Reflective Synopsis

Each learner in a teacher’s class has a unique combination of prior experience, prior knowledge, perceptions and attitudes, learning style, intelligence, personality and temperament. Catering for each individual is an ongoing challenge for teachers. When teachers of today grew up they had “less rich in media, less rich in communication, and much less rich in creative opportunities for students outside of school”. (Prensky, 2010)“Today’s average graduates have spent over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it...students’ brains have changed...whether or not this is literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed”.(Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, 2001) As Teachers we have to accommodate for this change that the media, communication and creative opportunities have had on students today.

When it comes to ICT’s a lot of them are on the internet, students can work on them from home and interact with each other and the public. Therefore there are a lot of safety factors that are need to be considered. Before any student starts using a computer and internet there are rules and policies that teachers have go through to help keep the students aware that danger does not always happen in the physical world but also the cyber world. Reading the policy statement from the Governor Stirling Senior High School (GSSHS), the policy goes through using the internet, emails, computers, copy right, Your rights-cyber safety and cyber bullying. The first four things just go into what you should and should not do, for example “treat the computers carefully and look after them” or “users will not access site that contain pornography, unethical or illegal solicitation, racism, etc.”. The last two policy statements go into a lot more depth compared with the first four because it is the dangerous parts, and what can effect or even destroy lives.  It is hard for students to know if nobody tells them, and no one should have to learn the hard way, especially children. These two sections go through how to be safe in the cyber world e.g “people on the internet may not be who they say they are – people can hide their identities and pretend to be someone they are not”. The second section is about cyber bullying, what it involves, how to recognise it and what you should do if it is happening to you. This is a policy I believe that covers everything that I would go over with my students, here is a link http://www.govo.wa.edu.au/policy-operations/computer-internet-policy.html so you can have a further look at it.

Students have computer games, email, internet, mobile phones, and other information communication technology (ICT) engaging them in all parts of their life, it’s something they struggle live without, why should school be any different? Throughout the Managing E-Learning course I have learnt about ICT’s for the classroom to help engage and develop students. For this reflective synopsis we were asked to choose an ICT for each ICT group and investigate it more extensity, I chose to look into a wiki, prezi, video, and Google maps. Before I go into how they individually enhance, support and transform learning I will go over the core themes that I found between all four.

Firstly I found all of the ICT’s will:

·        

      Engage

These ICT’s will help engage students; students in the 21^st century most students know about a lot of  digital tools and want to learn more all the time. This is one of the big reasons that they are engaged and the second would be it is different to some teaching styles, there are a lot of teachers that do not use ITC’s, so when students find out that they are using computers in maths for example they get excited and listen so much better, this is because they are engaged. As teacher what we have to be careful of is making sure we teach the content of the subject and not just the program.  

·         Support - Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

These ICT’s help support students in so many different ways for example if they have bad hand writing they can type want they want out, students that find it hard to work from a text book will it easier to work from these ICT or students can express the creativity and/or their preferred learning style much easier with these ICT’s. They can also help support and bring in different intelligences pointed out by Howard Gardner. Howards Gardner has seven different intelligences are 1. Linguistic,  2.  Logical/Mathematical, 3. Musical, 4. Bodily/Kinaesthetic, 5. Spatial, 6. Interpersonal and, 7. Intrapersonal. I believe that I could support all intelligences with these ICT’s.

·         Higher-order thinking

These ICT’s bring out a lot of higher-order thinking, “Higher-order thinking requires students to manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation.” (Queensland Government, 2004). The higher-order thinking skill is not only our job as teachers to help develop but also a crucial skill to live.

·        Learning the program

Learning these ICT’s I found it takes some time especially prezi and video, I think one big problem with would be the time to teach these ICT’s to students. Yes I know there are probably some that would learn just as or even faster than I would but some would take longer and I have found that when teaching you just do not have the time to teach students these programs.

·        Constructivism theory

These ICT’s help build a constructivism classroom, the basics of constructivism theory is students “Construct own understanding and knowledge of the world” and are “always guided by the teacher to construct there knowledge instead of mechanically ingesting knowledge from textbooks” (Class, Constructivism 2011). The way the ICT’s help build a constructivism environment is by being an extension to the teachers’ abilities, not the guide itself, which helps create opportunities for the students to gain their own understanding and guided. By using ICT’s it does not make it constructive classroom, students can be non-constructive but used in the right way ICT’s can help build constructive minds.

·         

      Connects

These ICT’s help connect students to the world, students can do work on a wiki and people can look at it. The same goes with prezi’s and if they upload their videos to YouTube or something similar. Scribble maps do not help connect but Google maps can be accessed anywhere in the world. If students unload their stuff to the internet it may impact someone else or even teach someone else.

Wiki

A wiki is very similar to a work desk, what I mean by that is, it is a place that you can put all your information and/or things that relate to what you are working on but the difference is that it is online and only changes that can be made is  by the creators. In most situations wikis are used for group work which makes it so that you can work online with at any time and all your information stays online, to see my beliefs about how well it works and uses for maths and manual arts you can view my blog entry “Wiki”. I have explained all the links to theory above but this tool can also help out with frameworks for example with the Dimension of learning framework, Marzano and Pickering state that student need opportunities to work with peers. A wiki does just that, students are going to need to be able to work with each other, it is something everyone has to do in their life.  

Prezi

Nearly every student in the western world knows what a PowerPoint is; the easiest way to describe a prezi would be it is a fancy PowerPoint. (To have a look a prezi and the information that I have concluded about them click here). I believe a prezi can replace a PowerPoint, not entirely but it just about can. I think one big difference would be the creativeness that can be behind creating a prezi, you can do a lot of stuff and students can express themselves in their own way, I believe that this is important and prezis let them do this. I think the reason why it has not replaced it though would be because the licences cost a fair bit and I think it is easier to learn PowerPoint.

Video

To students making a video would be extremely fun because they watch T.V. or YouTube and they jump at the chance to be a part of something like that. As a maths, manual arts teacher I would use videos as a tool to record journals and teaching. One of the best things about teaching with videos are you can re-watch them if you miss something and you can reuse them next year.(To have a look a video and the information that I have concluded about them click here).

Google Maps – Scribble Maps

I had a lot of fun learning about scribble maps it was the only ICT in this synopsis that I had not heard of. The main use of scribble maps in my teaching areas would be using it to work out a lot of different maths problems I cannot find to many uses for it in manual arts. (To have a look a Google maps – scribbles maps and the information that I have concluded about them click here).

In conclusion students of the 21^st century uses ICT’s in every part of their life and teaching them should not be any different. ICT’s enhance your teaching style as long as you put in the effort to learn them yourself. I would recommend to any teacher the use of ICT’s I helps engage, support, higher-order thinking and many different learning theories.

Reference List

 

Class, Students from Managing E-Learning. Constructivism. 12 07 2011. http://fahe11001mackay.wikispaces.com/Constructivism.

Class, Students from Managing E-Learning. Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. 12 07 2011. http://fahe11001mackay.wikispaces.com/Gardner%27s+Multiple+Intelligences.

Governor Stirling Senior High School. Computer & Internet Policy. 03 2011. http://www.govo.wa.edu.au/policy-operations/computer-internet-policy.html.

 Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (1997). Dimensions of Learning - Teacher's Manual.Alexandria:

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Prensky, M. (2010). "Engage me or enrage me" WHAT TODAY’S LEARNERS DEMAND.Retrieved

August 23, 2010, from EDUCAUSE:http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved August 23, 2010, from Marc

Prensky : http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-

%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Queensland Government. (2004). Higher-order thinking. Retrieved August 23, 2010, from

Queensland Government, Department of Education and Training:

http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/newbasics/html/pedagogies/intellect/int1a.html

Wiki

I found Wiki's easy to use, it was really straight forward, there was no hidden trick and easy to pick up, do a bit of work and put down without  to much effort. Wiki's are a fairly basic ICT, it has pages that you can  type text into, upload pictures and out in links to other websites.

Positive	Minus	Interesting
Easy to pick up and put down More than one person can use the same Wiki Can have as many pages as you want Can upload pictures and put in links to videos Easy to use the edit tools As long as you have internet you can add and edit to the Wiki User friendly	You can’t edit the same page as someone else at the same time Seems very plain, that might change if you pay for it though Not as customisable as other group one ITC’s	Lots of people can look but only people with permission can edit Anybody can make one, you don’t have to be in the education system A few different sites let you build Wiki’s for free so you have some choice to which website you like better

The main thing that I would use a wiki for in a classroom situation would be for group work. Each student that has permission to work on the wiki can add and/or change information that they want. Each student will have access to the wiki at home and as I said before the students can work on it for short amounts of time and not have to waste time finding all their information that they had before, it all stays on the wiki. As a teacher I could give them work to do from the wiki and unless I permission to the students to change the information it will not be changed. I could use this for substitute lesson when I am away and for theory lesson in manual arts to make it easier on the teacher taking my students and more fun for the boring parts of manual arts. A wiki could also be used for an assessment tool for group work students could present their work and send me the link, or I have their link already so I can just go on their wiki when ever I think necessary and have a look at their work and so could parents.

Here is my Wiki

Google maps with scribble maps

I find Google maps and program scribble maps very easy to use especially for the first time. I always use Google maps to find new places and streets. In my first experience scribble maps is like the program paint with a little bit of the Auto-CAD program mixed in.

Positive	Minus	Interesting
Very easy to start using The different drawing tools are really visible on the map Easy to set up an account It shows each different thing that you have drawn on the right hand side so you can easily delete and/or find stuff quicker	There are lot of buttons to get used too Does use a lot of internet so if you don’t have fast internet it will take a while to load the map.	It is real, as in you can go visit the areas that you are drawing on The basic command to get you started are very similar to paint (the program) which most people know about There are so many different commands, but they all seem basic I can see uses for this outside of the education system

Usefulness

I believe I can find lots of applications in Maths, but not as many in Manual Arts. In Maths I could use Google maps for orienteering and working out areas, plus maybe even time zones. Since you can measure the lines in scribble maps, the program uses the scale to find the length of the line. Using this application will also help with a life skill of reading maps.

The only area in Manual Arts I can think of to use Google maps would be in graphics. In the higher grades student have to draw houses in revet and to get an idea of what different house look like students can look at the street view in Google maps and can also measure out different lot sizes with scribble maps.

Here is a screen shot of me using scribble maps

Prezi

I found my first Prezi's a bit confusing to start with and it continued that way until I was nearly finished. I was lucky to have a professional development course running at my school about prezi's to teach me the ins and outs about them.

Positive	Minus	Interesting
-          Can insert pictures and videos -          Very customisable -          Very colourful if you want it to be -          Easy to use once you know where all the tool buttons are -                 Has many different  templates to help getting the right set out fast -                 Can go back and forward in the  show easily -                Very creativity and fun to make	Takes a long time to get used to                   The commands are in a circular pattern which makes it hard to follow, the graphic interface wasn’t user friendly                       On the free version overall compare to the paid version isn’t overly customisable                   There are only 3 different fonts per template.	Turns into a movie or a slide show very easily                       In build spell check                   Has online tutorials

Again I can find uses for prezi in both discipline areas. To me a prezi is like a powerpoint, you can present something to the class with it. for example with maths if I had given a group assignment and I ask them to present and I can give them the option to present with prezi instead of a powerpoint. I can replace the powerpoints in manual arts as well, the school that I am doing my placement at, they use powerpoints to as an assessment item  as portfolio to go along with their job cards, this shows their learning process. I think that a prezi is not overly nessiary to learning because there are differnet ways of doing what i would use it for but the students would have more fun and be more engaged if they don't have to use the same programs to show their  work.

Here is the link to my Prezi

Video

I found making a video a tricky to start with but once I got into it, it got easier. I did find making a video very time consuming, getting the video and audio lining up took a fair while.

Positive	Minus	Interesting
-         Again easy to make and use once you know the commands and what you can do -          Can be made just from pictures and audio -          Very creativity and fun to make -          The graphic interface was user friendly -          Could start and stop without having to take big steps	Takes a while to get used to the buttons and commands           Takes a long time to line up the audio files and video files if you have recorded them at the same time	Windows live movie maker isn’t the only software at there to help make videos         Sounds daunting to start with but  overall it is fairly simiple

I think I could use a video in both learning areas that I teach, Maths and Manual Arts. with maths I could get the students to make a video on "maths in real life" for example using maths and shops or on a building site. I could also make more videos like the  one I made about the area of the circle, plus i could get the students to make something similar to what I made as assessment item to prove that they know what they are talking about.
In Manual arts the senior students have to make a journal about their projects that they build, in this case they could do a video journal and/or I could make a video for students to see what they are in for before they start building their projects. One of the main reasons that I would change from what the students normally do would be be because it would be more fun and more engaging for the students to use this technology.

Here is my video that I made

The first&second Wiki essential activities

In the first Wiki activity another student (I'm sorry I can't remember her name) and I used a PMI to help us find the benefits and downfalls of the Behaviourism theory. It has been a while since I have used a Wiki but it all came back to me quickly. In the second Wiki activity another person (even though this is a different person l don't know her name either, sorry) and we were given the black hat of De Bono's Hats in the mobile phones wiki pages. I think the underpinning theory is constructivism and connectivism  theory, because we are finding all the information on the internet, looking at websites, blog's and other types of web pages (connectivism). The constructivism theory comes in because we writing up our own page, making it the way we want it, even though we have to use this wiki.

I found that a PMI was very effective for a short and quick analysis tool, we did it in 15 minutes and we could have done in less time. If we know what we were talking about a bit more, for example McDonald's food, we could have completed a PMI a lot quicker.

I found the De Bono's Hats was more complex compared to PMI, but it was a lot more covering, it was more fulfilling, it went more in depth. In saying that it did take more time and people to complete the De Bono's Hats. I saw that some of the hats were harder to answer then others, I found it easier to answer the black hat about the mobile phone then it was to answer the blue hat.

TPACK Round Table - Week 2 activity

Content: Linear Graphs

• Technology: Microsoft Office - Microsoft Excel

•  Grade 8 
• Explain the how the table in excel are the numbers in the graph or use the formula to either create the numbers for the table or use the formula generate the graph. The end product is the linear graph.
• Go  through the with the students how to create a graph in the Excel program.
• Once the linear graph is created the teacher can ask interpretation questions
• Pedagogy:  Responds to perspectives and interests of students

First E-Learning Class

E-Learning seems pretty easy so far, looks like a lot of work but it will be easy work.

Don't really know anyone in this class (even the lecturer, lol), this is my second day living in Mackay