Cathie’s Blog

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Check out this video. It sums up a lot of the points I just made in my previous blog about the Interactive Whiteboard. It even shows Kindergarten doing some of the things we have just learnt at university (podcast and digital story)! I truely was amazed and thought it was inspiring to see young children using new technology such as this.

—> Interactive Whiteboard <—

* I just noticed that in Hayley’s blog she mentions that she unfortunately hasn’t had the opportunity to use an interactive whiteboard yet. I hope she gets to use one very soon! Hopefully this video will show her and others what it is all about. I feel priveleged to have been able to use one on my prac as I am aware so many people haven’t had this opportunity just yet.

Tim Rudd’s 2007 report Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom, identifies a number of positive impacts resulting from the use of Interactive Whiteboards. The report shows that using these in the classroom can increase student motivation, enjoyment, engagement, collaboration and participation. They can help develop positive attitudes and behaviours towards learning and increase student’s sense of positive identity. The report highlights a number of other benefits, for example the use of IWBs when teaching younger children or pupils with learning difficulties.

Everything Rudd states, I have noticed to be true in the classroom. On my third practicum, I was fortunate enough to be able to use an IWB to teach my lessons. When this was used, the students’ level of engagement and motivation seemed to increase. This was particularly evident in cases where students used the IWB themselves, for example to put up their reward points or run the daily times tables session. I have found that my own experiences so far have supported the results of this research study. I wonder whether they will on the pracs to come? I sure hope so!

Source: http://flickr.com/photos/seanosullivan/292168150/

I have just read Marc Prensky’s article “But the Screen Is Too Small…”. This article suggests cell phones, not computers, will be the future of education. Prensky describes the future of technology to be a lot like new Nokia n-Gage mobile phone. He describes a device that has all the features of recent phones plus more. These devices will have features such as a thumb print reader, a built in Wi-Fi and the ability to run any program. Students will be able to submit their homework electronically while teachers can download lesson templates and use the phone for administration purposes. The list goes on…

This new device has endless possibilities. It can connect to over a billion others and as Hayley says in her blog Cell phones our new future?, it is like a “mini version of the computer” . Each new school year there will be a new upgraded device with better features. And yes, this is small enough to fit in your pocket! Although $100, Prensky believes these are the future of education and children and teachers will be carrying them around in no time.

Source: http://flickr.com/photos/spiral-static/2115054/

Collaborative Learning: Just because you ‘can’ doesn’t mean you ’should’. This is the title of an article written by Terry Freedman in 2005. The articles title immediately captured my attention. In general, even though we may have the ability to do something, this does not mean we should actually do it. Perhaps it is an inappropriate time or it isn’t socially acceptable or allowed? I relate this train of thought to technology. Freedman states that “what we educationalists should be aiming for is not to get our students and colleagues to use technology, but to use appropriate technology appropriately”. I believe this sentence to be spot on. We shouldn’t use technology just because we can. There needs to be purpose in order for students to engage in meaningful learning. It is all about the appropriate use of technology and its implementation.

Freedman questions the usefulness of sites such as Wikipedia and questions whether or not people really want their work edited by others. However, I argue that if people use these sites they are asking for it to be edited! Teachers must educate their students on how to identify reliable sources of information. This article is extremely subjective however does have some valid points.

For the past few weeks at university, we have been creating our very own digital stories. Although I had to learn how to use a new program in order to do this, I found myself to be deeply involved in this task, particularly as I was telling a story which was meaningful to me.

Now that I have an interest in the area, an article titled Digital Skills Targeting Social Skills for Children With Disabilities came to my attention. This article tells of how using digital stories can result in increased motivation, engagement and positive attitudes towards learning. It tells of how digital media can be used to develop students’ social skills and promote desired behaviours in learning, for example, positive relationships with others. The article is an interesting ready and has highlighted to me the benefits of digital stories, particularly for children with disabilities. For example, hearing impaired children can look at the visuals, while visually impaired children can listen to the audio. It has been very insightful.

Here is my digital story. It even won me an “oscar”! Hope you enjoy it.

Just recently a friend and I completed an assignment for university where we had to design a webquest for teachers, or alternatively build an online learning task for children using LAMS software. We decided to challenge ourselves and take the second option, developing an introductory Indonesian learning unit for children. We discovered that LAMS is an exceptional tool for teachers. The program is user friendly and if given enough instructions, I believe students could easily design their own tasks. However simple they may be, this will provide students with new learning opportunities, and as we found out, extremely beneficial ones at that. So many new skills are learnt along the way and the sense of pride and satisfaction of designing your own task is amazing. I am sure students can benefit from this process just as we have done. 

 Above is an example of what the authoring page on LAMS looks like. Along the left hand side are the authoring tools e.g. multiple choice, survey, notebook, question and answer and sumbit files. Source: Catherine and Erica’s assingment.

WOW! I’ve just been looking through some of Erica’s blogs and realised the amount of comments she has been receiving. Inparticular, her post called Why Blog received a comment from someone named Miss Wyatt.  I followed the link to her page to discover she is in fact a classroom teacher who uses blogs regularly within her class. Miss Wyatt has her own blog as well as links to her class blog and students pages.  I have found her post My Student Bloggers to be particularly informative on how to implement student blogs. There are several requirements and rules her students must abide by. For example, students are asked to write their own posts as well as comment on their peers’ and other peoples’ around the world, however, they cannot publish their posts until the teacher has read and approved them.

I was really excited to find Miss Wyatt’s blog, read her comments from other teachers, and look at her class blog and students blogs. This has really broadened my understanding on the topic. 

I have just written a page about a chapter in the book called ‘Becoming a Primary School Teacher’ by Dominic Wyse (2002). However, as this page it set to private, I thought it was important for me to write a brief blog about it also. Reading this chapter has led me to consider why some teachers often withhold from using technology frequently in the classroom. Is it that they fear technology? Do they worry that their students will know more than them? Perhaps they fear their students will be missing out on vital learning experiences as a result of dedicating time to technology such as computers for example. Different technologies can be used to enhance learning in so many different ways. I wonder what teachers think.