Week Eight

Week Eight

What a journey!  This is my final blog and concludes eight weeks of learning (and personal growth) throughout this course.  When I think back on my original thoughts and beliefs about ICT I consider how little I actually understood.  To me it was mainly about computers, ipods, cameras and the various technological components and their software.  I now understand it is not just about the hardware or even the software, it is about how these tools can be used to increase student engagement, learning and productivity within the classroom and beyond.   

I’m proud to say I have been successfully using Google reader, groups and docs now for the past eight weeks.  I have an active twitter account and can upload and edit my own blog posts to Blogger - what a huge achievement.  I can’t believe how daunting I thought these tools were to use just eight weeks ago.  I will definitely be utilising them from now on within my own life (both personally and professionally).

Digital Presentation

Our PD video is now complete.  This learning task has been a fantastic instrument to assist in further developing my understanding about how to increase student learning and productivity when engaging with ICT’s.  In hindsight it was actually quite difficult to come up with a content area, pedagogy and technology that would effectively enhance student learning in a fun and engaging way.  The original ideals that our group started with are not what we ended up with, however I believe this was all part of the journey and exactly why Jason set up this learning task in the format that he did.  After all there is nothing like having to ‘do it yourself’ to fully understand how and why things work.

How am I going to use ICT within my own classroom?

Whilst I still have much planning to do for my upcoming practicum my first goal is to set up a learning task whereby students create a web page to promote their own restaurant.  This task will be incorporated within an integrated unit based around students designing their own restaurant and studying various health and science aspects relating to the food industry.  Whilst this task still needs further ‘tweaking’ I believe that it will enhance student learning through incorporating aspects of literacy, technology and SOSE through a relevant and engaging technological based task.

Week Seven

Week Seven

Digital Presentation

Our group professional development video is now in the final stages of production.  We have made numerous changes to the layout over the past few weeks, however I believe this is all part of the learning journey.  Our main (and hopefully final) change this week was altering our pedagogical focus from a purely constructivist approach to an inquiry based learning (IBL) approach.  Whilst IBL is derived from a constructivist background we decided that our content topic and technology would be best suited to IBL.  Within our PD video students create their own Haiku poems using an environmental focus as their theme.  In pairs students then film a short self created video based upon this theme and edit it using Windows Movie Maker.  Finally students present their finished productions to the class for viewing. Self discovery is a focal point of this learning adventure with students working both alone and with their partners to create their own masterpieces.  Throughout this journey students learn “how to identify problems, reflect and ask questions” to form their own knowledge and understanding of how to effectively create their own digital videos (Conklin,  2004).

Video Goals

Our main goal for our professional development video is to create an engaging and informative piece that we can share with fellow peers and teachers alike to enable them to effectively use basic video editing within their own classroom using an IBL approach.

How I can use ICT in my classroom

I have begun to reflect upon how I am going to incorporate ICT within my practicum classroom.  With only a couple of weeks to go now until my four week prac. block I have already started planning lessons.  My classroom has an IWB, access to a block of computers and several digital cameras available.  I am planning to use all the technology available to me; however am still to decide how I am going to effectively incorporate ICT to enhance student learning.  That is my goal over the next week.  I look forward to sharing that with you soon …….

References:

Conklin, W. (2004).  Applying differentiation strategies:  Teacher’s Handbook for Grades 3-5.   Huntington Beach:  Shell Education.

Week Six

Week Six

Since the beginning of this course Jason has been emphasising that fact that effective use of technology in the classroom is not just about incorporating ICT into lessons.  It took me a few weeks to fully grasp the understanding that technology should not just be an ‘add on tool’ that teachers use to jazz up their lessons. (This is definitely how I would have used ICT in the past).  Throughout this course I have learnt that if technology is to be used effectively it should be embedded within a lesson to not only engage students but to enhance teaching and learning.  Hence teachers should ask themselves when thinking about incorporating ICT into their planning “how is this technology going to enhance student learning?”  I know this question is something that I will be asking myself from now on.  This new thinking (of mine) aligns with the TPCK model that has been heavily referred throughout the duration of this course.  This model is “a way of thinking about the knowledge teachers need to understand to integrate technology effectively into their classrooms (Koehler & Mishra, 2008).”  In essence the TPCK model is a useful guiding tool to refer to when curriculum planning as it incorpates technology, pedagogy and content into the one proforma to ensure you (as a teacher) are effectively integrating technology into your teaching and learning practices to cater for the diverse learning needs of all students.

This week in the lecture we looked at digital pedagogies and digital learners.  Digital pedagogy moves the focus from ICT tools and skills, to a way of working in the digital world. (The State of Queensland, 2011).  Digital learners are the students of the 21^st century that have access to technology 24/7.  These are the ‘digital natives’ within our classrooms that live in a world composed of “cell phones, MP3 players, computers and video games” (Jackson & Crawford, 2008).  It is important to realise as educators that this generation of young learners are very different from past generations and as such we need to embrace technology and look at ways of incorporating it into the classroom to enhance their learning experiences.

Digital Presentation

Our PD video is coming along in leaps and bounds.  I am now really excited about the video that we are in the early to mid stages of creating.  Since last weeks Blog we have decided to change our content focus from a Mathematics base to an English focus whereby students create their own Haiku poems and then using Windows Movie Maker create a short video clip portraying their self created theme.  We are all meeting again on Sunday to collaboratively capture footage and discuss the finalities of this project.

On a final note I believe my personal growth during this course (thus far) has been enormous, not only have I learnt about some fantastic new technologies but I have also learnt (and am still learning) of the importance of using ICT effectively within the classroom.

References:

Jackson, S., & Crawford, D. (2008). Digital Learners: How Are They Expanding the Horizon of Learning? Retrieved on 5 April, 2011 from the Connexions Web site: http://cnx.org/content/m17218/1.2/

Koehler, M. & Mishra, P. (2008). Introducing technological pedagogical content knowledge. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, New York City, NY.

The State of Queensland, (2011).  Education Queensland.  ELearning Portal - Smart Classrooms. What is Digital Pedagogy? Retrieved on 4 April, 2011 from http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=45965

Week Five

Week Five

This week during the lecture we looked at ‘The New Basics Project’ which was a four year pilot project undertaken by Education Queensland to incorporate a series of cross-curricular units into specifically selected schools across Queensland.  (The State of Queensland, 2004). This project aimed to increase student engagement and learning through a series of specially created integrated tasks. These tasks called Rich Tasks enabled students to engage in productive pedagogies which included intellectual quality, connectedness, supportive classroom environment and recognition of difference. 

It is interesting to note that whilst this project only ran for four years, its rationale proved to be very popular.  In fact so popular that Rich Tasks continued to be incorporated into many schools for several years afterwards.  My own children actually attended a school (for a few years) that used these integrated tasks and I found that many teachers spoke positively about them, however others thought that students were spending too much time on Rich Tasks and not enough time on the basics such as literacy and numeracy.  My own opinion of this framework lies somewhere in-between.  I think for some students (particularly the brighter ones) that these tasks were fantastic, however for lower level and special needs students they were problematic in the sense that these students often needed more teacher directed lessons and Rich Tasks were predominantly student centred and constructivist based.  However saying that if individual teachers were aware of this then they could have modified/adjusted tasks to cater for individual learner needs.

Digital Presentation

Our group presentation is coming along nicely with all three us finally agreeing on our content area, pedagogy and technology.  We had decided early on that we wanted to use Windows Movie Maker – video editing using a constructivist approach, however we were uncertain about what content area to focus on.  We have decided to go with an integrated unit approach but predominantly focus on mathematics as our main topic.  So far we have collaboratively written the script and now need to focus on getting the video filmed.

Stay tuned for more ……..

References:

The State of Queensland, (2004).  Department of Education and Training.  The New Basics Project.  Brisbane.  Retrieved online on 2 April 2011 from http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/newbasics/index.html