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
Monday, April 13, 2009
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
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