Experiential Education is powerful educational philosophy in which teachers purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values. ICT’s can be a very powerful tool in helping students to reflect on their experiences and construct meaning from them.

The presentation would introduce the philosophy of experiential education and provide examples of how teachers are using it with students in areas such as science, geography, math and H-PE. It would then introduce a number of ICT based tools that can be used to help students reflect on their experiences in ways that encourage learning. Finally other resources that are available to provide experiential educational experiences to students will be examined.

We live in a digital multi-media age for which new skills and strategies are required. There is now a dynamic integrative relationship between new literacies and traditional literacies which changes the whole continuum. We have to grasp that the use of new literacies generates innovation and literacies from now on will be constantly changing. (Professor Len Unsworth, UNE, 2008)

Television, film and digital technologies are powerful vehicles that provide constant messages about culture, community values and identity. How do teachers and parents use these e:Literacy vehicles for positive development and discernment about what, who, how and why the messages are conceived and delivered. All curriculum areas are responsible for literacy and married with multi-modal approaches, teachers can encourage students to be critical and discerning consumers of the messages that media agencies and media technologies present to them everyday.

Most importantly, today’s youth want to design and create their own messages (objects, opinions and communities) utilising digital technologies. They are acutely aware of the potentials of public display and avidly seek opportunities to communicate with their peers, globally and locally.

This workshop will provide teachers with an overview of the availability of resources that promote e:Literacies and multimodal learning.