Re-Sized Photo's from Easter Break 2014

Reflection 2

Reflection 2

Specifications:

Setting up a website using Weebly was surprisingly easy. The set formats and options allowed enough individuality to customise the site without needing to know anything other than how to drag and drop.  After only a few hours of trial and error I feel confident I could create a complex site as well as instructing others how to do so.

In the general settings you can change the domain name (if it’s available) and title, enable mobile optimisation (very important for students), set up facebook sharing, email yourself archived copies of the site and unpublish.

Specific page settings allow you customise displayed images, format text, change the structure and add content such as links, buttons to other pages, forums, blogs, polls, YouTube clips and Google maps.

You have to sign in to edit the page and you can restrict certain pages to members with the password. If you are using forums you need to upgrade to use the members only functionality.

Learning outcomes/supported activities:

This ICT tool is easily accessible, interactive, flexible and creates a centralised platform which you can store all the information you wish students to be able to access.

The versatility of this easy to use website creation tool means that it could potentially be used to support any activity. For instance you could create a second page which all students have edit access to and link it to your master site, or even a page per student. This enables you to keep control of the content of the master host site while enabling full interactivity on the satellite sites. Students could create a site filled with their own personal maths and science interests and all students could benefit from their interest by viewing information presented by their peers.

Using the forum tool, enables you to keep control of the site content while enabling a safe place to ask questions and get answers from peers and teacher alike.

This tool also provides the opportunity to extend students beyond the curriculum, by providing extra information, links, challenging games and apps to follow if a student is interested.   

Application:

My discipline areas are Maths and Science so my biggest worry as a teacher is not having enough time to answer the question why? Many concepts covered in these areas are out of context because there is just not enough time to start from first principals. For instance why are they called sine, cosine and tangent? The answer is fascinating (if you are a nerd like me) and when I finally found out (which I did using the internet as it wasn’t in ANY of my text books) suddenly a whole lot of things made a lot more sense. It is questions like these that I would use the website to answer.

I think the beauty of a website is it isn’t limited to one function and can be used in conjunction with blogs and wikis to be adapted to meet student’s needs.

Primarily the intent of my website would be a centralised location to host information, games, videos, subject and class specific information for students and parents, links to interesting websites and FAQ, interactive forums and homework submissions all with the aim of scaffolding, extending and inspiring students about maths and science so they never stop asking why!

The website could be set up into topics as well as each class having their own page. The set up and design of the class page could be a class project and be used to teach basic web design as well as cyber safety and copyright, also used to identify the class needs and encourage ownership and participation

SAMR Model

Substitution: Storage of written information, instead of using textbooks information is available on the website.  

Augmentation: Videos, forums and FAQ allow after school access and interactivity as well as a safe low pressure environment where students can assimilate information at their own time and pace. Website can be used to host blog posts in response to questions and wikis to facilitate group work.

Modification: I have noticed that a lot of children these days hate writing or do so very slowly, so I would like to have apps on my website that allow you to solve equations etc and submit homework via phones. The flexibility of the website and ease of use allows the content to change to suit students needs in response to student feedback, it also allows you to monitor traffic so you can tell if it is being viewed or not.

Re-definition: Students can be involved in the design and content on their own class site and take ownership of their own learning. Since the site is mobile friendly, it could be used to set students small research tasks if they have finished their set classroom tasks and as a test of objectives they need to give the class a quick run-down on the topic.  I would love to find a Euclidean app that allows you to try to prove and the postulates with using only a virtual compass, and straight edge!

Evidence:

I have set up a website here with just some of the features that I would eventually like to use.

Source: 

https://s-media-cache ak0.pinimg.com/originals/41/bf/2f/41bf2f42efd4a8d6c7bedda2da52a91f.jpg

Source: http://www.memeaddicts.com/stupid/cats-are-liquid/

Week 2 Reflection: de Bono’s Hats

Arbitrarily integrating ICT into the classroom without intelligent design will not result in an effective digital pedagogical tool. Therefore merely because this task utilised the online format of a wiki doesn’t make it a good example of sound digital pedagogy. Instead the design of the task focused on ICT enabled collaboration, scaffolded individual analysis and evaluation which are what I feel made it engaging and effective. I have listed below how the task design incorporated elements of Bloom’s taxonomy and the SAMR model. My personal experiences of the task are in italics.  

Blooms Taxonomy

Knowledge and Comprehension: To complete this task effectively learners needed to read through and comprehend the course materials.

 I found some of the reading hard going and if that was all there was to the task I would have data dumped most of it by the end of the week.

Application: By thinking of where and how mobile phones fit into good digital pedagogy learners had to apply this knowledge gained from the course readings to a relevant and contentious issue.

 Since I had to apply the knowledge I constantly referred back to the readings and hence was able to draw out and remember key ideas and concepts from the texts.

Analysis: By introducing the scaffold of de Bono’s hats it was impossible to consider the question from all six perspectives without rigorous analysis of your own ideas and opinions.

The scaffolding was particularly useful for me to help with my analysis of this issue, as it helped me to clearly discern between my ideas, my feelings and my knowledge or facts. I was then able to construct a much clearer picture in my mind of the entire issue.

Evaluation: The very nature of this task almost forces you to evaluate your ideas against those of your peers.

This was confronting as I like to see things from a pass/fail point of view. Which I consequently realised was completely off the point of the activity. What I needed to concentrate on was what I could learn from my peers not what I had “failed” at i.e.  Things I hadn't considered or researched.

Synthesis: The evaluation process in turn enabled learners to draw from a large variety of sources to form an informed opinion or perspective.

Personally it enabled me to formulate some embryonic ideas on how to how best to include mobile phones in the classroom in the future. Perhaps the most crucial thing I took away from this activity is that I didn't stop thinking about this issue once I completed the activity. This is what I aim for in my classrooms, to inspire the ongoing question of why? 

SAMR Model

Modification: Instead of using a classroom to facilitate a brainstorming session this activity introduced a wiki in which learners could all contribute and read other students posts regardless of when or where they were situated.

I loved this aspect of the task as it meant that even though there were small groups all learners could view the entire class and benefit from all the ideas in their own time.

Redefinition: This task redefines the concept of traditional “group work” or collaborative learning, in that it allows students to contribute anonymously and in their own time. However at the same time it was impossible to complete without having been influenced by or exposed to someone else’s ideas.

 Essentially what we have come up with is a class consensus, a truly united effort in which each individual contributes as much or as little as they feel comfortable with, and the result is a plethora of ideas, concepts, research and perspective to consider. This has started to break down some of my strongly held preference for individual work, as I can see what a powerful learning tool true collaborative learning is.

This activity and its design displayed good digital pedagogy because it exploited the potential of ICT to facilitate collaborative learning and focused the task on higher level thinking through the scaffolding of de Bono’s hats. I feel that the scaffolding was crucial to the success of this task, without it I could have easily gone off on a rant about how mobile phones are destroying society and not once even considered using higher thinking processes. 

By introducing the scaffolding I was forced to analyse everything I wrote from that single perspective without getting sidetracked by irrelevant tangents and personal soapboxes. I was impressed and surprised by how clearly and succinctly this simple tool enables me to think and express myself. This scaffold also helped me to evaluate and synthesize my peer’s ideas by enabling me to easily catalogue ideas into the various perspectives and then identify the common themes from which to build an overall cohesive picture.

The Periodic Table has sure changed since I was at school!

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/periodicvideos/5915143448/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Published under a creative commons licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/legalcode

Just one application I can think of, for QR codes in a science classroom. Imagine if these came with high school science text books!

Belated Introduction

Hello,
          My name is Marissa, I'm 31 and I work full time with the Defence Force and I previously have completed a degree in Music Studies majoring in Classical Viola performance.

I grew up without a TV so my comfort zone is the tactile feel of a book, pens and paper. I would consider myself to be passable technologically adept, i.e. I know just as much as I need to survive and NO MORE!

However I'm willing to learn so here goes.............................................

The Traditional Classroom and Technology

My biggest complaints of the traditional classroom, as I experience it in 1997-2002, (Oh my goodness I'm so old)especially in the area of maths, is the lack of relevance of the content, and the lack of ability of teachers to satisfactorily explain the concepts presented in multiple ways so different learners could understand.

I believe many maths and scientific concepts are much more easily grasped if they are depicted visually, which is possible today as there are some great programs for graphing and modelling that show concepts and applications of advanced maths that is impossible to show on a whiteboard.

So many people I know learn by doing, which is why many of them have ended up hating Maths and Science as so often it is taught by the teacher standing up the front and talking. Realistically  I don't think this style of teaching works for anyone as it goes in one ear and out the other, I think by being very aware of the consequences of boredom, encouraging creativity (especially in traditionally non creative subjects such as maths and science, how do you think Einstein came up with his theory!!) and using technology to its fullest extent, it could be the start of a great engaging pedagogy for Maths and Science. 

When you combine the main messages of all three presentations basically I came to the conclusion that it would be negligent of a teacher not to integrate technology into my basic pedagogy. Therefore in order to make teaching my career, I will need to constantly update my technological skills, in order to stay relevant and engage my students and help prepare them for the future.  

If you are looking for me I'll be on the net practicing and researching my technology classroom integration skills wish me luck! 

Technology is a Tool, why not use it?

Technology is an ever increasing force in our lives, in the the Youtube clip by Edutopia teachers explained how it has been used in their classrooms and the positive effects it has had. 

The main points I took away from that clip were:

Technology can fundamentally transform the classroom

Technology is a tool, use it

Students will require these skills in the future

Technology  in the classroom can be used for students to create, express their learning, and take ownership of it

Can lead to positive unexpected learning outcomes, ie teamwork 

Provides an authentic audience and the ability to learn at own pace.

Teacher dashboards, learn at own pace but teacher can still facilitate individual learning.

This presentation highlighted to me that a good teacher will use whatever tools they can get their hands on to engage and teach students in a relevant way. It’s not about what you as a teacher are personally comfortable with it’s about what will be of the most use to students and prepare them for the future.

Do schools kill creativity?

To my horror after watching this Sir Robinson's TED presentation I realised that I have never consciously associated schools with creativity. Which is shocking as I have always considered the point of education to be to broaden and open the mind, of which creativity, asking questions and doing things differently are all an essential part. 

The main points I took away from his presentation were:

Currently we educate the creativity out of children.

Now one of the things I love about Maths is that I am either right or wrong, I like the peace of mind this gives me and sense of security, however how do I include creativity into Maths? My solution to this would be not to tell students they are wrong but instead ask them to explain how they came to their solution. Who knows they just may have invented a whole new type of maths!!!! 

Creativity, the process of having original ideas that have value, often the result of interdisciplinary thinking. 

Having just recently read "The fabric of the Cosmos" and "Short History of Nearly Everything", I can't agree enough with the idea of encouraging non-standard solutions and interdisciplinary thinking, simply because nearly every single scientific breakthrough has been a result of creative, critical thinking. 

Intelligence is dynamic and interactive and distinct and should be celebrated as it is the way of the future. The current form of education is not preparing students to face and shape the world of the future. 

I am surrounded by adults at work that tell me they are dumb or stupid because they either didn't do well at school or teacher had told them they were dumb. Now personally I loved school and I was very successful academically, but do you think I can reverse a trailer? Nooooooooooooooooooooo and I stand by and watch while a "dumb" colleague either effortlessly does it or directs me to do it and explains exactly why it will work. My point is that while I might be able to do calculus I am pretty helpless when it comes to many life skills. So as a maths teacher I will not be telling students that they are dumb or that Maths is more important than dance, instead I will be watchful for all types of intelligence and talents and attempt to channel these skills, using Maths and Science to teach lateral thinking, problem solving and conceptual application. 

Science of Boredom

                                     Science of Boredom 

         

I found the Judy Willis YouTube clip fascinating and I felt that it was applicable to any educational situation. The main points that I found to be thought provoking were:

Boredom is a stress state of the brain: This is crucial for all teachers to know. Upon reflection it makes sense, I know in educational settings when I am trying to process too much information that is being read to me I go to sleep. I’m bored but at the same time I’m stressed as I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be getting out of the lesson.

Creating curiosity is essential:I particularly liked the idea of using signals and colours to indicate importance of information; I think this could equally be applied to secondary school situation once it had been modified to the maturity levels of the students. 

Creating a safe environment: I hate being tested or asked questions without adequate time to practice or assimilate the required skills.  I tend to panic, focusing on the test rather than the content of the lesson, and now I know the science behind it. This has inspired me to put in some serious thought of how to provide individuals the opportunity to practice skills and answer questions in maths and science setting without fear of failure.

Video Games: Personally I hate video games and I am incredibly biased about them. The point that video games reward people with harder and harder challenges was eye-opening and something that I had never considered, but I think if I was sneaky enough about it this technique could be adapted for maths and science topics.

Individual challenge levels: I have come across the idea that lessons needs to have the flexibility to challenge students on a variety of levels before, but in light of the science of boredom information instead of thinking it is a good idea, I feel that it should form part of my basic teaching approach.

Executive functions: The idea that 50% of facts that are taught at school will have been revised by the time students leave school was something that I had never considered before (and in part it’s why I like maths, the concepts don’t change much at school level, only the application).  However it highlighted that testing facts, to an extent, is meaningless in the rapidly changing world we live in instead the focus needs to be on teaching problem solving and conceptual application.