Difficulties

So during prac I got really sick, making it difficult to do a lot of things besides sleep and rest to get better. So it has been a very hectic few weeks getting everything done. My prac experience was amazing. My school was lovely, the children absolutely beautiful and my mentor teacher absolutely wonderful. She taught me so much about how to be a teacher, especially how to change lesson plans mid session. How to use different strategies to manage behaviours. How to reflect your teaching to better it for the next time or for the next lesson.

There was a lot of problems with ICT, I was unable to connect to the internet at the school, even the IT professional was unsure of how to get it connected.  There was limited access to IPad’s as they were shared around the school, and only four computers that required teacher assistance to interact with. This was because the class year level I taught was Prep, and the only thing that they used the computer for was reading eggs and even then they had trouble using this program without teacher guidance and assistance. There was a lot of interruptions during the days such as music, history, assembly, sports and outside time. These outside the classroom lessons happened every day during the week, sometimes taking up the whole middle session before second lunch, leaving little time to incorporate an effective lesson of little more then 15 mins. So I had to figure out ways to deliver an effective lesson that was enhanced by the use of ICT, opposed to just trying to chuck ICT into the lesson just for the sake of this course.

My First Week:

During my first week I created lessons based on trial and error, getting to know where the students where at in their level of development for Math. During this trial and error phase I found out the capabilities, their prior knowledge their current understandings and what they were able to do and not do. I met the children and got used to the routine.

My Second Week:

By my second week I fell ill and had to take a couple of days rest in bed. After I felt like I was better enough to go back I went back nd fell in to a pattern working around all the other classes/assembly the children had. And I felt I was able to integrate the ICT that I had access to effectively into my lessons. Though I felt that sometimes it was a bit repetitive even though I researched other websites and activities for the students to use for the learning.

My Last Week:

On my last week I felt like I had improved in my teaching,  I was able to get my the learning objective of the lessons across effectively with the use of ICTs as part of the learning experience.

When considering my lessons I searched for sites that would name use of the IWB in the classroom, the students loved to interact with this bored. Through my search I found some lovely websites full of interactive learning activities that covered almost every aspect that you could think off, and resources such as pictures and information websites ( I will share some of these websites tomorrow in my next blog).

In the end this was a fun learning experience, I enjoyed trying new things, and using ICT’s in different ways then way I used to use them in . I have begun to learn a new skill that is in it’s alpha stages of development, it will take more time to develop these skills but they will get there eventually with time, trial and error.

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Assignment 2

So over the holiday I have been looking over the assignment and decided that I was going to focus on grade one science.

Creating a unit plan is easy enough, creating one that integrates ICT that is purposeful and meaningful to the content. I was worried that I was using the computer to much, oppose to other technologies. So I thought of some other devices I could use, IPad’s, cameras, smart board. I didn’t want to use to many devices at such a young year level as I felt like I was trying to bombard  them with ICT opposed to using ICT to make the learning meaningful.

I found some lovely websites that  work well with educating children on animals, and their habitats, these can be used as an individual teaching tool by the students on a computer or iPad, similar to a group work situation, or up on the smart board for a whole group teaching episode.

Here are the websites

http://www.abpischools.org.uk/activescience/module2/home.html

http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/habitat/

The first website is a much better version opposed to the magic school bus page, but the second one is more simplistic. And could be used as an exercise opposed to a lesson.

I thought a lovely addition to the learning of the students would be to use TV, or a Youtube video that children can view and enjoy opposed to just writing and reading. I thought something like some of David Attenborough or the Magic school bus does some wonderful episodes about animals their natural habitat. This could then lead onto the children going out into the school yard on an expedition to find and document animals that they might find what they are doing, eating, etc.

So that is some of what I’m doing, I’m aiming to have meaningful ICT opposed to just adding it in because it needs to be. Well back to the assignments.

 

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Semester 2, take 2, the journey continues

Here it is the beginning of semester 2 and its back to the grind stone for us uni students. I had a wonderful holiday as I hope that all of you have had, filled with many chocolates and fun times. Over the holidays I got a new computer as last semester mine died (for the last and final time) at the worst time last semester. It has been fun learning and using this new technological device. I got a surface pro 2 it is amazing! I will never go back to using a large heavy laptop again. It does everything that the computer did just in a compact light device.

Well back to my assignments talk to you all later

Kind regards

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Assignment One

Here is my webpage that will take you to my video that explains the what and the why of ICT’s for parents. I have enjoyed this assignment, even though I am absolutely terrible with technologies. In fact I am so bad my computer died on me resulting in me having to stay up all last night to re do this assignment and my internet decided that today it was a turtle. I can tell you it’s been one big ride but I am happy to say that I completed this assignment without giving up and i feel like that is a big achievement, I tried something new and learnt a few new and valuable skills along the way. Please enjoy my website and video

Kind regards Lady Kagome ❤

http://louisacripps3.wix.com/parents-and-ict

Referencing a photo found on the web by Tealiiee

One blog that I would like to reference is something that I have trouble with. Using photos form the web such as from Google images was free. However there is a lot of copy right laws out there and even if you reference pictures that you find you still may not be able to use them in your presentation or blog etc. I have never thought about this as it was never something that came up in high school, if it was on google you could use them and didn’t have to reference them. Now in Uni I am finding this completely different  and having to reference photos that I use and also finding permission to use the photos. I think that this is a very good resource to help educate children on plagiarism and copy right laws.

Below is a link to a friends blog who has found a website that will hep find permission for use of the photo as well as help reference it.

Referencing a photo found on the web!

レディカゴメ :3

Assignment One

When I started this assignment I was worried, I was like, how will I do this? How can i make it imaginative? I went through many options like making a blog, a website, a power point presentation, a YouTube video. And I decided all against them, none of them actually peaked my interests, and if i didn’t want enjoy making my presentation or had any interest in actually reading/watching it why would the parents of my students want to.

I came to the conclusion that I wanted to make a video, so I went searching for site’s where I could create a fun and interesting videos.

The first site I found was called Animoto, it seemed interesting enough, but i found that it only made a slide show of your pictures that added music. I decided this was not the site I was looking for that applied to the context of the assignment.

http://animoto.com/

The second one I had found was suggested by a friend of mine called Wideo, it looked really cool and I even messed around with it for a little bit. However the pictures that are used to create the video weren’t what I was looking for to create a video about ICTs, but the site itself is great and can come in handy at another time and date.

Home Oficial

The third site was similar to the first site, its called Stupeflix, it is used to create short videos of your photos and added music in with them. It would be great for photography presenting a portfolio of his work or an artist, even showing your family a video of your holiday photos or important moments.

http://studio.stupeflix.com/en/

The fourth site was my absolute favorite, and it was the one that I was going to use for this assignment, the site is called GoAnimate and it was made for business to create interesting and creative videos. There was many options to choose from such as cartoon or anime but there where many more styles to choose from. Once choosing you style there where so many options of characters and backgrounds and items to add in and it was so easy and really fun. Unfortunately 😦 I only got 30 seconds for free and had to pay for a subscription. This website is great as it has been acknowledge by CNN, TC, Wired, The Wall Street and Mashable.

http://goanimate.com/

There is even a Go animate for the school environment, however like the business version you have to pay for a subscription to use. But as an educator this site would have many benefits for use within the classroom, and from what I can gather it is to expensive to purchase. But being a uni student I love free stuff so my hint continued.

http://goanimate4schools.com/public_index

The fifth site is called PowToon, it is similar to Go animate, it has a business and educational version, and like go animate you only get a few seconds with the free version. But it also seems like a great video creation website. I didn’t have to much of a look at this website because I found one which was absolutely free no matter how long my video was.

http://www.powtoon.com/edu-home/

My last website is called Moovly, it is easy to you and there are quiet a few pictures on different subjects to choose from. while it is plain compared to the last two it is still amazing to work with and interesting to view. I have really enjoyed working with this site as it is fun and easy, and can create really interesting videos. And it is free, that is one of its greatest qualities.

Moovly Homepage – Easily create videos online in 2022

So here are some websites that I found that I thought might help some of you guy’s out whether it be now in your jobs  or at uni or in the future when your a teacher or simply just wanted to make a video, but there a many more sites out there that you can find to create wonderful videos, happy creating

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New verse’s the Old

 

One of my friends posted this on my Facebook page and it made me laugh. After reading some of the comments it got me thinking. You could see the age difference even preferences people held. I would rather a book to a kindle or I Pad, because I love the feeling and smell, even the weight a book has. I get drawn more into the story or research from a book then I do with an electronic version. There are some of the benefits to an I Pad etc. You can have many books that don’t take up much space, there is a built in light that allows you to read in a dark room, you can buy a book without having to go to a store. But some of the bad things are if you lose your I Pad you lose what you have, you don’t have a hard copy that you can loan out to friends, nor have the feeling of a really book in your hands.

Benefits to a book is that you can high light passages for later references, you can get a wider variety that you can’t get on I Pads, you can have them for years to come (after a while they get a wonderful smell within the pages 😉 ), you can loan them out. Some of the bad things are that if you loan them out you don’t always get them back, pages can tear, the book can get ruined (from sun or spills) and you have to buy a replacement, or you can forget about them and lose them, also they take up a lot of space, I have three big book cases at home filled to the brim and I need another one cause I have books piled high with more. I read A LOT of books, I would rather a book to a movie, but being a university student most of my reading are research papers, journals and educational books.

As you can see there a pro’s and con’s to both items, and I guess it’s just your preference that decides which you like better. It’s a trade-off, last week I read about Postman’s ‘5 things to know’ and the first one is that ‘All technological change is a trade-off, for every advantage of a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage’ (Postman, 1998).

It is funny because you can see this in a lot of things, for example TV. TV’s are great, delivering the news, documentaries, movies, ads, programs. But I know a lot of people who see a movie and say they now no longer need to read the book, or the newspaper because they watched the news. Being my friends, I found that I have a larger vocabulary, better literacy skills and can read and understand what I have read at a faster rate because I have developed my skills over time. But this does not include everyone, I’m just saying from the people that I know who do not read and only watch telly have little to no interest in reading and rarely to never pick up reading material and when they do they take longer to read it or give-up because their imagination is lacking and there isn’t any sound, music, colours or movement keeping their attention. But they can sit in front of the telly for hours on end watching shows and movies and don’t get bored.

Another example would be instant messaging ad emailing. Whether on your phone or computer or through email, instant messaging has taken over a hand written letter. I had a friend that lived in another part of this country at one stage in my life and to keep in touch we would write each a letter once a week, and I remember always looking forward to receiving those letters. These letters would always be 3 or 4 pages long every time, but it took a long time before either one of would receive these letter. But now we use Facebook to talk and it’s instantaneous, our conversations can last five minutes to hours it just depends on how long it has been since we talked. But the one thing I miss about the letters is that it felt more personal and where enjoyable to write. But it’s great that we can talk in real time. Email has made it easy to receive important documents and keep in touch with people that we wouldn’t normally have everyday contact with.

No matter what you do in life there will always be pro’s and con’s. Even between technologies, like computers and phones, or TV’s even kitchen appliances and cars. There will always be a newer model coming out that can do bigger and better things such as take better pictures, or has Wi- Fi, Bluetooth, easier to use, or clean, newer programs. No matter what we are always having to trade off on things. I guess that’s just life.

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Postman, N. (1998, March 28th). Five Things We Need to know about Technological Change. Retrieved March 2014, from http://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/m2/pluginfile.php/274395/mod_resource/content/0/postman.pdf

 

 

Resources that you might find interesting and helpful

For this post I wanted to share some wonderful resources that I found have during my research.

1)    The first one comes from the Queensland Government website. It is the Digital Classroom it “features information, resources and professional development opportunities to support schools in understanding, planning and developing environments and experiences for students learning in digitally-rich contexts.”

 
The picture below is called a place mat, it gives curriculum examples that are supported by practical ideas and strategies that allows teachers provide digitally-rich experiences to students.

(click on picture to enlarge or visit website) 

 

http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/enabling-learners/digital-classroom.html 

2)    FUSE can be found on the State Government of Victoria, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development website. It is essentially a portal, a repository, a search engine, a workspace, and a way of sharing quality education digital content and resources. It is a place that teachers are able to find, use and share quality educational resources.
 
https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/pages/Teacher.aspx
 

3)      Epotential (another State Government of Victoria website) is a website that “Links to the Victorian Essential Learning Standards; ICT-related learning and teaching support materials such as web sites, publications, and other online resources; ICT assessment maps, sample tasks and professional learning support, including links to teachers’ associations. It also identifies some relevant, current research.”
While it may link up more to the Victorian Standards it has many great resources that can be manipulated or used to support ICT learning and implementation into the education of Queensland students.

 http://epotential.education.vic.gov.au/

 I hope that these three resources help some of you in your future teaching position and maybe even some of your assignments or during Prac.

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Mind Map

This is my mind map I know that there is much more information that can be provided on this, I am more then happy to have you add things that I am missing on this mind map 🙂

Comparing ICT and IT (Part One)

I was watching House the other day and a scene came on that got me thinking. The scene was at the end of the episode and House a miraculously figured out what was wrong with this guy right on deaths door they had run every test imaginable and it came down to running a simple blood test to find some invading worm in the man’s blood.  Foreman stated ‘that if a person had taken time to simply view the sample instead of using machines then they would have caught this straight away and would have been able to save the dying man sooner’ and then Cameron turned around and said ‘ welcome to the technological age’.

The techno age hasn’t come quietly, it’s advanced dramatically and we now live in the middle of a society that can’t possible function without technology. This blog will be broken into two parts looking at two questions. Blog one will look at what ICT’s are and how they differ from IT’s. Blog two will be looking at the implementation of ICT’s and their effects within the schooling system.

So what is ICTs?

ICT: Information and Communication Technology: Technologies related to capturing, organising, storing and exchanging information (Churchill, et al., 2011, p. 308). Below is a helpful video that i have found on Youtube that gives a brief description of what ICT is

 

What is IT?

 IT; Information Technology: Refers to anything that can be related to computing technology such as: networking, hardware, software, Internet or people whom work with these types of technology (Christensson, 2014).

 

So what is the difference between ICT and IT? ICTs is used as an ‘umbrella term’ that is inclusive of all technology that manipulates and communicates information that can be used to exchange and distribute information to others. And IT’s are found within industries that use computers, networking, software programming and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit and protect information (Conjecture Corporation, 2003-2014).

レディカゴメ
(Lady Kagome)

 

References

Christensson, P. (2014). IT. Retrieved 03 11, 2014, from TechTerms.com: http://www.techterms.com/definition/it

Churchill, R., Ferguson, P., Godinho, S., Johnson, N., Keddie, A., Letts, W., . . . Vick, M. (2011). Teaching: Making a Difference. Milton, Queensland, Australia.

Conjecture Corporation. (2003-2014). What is INformation Technology? Retrieved 03 11, 2014, from wiseGEEK: clear answers for common questions: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-information-technology.htm

Soul4real. (2012, 01 30 ). What is ICT. Retrieved 03 11, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-hu6lMemB0