19 October 2010

Week 5

This week's lecture focused on introducing animation in to the classroom. Greg spoke of the importance of praising students for their efforts, but then offering them direction on ways they could improve upon the work they have produced. Even in a classroom where students do not have access to the equipment and programs needed to make animations, they could start with Powerpoint and flip books. I remember using Powerpoint animations and looking at flip books when I first started using animation. Even simple stick figures could be easily used by students of all ages in flip books as the beginnings to more sophisticated animations.

The other idea that Greg had was relating to students' goals. I really believe that students should set their own goals and reflect on them throughout the the year. Greg suggested recording videos of the students talking about their goals and reflections rather than just writing about them. This is something I hadn't thought about before, but is something I think I will utilise in my own classroom.

This week we looked at different websites that we can use to make simple animations and stories. One of those was http://www.dfilm.com/, however this one is not suitable for children to use. Below is the short animation I made. Enjoy :P


In case the video doesn't play (seems to have issues in Internet Explorer) follow this link to see the video. http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-465659

We then looked at another website that can be used to make animations. This one is much more student friendly. http://www.zimmertwins.com/ It is very easy to use. You can change the characters, scenes, what they are doing and holding. I can see great potential for students to use this website to repesent their ideas on a variety of different topics. Below are screen shots of the animation I created.


We also looked at different websites to create characters. One of these was http://www.buildyourselfwild.com/, where you can change the different parts of your body and switch some out with animal body parts. You can then email the finished picture to yourself, or other people and invite others to create their own too. Below is the character I made.

Following this we looked at http://www.reasonablyclever.com/, where you can build different lego characters by chaging the different parts of their bodies. This could be used to get students to create different characters for a story, play, or to get ideas for their own animations. Below is a screen shot of the character I made.

Following this we looked at introducing typed dictations into classrooms. We all performed the dictations that Greg read out. It was interesting to see the differences in the spelling of words between our typing and the poem Greg had read out. He used the poem Ode to the Spell Checker. One such version of this can be found at http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=34076. I think this sort of dictation could be very useful in the classroom for students to practice not only there typing skills, as well as grammar

and punctuation understandings, but could also inspire great discussions about homonyms and how easily different words can be confused for one another.

After this we looked at Rebus writing, which is where some words or objects in the writing are replaced by pictures. This has applications for a variety of different year levels, and would be especially helpful for ESL students. Often students know what they want to write or say but lack the ability or confidence to actually complete the task. This form of writing could very well help them to develop this confidence. It was really good to hear about how to save files that contain gif images so that they still move. Greg suggested that if students save their writing as a webpage instead of simply a Word document, this will ensure the images still move. A screen shot of an example of this can be found below.

Another great suggestion was that students could start writing a story on their computer and then move on to someone else's story and continue writing. This would be repeated a number of times and then each student would return to their own story and finish it, taking into account the changes that other students have made to their story. This sounds like an excellent idea and reminds me of the stories my friends and I used to write at school on paper and folded it down and passed it on. It would be interesting to see how different students would react and adapt to changes in their own writing made by other students.

18 August 2010

Week 4

From the lecture this week there were a number of interesting ideas that Greg spoke of. The first idea was about why we should integrate ICT into the classroom. It can encourage problem solving and creative thinking, can cater for multiple intelligences, generates motivation for students to learn (they lvoe technology), and can help to develop information and visual literacies.

A key element Greg spoke of was about encouraging students to adopt critical thinking (thinking about your thinking). This skill is one that can help with creativity and self-reflection. To really get students to think like this, there needs to be a complex question for investigation, make students aware of their assumptions, then reflect and evaluate.

This idea of creativity and catering for differing intelligences was explored in one of the video links provided in the lecture. After watching this video, there were a few things I thought were worth mentioning. It can be found at http://www.edutopia.org/key-learning-community, and my thoughts on it can be found below.

The video The Key Learning Community: Cultivating Multiple Intelligences was very interesting to see the perspectives of the teachers and students at the school. It was encouraging to see that a school has made the attempt to teach directly related to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. While this is something that is very admirable to see being done, I question the long term effect on students completing their education there, and perhaps being denied the experience of learning to cope in the “real” world. When they finish their education they may find that the wider community is not so understanding and accommodating of their different intelligences. I suspect this may be the case from two of the comments posted under the video from former students. However there is no way to tell if these people did actually attend the school. An interesting video none the less.

In the workshop this week we looked at different Aboriginal stories from http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/dustEchoesFlash.htm. This website has many stories, as well as study guides for teachers to use in classrooms.

After we had watched one, we needed to retell the story using images from the video and print screening them into Inspiration. Mine can be seen below for the story of The bat and the butterfly.


This was a very fiddly and time consuming process. Each image was taken by print screening the video after pausing it in the right spot. Each image was then cropped and pasted into Inspiration. I then resized each image and wrote under each what was happening in the story. Then I attached arrows between each image so the order could be seen clearly.

This sort of activity could be useful for students to do, but like I have already said, is very time consuming. The activity has great adaptability for different year levels and differing abilities. Students can also utilise their writing and retelling skills.

Following this activity, we looked at sorting and graphing activities that students could do. The one we looked at was sorting the different colours of m&m's and then graphing this. This topic could lead onto discussion about many different things including:

- Why are some colours are more commonly found than others?

- What is the most common colour in your sample?

- What is the most common colour in the class?


Here is my finished graph of the frequnecy of m&m's by colour.


This activity is also good for developing the students' skills in Excel, looking at graphs, average, mode and median. There is also lots of room to do this with things other than chocolates or lollies, but that are still engaging and interesting. There is also a lot of room for further discussion or investigation, not only in terms of mathematics, but the students could investigate the production of m&m's, the packaging process, or debates around introducing new colours to the mix.

11 August 2010

Week 3

The main focus of the lecture this week was on privacy and responsibility and how to encourage these values around technology among our students. It's all about encouraging students to act responsibly and safely on the internet. As a teacher I know that I need to always be vigilant about privacy and ensure students take appropriate precautions when using the internet. This is something I try to do by finding appropriate sites for the students to visit prior to lessons, rather than just getting them to search using a search engine like Google. I would also like to help my students to learn safe ways to search for themselves as well.

This week we were investigating design briefs (investigate/design, produce, analyse/evaluate) and using a website to construct quizes and games.

We had to investigate how to solve the problem of making a frog jump. This was something that we did hands-on, rather than using computer technology. We trialed different ways of using a rubber band, cardboard, sticky tape and a picture of a frog to make the frog jump. Ours worked by cutting and folding the cardboard and attaching the frog using the rubber band. when you push on the back of the cardboard, it jumps! We used a design brief to record the different ways we thought it might work. Below you can see a video/pictures of our design.







After this activity we used the website www.quia.com/web to make a quiz. The quiz I made can be found here http://www.quia.com/quiz/2513872.html. My quiz is about farms and farm animals. After we had all made our own quiz, we had a turn at answering different ones. It was good to see all the different ideas people came up with and have people do ours and give us feedback.






We also played around with making different activities or games. My game can be found here http://www.quia.com/jw/387140.html. It is a game of word jumble, where all the words are different big cats found in the world.







This website was really easy to use and I can see the potential for teacher designed games and quizes, as well as the opportunity for students to use. There are so many games and you could adapt them to suit a variety of different topics.

4 August 2010

Week 2

In the lecture, Greg spoke to us about ePortfolios and their potential use in classrooms and for our own personal use in applying for jobs. I can see how ePortfolios could be very useful for students to present what they believe is important or valuable from their schooling to their parents and also to keep a record of their achievements. I think it is important that they are designed and implemented by the students themselves rather than just their teacher. As part of this process of students creating their own portfolios, students should be encouraged to evaluate their own work and justify why they have selected certain pieces to be placed into their ePortfolio. Teachers should also try to promote a culture of sharing student work and ePortfolios are a tool that can help in this, which is something I will definitely endeavour to do.

In the workshop this week we played around with creating a brochure in Microsoft Publisher. Below is one page that I made for a holiday to Zion Wildlife Gardens in New Zealand.



I formatted the background, practiced print screening and copy and paste. I also modified the text font, size, colour and position. I have had lots of experience with publisher before and made brochures like this during my own schooling. I think this is something that is great for children to do as they learn lots of different formating skills and can develop their extracting information skills. Like Greg said in the workshop, this is something that is much more beneficial for children than just talking/writing about what they did on the holidays.

After this we discussed ePortfolios and began creating our own in publisher. Below you can find the beginnings of mine (although I'm yet to add any information or pictures!). This is something I'll work on and add to.




As you can see it needs a bit of work! But I think it's a good idea and is something that I can continually add to and update.


Here's an update to my ePortfolio.

28 July 2010

Week 1

We were introduced to the idea of integrating ICT into our classrooms this week. This was something I had given much consideration to. It is intersting to think how much the classroom environment has changed since I was in primary school (and that wasn't that long ago). I remember only having access to computers during computer room time and being amazed by the developments in technology. Now it is difficult to think of students not having access to a variety of different technologies, both at school and home. But the question remains one of how to implement their use throughout students' schooling. This is something I hope I will learn more about through this unit.

Greg spoke to us about the need to integrate ICT into the whole school curriculum. Some of the reasons that it should be incorporated include that it can develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills, motivates students, can help address the differing learning styles and interest of students, and will develop necessary skills in the information age.







Print screen of blog title modified in Paint.

This is something I already knew how to do, but had learnt to do it in a different way than that which Greg spoke of. During my schooling it was compulsory to have a laptop, which gave me lots of opportunity to learn how to use a variety of information technology programs.












Above is a concept map I made with Inspiration 8.0. I experimented with changed the font size, graphic size, added links and text, and changed the colours of the graphics and arrows. I'm pretty good with technology, so found it very easy to pick up how to use to program.





We also experimented with creating mind maps in Inspiration 8.0. I have used similar programs to make mind maps, so found it very easy to get the hang of. One program I used while on placement was very similar (Microsoft Visio), where the students made mind maps of the different human body systems. Overall though, I think this program is easier to use, so I think the students would pick it up very easily too. I also really like all the different pictures that you can choose from, and the different ways you can format your work (colours, sizes, fonts).

I think there's a lot of potential for students to use this program. It seems to have many applications and could be used by a variety of year levels.