James Jenkins
Canterbury College
Students are using avatars to debate, Google Cardboard glasses to see, they are presenting their own morning show and are in virtual classrooms longer than physical ones, in some cases, under an exciting use of technology at a Logan school.
Canterbury College Digital Pedagogies Coordinator James Jenkins spends hours each night at home looking for ways to make learning engaging for students and to ensure they are keeping pace with technology in society.
His enthusiasm and leadership in the area of digital technologies is one of the reasons the science teacher has been nominated for the Queensland College of Teachers Excellent Leadership in Teaching and Learning Award.
“The sort of technology that the students are using outside of the classroom has evolved very quickly,” James says.
“We have to try and keep pace with that in the classroom as well because otherwise there is this disconnect.
“Students are very media saturated outside of school – they are watching 3D movies at the cinema – so if in school we are still using textbooks and saying turn to page 96 and read about that, that’s not really going to do it.
“If students are engaged in subject matter then they are going to want to know more about it and they are going to invest more time in it and from that the results automatically flow.”
James, who provides professional development for colleagues and presents at symposiums on digital pedagogies, said it was important not to just use technology for the sake of it, but to use it effectively as a tool for learning in schools.
He has helped teachers use the digital tool Voki so that children can debate with avatars; Google Cardboard glasses have been used to transport students to the world outside the classroom they are learning about; students deliver their own digital newspaper and morning video program as extra-curricular activities and science experiments are filmed and placed in a virtual classroom, which some students spend longer in than their weekly lessons.
“It is having a classroom outside the classroom walls that allows us to expand on what we are doing,” James says.
Canterbury College Digital Pedagogies Coordinator James Jenkins spends hours each night at home looking for ways to make learning engaging for students and to ensure they are keeping pace with technology in society.
His enthusiasm and leadership in the area of digital technologies is one of the reasons the science teacher has been nominated for the Queensland College of Teachers Excellent Leadership in Teaching and Learning Award.
“The sort of technology that the students are using outside of the classroom has evolved very quickly,” James says.
“We have to try and keep pace with that in the classroom as well because otherwise there is this disconnect.
“Students are very media saturated outside of school – they are watching 3D movies at the cinema – so if in school we are still using textbooks and saying turn to page 96 and read about that, that’s not really going to do it.
“If students are engaged in subject matter then they are going to want to know more about it and they are going to invest more time in it and from that the results automatically flow.”
James, who provides professional development for colleagues and presents at symposiums on digital pedagogies, said it was important not to just use technology for the sake of it, but to use it effectively as a tool for learning in schools.
He has helped teachers use the digital tool Voki so that children can debate with avatars; Google Cardboard glasses have been used to transport students to the world outside the classroom they are learning about; students deliver their own digital newspaper and morning video program as extra-curricular activities and science experiments are filmed and placed in a virtual classroom, which some students spend longer in than their weekly lessons.
“It is having a classroom outside the classroom walls that allows us to expand on what we are doing,” James says.
