chloes-blog

Final Reflection

Fri, 25 May 2012 04:40:25 +0100

I can't believe that this unit is finished all ready. I've learnt so much in the past few months. There would be too much to write down in this one blog but I'll try and put as much as I can.

I can say now that I have made a website and am pretty proud of the work I've accomplished. I've researched new social networking sites and know how to use them. I've created a wikispace for the first time, and made my own authentic task. There is a lot more things I've learnt such as screen captures, hyperlinks, adding photos, referencing, adding files to my website, using google scholar, using yola and there is a lot more. The most important lesson that I have learnt in this unit is I am NOT afraid of technology, I'm now excited to explore and research new technologies!

This unit is absolutely fantastic in relation to teaching. Teachers that are confident to use technology in their classrooms are going to have a huge advantage when teaching students. I believe that when I become a teacher technology will be a major part of my teaching career.

The help that we receive in this unit is so helpful. Having the LMS site and the companion website make the unit so much easier to understand. I'd like to thank the lecturers and tutors for all the help they have given us in this unit. I've loved this unit and have learnt more then I ever thought I would.

Exam Preparation

Thu, 24 May 2012 09:34:36 +0100

I have to say I can't believe that exams are going up already. We have now been given our six potential exam questions, I think that after some good researching I should be ok with these. The exam doesn't seem so scary now. The questions are:

1. Imagine you are team teaching with another teacher and you are planning a joint lesson in a curriculum area using technology. The other teacher wants to create a PowerPoint presentation to deliver to the class, and then ask students to fill in an online quiz. What might you say to the teacher to convince him or her that this is not such a good way to teach with technology?

2. Describe five ways you could use technology (applications, hardware, software, web tools, etc.) to create a sense of community at your school.

3. Imagine the Principal in your school wants to buy some new technology for the school and has asked your advice on electronic whiteboards? What would you say and why?

4. Choose one of the following ICT tools and describe five ways it could be used by you as a teacher with students in a subject area of your choice:
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Diigo
• Blogger
• Wikis

5. Describe a lesson, in a subject area of your choice, where you begin the lesson by asking students to take out their mobile phones and switch them on.

6. The Principal of your school has announced that the local council will host a centenary celebration of your suburb (or town) in a few weeks time. The Principal believes that this is a great opportunities for students to learn more about the place where they live, and has asked each class to complete a project on the suburb (or town) during the weeks before the celebration. Describe an authentic learning project using technology that your class could do.

My plan is to start reading the unit text book everyday and note down anything that is in relation to any of the exam questions. I then plan to google search and find some information. I think it's really helpful that we get an A4 sheet to take into the exam. Mine will hopefully will be filled with some helpful information to help me during the exam. I don't want to focus to much on the sheet because we still need to study for the exam.

Hopefully everything goes ok and I get a good mark. Wish me luck!

Presentation

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:55:12 +0100

I was really nervous about presenting my PowerPoint in class. I was hoping that I had done it alright and completed all the requirements. After the presentation I was pretty happy with what I had and the nerves finally calmed done. I was so happy to have it all finished. The PowerPoint was a bit scary for me because I'm not the most creative person and the narrations scared me a lot because I had never done it before. And then lastly I had to upload it to Author Stream I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to upload it correctly.

So firstly starting with my experience with PowerPoint. I had done some simply PowerPoint presentations in the past but not on the newest version of PowerPoint. So I had to become familiar with it again. That was easy to work out and there were a number of videos available on YouTube. If I had any problems I could have looked at a fantastic PowerPoint Explanation. Although I didn't need to use it I noted it down in case I came across any problems. My next challenge was the narrations, I had never done this before and at first had no idea what a narrated PowerPoint was. So again I went to YouTube in hope of some help and found a great video that explained everything in detail. I then knew what I was doing. So I wrote up a practise speech and recorded my voice. It was actually quite simple.

I thought that Author Stream was going to cause me a lot of problems. I had never used the site before and thought that I would need to sign up for an account. However when I finished my PowerPoint I simply went to the website and uploaded my video, it uploaded it in a few minutes and it was all done! I was really happy with the website.

So now my whole Assignment 3a is finished, I am so relieved to have it all finished. I've actually learnt a lot from this assignment. I wrote my first authentic task and loved doing it. I explored the Australian Curriculum for the first time and got an idea of how it works. I narrated a PowerPoint for the first time and used Author Stream. This assignment is fantastic and teaches a lot of valuable information.

My wikispace is available for those that want to have a look, just click on the link. I really hope that I have done well on this assignment as I've learnt so much and put a lot of effort into it.

So now i'm focussing on writing a few more blogs as I haven't done enough that I wanted to do. So I plan to write a few more on my exam preparation and my final learning's in this unit.

Below is a picture of my Wikispace Home Page. Stay tuned for my next blog!

Assignment 3a

Fri, 18 May 2012 09:30:27 +0100

I have now completed Assignment 3a and will use this blog as a way of discussing my progress. I finished all my pages on my wikispace and was happy with them. One of the difficulties I had that was extremely frustrating was wikispaces changing the layout and font I used, however I managed to work around it. My wikispace can be located at the link.

When creating my PowerPoint I found it hard to meet the five minute mark. I found that this problem was because I was working on my own and couldn't discuss how my team members separated the task. However I managed to fit enough information talking about how I created the educational resource. I have been finding it hard to blog regularly as I had to work on my own and all work had to be finished and completed by myself.

However I'm happy to have the assignment finished and can now enjoy my birthday which was the due date of this assignment! I'm a little nervous and embarrassed to have my presentation shown. I will have to be brave and be confident with my work.

Wikispaces

Sun, 06 May 2012 03:38:18 +0100

So I've been working away at assignment three. The topic I have chosen is the solar system for year fives. I've found this topic very useful to do this assignment, I've been able to find a lot of helpful and informative information. This assignment is definitely the hardest we've done all semester as it has the most components, I've had some difficulties as my partner is sadly unwell and I've taken the role of making sure the assignment is moving along at the correct pace.

In relation to the assignment I've made some progress. Wikispaces is a great site to use although it's a little slow and can be hard to work with. I've now been able to get my home page looking presentable. I had a lot of trouble learning how to link the pages together however I look at the week 10 Online Tutorial and found all the information I needed to get my links finished.

I'm now aiming to get my task laid out for the students and add my resources. As I said before there is some fantastic information about the solar system that I'm going to use in my assignment. So hopefully I wont have to much trouble with technology today!

Finished Assignment 2

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 06:42:58 +0100

I have finished assignment 2 and I'm quite happy with what I turned out with. I put a lot of effort into this and believe that my resources will be quite interesting. I had some trouble towards the end with the summarising of my resources. Some of them were so informative! However I was happy with what I came out with. I wanted to make my website look more professional (as I said in my bog before) and I believe that I have done that this time. I have hyperlinks, photos, good information. So hopefully I'll do well...fingers crossed.

Progress!

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:46:02 +0100

So I've finally made some progress on Assignment 2. I had a few little problems on the way with technology. I had a bit of difficulty added pictures onto my webpage. However after some patience and determination I've managed it and I'm quite happy with what I've came out with. I've found it really interesting looking at all these resources as there are so many different types that I never knew about on all topics. So I believe that I will finish this Assignment today...hopefully if technology is on my side today. My next blog will hopefully be on the additional reading as I plan to take some time and read those that are there as they will be extremely helpful for me.

New Topic

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:51:41 +0100

After some trouble finding certain resources I made the decision to expand my topic. So instead of having the topic question Using Technology to Teach the Solar System I've changed it to a question that is easier to find resources. My new topic is Using Technology to Teach Science in the Classroom. This is a much better topic to use; I've found some excellent sources that I can use in Assignment 2. So now I'm going to write up my report and work on how to make my page look more professional. Stay tuned for some more blogging on my progress with Assignment 2!

Endnote

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:26:25 +0100

I have found that Endnote is a fantastic tool. It is so easy to use and makes referencing so much easier. I found most my resources using the Murdoch Library Page which helped to find my book, article and conference paper.

Because of Endnote I can now find resources and put the information straight into Endnote which will allow me to use it in the future. What is also very good about Endnote is the fact that you can reference a number of resources not just books and websites. You can reference conference papers, journal articles, movies or podcasts, book chapters. Using Endnote for assignment 2 isn't going to be it. Endnote can be used for all units for assignments such as essays. The online lectures/workshops provided me with the information I needed to use Endnote which was all provided on the Companion Website. I'm looking forwards to using Endnote for the rest of my time at University.

Assignment 2

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 12:51:57 +0100

So Assignment 1b is finally finished and submitted and I'm now working on Assignment 2. I've found this task extremely enjoyable. The topic i chose was 'Using technology to teach the Solar System in the classroom' the solar system is a fantastic and interesting topic to work on. So far I have used the cool tools for schools website which is an excellent site for people trying to find reliable sources. I've found numerous amounts of information on my topic that is going to be fantastic for my report. I've found that technology and I are finally working together and finding this information is fun and not frustrating.

When I first heard about this task I was worried about the referencing as I haven't had much practice at it yet. However I completed the online tutorial and found it very usual at explaining referencing. But so far everything is going fine.

The lectures so far have been extremely helpful. The lecture that was given explaining Assignment 3 made my worries disappear Jan explained it so clearly and I'm looking forward to creating the classroom project. Rob Phillips lecture was also excellent and very informative. There was much to learn and was very interesting!