MiLK is a new way for you to connect students, curriculum and everyday environments using simple web and mobile technologies. MiLK is an open tool that allows teachers to remain the pedagogical experts. MiLK does not determine what can be taught or how it can be taught, rather it is a tool that allows teachers to explore new learning spaces both online and beyond the classroom.

Below are some of the key reason why we think MiLK is an exemplar tool for teaching. We would love to hear from you why you think MiLK is useful. Feel free to email us at info@milkit.com.au.

New Learning Spaces - Expanding The Boundaries of The Traditional Classroom
MiLK is a simple tool that encourages and supports the exploration of new learning spaces. MiLK allows teachers to situate learning outside the traditional classroom. By moving beyond the traditional classroom, MiLK facilitates a shift in students’ perception of learning. By situating learning in a real-world context, MiLK supports the creation of flexible and changing learning environments that support students both in their formal and lifelong learning careers.

Personalised Learning
Personalised learning theory calls for teaching practices that “account for the different learning styles, needs and interests of individuals and…offer learners greater choice over what they learn, how they learn it, and even when and where they learn” (Rudd et. al, 2006: 5). From a personalised learning approach, students are “treated as partners in their learning, with joint responsibility for participating in the design of their learning” (http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/personalisedlearning/about/ accessed December 5, 2007).

When making MiLK events, students are actively involved in shaping their own learning, they are setting up structures for others to inquire and investigate. Out of a natural desire, students are motivated to engage in critical peer and self-assessment when learning with MiLK.

Due to the new and different pressures place upon our future workforce, a student’s ability to create connections between information and to draw out knowledge relevant to the current situation becomes critical rather than the actual possession of knowledge. By allowing students to create their own events, MiLK helps students develop the essential skills for identifying, drawing out and applying knowledge to their current context.

Multi-literacies
As highlighted by the New London Group, students of today must engage in multiple literacies including digital-age literacies. These include reading, writing, mathematics and science literacies; visual literacy, technological literacy, information literacy and cultural literacy. By employing mobile and web technology, MiLK fosters the development of visual, technological and information literacies. The text based nature of MiLK events also ensures that it facilitates the development of reading and writing literacies.

ICT Professional Development
One of the aims when developing MiLK were that it helps to increase teacher confidence in introducing mobile and web technologies into their teaching practices. We see MiLK as a ‘way in’ that allows teachers to build confidence in using web and mobile tools so that they can begin to broaden their teaching apparatus’ to include ICT tools.

Student Responses
When students learn with MiLK they are highly engaged and motivated to learn. Below are some responses from students about their experience of learning with MiLK.

‘When you are first doing it you just think it is really fun, but afterwards you realise you actually learn a fair bit.’
(Year 10 student with Asperger’s)

‘MiLK teaches teachers how we want to learn.’

‘Three simple words; teenagers, learning, willingly.’

‘I think the physical side of it is what makes it so great’

‘The fact that you can create your own game, publish it, and then it is amazing that people can do it so simply and get text messages back’

‘This is so much fun, so much better than sitting in a classroom.’

‘This technology is still a big part of communication after school…you are still using it all the time and you still have access to it.’

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