Hello again
Well I am coming to the end of my course and I needed to create an artefact that reflected what iI had learned throughout the semester. After much confusion with what to use and how to present it I chose a concept map. The map is created through an online tool called Meadmap which allows for a 30 day trial. The reason I ended up using this tool was the difficulty i had with being able to share others that I had made. Other tools used were Inspriation, Bubbl.us and Cmap all of which were difficult to upload as a webpage or embed in a blog.
Anyway this is my end result for my concept map. Comments are welcome.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Still Here!!
Well it has been a while since my last post. As one of my colleagues (Joan) mentioned the time to get everything done and up to date is difficult.
My professional experience went very well and I am returning to the same school for my six week internship at the end of the year. I am very happy with the way my teaching has developed over the past year. I have never really lacked confidence in the classroom it has been only with other educators. What I found really beneficial was the continued support and openness that came from having such a collaborative and collegial staff. The mixture between experienced educators and new recently graduated eduactors was a great balance. All teachers were open to sharing new ideas and new ways of doing things. I know I am making this sound like some kind of utopia, don't get me wrong there are issues like in every school. But they do seem to be on the right track to a finely balanced system of collaboration and cooperation.
I have been spending some time on Classroom 2.0 and the discussions have been fascinating. One of the posts was discussing the use of robotics and how Lego have designed a system called Mindstorms to show how robotics works. These would be a fantastic program to use with students from 5-7 as the levels of difficulty can be increased easily. Have a look and let me know what you think.
Cheers
Al
My professional experience went very well and I am returning to the same school for my six week internship at the end of the year. I am very happy with the way my teaching has developed over the past year. I have never really lacked confidence in the classroom it has been only with other educators. What I found really beneficial was the continued support and openness that came from having such a collaborative and collegial staff. The mixture between experienced educators and new recently graduated eduactors was a great balance. All teachers were open to sharing new ideas and new ways of doing things. I know I am making this sound like some kind of utopia, don't get me wrong there are issues like in every school. But they do seem to be on the right track to a finely balanced system of collaboration and cooperation.
I have been spending some time on Classroom 2.0 and the discussions have been fascinating. One of the posts was discussing the use of robotics and how Lego have designed a system called Mindstorms to show how robotics works. These would be a fantastic program to use with students from 5-7 as the levels of difficulty can be increased easily. Have a look and let me know what you think.
Cheers
Al
Monday, April 13, 2009
Professional Experience
Hi
I am going on prac next week for three weeks. I love going on prac. The more time i spend in a classroom the more i realise that i was right to choose this as a career and the more i can put theory into practice. The reasons for telling you this is that after posting comments on Anita's blog and responding to her comment here, i wanted to elaborate a bit more on the subject of relationship building.
We are taught that one of the most important and crucial things to establish within a classroom is trust. I don't just mean in regards to the teacher/student realationship either (although this is a very important one). Others include student/student, school/student and community/student. Once this trust is established proper relationships can be built and fantastic learning opportunities present themselves. For a prac student this all needs to be done in either a two or three week time period. In addition, pre-service teachers are also trying to learn their own craft as well i.e planning, research, collaboration techniques and everyday teaching skills.
For some of the students in the class it can also be very distracting. They are not sure how to deal with an individual who has different teaching methods to what they may be used to. I concede this change happens every year, but that is always decided and planned by the school community.
I do not know if there is a solution to the problem of creating trust in a classroom during prac. I know one of the main tips i can give is the first thing i do is learn all the students names very quickly. It is a essential part of a pre-service educators learning to experience the classroom and develop their own pedagogical practices. Therefore developing the right tools to engage with the students is imperative.
I look forward to any thoughts you may have.
On another completely different subject, i am following Kathryn's blog which is really good and very informative (thank you Kathryn) and i thought i would add the Siftables link here as well.
I believe that i have now shown this to over ten people, both in and out of education. I am in agreement with Kathryn that i would love to be able to play with these myself. As David Merrill does state that we are on the cusp of a new evoulution in technology, to make them easier and far more user friendly. The educational value of this is enormous.
Cheers
Al
I am going on prac next week for three weeks. I love going on prac. The more time i spend in a classroom the more i realise that i was right to choose this as a career and the more i can put theory into practice. The reasons for telling you this is that after posting comments on Anita's blog and responding to her comment here, i wanted to elaborate a bit more on the subject of relationship building.
We are taught that one of the most important and crucial things to establish within a classroom is trust. I don't just mean in regards to the teacher/student realationship either (although this is a very important one). Others include student/student, school/student and community/student. Once this trust is established proper relationships can be built and fantastic learning opportunities present themselves. For a prac student this all needs to be done in either a two or three week time period. In addition, pre-service teachers are also trying to learn their own craft as well i.e planning, research, collaboration techniques and everyday teaching skills.
For some of the students in the class it can also be very distracting. They are not sure how to deal with an individual who has different teaching methods to what they may be used to. I concede this change happens every year, but that is always decided and planned by the school community.
I do not know if there is a solution to the problem of creating trust in a classroom during prac. I know one of the main tips i can give is the first thing i do is learn all the students names very quickly. It is a essential part of a pre-service educators learning to experience the classroom and develop their own pedagogical practices. Therefore developing the right tools to engage with the students is imperative.
I look forward to any thoughts you may have.
On another completely different subject, i am following Kathryn's blog which is really good and very informative (thank you Kathryn) and i thought i would add the Siftables link here as well.
I believe that i have now shown this to over ten people, both in and out of education. I am in agreement with Kathryn that i would love to be able to play with these myself. As David Merrill does state that we are on the cusp of a new evoulution in technology, to make them easier and far more user friendly. The educational value of this is enormous.
Cheers
Al
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
More reflections and updates
Hi
Well it has been quite a while since my last post. It has been a very busy past few weeks trying to catch up on all the uni work i missed being away in the UK for three weeks. I believe i am now up to date and finally in control (well a certain level of control). Our trip to the UK was fantastic and my mother, siblings and friends thoroughly enjoyed meeting my daughter Grace. We managed to take a trip to Edinburgh. This is where my wife and i had the pleasure of living for three and half years (2003 -2006). I would highly recommend a visit or stay there as it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world (see pictures).
In previous posts i mentioned that i would give my thoughts and reflections on how it has been so far studying for the EDU5471 - Computer based resources in education unit. As previously commented the amount of work involved and higher level thinking for this course is much greater than any other course i have done. Admittedly, I expected it to be tougher, being a masters course, but i was not expecting the level of research or writing that i would have to do. I haven't even finished an assignment yet!!
The main focus and work has been put into an online debate that has been set up for the participants of the course. The debate was set up to discuss the statement "technophobic teachers are wasting millions of dollars". Participants were allocated one side of the argument that they need to argue in favour of. Either the pro side or the con side. I was allocated the pro side of the debate and needed to argue in favour of the statement.
There were many positives and negatives with engaging with an online debate forum and thats even before i talk about whether or not i agree with the statement. Firstly, it is very difficult to express yourself clearly and with emotion. Sometimes i found myself wondering if my messages would become misinterpreted due to the way i had written them (as is also the case in this forum). Occasionally i would edit my posts nearly five times to make sure it was expressive and clear in what i was trying to say. Also i found it difficult to deal with not having an immediate response to what i had posted or commented on. I would have to wait either a few hours or maybe a day before a response was posted. This is not because the group wasn't interactive, it is just the nature of an online forum.
With regard to the actual content of the statement "technophobic teachers are wasting millions of dollars" i was really divided about the way i felt all the way through the debate. I found myself agreeing with a great deal of the research and readings that our team found, but also disagreeing with some. It was hard to take a stand and argue a point that you were divided on. I didn't agree with the statement in some parts due to the fact that it is a multitude of different reasons why many educators are technophobic and are portrayed this way. Although, as i have found out through the online debate they are not without blame. Educators need to embrace new technologies, not fight them. Accept that they are here to stay and that we need to use them to our advantage and not distance ourselves from the possibilities that they offer. Governments, communities and businesses need to understand that educators need the time, money and effort to be educated themselves in how to integrate technologies into their daily pedagogical strategies.
If anyone would like to continue this debate, reference free (ideas flow better when there are no refs to worry about) and not judged then please do so.
Cheers
Al
Well it has been quite a while since my last post. It has been a very busy past few weeks trying to catch up on all the uni work i missed being away in the UK for three weeks. I believe i am now up to date and finally in control (well a certain level of control). Our trip to the UK was fantastic and my mother, siblings and friends thoroughly enjoyed meeting my daughter Grace. We managed to take a trip to Edinburgh. This is where my wife and i had the pleasure of living for three and half years (2003 -2006). I would highly recommend a visit or stay there as it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world (see pictures).
In previous posts i mentioned that i would give my thoughts and reflections on how it has been so far studying for the EDU5471 - Computer based resources in education unit. As previously commented the amount of work involved and higher level thinking for this course is much greater than any other course i have done. Admittedly, I expected it to be tougher, being a masters course, but i was not expecting the level of research or writing that i would have to do. I haven't even finished an assignment yet!!
The main focus and work has been put into an online debate that has been set up for the participants of the course. The debate was set up to discuss the statement "technophobic teachers are wasting millions of dollars". Participants were allocated one side of the argument that they need to argue in favour of. Either the pro side or the con side. I was allocated the pro side of the debate and needed to argue in favour of the statement.
There were many positives and negatives with engaging with an online debate forum and thats even before i talk about whether or not i agree with the statement. Firstly, it is very difficult to express yourself clearly and with emotion. Sometimes i found myself wondering if my messages would become misinterpreted due to the way i had written them (as is also the case in this forum). Occasionally i would edit my posts nearly five times to make sure it was expressive and clear in what i was trying to say. Also i found it difficult to deal with not having an immediate response to what i had posted or commented on. I would have to wait either a few hours or maybe a day before a response was posted. This is not because the group wasn't interactive, it is just the nature of an online forum.
With regard to the actual content of the statement "technophobic teachers are wasting millions of dollars" i was really divided about the way i felt all the way through the debate. I found myself agreeing with a great deal of the research and readings that our team found, but also disagreeing with some. It was hard to take a stand and argue a point that you were divided on. I didn't agree with the statement in some parts due to the fact that it is a multitude of different reasons why many educators are technophobic and are portrayed this way. Although, as i have found out through the online debate they are not without blame. Educators need to embrace new technologies, not fight them. Accept that they are here to stay and that we need to use them to our advantage and not distance ourselves from the possibilities that they offer. Governments, communities and businesses need to understand that educators need the time, money and effort to be educated themselves in how to integrate technologies into their daily pedagogical strategies.
If anyone would like to continue this debate, reference free (ideas flow better when there are no refs to worry about) and not judged then please do so.
Cheers
Al
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Update
I thought i better continue with my posts. It does seem a bit weird writing to everyone and no-one at the same time. On the USQ study desk, at least you know there are people reading your posts. Here it is not guaranteed that anyone will.
As you can see I have made some alterations to the blog. I have added a photo slide show. This was extremely time consuming and frustrating. I already have a google account which is why I chose to use blogger. What I didn't realise, it is not as simple as uploading photos and arranging them in to a slide show for viewing. I needed to become a member of Picasa web albums (through Google) and then upload an album to there. This could then be uploaded to my blog through the slide show gadget. A very steep and time consuming learning curve for a very frustrated pre-service teacher.
I imagined trying to teach this whole process to students. It would take several different lessons, many hours of signing in and signing out of accounts and uploading photos. The benefits of having free services like Google Blogger are great if the process to create a interesting and engaging blog are easy. Students would loose focus very quickly having to go from one program to another etc etc. I know I did!
That is my little rant for this afternoon
Cheers
Al
As you can see I have made some alterations to the blog. I have added a photo slide show. This was extremely time consuming and frustrating. I already have a google account which is why I chose to use blogger. What I didn't realise, it is not as simple as uploading photos and arranging them in to a slide show for viewing. I needed to become a member of Picasa web albums (through Google) and then upload an album to there. This could then be uploaded to my blog through the slide show gadget. A very steep and time consuming learning curve for a very frustrated pre-service teacher.
I imagined trying to teach this whole process to students. It would take several different lessons, many hours of signing in and signing out of accounts and uploading photos. The benefits of having free services like Google Blogger are great if the process to create a interesting and engaging blog are easy. Students would loose focus very quickly having to go from one program to another etc etc. I know I did!
That is my little rant for this afternoon
Cheers
Al
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The first one....
Well welcome everyone to my very first blog attempt. As part of the EDU5471 - Web Resources for Educators course all participants need to set up a blog so here is mine. I found it rather intimidating choosing the right colours and template. Also what picture to have on my profile took a while to upload. What does everyone think? I was a cute baby wasn't i?
I will be journaling my feelings and thoughts about the course hopefully weekly and if I become accustomed to the ways of blogging perhaps daily. You are welcome to subscribe or follow my activities as I will also be loading up pictures of my life to show who I am and hopefully explain why I have chosen to become an educator. The past year has been extremely eventful with the birth of my daughter Grace Mair who is now 9 months old. There will be many photos of her and of our recent trip to the UK.
My initial feelings about EDU5471 are that the course is going to stretch me beyond any course I have taken so far. As an undergraduate, i have already found a huge benefit listening and interacting with the professionals on the USQ studydesk. More on this later...
Cheers for now
Al
I will be journaling my feelings and thoughts about the course hopefully weekly and if I become accustomed to the ways of blogging perhaps daily. You are welcome to subscribe or follow my activities as I will also be loading up pictures of my life to show who I am and hopefully explain why I have chosen to become an educator. The past year has been extremely eventful with the birth of my daughter Grace Mair who is now 9 months old. There will be many photos of her and of our recent trip to the UK.
My initial feelings about EDU5471 are that the course is going to stretch me beyond any course I have taken so far. As an undergraduate, i have already found a huge benefit listening and interacting with the professionals on the USQ studydesk. More on this later...
Cheers for now
Al
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