tashs-blog

Final reflection

Fri, 25 May 2012 15:30:45 +0100

So we've now come to the end of our Living and Learning with technology unit! Can't believe this unit is over and more so I can't believe how much I've actually learnt over the semester! At the beginning I was sceptical about the unit, I thought that I had a good grasp of all the technology I would need for a teaching career....how wrong was I? Although I had a relatively good knowledge of technology....enough that would have gotten me through, I have learnt so many valuable lessons and explored many new websites and programs! I truly believe this unit has been invaluable for my future career!
I've learnt many new things from creating a website, new ways of social networking, interactive whiteboards and Wiki spaces. All tools which will without doubt be handy in the future!

One very important aspect that I have gained from this unit is that of 'authentic learning'! I believe this is essential as it encourages students to be active in their own learning, for them to explore and engage in their tasks. This unit has not only been about us learning how to make authentic tasks for students but also about us doing authentic tasks. Rather that being given the task with structured outlines we have been handed a very broad outline and have had to explore, research and create projects that are results of our own learning! Truly a fantastic way of learning!

Class presentations

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:26:34 +0100

Today in our tutorial most of the groups presented their Assignment 3. It was great to see the final products and the different ideas everyone had come up wih.
We presented our Wiki first, I thought our video came across really well. The sound was a little quiet which possibly made it a little harder for the class members to really enagage in our video, but over all I was really happy with it! The other videos that were presented were also really great!
Some of the other groups we saw today included:
The girly geeks:Their wiki is about healthy eating. This group was the only one that did their presentation in person. I thought their ideas were really interesting and they'd found a great interactive game that I thought kids would really enjoy! The task was for students to create a wiki and do a blog, so similar to the work we have done in our most recent task. It was good to see how a task like this could be modified for school age students.
4GB: This project is about gravity. They presented their task in the form of a powerpoint presentation, I enjoyed their presentation as it was straight forward and easy to follow.
Hakuna Matata: This groups task was for students to create an advertisement. Once again this group used powerpoint to present their Wiki. My favourite part of this presentation was the use of video to capture the presenter, which kept the presentation more personal and engaging.

It was great to view all the presentations from the other groups and I feel the finished product in this task will be one we'll be able to take with us into our future teaching careers.

Assignment 3a-group project

Fri, 18 May 2012 04:46:04 +0100

We've had a tutorial and lecture free week this week so we've been able to focus on completing our group assignment. I think we've done a really great job on it. Our group has met up a couple more times over the last week to work through it together and then we worked on separate pages and our references while at home and then edited them together. We broadened our age group from year 5-7's as we decided with a little more guidance from the teacher younger age groups would definately be able to complete this project. Below is a screen capture of our Group project home page:

Lecture

Tue, 08 May 2012 08:31:55 +0100

Todays lecture was all about teaching in the 21st century. We spoke about the importance of technology in the classroom but how it isn't able to replace teachers. I understand this as technology alone not being enough to teach students, we still need teachers in the classroom to plan authentic tasks and that the technology will be used to aid teachers rather than replace them.
We also spoke about the use of mobile phones in the classroom. I found this very interesting as it is not something I would have thought to use. Prior to this lecture I viewed phones as a distraction in the classroom, kids play games on them, text each other, check their facebook, and there's also the issue of cyber bullying! While I still think these are still issues a teacher would have to be aware of, I think as technology is becoming more and more integrated in the classroom, mobile phones need to follow the same path.
There were some great suggestions such as using a mobile phone to take pictures to make a digital storybook-this is something worthwhile exploring further for our group assignment!

Assignment 3

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:42:54 +0100

We've had another group meeting to work on assignment 3 today. We're making lots of progress on it now, we have decided to change our topic a little so we are teaching our students to create digital storybooks.
We have decided our lesson plans will be for year seven students, under the subject of English.
Today I researched the Australian curriculum and provided links on our Wiki space to the scope and sequence reading and writing. Over the next few days we will research some more links to add to our Wiki space and write up a finalised task plan.
A sample assignment has been uploaded on the discussion board which has provided very useful! It gives a a much clearer overview of exactly what is required of us in this assignment.

Frustrated

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:08:42 +0100

Im finding myself getting very frustrated with the Yola website. Iv been trying to make my website more visually appealing by adding some page snaps, unfortunately Iv been having endless problems with this! My site is continually freezing everytime I load a new picture, resulting in me having to shut down the page and therefore losing any new data I hadn't yet saved! Iv been onto the discussion board and it appears as though I'm not the only person experiencing this problem with Yola. It's become very time consuming and frustrating, I have however managed to upload a video tutuorial about EndNote so I think I will have to leave it at that.

Now that I can submit assignment two, It'll be back to working on our group assignment. Our group has met a couple of times, but spent most of the time trying to work out exactly what is required of us in this assignment. We were all quite confused over the Wiki and whether that was were we had to post everything or if we were creating a separate website all together, so we posted the following entry on the discussion board to help clear things up:

It was great using the discussion board as we had Danny clear things up for us very quickly! So were back on track with our assignment!
Over the weekend our group has agreed to each look for two resources and upload them onto our Wiki space. I'll be searching for Websites and Social networking sites.
Im looking forward to the creative side of this next assignment!

Task 2 complete

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:13:47 +0100

So I'v just finished off my task two. I feel I've learnt a lot more from this assignment than the last two that will be helpful to me, not only as a uni student but also as a teacher. My research has really opened my eyes to the importance of technology within the classroom. It is clear technology is becoming a major part of all classrooms, from interactive white boards, online lessons, connecting with experts, online educational games and so much more.
I'm really beginning to understand the importance of this unit and it's connection to authentic learning. I can see now the importance of students learning by actually performing activities on their own rather than just listening to a lesson.
This unit has been a perfect example of authentic learning! I'v learnt so much through trial and error and exploring internet with this last assignment.
Its important to get students actively involved in their own learning experience, and using technology and authentic learning tasks is a great way to do this!

Back to Task 2

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:22:31 +0100

So I've had to put our work on assignment three on hold so I'm able to finish up on my assignment two.
Our task here is to chose a topic of interest to us and research how technology would be useful in teaching this subject in the classroom. Initially I decided on the Solar System, however I was having difficulty finding certain articles on this specific subject so I decided to broaden my topic a little and I have gone with Science.
We needed to include at least one each of these references: book, journal article, refereed conference paper, website and movie.
Iv explored many new search engines that I previously didn't know existed such as ERIC and Proquest, while also using ones I'm very familiar with like google search.

My biggest learning experience from this task so far has been learning how to use EndNote (image above). Having previously never used the program before I was feeling very intimidated by it! However the information we recieved both in our tutorials and the lectures as well as information provided on the companion website has made the learning process much less daunting.
Now that i know how to use it, I can see how much of an invaluable tool this will be for the rest of my university degree, it really is a fantastic way to manage all your references!

Assignment Three confusion!

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:36:05 +0100

Group assignment three is creating a great deal of confusion for us all. We've now spent a lot of time as a group just trying to work out exactly what is required of us for this assignment! Our group has spent hours researching the LMS, companion website, unit guide and other sample assingments and it still isn't clear!
We've chosen to do our assignment on Water conservation, so under the subject of Society and environment and for year seven students. Our final assignment plan is for the students to create a digital storybook about conserving water. We have plenty of ideas for Authentic learning, but we are very confused about how to present this and what is suppose to be on our video.
I feel having these two weeks as online units was badly scheduled as it is the one time we really need our tutors advice, our group has posted online so hopefully now we will be able to get some answers and make some progress on our assignment.

Social resources

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:56:02 +0100

My social resources site is complete and ready to upload! I’ve had a few things to work on since our peer review. My review made me realise I didn’t have nearly enough information on how to set up Netvibes and I needed to be clearer about the social side of the site.

I was just going to put this all up on my page but after talking with peers about it in our workshop this week I decided to put it all in a word document and upload the link to my site. Many of my peers have done videos or powerpoint presentations which look fantastic but I’ve decided on word this time around.

I think my instructions are pretty clear now and I’ve put more information on how to make the page more interactive. Hope you all enjoy it too!