Reflection on my Recipe

Well it is now time to reflect on my blog. Like the birthday cake I have rushed to cook that flops! I am left wondering where I went wrong with the recipe, and is there is any point starting over again? Or is it better to go out and buy a ready made one? Similarly, there are so many good blogs out there and life is too precious...... making my blog "rise to the occassion" is not worth wasting any more time on. Mark has provided a great safety net for me in Learning Tech with his Wiki.


The advanges of blogging was that I was forced to learn to "blog" - how to link: embed: search: make a Voki: Time tube:...... the list goes on. I would have liked to explore more of the resources and on-line tools. Learning from my colleagues and seeing what they were doing on their blogs greatly influenced me (thanks all)...it was a bit of harmless competitive fun to see what others were doing.


Drawbacks were mainly to do with "finding my voice" and feeling comfortable with what I was writing or expressing. Plus finding the time to achieve what I would have like to with the blog. You will notice the page for Universal Access technology has been deleted, I'd prefer to set up a purely professional looking, specific blog or Wiki on this topic.

Repetitive requirement for reflection...drives me a bit rancid I'm afraid, particulary when I simply "dont' know". I like black and white...tell me to find 4 different applications of virtual learning and I would be delighted to seek, search, discover and share!

The class interaction on blog sites between different students was quite limited - we had a lot more happening on the discussion board on WebCT. I think the Unit could be enhanced and more personally interactive if we kept the blogs simple and the class was divided into groups to research and present the information/on-line tools etc. back to the class. Half the fun is in the discovery. The use of the lab sessions was under ultilised - so I think there is time to do presentations in the Unit.

It was relatively easy to learn how to embed, just a bit frustrating when the image does not transfer across e.g. with the Domo Animate cartoon. Likewise I have no idea how to get the images on the right side of the blog to be complete...I have searched and tried different templates. Perhaps I need a other host site? Not being able to embed images in postings was also annoying. I find the host site limiting.

I liked being in tune with current affairs and appreciate the twitter feeds and postings from my class mates. The feeds and links helped to improve my knowledge greatly, so I personally appreciate how powerful collaborative learning is for education.

I have a long way to go, but now have confidence to apply some of what I have learnt in this Unit with blogging into a classroom environment.

Thank you one and all.

The Future of the Internet (Part Two)

I'd prefer to ignore the personal implications of Web 3.0 at this point, as I am fearful of them. See the slideshow on communilytics on this blog and you will see what I mean. It is already happening, businesses are harnessing this technology already. I don't care mucha about fridges reading bar codes and ordering my milk for me. I need to get out more, walk to the shops and enjoy nature. But then maybe 100 years ago people were fearful of machines milking cows and cows being purged with hormones to produce milk in unnatural cycles of preganancy/lactation.

On the upside, having researched Wikis' for my assignment, I see the tremendous potential for harnessing collaborative intelligence and collaborative learning in classes. I have been thinking that this is how people learn best. How would it be if we took the competitive element out of assessment, and assessment became focused on on who knows the most, but is willing to share their knowlege with other students; demonstrating the best team spirit for the good of the whole? Isn't this what famous scientists and discoverers do?

Virtual worlds for future education, such as second life - I think they will have their uses but I don't think in the next ten years they will overtake traditional classes and lectures. Virtual Learning Environments though, I think complement traditional learning environments and I see this area growing e.g. 3D interactive whiteboards...Pity we are in the dark ages and still trying to get Smart Boards into public school classes!

Kids can have a lot of fun developing their own 3D world and avatar, and this could be used in an educational context such as teaching literacy - sequencing of a storyline, see Meez.

Cynthia Calonge is a University lecturer with experinece in using virutal worlds for teaching and her insights are worth reading and she explains that they do not replace the need for face to face human interaction. She gives me hope. However, in primary school settings, Teachers need to make sure young students have fundamental skills first before embarking on elaborate use of technology, which afterall remains purely "a tool".

M-learning or mobile learning with increasing use of iphones, notebooks etc. Whilst I an concerned about the digital divide, I guess we need to appreciate that in 3rd World Countries and in poorer communities, these devices are also becoming more common and is cheaper technolgy. Therefore it would be crazy to not embrace this form of technolgy in education and at least forge ahead.

Alot of my opinion on how virtual worlds and 3D learning will be is based on the premise of I won't know until I see it and give it a go! I'd like to think I have become a lot more open minded through doing this Unit.

The Future of the Internet (Part One)

I have felt like I have set up an exclusion zone around myself by not having a facebook account, so I decided to set up am alias profile. Just before confirming, Yahoo! listed people who might be interested in following me....and it scared me off. Obviously it was somehow linked to people who have used my personal email account previously.

I do not wish to go into details, but my professional life requires a high level of self-protection and boundary setting. The only time I gave my personal mobile number to a workers' compensation claimant, this person rang me at 5.00am. Unfortunately, in some of my work, I see the not so pleasant side of human nature. Hence teaching is a break and "grounds me" with seeing life and people in a more positive light. I hope that makes sense!

I ponder on how can I find the balance with being available on line to friends and not feel threatened.
I find the future of the internet and its ability to track me quite scary.
I get frustrated with the increasing slowness of the net.
I want to find the time to set up my RSS feeds.
I am excited by the faboulous tools out there that I have only just started to explore.
I am uplifted that there are more resources available to assist students with disabilities.
I hate being sedentary in front of a computer hours on end.
I look forward to using learning technology in my teaching.
I wish developments were'nt moving so fast, to the point that no one can keep up.
I feel sorry for the people and schools left behind, it is unfair.
I am grateful to Mark for his Wiki, it is a fantastic resource that I will continue to refer back to.

Filtering the answer to achieving more leisure time

I wish.

Back in the 80's we used to look forward to the day that we would have so much more leisure time because workplaces would bring in computers and take away people's jobs.

Today's lecture left me with hope. Hope that I will find the time to build up appropriate RSS feeds and explore some of the interesting things we were shown, and then I will be efficient. I will save time and have more leisure.

Damm, I have missed the news on TV yet again because I was embroiled with responding to class blogs. Like Meridith, who likes newspapers, I like TV for news and current affairs - it provides an avenue for converstation with the family. RSS feed and SNS, takes you away from family.

However, I can't help brag, my techno savy son and my equally brilliant "can fix anything" husband did not know about RSS feed or what it does. The downside of getting more techno savvy is there is no one in the house who can help me with my wiki pages.

I wouldn't say I have a passion for IT, but I can see its benefits in education, and will try and use it provided I don't get too disenfranchised from glitches.Unfortunately my hubby cannot fix my wiki page that won't save edits , no matter how many times I re log on and press "save". I hope it is the wiki site!

I found something that you should probably not write as a teacher when rejected for jobs
this teacher claims she was rejected because she is an ICT specialist in a private school. He is also damming of Teachers TV. The author has a website Box of Tricks and had a good posting on using Wordle in a class lesson. This site also featured domo animate which is a free site for making up animations.

Educational Resources- Cyberbullying

Educating children on Digital Safety aims to reduce the risk of cyberbullying, cyberpreditation and access to inappropriate material on the web. There are many children friendly resources that have been devleoped. Budd-e has a great e-security interactive game type self test, with a primary and secondary versions. Give it a go! The secondary one is difficult and I had trouble with the jargon, so it just goes to show there is a huge gap in my learning!

I checked out Hector's World which has many sections with the aim of assisting parents and teachers of children aged 2-9 on responsible use of the internet. So much information and too little time to decipher it all! Looks like a great resource, if you have the time.

Social Networking and Filtering

I watched Q&A, and also Four Corners this week, on the topic of internet censorship. Along with the class discussion, I'd like to share a few insights as a parent:-

Having kids who are now adults and from confiding in other parents during the "hard times", I have come to view that experimentation is part of normal growing up; rebelling against parents values is needed to develop one's own identity, as is exploring/finding out about sexuality including bizarre sexual acts. I'd say to parents:-

• Trust that your children at times will not to do the 'right' thing. At times you will dislike (yes, even hate) your kids for their behaviour, because it is not what you value ot taught them.
• Don't over react when you find out that they have been doing "wrong things".
• Have a life yourself to avoid being driven insane.
• Trust that even with all their transgressions, they will turn out alright -remember the things that you got up to as a teenager. Do you really want your kids to turn out like you?

Computer placed where it is visible? Dream on. Most parents are still at work when their kids get home from school. Unless you are willing to be in the house 24/7 to watch over them or do a history check on internet websites visited, what is the point? Can you recall how it felt to have parents invade your privacy?

I think parents are better off looking for behavioural signs such as children withdrawing, not socialising, mood swings, or not being accountable for there wherabouts. Know who they are hanging out with and where they are, and keep your kids accountable by asking questions, such as, " who are you talking to on the net?" Occassionally interrupt them just to let them know you are around. Accept grunts and non-verbal gestures as an answer.

Have fun with short stints of stirring your kids and their friends up. (Sneaking around in the background with crazy hats on and puppets when your teenage kid is on webcam is enjoyed by all).

In relation to censorship of the internet, if it is not going to be effective, no point wasting the money. Given what we learnt in class today, that teenagers often initiate contact with predators over the internet, this is scary. But it is also what happens in real life. It would be better to spend the millions on providing more resources for youth, teaching emotional resilience, and addressing things that lead to low self esteem and "seeking out love".

The authorities can at least track and catch the predators by what they get up to on the internet.

I like the idea of ISTP's offering censorship and have no gripes with the Ed Dept censoring. It is then up to the customer to review the package that the ISTP is offering when agreeing to a contract. I liked the analogy of the water filter, at the home level a filter will not slow down the whole system. If you put the filter higher up the distribution chain, it slows it down for everyone.

Time tube

Experimenting with time tube when a timeline is provided with relevent Youtube videos. I found that it is quite limited to particular subjects. e.g I tried Australian History; The Sun: Queen Elizabeth; Holden. In the end I chose one already developed.
Could be quite frustrating for students if they thought they could find most topics on it.

Voki

Just made a voki, which was fun. I was surprised at how easy it was. The terms and conditions are a bit overwhelming. Have I read it right and users need to be over 13 and between 13 and 17 need parental consent?

Information literacy/Critical literacy

Today's classroom topic and discussion was interesting, and whilst I think it is important to explicity teach critical literacy, a part of me feels that the topic is so broad, that to do it justice as means that it has to be taught in an on-going fashion. Teachers also need to be intuitive as to where are the gaps with how children approach their IT research etc.

From the curriculum framework (1998)
"Students recognise when and what information is needed, locate and obtain it from a range of sources and evaluate, use and share it with others".

In respect to the concept that a person needs a baseline of information in order to evaluate the authenticity or accuracy of material, I do not think it is that simple. Instead, in many instances it would be better to teach students which sites can be trusted. A great activity would be to get students to find examples of good 'accurate' information and information that is dubious, then get the children to work out for themselves how to make sound judgements and develop a "ready reckoner". I suggest a sample topic could be "which manufacturer of cars is better, Holden or Ford?". Of course, the students will go to all sorts of sites bagging each...but then they will also discover sites that give accurate objective information and statistics.

In Uni we learn about cochrane reviews, peer reviewed journal articles, and the tier system for ranking research, statistical significance co-efficients etc ( I am rusty....can't quite recall the terminology). What is the benchmark for "how accurate is accurate" for primary school children? Provided that it is not an outright lie or miss truth, is the information ok?

On the place of print literacy;text speak;hypertext literacy; chat and microblogging

The place of print literacy: As a collector of old children's books, and many enjoyable hours spent reading to my kids, I could not imagine a world with out books. Perhaps it is possible to cuddle up on a cold winter's night and use wireless to download a novel this ....but it is not quite the same is it? It is also difficult to be at the hairdressers or wait in a Doctor's/Dentist surgery and hook up your laptop. (Ok, maybe I don't have enough pre-prepared stuff on my mobile, or MP3! )No matter the age of the Readers' Digest or Woman's weekly, you would rather pick that up than sit doing nothing.


Print literacy will always have a place, however I expect will become less common for things like newspapers.


If digital advertising replaced the junk mail, that would be a blessing. An interesting posting on the topic can be found at http://www.redant.co.uk/community/blogs/print-in-the-digital-era/
And another that looks at encouraging a love of reading in the digital era http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2004/pdfs/ocallaghan.s.paper.pdf



Netspeak and Textspeak: Txting teh Gr8 DB8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texting_the_great_debate David Crystal is quoted

"Typically, less than 10% of the words are abbreviated in text messages.
Abbreviating is not a new language; instead, it has been present for many decades.
Children and adults both use text language, the latter being more likely to do so.
Students do not habitually use abbreviations in their homework or examinations.
Texting is not a cause of bad spelling because people need to know how to spell before they can text.
Texting improves people's literacy, as it provides more opportunity for people to engage with the language through reading and writing. "

I think ability to use text speak interchangeably with SAE is a sign of intelligence. Many professions develop their own shorthand and jargon; Universities, the Defences, are form my observation the greatest generators and users of acronyms.

As a teacher, it is important to teach critical literacy and the appropriateness of when and where text speak should be used. It is not appropriate in CV's, professional reports, or formal letters, it is appropriate in SMS, MSN to friends. Having been a POS, PIR, POS I think teachers could also educate parents on the meanings of what their kids are writing by advising of some good translation websites.

Use of Chat/Instant Messaging in the classroom. Use of these things, provided that they are used as tools to enhance learning are powerful tools to motivate student learning. Students can chat to students in other parts of the world. This would be suitable to mid to upper primary classes. NSW has developed guidelines.

Instant messaging and facebook, seems that to date, does not need to be taught! Kids have been picking the skills up in their own time. Likewise I am not an advocate of facebook in the school environment. Certainly instant messaging when responding or replying to comments in a collaborative learning project such as blogs, and wikis is appropriate - again, it needs to linked to learning outcomes and have structure.

The notion of continuous partial attention syndrome being a product of new technology is a reality of the world we live in. The Y generation is all about connectivity and relationships.... less priority on productivity. I think this topic would be a lively debate for a Year 7 class.

Microblogging. Students should have the opportunity to learn effective use of microblogging, things like twitter are a fantastic way to readily share information and thereby increase exposure to new material - everyone can share the same learning journey. Gone are the days when students relied on a few books in the library to base their project on. Setting up parameters is important e.g. every student to find two references not older than 5 years and text to the others in their group.

The Wiki Blog?

I had no idea what was actually behind Wikipaedia, although I have often wondered who is the author.....so my eyes were well and truely opened last week. I have often used Widipaedia as a "quick find", especially for photos for power point presentations.

I see advantages of using Wikis over blogs - the class can be much more targeted in their problem solving/research; the collective knowledge of the group determines what is accepted as new knowledge as it is discovered and constructed; students learn from others where to source the best information - there is no hiding of references etc as happens when classes do individual assignments; there is an in-built mechanism for watching how the students are learning due to the versioning capability of the wiki - allowing for great self/group reflection on learning.

For a good summary, see http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf

There was a good article on the use of a public wiki in a German Speaking School Community, using the wiki of Sursee, and involved 100 students studying Greek mythology. Students were so enthusiastic, they continued the project after it had finished and the teacher had difficulty keeping up with the reading! The article also discusses barriers to using wikis, not least of which is teachers who lack ICT skills and fear being creative. I think public wikis, such as the one described reduces the need for duplication of teaching resources and "reinventing the wheel".

Just when I felt excited about Wikis, I decided to search the wiki of Sursee, but Sursee is a district in Switzerland. What I did find was a wiki for spelling , this site initially looked great, but upon closer scrutiny, it was like a a blog of dumped teaching material and I could not find any student interaction/ discussion. The history pages were the previous week's spelling list an only the teacher was posting to the site. I guess it served a purpose but struck me as underutilizing the capability of the wiki.

I had planned to say that wikis are better than Blogs, because Blogs tend to be less direct and represent the individual viewpoint. (Opps, now I learn it is in the hands of the person setting up the wiki!). But generally speaking, blogs with individual viewpoints are good if you want students to be reflective about their learning, but still have the ability to share content and feed off each other's ideas.

As a teacher, I would hope each of the different technologies that we are learning about has a place in the classroom, then when devising lesson plans, it will be a matter of balance and not restricting oneself to one form throughout the school year. I guess it is like different genres in literacy - a newspaper article vs a novel, vs a magazine article, vs a comic strip, vs a poem . With ICT we have email vs blog vs twitter vs wiki. I wonder if the term "genre" can be applied to different IT learning technologies? Or is there a better term to use?

Accessibility for all - introducing Universal Access Resource Page

Since the 1980s, as an Occupational Therapist working in vocational rehabilitation I have witnessed how home computers and access to the internet has expanded the range of vocational and recreational options available for people who have severe disabilities, such as quadriplegia. My first exposure to the Internet was during a home visit with a lady suffering from MS. She had overcome her social isolation by being linked to the outside world via the Internet, at that stage it was only Web 1.0, supported by the email.

Schools need to be aware of the The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) which was amended in 2005 to include Educational Standards , it is a legal requirment to provide equitable access to to all students unless to do so causes unjustifiable hardship.

Teachers in metropolitan WA would normally have access to health professionals (such as Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists) who provide advice for students with a disability where the disabilty affects ability to write, read, or use a computer. However I am interested in investigating further and capturing my findings by deveoping a "Universal Access Resource Page" on my blog - see the top left hand corner.

It is one thing to provide access to the all students, (which may mean the student with a disabiilty uses a different input device, or has specific software installed), it is another thing to integrate this student into a collaborative on-line learning experience with his/her peers. The teacher needs to ensure that what all students write or produce is compatible to devices/software that the studentwith the disability may be using. For example:-

A person who is colour blind may have difficulty seeing reds and green , so it is best to avoid titles and text in these colours. NB there are other types of colour blindness!

A person who has low vision may need to use a page reader, and other students will need to ensure that subtitles are used to describe pictures or graphics on their blogs.

A student with a different low vision problem may be able to distinguish between black and white and be able to decipher simple graphics, but not discern a picture presented as a photograph.

To assist with having uniformity on what is an acceptable standard in web page design, accessibility guidelines have been developed by W3C (W3C is short for World Wide Web Consortium, which has a mission to make the web accessible to all).

Personally, I still find it all mind boggling - and I have had some exposure to this topic over many years, so don't be worried if this feels like another quantum leap being demanded of your thinking!

What are the advantages and disadvantages of a social contructivist pedagogical approach?

A social constructivist approach when teaching children means that the teacher sets the scene for children to solve problems and find out answeres for themselves, relying on their social interaction and learning from each other. The main advantage is that children take responsibility for their own learning and it is more experiential, therefore they are more likley to remember what they find out, as opposed to being spoon fed all the information.
The disadvantage is that it can be more time consuming, requires children to have good interpersonal skills and communicate well with each other. Children with commicaiton difficulties, such as deafness can potentially be at a disadvantage. Without having explicit instruction on the scope of what they are to do, and if there is insufficient monitoring and supervision by the teacher, potentially children may go off in tangents.

Master of Primary Teaching at UWA

Hi there



As part of a Unit in Learning Technologies in Education at The University of Western Australia (which I am doing in the Masters of Primary Teaching) I am required to develop my own blog.

Being middle-aged, I am appreciating how education has changed immensely from when I went to school! Harnessing new technologies is one way that teaching can be made much more exciting.



So, come and join me in my journey!