Sabrah Clarke

Follow the link to receive your task:

Significant Figures in the Early Catholic Church 2

Personal Pronouns game:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/interestsentences/pronouns/game.shtml

Use these links as the starting point for your research:

http://www.pittwater.nsw.gov.au/recreation/parks_and_reserves/find_a_park/parks/warriewood/warriewood_wetlands

http://www.pittwater.nsw.gov.au/home/event_highlights/major_projects/completed_major_projects/wetland_restoration_at_warriewood_wetlands_and_irrawong_reserve

http://www.pittwater.nsw.gov.au/environment/natural_hazards/flooding/where_does_it_flood/warriewood_valley

http://www.pittwater.nsw.gov.au/council/major_projects/completed_major_projects/warriewood_wetlands_biodiversity_restoration_project

Here are the answers for why people drink alcohol:

alcohol powerpoint

This week in both the lecture and tutorial we discussed assessment and mainly why we as teachers assess.

This question has a very simple answer;

Teachers assess to discover:

• how much prior knowledge students remember (particularly after the holidays),
• how well students can recall and reflect on information,
• how students interact within groups and cooperate,
• how students can evaluate themselves and their peers
• the list goes on

I have only just realised how useful assessments of many different kinds are. It’s different when you are the teacher; when i was a high school student i believed that assessments were just to stress students into having a nervous breakdown, now I see that they have some use!

I’m not sure if this is something we do now (at the end of week five) or not so I’m just going to add a word or two on Interactive Whiteboards.

Interactive Whiteboards are a fantastic tool to use in the classroom, however I have never used one or seen one in action before. They allow for the collaboration of ideas, cater for many different types of learners and promote connectedness between prior learning and current learning.

Which learning style/s does this ICT support? I believe that interactive whiteboards support amny different learning styles, particularly visual, auditory and tactile learners.

How could this ICT be implemented as a good cognitive tool within the learning environment? According to the lectures interactive whiteboards can be used for a range of tasks and have many features. Students are able to see and demonstrate themselves how many  halves make a whole in mathematics, or listen to the sound of an old steam train, or can come up and move images into columns to represent the letter they start with.

How is this ICT enabling the development of creativity? Students are able to physical move and create activities themselves using this technology, which also causes them to remember what they learnt in that lesson better.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think that this subject is best displayed through the introduction of webquests as a learning tool in the classroom.

This week as our last post we were asked to read two articles concerning the uses of webquests and their setout. To begin with this would be a great assistance to the development of our own webquests since both articles displayed in a very clear form what is required to create a successful webquest.

The first article (Dogde, B (1995). Some Thoughts About Webquests) was very informative about the two different types of webquests and the attributes that webquests need to have to be successful. For our second assessment we need to create a short-term webquest, meaning it is used for two or three lessons, compared to a month or a whole term. Dodge also explains that webquests need to include a task that relates to real life, that is a beliveable scenario, sources, description of process etc. This wasn’t really new information since in both last week tutorial and the last two lectures we have been told the same thing, however I also think that a teachers page and a rubric page is also very useful for both students anbd teachers.

I was a little confused about the second article (the question is the answer). I think it was very closely linked to the first article in what it was conveying. However, this article also included a type of timeline for what the students would be doing over the course of the task set by a webquest. This timeline included questioning and planning, gathering/ sorting/ sifting and sythesis, which depending on the year group can be done a number of times.

Which learning style/s does this ICT support? I think that webquests are very helpful for all students since it can cater for many different learning styles. It allows for students to use collaboration for group work, hands on activities, listening and spoken skills etc. I think that it is important for teachers to realise that these types of activities should not be the soul medium for students to learn about a subject. I think that webquest tasks would be more beneficial in the classroom as a way to display what the students have learnt and understand after learning a subject.

How is this ICT enabling the development of creativity? Webquests allow students to create solutions to problems in real life, to take on the personas of different people and display learnt knowledge through role play or presentations. Tke on roles in a cooperative group. The answer or solution is what the students have decided, and it is presented to real life people. And develops thinking skills.

How could this ICT be implemented as a good cognitive tool within the learning environment? I believe that webquests are a fantastic way for students to collaborate their learnt information in groups, gives students authentic tasks and are given real resources to look at.

I’ve just put in a picture of a teacher displaying their own webquest about a tour company who wants to take groups down to Antarctica. Image found on creative commons, by bdogde and is simply called IMG_2470.JPG.

In the tutorial we talked about webquests and wikis. A wiki is like a webpage, that once you are added to the group you can edit the page and add things that you think are important. To explain it I have added the film we watched in the lecture to explain it, Wikis in Plain English. This was a really easy way for me to understand what a wiki was. I got this from creative commons, by common craft, created May 2007. This leads to my final point about how films such as this can be useful in the classroom.

Which learning style/s does this ICT support? Videos help mostly the auditory and the visual learners to better grasp the concepts being portrayed since they can hear what is being said and see the examples being played out.

How could this ICT be implemented as a good cognitive tool within the learning environment? For this question I am going to tell you about my own experience last Wednesday: as a student I am still learning new terms, and on Wednesday I came across a term I didn’t know, wiki. So in the lecture we were shown the film above and now I have a simple understanding of what a wiki is. This displays how films can be useful in a classroom setting, as some students may need a visual explanatio to understand.

How is this ICT enabling the development of creativity? One idea is to allow students to create their own videos to show what they have learnt in a particular subject. I think there is a saying that mentions something like ”teach me something and I learn it, let me teach it to someone else and I understand and remember it;” by allowing students to make their own videos they have the chance to teach someone else.

click-me

Before I start I would like to take a moment to answer the questions about how this ICT skill assists learning:

Which learning style/s does this ICT support? A sound file would definitely be of assistence to an auditory learner, or when students need to write notes, they are able to listen whilst continuing to write.

How could this ICT be implemented as a good cognitive tool within the learning environment? Like I said before it would be a great assistence to auditory learners, note taking classes and for the younger grades whilst they are grasping the ideas of words, letters and reading. For example, a lesson with a strory that is read through a sound file allows students to grasp the fluency and style of proficient readers.

How is this ICT enabling the development of creativity? This sound recording could be implemented by the teacher, or by the students. For example, strudents may be asked to make up their own stories that the whole class will hear; this enables creativity.

The first article by Brown is arguing about how the government is putting technology into schools without first thinking through what needs to be considered for technology to be successful in learning. Brown argues that there needs to be in-depth evaluations into whether ICT can enhance the learning environment. It is argued that teachers need to be trained specifically to be able to use this technology to the best advantage, that students seem to know more about the technology than the teacher, and that if teachers are using technology, how are they supposed to use it to further constructivist teaching methods. Brown states that teachers believe that if they are using technology it means that constructivist learning is taking place, however just searching the web does not help students learn anything. Then Brown mentioned some of the equity issues associated with using technology, for example it is ridiculous to give a computer to a school for learning if students have no technology at home to work with as well, or giving a student a laptop and have them spend the whole day just surfing the internet.

The other article by Ertmer, focuses on the role of teachers and argues similar points to Brown in saying that teachers need the knowledge to teach the students. She states that teachers are unwilling to learn how to use technology, but willing to have it in their classrooms. However with a lack of skills and understanding they aren’t able to use technology that is provided in the classroom. The main point of this article is to get across the point that without the knowledge of technology teachers can’t reach a stage whereby students are part of constructivist learning.

In my opinion, both articles create a good point, teachers need to have a certain high degree of knowledge so that students are able to learn better. Also without particular knowledge how can teachers use constructivist teaching methods if they do not understand the medium in which students are expected to learn from.

The second article we had to look at this week was:

• Preparing Students for elearning. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/Preparingstudents.htm

The second article is discussing what needs to take place for elearning to be successful. There are many factors that need to be considered paticularly the students and the teacher. For elearning to be successful students need to be self- disciplined, technologically experienced, independant and willing to ask for help. Without these characteristics a student will be unable to learn at their best, if at all; for example if a student isn’t self- motivated to do the work they aren’t going to be able to keep up with the work and end up completely lost. The instructor is also important to the success of elearning, they need to be organised, be in constant communication with students, flexible and able to fix any problems students may have.

This week we were asked to read two of three readings about ICT practices in the classroom setting; the two I chose were:

• Johnassen, D. et al. (2008). Meaningful Learning with Technology.

 The first reading focused on different characteristics of meaningful learning and how the content of lessons will not be remembered by students by using the outdated, strict teaching practices of many years ago, whereby students knowledge is assessed through testing. Johnassen et al. believe that by not allowing for meaningful learning in the classroom teachers are disadvantaging their students, whereby the end of their education they are very good at doing tests but have gain no lasting knowledge. I tend to agree with this argument, mainly due to my own personal experiences; look at the HSC exams, it is an exam that counts for half of your total mark for a subject, whereby 13 years of schooling comes down to one exam where students are not worried about understanding the subject, but what they will be asked in the exam! Many teachers are realising that in order for students to learn at their best they need to understand what they are learning and be able to apply it to their own experiences, otherwise students do not see the relevance and will not remember what they have learnt. This where the five characteristics of meaningful learning apply, they are the ways that teachers should be teaching their students to gain a meaningful understanding. These include:

• Active (Manipulative/ Observant)- Students need to be able to touch and manipulate objects so as to better develop certain skills and knowledge, for example students need to play with the MAB blocks in maths to gain an understanding of place value of tens.
• Constructive (Articulative/ Reflective)- Students need to be able to reflect on their prior knowledge and experiences to create connections with new knowledge that is introduced.
• Intentional (Goal-Directed/ Regulatory)- Students are able to work better and more willingly when they are trying to reach particular goals.
• Authentic (Complex/ Contextual)- Students need the time to discover answers for themselves, instead of telling students straight away how they work out the answer to a maths problem give the students the chance to come up with ways they would answer the question, and in doing so students gain a better understanding of why that is done.
• Cooperative (Collaborative/ Conversational)- Through cooperation and communication students can collaborate their ideas and even learn new lessons they hadn’t realised whilst working independently. Also if a student can teach another student an idea they have a good understanding of the topic.

This all leads to the introduction of technology and ICT learning aids in the classroom environment, not as the soul learning tool but as a way to represent what the students have learnt.

Both articles displayed the ways that ICT may be helpful in the classroom, not as a soul source of information but as a way to create understanding and meaningful learning for students.