Hi, I'm Elizabeth McKay.  This is my eportfolio for ESC515.

My philosophy regarding the use of digital technology in the learning space.

My Key Learning Areas (KLA's) are History, and Society and Culture. History, in particular, relies on using reputable sources for evidence, and digital technology like the Internet offers a huge opportunity for students to easily locate evidence required to support their learning. Websites like the National Film and Sound Archive, the Australian War Memorial, museum sites both in Australia and overseas, the various State libraries and the Australian National Library, including Trove, can be particularly useful resources for teachers and students.  The National Film and Sound Archive, website contains old newsreels and film footage; the Australian War Memorial and State libraries contain artifacts and objects; Trove is a fantastic resource of material from newspapers around the country, all of which are historical primary sources.  Some museums and websites offer Virtual or Augmented Reality (VR or AR) tours which can be especially useful for rural and regional students who may be unable to visit in person.  More and more oral history interviews are available on the Internet so one can hear the perspectives of what the average person experienced at time.  Another valuable resource is the Australian Parliament House site, which includes the Hansard; the official record of the actual words used in parliamentary business, since parliament first sat.

Society and Culture uses sociological research methods to gather information to illuminate a population’s viewpoints (amongst other things) and modern digital technologies, both online (for example the Australian Bureau of Statistics), or locally (for example Excel) can be used to interrogate data and produce new insights not previously thought feasible.  Similarly, tools such as Survey Monkey allow students to put together a survey which can be used to collect data from a much wider audience than previously possible.

Obviously, digital tools, computerisation, networking and the World Wide Web have provided us enormous opportunities to discover and use information which was simply available previously.  My general attitude towards digital technologies in the classroom is that they can be useful pedagogical tools.  However, students need to be taught how to use the various devices and the software properly, safely and critically.  To facilitate this the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA, 2025) Digital Literacy capabilities highlights four elements to be integrated into student learning from kindergarten to Year 10.  These four elements are: practicing digital safety and wellbeing; investigating; creating and exchanging; and managing and operating.  Teachers are to cover the various elements and sub-elements highlighted throughout a student’s learning career.  

Digital technologies need to be reliable, otherwise they are not very useful, and educators will not utilise them (Littlejohn & Hunter, 2016, p. 63). For an educator, unreliability or the risk associated with it, is likely to discourage them from leaning too heavily on such tools.  Ironically, as if to illustrate my point, while I was writing this introduction, my internet connection went down, which meant I had to find out why and fix the problem.  Good teachers need to have a backup lesson plan should technology fail them.

Contact me at liz@21cld.com