I have realised I can get distracted far to easily with all this technology!!!
Google Earth
Google Earth has just made my night. As you maybe or will know I am originally from England and I talk about it all quite a lot and try to show my boyfriend where I used to live but it would never zoom it that far. I figured because it is a tiny village in the countryside Google would not really bother with it, well! I was proved wrong tonight. I can actually walk down my old road and walk past my house! It is just amazing! Cannot wait to show and bore all my Aussie friends. It truly has amazed me and brought a tear to my eye!
The possibilities are endless with this software. You can tour the world all from a click of a button and project it onto the board. You can walk down the streets of Paris from the comfort of your classroom! It excites me what the next stage to Google Earth will bring.
This is just an ABC song I found. I think it is a simple video without too much animation for the children to focus and sing along with. I realise it is American therefore they may pronounce their letters slightly differently. To use this in an Australian school with young children I would try to find one with an Australian accent. Although I seem to be contradicting myself in some way, as I am from England and have an English accent, but I am not changing my accent for the young children (or so I think)
YouTube is full of videos, I have to admit I can spend literally hours watching clips and videos of shows. I enjoy watching English comedy shows from back home as they are just hilarious!! Although with all online sites if you were to ask the children to find a suitable video you would have to monitor them carefully. As I was just trying to find a video of Measurement for Math and much more things appeared than just measuring height and weight!! I have now learnt not to be so innocent when using such worldwide, public websites!!
"Having the video accessible online allows the students to watch it as many times as they like and where they like. This offers opportunities for students who missed your classes, as well as providing opportunities for deeper reflection outside of your classroom." (Aldred, 2010) Providing the children with the opportunity to watch the videos you use in class can easily extend their knowledge. They can also keep watching it until they fully understand. I am now a great believer in blogs and I know I will definitely be using them in my everyday classroom. Whether it is a daily blog written by myself to inform parents of what the class did today, display examples of work and the videos we watched. Or a blog that the student's personally contribute to. Either way the children (if they have access to a computer) will be able to re-cap and re-watch lessons! Fabulous!
Yet another distraction added into the course content!!
I love playing around with different images and changing the whole theme of the picture. I created my Flickr site with ease http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauras-pics/ and then uploaded my pictures. I found it very similar to the social network site facebook. I then easily edited these pictures by using Picnik. I have left the original picture on my flickr so you can see the difference. I had to stop myself from doing too many pictures and to concentrate on the course!!
Flickr would be another way for students and learning managers to interact with each other online. They can easily share ideas and photographs at a click of a button. A privacy setting can be put onto the pictures allowing only you to view your pictures, your family and/or your friends and the setting allowing anybody to see your pictures. This setting can be changed if you were to change your mind. Picnik would allow students to manipulate their images to create new and original designs. It allows them to become creative. During a project students will view things differently if they knew they would be able to manipulate the image.
The only negative in using these image manipulators is that people can change their own image to how they want to be. Photoshop is a brilliant tool to use to change images. You can make yourself skinny, change the colour of your eyes, remove freckles, spots. Basically you can make yourself look ''perfect!'' This I do not like. When social networking sites are so so popular children can easily manipulate and change their own image to suit this online society. It is crazy but also I find it quite upsetting that they feel they have to change their image for other people and to gain positive talk from peers. It may make them feel happy at the time to see people commenting on their fake image but in reality that is not them. We have to teach children to respect and accept people in society no matter how they may look!!
Anyway back onto the subject which was Flickr and Picnik. They are great tools and would be easily adapted to a classroom environment. This technology is what our students are being brought up with and we must keep up to date and allow the technology to help us teach!!
We had these in my high school in England and also when I did my placement in a primary school. They are just brilliant and really engage students. I remember in high school in our senior years we still argued and got excited about who got to draw on the board! It was such a novelty and new and exciting. Seeing them been used in the primary school every day was great. It was important for us to note who used the white board, as you know with young children it is important they all get a fair and equal go with the board or they could be upsets and conflict. We used it during literacy, we found a great website that had a aeroplane that looped in the shape of the letter. The children were able to follow the plane with their finger and draw the letter. They used it to complete puzzles and activities we found on the internet. We watched stories and the children were able to jump up and press the next page without going to the computer.
I do remember having problems with it though. The screen would often need adjusting and the mouse or pen would not always click in the correct place. These were simple to fix, but if you did not do it before the lesson it became time consuming and the children would be restless.
The MIT sketching board looks amazing. I have not had the chance to use one of those. It looks quite simple to use to which is good. Imagine all the magical creations children draw onto paper could be drawn on the boards and brought to life!! During the scientific experiments instead of trying to visualise you can draw the car or balls going down the ramp! It is just mind blowing the different types of technology available today.
Coming from England only 1 year ago I obviously still have great connections and communications to friends and family.
Wouldn't it be great to use blogs and WIKIs to work and collaborate with different countries!! For example students can ask questions about each others countries, cultures etc through a WIKI!
I did have the idea when I first arrived about contacting my old English schools via skype in the classroom but realised the time difference is too great. But now I have learnt about blogs and WIKIs they would be a great tool to use.
Imagine the different perspectives and information you would gain. Also the students would be able to view schooling from a different countries point of view. One thing I noticed when I moved to Australia is that many Australians have not even left their state!! What a shock that was to me!! But then I realised how small Europe and England are to Australia. It would be great for students to interact online with other students in a different country. The safety aspect for myself is that I would personally know the school in England and the students would be communicating through monitored blogs and WIKIs. I would also ensure that students are aware of web safety, and netiquette.
Children would just love these. They could be used at any age. I think the best way would to record the child's voice rather than using the computer generated ones as they have trouble pronouncing the words correctly plus it would be more entertaining and personal with their voice on it. While creating their voki's or avatars the children are getting actively involved in their learning and doing it for themselves. Younger children would definitely need some guidance and assistance in the creation.
As quoted by Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999) "students must be meaningfully engaged in learning activities through interaction with others and worthwhile tasks" All the activities you plan for your students need to be engaging. For them to be engaging you have to know your students and how they learn best. You may have student D who loves computer work and can easily access information but then you may have student G who cannot work efficiently on a computer and struggles to find the correct information. You need to ensure you plan the activities so that all students benefit. Also providing activities that improve certain skills will allow for the students that struggle to practice and perfect the correct skills.
References
Kearsley, G,. & Shneidermann, B. (1999). Engagement Theory:
I have never done a blog before and now I find myself changing the layouts and fonts, adding pictures, moving text, adding pages! The possibilities are endless, you can personalise it so much!
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