Week 4

This week the lecture examined ICT tools in the classroom. In an objectivist approach ICT is integrated to help students remedy their skills, improve recall with drills, and help students’ complete work they have missed (Powell 2010). In contrast, a constructivist approach integrates ICT with an aim of promoting creative thinking, problem solving, metacognition, and to help students understand real world problems and complex concepts through mental models and to be cater for multiple intelligences and mixed abilities (Powell 2010). I found the video ‘The Key Learning Community Cultivating Multiple Intelligences’ (http://www.edutopia.org/key-learning-community) quite refreshing. It was about a school that places less emphasis on standard testing and more on experimentation. The school focuses on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences arguing every child should develop their multiple intelligences. Students who are about to graduate assemble digital portfolios and students undertake a lot of project work. I intend to try to integrate ICT for skill remedy, fluency and for independent self paced learning but more so for helping students to develop creative thinking, mental models and for catering to student with mixed abilities and multiple intelligences.

Dust Echoes
The Dust Echoes website (http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/) is a very interactive website on dreamtime stories. During the workshop we were required to watch one of the 12 stories and then retell it. This involved copying the still images into paint, then transferring the picture into the program Inspiration 8.0IE and typing a description underneath the picture. Then I linked the pictures with arrows to show the flow of the story. The story I chose was titled ‘The Mimis’. The website is great for students and teachers, with study guides, quizzes, information about what the story means and where it comes from. Whilst I think getting students to retell a story in their own words is good the process of copying the still images into paint was very time consuming.

Graphing M&Ms

The M&M activity involving sorting the chocolate by its colour and then graphing it in Microsoft excel was very engaging. This activity allows students to practice entering data into excel and creating a graph. Through creating the graph students explore formatting features of the program such as changing the colours of the columns in the chart. I liked how each student was given a different handful of M&Ms and students can compare their graph and sample to others. Students can then explore features of their set of data such as the most common colour, the least common colour and discuss why this might be the case.


The Dust Echoes and M&Ms activities cater for inclusion of students of mixed abilities and with multiple intelligences well. They are both stimulating for students, encourage creativity and promote representing information in more than one way fostering understanding.

Week 3

The focus of this week’s lecture was protecting students online. Some of the risks to students identified were exposure to unsuitable material, commercial and financial risks, cyber bullying and harassment, privacy student’s identity, spam and viruses. I was concerned about these risks when I was on placement. As identified during the lecture it is important students learn how to navigate safely through content on the internet and are taught what behaving responsibly and safely means.

I found the recommendations on Cyber Safety on the DEECD website quite helpful. Internet Acceptable Use Agreements (AUAs) and Codes of Practice are something I will be sure to investigate when I am teaching at a school next year as I want to make sure that I have a clear understanding of my responsibilities. It is very important to educate students on cyber safety, as well as managing the learning environment so they support safe use of technology. One of the things I did on placement was to have students go to websites I had checked.

Cyber Pigs is a fantastic way to educate children on commercialism on the internet and how to use the internet safely. I went through the Privacy Playground – Cyber Pigs program and think it would be an engaging way to improve students’ knowledge of how to use the internet safely.
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/games/cybersense_nonsense/


Quia

Creating educational games using Quia http://www.quia.com/web was great fun and very educational. The quiz I made is on energy (http://www.quia.com/hm/668197.htm). It was helpful to swap and look at others and get ideas from them on what they liked and did not like about mine and vice versa. If every child subscribes for the free 30 day trial and students can create quizzes and take turns at each other’s quizzes which I think they would enjoy and benefit from as much as we did. Or students can complete quizzes and activities created by the teacher using Quia. One of the things I really liked about this program was the fact that if students were using this site many of the above mentioned risks were minimized – Quia is child friendly.



















Creating a Design Brief

Creating a Design Brief and investigating how to make a frog jump from limited materials was great fun and we were successful (as can be seen from the video below). This was such an engaging activity and materials needed were so minimal. The activity I feel would certainly help students develop their skills within the VELS Design, Creativity and Technology domain. The design brief helped us to determine the requirements for making a successful frog. The Investigating and designing dimension was easily fulfilled during the activity through the use of a design brief – which we used as a starting point to develop our jumping frog and we then selected and recorded methods for the different possibilities we thought of. Then as required in the Producing dimension we used the appropriate tools and materials to produce a product (a frog that jumped). It was very interesting listening to other peoples designs. Then as per the Analyzing and evaluating dimension we evaluated our choice of design against others. It was great to do a task that was technology but without a specific ICT focus. Doing the activity also made clear the importance of communication and collaboration in designing technology and is a great way for students to practice their communication skills.

Week 2 ICT

The focus of ICT Workshop 2 was to create a brochure and ePortfolio using Microsoft Publisher.

Creating a Brochure
The brochure that can be seen below is the one I made during the workshop and is on China. I had not used publisher since I was at school but I found it fun and easy to use. Creating a brochure allows students to practice their writing skills and practice targeting a specific audience. I liked the idea of students making a brochure for a holiday destination as these are of course common media students may have come into contact with in the real world. Through using Microsoft Publisher or another word processing program to publish a brochure students learn and practice using ICT to ‘capture, validate and manipulate data for a required purpose’ (VELS 2010 ICT for Creating). The activity would enable them to create information products (a persuasive brochure) and help them to demonstrate their knowledge of a country (helping them to progress towards the VELS ICT for Creating standards). It would also help them to practice managing their files and to plan the progress of the task if it was extended. Additionally, through students sharing their brochure with the class they also practice reflecting on how effectively they used ICT (VELS 2010 ICT for Creating). I think this sort of task is an excellent way for students to develop their ICT skills and is something I would do with my future class.


ePortfolios

None of the schools that I have been to have made ePortfolios for their students and I have never seen an ePortfolio prior to this week’s lecture. I think an electronic portfolio which has a compilation of students work showing their skill level, development and achievement in an area would be a wonderful thing for students to keep and show their parents. Today we made an ePortfolio using Microsoft Publisher (see below) it was easier to do than I expected.

Anderson (2004) discusses that it is the process involved in creating a portfolio that is the most valuable to the learner. Through this process students learn the skills of how to be a ‘self-directed and life-long learner’ (Anderson 2004). Anderson (2004) argues that developing a portfolio involves four stages: collection, selection, reflection, and projection.

One of the clear benefits is that a more extensive collection of evidence of student learning can be captured through using different multimedia (e.g. images, video and text) (Anderson 2004). To do this it is necessary that technology is used to capture students learning on an ongoing basis. I think in the classroom this would be challenging particularly in the early years with students needing more support to work independently.

One of the areas I also think that would be particularly difficult would be selecting which pieces of work should be chosen to be shown in the portfolio. I agree with Anderson (2004) who suggests that the work which shows the most evidence of the student’s development should be picked.

Another benefit of an ePortfolio for students is that it promotes reflective learning. Through creating an ePortfolio students are able to practice reflection and self assessment. Anderson (2004) suggests they reflect on each piece of work selected for the ePortfolio with students saying why they chose to include it and how it shows their achievement.

The final step in building an ePortfolio according to Anderson 2004, is projection to future. This involves students answering questions such as – “What could you include in your ePortfolio that you did not this time? Where will your learning go from here?” (Anderson 2004). This helps students to set future learning goals.

When I was on placement one of the final lessons I facilitated required students to write what they had achieved over the last two terms and this was to be included in their report. Many students struggled with this and could not remember what they had done. I think if they had selected work that they had done which showed their development over this period their reflections and therefore reflection skills would have been better.

I really like the idea of ePortfolios for students and hope to implement this for my students. Some of their clear benefits are:
- help information become knowledge
- connect assessment and learning and show development over time
- promote reflective learning and self assessment
- help students to learn from their mistakes, set goals and track their progress
- help students gain real world ICT skills
- provide context for learning and assessment
-encourage students to be self directed and life-long learners
- let students creatively express themselves
- students are involved with decision making
- its an holistic approach to individual progress which celebrates the student as a learner
- assist students transitioning between year levels
(Powell 2010, Digital Portfolio Resources 2010, Natcom 3 2010, Anderson 2004)

As the lecture this week pointed out I would consider if the school I am at has the vision, technology, logistics and culture for me to be able to produce ePortfolios for students successfully. The safety of the ePortfolio is an issue that needs careful consideration (Powell 2010). It is also important that students clearly understand their responsibilities regarding the portfolio and using computers – particularly the internet. Students should be educated about the schools internet protocols (Internet Acceptable use Agreements) (Powell 2010). Students’ personal information should not be published on the internet and students should be continually monitored when using the internet (Powell 2010). Ethical considerations also need to be made in the use of ePortfolios including copyright, software use, privacy, hacking, obscenity and respect for others (Powell 2010). Certain logistics such as server and storage of computers in classrooms is something that I feel would prevent some of the classes/schools that I have been in from successfully creating ePortfolios. Despite these considerations I think the process of creating ePortfolios would be very beneficial to students and is something I would like to implement in the future.

References

Digital Portfolio Resources 2010 http://www.hrdesign.com.au/dp/planning-dp.html
Natcom 3 – Project Proposals 2010 http://www.pa.ash.org.au/natcom/natcom3/models/portfmod.asp
Kembler D Smart Classrooms Byte www.education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms
Powell, G. (2010). ePortfolios for Teachers and for Student use in the Primary Classroom.