number of Māori and Pasifika students who enjoy using the site.

Increase student and teachers’ knowledge-of and knowledge-about high-quality software and digital resources that support and enhance learning.

Raising student awareness of site features has been an important task of the WickED workshops. One teacher commented the workshops had been important for getting some students started in using the site. Many young students are less inclined to explore online features than may be expected. Some interviewed students were unaware of the communication features available on the WickED site. This included the forums. Several other areas of the site had rarely, or never, been visited by students.

For many especially younger students it is not always easy for them to work out how individual features operate on a site or how a site ‘works’ when they are operating online independently. What is not understood immediately maybe skipped over quickly by many. Consideration of a range of ways of increasing student knowledge of various features and elements of the site is important.

Some of the teachers interviewed had experienced workshop-training sessions based on what was available on WickED and how it could be used in the classroom. The training had resulted varying outcomes for teachers. For some teachers the training session was clearly helpful and had got them started in using WickED for some aspects of their classroom programmes but others were still not sure how WickED could be used in the classroom even after attending the training session. The reasons for these varying outcomes, (that is whether this was the result of the quality of the training or the philosophical and pedagogical inclinations of the teachers themselves, or other reasons), were not clear from the data collected.

One of the issues for teachers in using the site was that connections between WickED resources and relevance to curriculum were often tenuous. WickED relies heavily of teachers to establish curriculum connections and to contextualise much of the ‘mini game’ content and wrap ‘a-bigger-picture’ context around the resources. Although there is a teachers’ lounge forum facility available for help and support, there is in fact little help given to teachers on the site as to how the resources could be used, where they could fit existing curriculum or what learning objectives can be assigned to the resources. Such help was given in the workshops, which some teachers had found particularly helpful, but others had not. Some teachers were still uncertain as to how the site could be used in classroom contexts.