Professional Experience and Integrating ICTs

I can’t believe two weeks of prac are already done and dusted…time flies!! I’m certainly feeling exhausted after many late nights of planning and early mornings getting prepared before the munchkins arrive at school. Being a little out of my comfort zone with grade three (prep is more my thing) is certainly testing my planning and teaching abilities. 

So, while I’m struggling to get my head around the year 3 curriculum and how to teach the related concepts, I’m also finding it hard to integrate ICT into all my lessons. In terms of the SAMR model, almost all of the technology I’ve used so far has fallen into the enhancement phase and has simply substituted a whiteboard and marker or pen and paper. 

The only ICT I feel redefined part of my teaching and the student’s learning, was the use of Google Earth to investigate how light changes throughout the day while zoomed in on an image of their school. This part of my lesson was highly engaging and is something that would not have been possible without this technology. 

Other than that, I have simply been using PowerPoint to deliver my lessons on the IWB. I’ve included a few YouTube clips and have planned lessons which allow students to interact (entering answers, dragging objects, etc) as well. It’s a little embarrassing that the students are constantly having to teach me how to use the IWB while I’m teaching them, but at least it shows they are confident users of technology. 

Hope everyone is enjoying or surviving their prac. I know I feel a bit like I’m just surviving some days. Good luck to you…only one week to go!!!! 🙂 Then back to the reality, that is assignments…sigh. 

Assignment 2 Complete!! =D

Yayyyy, finally completed and submitted assignment 2!!! 😀 A little late, but I’m in the same boat as Amber – I’m happy with my submission and confident it will, at the very least, get me a pass. 

Now time to start thinking about prac as many of my fellow bloggers have. Just scrolling through I have found that Steve provides a nice little outline of our schedule while on prac (how much and when we teach etc.). While Kiera very positively outlines her goals while on prac and provides a useful link to the USQ professional experience booklet for 2014. And finally Sophie provides a checklist of things to do before, during and after prac. Basically, I just feel very unorganised now! 

I must say though, after writing my unit plan and justification, I do feel a little more confident that I have actually learnt to use ICT more effectively in my teaching. That said, lets hope this is true and I’m able to put theory into practice whilst out on prac. Good luck to you all with assignment 2 results and preparing for your professional experience 🙂 

 

Back to it…assignment 2

Well after being granted this extension for assignment 2, I have been avoiding working on it all week and weekend. But now I’m back to it and have to catch up. *sigh*

So here are the details about my unit of work:

Context:

I have chosen Foundation Year. I am basing my context on the school where I currently work, as I hope to one day be working there. The primary state school is located in a low to medium socioeconomic suburb of Ipswich. It caters for around 800 students and it’s largest cohort is Prep, with a current 6.5 prep classes.

Learning Objectives:

I have stuck with the objectives I chose right at the beginning of starting work on this assignment, which were:

Constructing Knowledge:

• Who the people in their family are, where they were born and raised and how they are related to each other (ACHHK001)
• How the stories of families and the past can be communicated, for example through photographs, artefacts, books, oral histories, digital media, and museums (ACHHK004)

Transforming Knowledge:

• Pose questions about the past using sources provided (ACHHS017)
• Use a range of communication forms (oral, graphic, written, role play) and digital technologies (ACHHS022)

Assessment Criteria:

Constructing Knowledge

Historical knowledge and understanding:

Clear description of personal and family histories including:

 • own family, with details of relationships

Transforming Knowledge

Questioning and researching:

Clear and connected questions posed about familiar artefacts and personal and family histories (Still not sure how or if I can make this one work without having the teacher prescribe questions for students to ask their family outside school hours)

Communicating:

Clear communication of stories clearly connected to personal and family histories, using familiar and unfamiliar texts

Taken from QSA Standards Elaborations, applying strand – http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/p_10/ac_hist_prep_se.pdf 

Fingers crossed this all comes together nicely as I develop my unit over the course of this week. Wish me luck!

Creating with Smilebox

So I’m thinking of creating a digital photo book with this for the ICT aspect of EDX3270 – literacies education. It looks simple enough…at least I hope it will be since it’s probably going to be a last minute throw together after spending the entire weekend writing my annotations, essay and…oh wait, I guess I’ll have to make this before I write my reflection, hmmm

Anyway, I saw a Smilebox creation in one of my early childhood courses last week and loved it! I think it would be a great tool in early years (p-3) classrooms to get the kids making their own photo stories. So, I’m using this opportunity to test it out and see if it’s kid friendly, provided they had a little support of course 🙂

Please share your thoughts as to whether you think it’s a good choice for EDX3270 and also if you agree it could be utilised this with students?

Love Writing!

  by  wickenden 

 

I loved the idea discussed in the article on this weeks learning path. So much so, that I got a little excited thinking about promoting this whilst on prac AND in the school where I work (the principal would LOVE it!!)

If you haven’t yet read the article…every student in the school, from prep to Year 7 got to write, edit, illustrate and publish their own book for FREE!!! On completion, they each received a hard cover copy of their book to keep…once again, for FREE!!!

I was quite disappointed when I visited the website, watched the video and discovered this is only available in the United States and Canada 😦

Now, think I might have to do some research and see if there is anything like this available for Queensland schools!

As a teacher, I would love to have my students create a class book which I could have as a keepsake each year. At least for my first few years…until the novelty wears off. Hahaha

Why use ICTs in maths?

Here is my completed artefact aimed at the parents of a Year 1 class. 

http://prezi.com/umru68gtxzxc/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

I’ve really enjoyed creating this and being my first time using Prezi, I found it very user friendly. It was still time consuming of course, which has been a struggle when working on another assignment at the same time (both due today). *sigh*

But I made it…YAY! Hope you all enjoy my artefact and best of luck to you all 🙂

Creative Commons Attribution Tool

If you are using Prezi for your online artefact and haven’t yet submitted, this is a MUST READ!!!

Chronicles of a (pre-service) Teacher

After learning about copyright issues and Creative Commons in the previous week, I was extremely cautious when finding images to use in my online artefact (only searching for Flickr images on the Creative Commons website).

I encountered a problem in attributing the image when I decided to use Prezi instead of a website, as the tool which David introduced to us for attributing Flickr images (ImageCodr) in week three only gave an embed code for use in websites. After having a little panic attack, I did a little Google search and found this website which embedded the attribution onto the image for you. It’s very quick and easy.

After finding the Flickr image on the Creative Commons website, I had to copy the URL onto ImageCodr to see what license it had, and then I put all the relevant information onto this website before downloading the…

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Education Is Not What It Use To Be

Traditional approaches to education must change to keep up with the rapid advances in technology. I stumbled across this video which states that our role as educators now, is to prepare our student’s to adapt to change!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35n_tvOK74 

I found this video interesting as it makes many statements about the world today and what the future will most certainly have in store for us as teachers and for our students. It really makes clear, how important it is for education to adapt to change just as much as we and our students need to be able to adapt to change. It’s a scary thing but “change” is the way of the future! As this video brings into perspective, it’s only going to increase more rapidly. 

With regards to change being embraced in education, I personally think it’s not always teacher’s who is reluctant to embrace technological change (as many would imply) but it is actually the entire education system avoiding it. What are your thoughts?

Welcome aboard the assignment roller coaster!

I am currently stressing over three assignments – ICT, Early Childhood and Literacies.

THEN, I begin the week 3 learning path and discover it jumps straight into assignment 2!! And now I’m thinking about and planning for that too. It’s hard for my brain to comprehend this when I’m still struggling to get my head around assignment one!!

Although, crazily enough, I’m not too stressed over assignment 2…YET! I think I might actually enjoying planning this unit of work using the outcomes I’ve currently chosen…

Now obviously this isn’t set in stone since I haven’t even completed assignment one yet but these are the four outcomes taken from the Australian Curriculum: History for Foundation year, that I feel will best meet the requirements of assignment 2. 

Constructing Knowledge:

• Who the people in their family are, where they were born and raised and how they are related to each other (ACHHK001)
• How the stories of families and the past can be communicated, for example through photographs, artefacts, books, oral histories, digital media, and museums (ACHHK004)

Transforming Knowledge:

• Pose questions about the past using sources provided (ACHHS017)
• Use a range of communication forms (oral, graphic, written, role play) and digital technologies (ACHHS022)

I’m pretty confident that together, these outcomes will enable me to link curriculum, assessment and pedagogy in fun and engaging ways (using ICT) which students would love and I would enjoy teaching. Let’s hope I’m right and won’t be as stressed or lost when I get to assignment 2 as I am now with assignment 1. 

  by  estevenson  

So many great ICTs

As I continued my research for assignment one, into the wee hours of this morning, I came across so many great ICT resources. I was actually enjoying researching for once…although I was on YouTube and I am a very visual learner so I was content. My assignment will be focusing on a year one class using ICTs in mathematics. Below is some of what I’ve found:

First of all, a presentation of the top 10 reasons to use technology in education – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzi2RIt8_nk 

Next, an online math tutor through a program Known as Tabtor. Students use an iPad and stylus to complete math tasks which an online tutor views and analyses so as to assign further individualised tasks. Student’s recieve instant feedback and assistance as well as regular updates on their progress. Parents also receive their child’s results via e-mail and are able to contact and collaborate with their child’s tutor at any time. This video is from a parent’s perspective and she loves it – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wWHfRIr2Zc 

Finally, if you haven’t heard of Mathletics or Bee Bots, check out these videos!

Mathletics from student perspectives – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImB5jz5nPEk

Snakes and Ladders with Bee Bots – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQZA4YHpbk