Why We Need To Teach Technology in School - YouTube

Voki

I was immediately impressed with the Voki digital tool, it was simple to create and there are many possibilities for its implementation in the classroom. Voki allows students and teachers alike to create customisable avatars that can be embedded on the Internet. For example a teacher cannot organise a guest speaker to talk to the students about recycling, the teacher simply creates a recycling expert avatar that presents information to the students. Marzano & Pickering (1997) discuss that students are engaged when tasks are ‘real life’ and related to life outside of school. By incorporating avatars into everyday school activities can re-engage students as they believe the information is coming from a real life expert. From a student’s perspective Voki’s are an exciting way of presenting information to the class. Students that are shy can record their voice and choose an avatar to present it to the class. The enthusiasm that I had towards creating avatars surprised me and I look forward to incorporating this ICT into many class activities.

PowerPoint

Image courtesy of www.presentationmagazine.com/

In the last few years I have noticed the use of PowerPoint more and more not only in educational settings but also in business and leisure. For example my friends and I are going on a trip to Indonesia at the end of the year, we want more of our friends to come so we are creating a PowerPoint that displays information, prices and pictures of the waves and places that we will be experiencing. This is much more exciting way to sell the trip rather than just telling them.

The problem that I have witnessed and most probably added to is the overuse of PowerPoint. During my practical block at school last year PowerPoint was used very regularly and almost to the point where students were sick of it. I am all for the use of this digital tool in classrooms but a teacher needs to make the PowerPoint as interactive as possible to stimulate students. This could be done by using pictures, audio clips, video clips and animations.

I believe that it is important to give students the opportunity to design their own PowerPoints when creating a presentation if it is suitable. This will give students another way to engage the audience but to also develop their own technological skills. Another benefit could be that the teacher may also learn something from the students.

My Learning Style

This chart was created on the memletics website after answering various questions about how I liked to learn. My learning style is heavily weighted towards aural and social learning where I prefer to learn using sound and music and also working with groups of people. I found the results to be quite surprising as I prefer to work alone and believe I do my best work when I am by myself. Being an aural learner was a bigger surprise because I sometimes find it hard to interpret information when someone is talking to me. I usually need to take notes and revisit the information later on to understand a topic.

It is my opinion that these learning style quizzes could be helpful for a teacher when planning for learners but just because a learner is heavily weighted towards one style should not mean that it's the only way they can learn. A teacher needs to plan learning experiences that provide for all learners in the classroom to ensure that they are engaged in a topic.

Concept mapping for learning

I found the process of concept mapping to be a meaningful task because it gave me the chance to create a document that represented my understanding of week one. That said the actual creation of the map was very challenging. I originally planned to use bubbl.us but could not get my head around how to set out the bubbles, I also found pressing the delete button very frustrating as the program thought I wanted to quit.

Text 2 Mind Map was more manageable for me as tabs were already set up and all I had to do was input my information. However I did have problems when I wanted to create a sub group. Trial and error mixed with some persistence has created my concept map.

Concept mapping in the classroom could be a great tool for students to make connections and links with their learning. It could also be used to refine and consolidate information throughout a unit by students updating their concept maps. If I was to implement this program in the classroom I would create the map whilst the students collaborated their ideas. Good tool but more practice is needed.

Did anyone else find it annoying that you could not save your document as you went?

Why blog?

This week I have spent time thinking about the purpose of blogs and the possible benefits/negatives that they offer. I am beginning to think that blogs are a great way for people to connect with each other and share their ideas. Since creating my blog I have subscribed to other students blogs as it's interesting to read a different point of view on a certain topic.

A negative that I have found with blogging is the actual time that it takes me to write a small posting such as this one. I think this is due to my concern of the possibility of the whole world reading my blog, I guess I should get over it as only four people have subscribed.

Can anyone tell me how blogging can help in the classroom?

Officially a blogger

I never thought the day would occur when I actually had my own blog. That day has arrived and it has me wondering if it will be a slippery slope towards twitter and other social networking sites. Fingers crossed I survive.

I found the process of creating and personalising my blog to be a fun and practical activity. I have now attained a new skill that I can share with others. The step by step instructions were a great help to get the basic look but I am encountering difficulties inserting a RSS tab for people to subscribe to my blog. Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Thank you in advance!