Vodcasting!

I found this great movie on Teachertube that the kids of Orange Grove Public School had made. This shows us that children can create things like this, e.g. these kids in this movie have made a news broadcast. They seemed to enjoy it, and it isn’t that hard a task!

I got really excited when i found this video, really proves that kids can and will create wonderful vodcasts like this one!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

 Click here to go to the teachertube site.

E-portfolios and learning

I was recently reading the article titled “Impact of e-portfolios on learning” and made several discoveries in relation to the use of e-portfolios in education.

The major discoveries I made of e-portfolios were:

• e-portfolios benefit learning most effectively when used as a joint teaching and learning approach. Both teachers and students should be given the chance to use e-portfolios at a range of times for a range of reasons.
• support curriculum needs
• support learning outcomes for children of a wide range of abilities
• makes learning and development obvious to teachers and students, as work can be revistied, revealing strengths and weaknesses
• provides a scaffolded learning environment for students

I believe e-portfolios are a useful tool that teachers should seriously consider using for assessment of their students. In my future teaching I will seriously consider the use of e-portfolios as a new and exciting way of assessing students, and observing their development and learning in a different form.

Toondoo

After seeing Karina’s blog on Toondoo, I thought I would check it out myself, and had a ball making my own cartoon!!

This website allows you to create cartoons about ANYTHING, and gives you a huge variety of characters, settings, props, layouts and the list goes on. Children would have a ton of fun using this website to create their own cartoons, and as a teacher all you need to do is allow the kids’ imaginations to run wild!

My cartoon is about a child showing his Dad what he learnt at school that day, and the Dad then taking that information to work with him and using it himself. We need to keep our minds open when teaching technology, because once in a while, children may teach us something new!

I highly recommend toondoo.com to everyone! Have fun!

My Prac Experiences

My prac was fairly disappointing, technologically speaking. I wasn’t given the chance to teach computers or to observe my class on computers at all. My supervising teacher used to be the computers teacher at the school, but I still didn’t get to experience any computer lessons at all.

I was very disappointed. I had all these wonderful activities for my class to do, after learning about all these new programs in e-learning this semester, but I didn’t get the chance to try any of them out.

The kids didn’t seem to know much about computers and all the things they could do on them. I was excited to see that the librarian had developed a webquest for the children to complete, was a shame I had to leave before they attempted to complete it. It was really good to see that the teachers were all very excited about the webquest, except for 1, who claimed “I hate this tehcnology stuff”, so that was a bit of a worry! Would’ve been interesting to see how things panned out for that class!

My Digital Story

Digital Stories are a great way for children to tell a story through the combination of pictures, music, and their dialogue. It is an exciting opportunity for children, and having created the following digital story myself, feel that the children would love this activity and learn plenty at the same time.

My digital story was created using a program called Photostory 3, and that is easily downloaded to any computer! Check out my digital story, I hope you enjoy it!

My Digital Story

Webquests

After creating our own Webquest, I found them to be a very interesting, interactive and exciting way of learning and teaching. Our webquest “De Bono’s Thinking Hats”  was designed for teachers to learn about a topic which we felt was not emphasised enough in today’s classrooms. This webquest provides teachers with an opportunity to discuss their own thoughts and ideas on the use of thinking hats with teachers from all over the world.

I feel that teachers can use webquests as an effective teaching tool for children. Setting tasks online, giving them resources to use and allowing discussion boards to take place with the active exchange of ideas would be extremely beneficial for both students and their teachers.

Creating this webquest opened my eyes as to how easy it really is, and the thought of children creating their own webquest came to me. In the classroom, children could create webquests for each other to complete. This would be a fun and interactive way for children to learn, and no doubt they would be learning about not only the subject matter in the webquest, but developing their e-skills aswell.

Webquests are also a valuable learning tool for teachers. As my webquest on the thinking hats educates teachers, so do thousands of others. It is just a matter of searching for them, choosing one, and completeing it. I feel there is a world of knowledge out there for teachers that they just don’t know about. With a bigger emphasis on teacher as LEARNER, through webquests, I feel teachers would realise what they are missing out on!

Stuff technology.. or fit it in?

I came across an interesting post on Victoria’s blog today. It was titled “Misfit technology” and I was interested as to what she would be talking about, so I read on. The article Victoria’s post was based on is Stuffing Technology into the Curriculum.

Current teachers have, to an extend, been forced to shove technology into their learning sequences, rather than being taught how to use it as a highly effective teaching tool. I agree with Victoria’s discussion of this topic. Before the subject e-learning, I had no idea how i could use technology in the classroom. I thought ‘computing class’ was all the technology that was really needed and didn’t really feel it was my job to teach them technology.

However, my view has definately been altered, reversed even! I feel that it is up to the classroom teacher to, where possible, use technology to the best of their ability in order to develop children’s knowledge of technology and allow them to develop their basic skills and enhance their learning. Throughout e-learning we have been taught how to use programs such as Garage Band to create podcasts, Scratch to make games, Inspiration to make mindmaps, and the list continues. I never knew that I could achieve so much by using a computer, but now, I am all the more confident using technology and plan on integrating it, rather than “stuffing it” into my classroom teaching time.

Collaborative learning

After reading a post on Bridie’s blog today on collaborative learning in the classroom, my thoughts on this topic were provoked. Bridie made this post prior to reading the article collaborative internet projects. I read this article also and had a similar reaction to that of Bridie.

Susan explains that when she began as a classroom teacher, she had travelled a lot, and loved bringing items back from her travels and creating units on them. This made learning more exciting and interesting for children. However when the internet was first introduced into schools, she saw this as an opportunity to bring the whole world into her classroom, but at the same time, she was scared and intimidated by the internet.

Susan claims that her first web project was the most exciting thing that happened in her career. That is a pretty big call made from someone who was still a little frightened by the internet. This proves that anybody can use the internet and children have the world at their fingertips through a tool such as the internet and collaborative learning.

Susan has gone on to create websites ad win awards. I think that she can be an inspiration to many teachers who may still be hesitant in integrating the internet and other technologies into their classroom. She sure was an inspiration to Bridie and also myself!

Technology in the Classroom…

I recently read Emily’s critique on a piece of commentary titled “The Pros and Cons of Technology in the Classroom” (a debate from 1998), spoken by Roy Pea and Larry Cuban.

Emily discussed Cuban’s side of the debate. I however am choosing to critique Pea’s speech. Pea discusses the idea that technology includes chalkboards and such, so therefore technology is used in the classroom constantly. He also poses the idea of ‘Radical Innovation’, and discusses that technology allows us to make fundamental breakthroughs in learning and education. I support Pea’s example that showed us technology increases the ability of children to think critically and independantly.

I feel that this speech is very easy to understand. Pea uses simple language, not technical ‘lingo’ therefore allowing all who are interested to understand his point of view. I agree with all points put forward by Pea, therefore I ultimately support the use of technology in the classroom and feel that it should be used as much as possible by all teachers. I believe these teaxhers would see a difference in their class’s thinking, and the popularity of the use of technology in the future is sure to continue growing.

Reference:

Pea, R. & Cuban, L. (1998). The Pros and Cons of Technology in the Classroom. Bay Area School Reform Collaborative Funders’ Learning Community Meeting, Palo Alto, CA February 5, 1998 http://tappedin.org/archive/peacuban/pea.html

Internet safety

My thoughts on internet safety were provoked when I read Bridie’s blog on internet safety. Bridie discussed the recent findings of her 8yr old cousin on a what she thought to be harmless website titled www.peterpan.com. This however was not a child’s website, but a very adult site. This kind of mistake can be made by any child, and there are no limits to what they could find.

I was very interested and concerned about this subject, so decided to continue my research/ All the literature says that the internet is an important tool for children and that their use of such a tool should be encouraged by teachers, parents, schools etc.

Children are provided with so many opportunities to use technology at school, and are given a wide range of programs to use which allow the to learn whilst enjoying every second of it. However, with such things present and very accessible to children on the internet, their freedom is obviously going to have to be limited. This will also result in their education and enjoyment being limited. In order for children to benefit as much as possible from the internet, such websites should be restricted if not deleted all together. Why is there a need for it in the first place? Beats me!