What have I learnt?

I have read, re-read and learnt so much from this weeks learning path.  Many things I never would have even considered.  One, for example is how easy people can find out things about you just from posting a photo. It makes me some what glad that I am so ICT illiterate and have never bothered with these things.  On the flip side I now have the huge task of teaching 7 year old’s something that they probably know better that I do.

I do, however feel more able to discuss the issues and strategies surrounding the safe, responsible and ethical use of digital technologies and feel as though I am developing a better understanding of them.  I have been looking at the Curriculum to understand the skills required and am beginning to understand what is required for the assessment.

I feel that a lot has changed in my planning for professional experience in that I have a better understanding of not just the uses of ICT but what and how I need to integrate these into the learning experiences for the children.  It’s not enough to be able to use ICT, but they need to understand it, relate to it and have a respect for it.  I just wish I had a couple of more weeks to plan for PE and be really ready for it.

Cyber safety

What do I know?

I have never really had much experience with ICT in my life so therefore my knowledge is limited as well.  Most of what I know I have learnt in this subject.  Before this semester I used my phone to make emergency calls, I used the internet to research and I watched the odd you tube clip and played a few games.  Now I am blogging, I know what Diigo is (though I am still learning how to use it), I am navigating my way through a long list of ICT terms and uses and surprisingly I am also enjoying it.

 I have not had much experience with cyber-bullying, spamming, phishing or identity theft besides what I have read or heard.  And quite a few of these terms are new to me, but I do know that it is my responsibility to ensure that my use of anything digital is safe, responsible and ethical.  People are allowed opinions and ideas, but they should be delivered in a way that is open and truthful, but respectful and never hurtful.

I just attempted the first quiz and I got 50%.  I was surprised by some of the answers. When I thought about it I could see that I answered incorrectly for the third question, but the first question about low self esteem I was a little more unsure of.  The answer said that most children who bully have an inflated self esteem and this started me thinking, so I read the information provided and did some additional research.  I found this article which was also very interesting.   This has made me re-think the way I handle bullying and the children involved.

Quiz number 2 is done.   I did better in this quiz.  I answered 3 questions incorrectly the first time and then went back and re-read the question and answered again.  I found most of the questions were common sense to an adult but could see how a child may be convinced to either open an email, share a password or log on to a site they were not sure about.  It also showed that peer pressure has a lot to do with it.  Friends want your password, friends are on the site, friends tell you how ‘çool’ it is.  All children want to be included and it is a fine line between allowing that and  ensuring they are safe.

There were very interesting questions in the quiz and they made me stop and think.  Most of the questions I answered incorrectly were because I was looking at them as an adult, not a child.  it is easy as an adult to reason things out – and even then sometimes we make the wrong decision.  So how much harder is it for a child to make a decision about what is safe and expected of them if we don’t first teach it.

Professional experience

I found out I am going to a year 2 class at a school I don’t know too much about so I have been busy on the weekend researching the school and the staff and it seems like a very good school with great reviews so I am very happy.  I am also happy that I got year 2.  I enjoy the prep to grade 2 age groups the most so I am finally starting to get excited about this PE.  By Thursday I will be nervous, by Friday I will be very nervous and by Sunday I will be contemplating not going.  Hopefully by Monday night I will be wondering what I was even worried about.

And on we go!

Just when you finish assignment 2 it is time to begin working towards professional experience and assignment 3.  I am a little apprehensive about PE.  I found out where I am going and I am very exited by the placement and the age group.  I think it will be a great challenge and help me progress in my planning.  I have started a checklist for PE and it goes something like this

• Contact mentor and find out expectations.
• Discuss what ICT is available for me to use in the classroom.
• Hopefully shadow my mentor for a day and prepare the best I can.
• Re-read information provided and start thinking of lesson ideas.
• Complete section B of assignment 3.
• Hope, pray and cross my fingers everything goes well.

Steven posted this Video about stress management and I found it very helpful.  I don’t know that it will work as I tend to over stress about everything, but I am definitely going to give it a try.  I really want to enjoy this PE and am hopefully going to go into it well prepared and clear minded.

Still Assignment 2

I read in Tahlia’s blog that she is feeling a little overwhelmed with the subject.  I agree with this.  ICT is  not a subject you can breeze your way through.  There is always so much to read and so much to do that I spend so much time on this one subject that I forget about the others.  I am definitely not where I should be for assignment 2.   I chose English to start with and then changed to geography which has put me behind a little, but I didn’t feel I was getting the best out of the assignment with my first choice so I changed.  Only then did I realise that it wasn’t the assignment – it’s me.

I am grateful though, no matter how overwhelmed I feel as I have learnt more from this subject than I thought I would.  The other day I actually found and fixed the problem with my PC all on my own.  I was very excited.

ICT focus point

After reading Kristie’s post that posed the topic that the focus of ICT should be on pedagogy, not on technology I had to stop and think about my answer.  Since my relationship with ICT is a fickle one, and I am a big believer in the ‘how‘ of things, my initial thoughts were that yes the focus should be on pedagogy and not technology. However after thinking about this statement I recalled a situation teaching my Kindergarten class.  We were learning colors and I decided that we didn’t need to be in the classroom to do this and the lesson could be conducted outside in a game.  This was a great idea but one that was built on the assumption that all children knew their colors – A fact I overlooked.  It didn’t matter how I taught the class, how much fun it was or how interactive or diverse it was, if the children did not know their colors to begin with they could not fully participate.  This is the same for any subject and any age group.  If the student does not understand the concept of what they are learning, then how it is taught is not going to matter.

So in my opinion I neither agree or disagree with this statement.  I think it is one of those times when their is no definitive answer.  Yes the way the content is taught is important, but so is the content.

Assignment 2

After  a day spent thinking, researching, clicking and getting generally overwhelmed I have finally chosen to base my assignment 2 lesson plan on Year 1 English.  This is an area where I have rarely used ICT and think it would be beneficial, not only now but in the future. I would like to base my unit plan around literacy and maybe base it around a selection of books.  I love to read hard cover books and have never considered ICT to be necessary when teaching English, so it will be a challenge for me to incorporate it into my lesson plan.  One I am looking forward to but which also has me questioning and doubting myself.

I was reading Jess blog and read the Tip model she shared.  it was very helpful.  It took a lot of information and condensed it into a five phase model to follow.  one I will continue to use as I plan my unit.

Where is my somewhere?

This is a question I have been pondering for about a week now.  Where is my somewhere?

I have had the opportunity to work in childcare for the last ten years as everything from lunch cover to Kindergarten teacher.  I have also volunteered with school aged children of all age groups.  When I think about what I have seen and how I have taught I can say that my somewhere is play based learning.  I have no definite age group that I like most, I love teaching and learning a variety of subjects (sadly ICT is not one of them) and I even like a lot of noise, but the one thing I do not like is seeing children at the back of the room, bored out of their minds with no idea what they are learning as the teacher reads from the front of the classroom.  I am passionate about play based learning in schools and I don’t think it matters how old you are, teachers can still implement some element of play into their curriculum.  I also don’t think it is beneficial for children to go from a play based childcare or Kindergarten to a school environment where they are encouraged to sit to learn.  Where does it say that children have to be sitting down to learn addition.  Couldn’t they learn the exact same principles through a game, and also be learning social, emotional and motor skills.

From what I have seen and heard, many teachers for whatever reason think that it is not possible to implement play based learning into the current curriculum.  Maybe they are right.  I do not work in the industry and I have fewer guidelines to follow, but does that mean you stop trying. Learning through play does not have to mean that all classrooms have a home corner set up or a certain amount of subjects are taught outdoors, it can be as simple as teachers encouraging the children to think, to imagine and to respond.

I have been around many teachers and I have seen some incredible teaching methods that I hope to be able to incorporate into my unit plan and later on Practicum.

Moving forward

Assignment 1 completed and Easter break is over.  I was a little unsure submitting assignment 1 and an not looking forward to getting it back marked.  It just seems that no matter how many times I read the information given to us, my brain does not want to retain it.  If I’m being honest then I would have to say that out of all the subjects I have studies this one is my least favorite.  I love English, Arts and Math, but when it comes to ICT, understanding it, implementing it and explaining it, I struggle.  Now it is time to go back and start all over again with assignment 2.  My motto for this assignment: stay calm, do my best and aim for a pass.

Like Steven and Jess I was able to download the UbD file that will hopefully help me plan and incorporate my ideas successfully into my unit plan.

Anti-social technology

Is technology making us anti-social?  This was one of the questions asked this week and the answer appears to be very complicated.  I enjoyed comparing the pictures of  old and modern technologies and it did make me stop and think.  Are the people in the top picture just as focused on what they are doing as the people in the bottom picture and just engaging in a different medium.  At first glance you would have to say yes they are, however I don’t think the answer is that simple.  The people in the top picture likely existed in a time period where their greatest technologies were the horse and cart and the newspapers they are reading.  The time they could have spent reading that newspaper was limited to it’s size, their abilities and interests.  They also would have had to put that newspaper down in order to drive, work, sleep and make social connections.  In today’s society we have an abundance of technologies at our fingertips, available to us at anytime and place.  We are able to drive while talking on the phone or listening to music, we can communicate  via email at work, we make and maintain social connections through social media and we can even go to sleep with music playing through head phones in our ears, and we can do all of this at any time of the day or night.  Perhaps it is not technology itself making us anti-social but in my opinion it certainly has a role to play.

Included in ICT & pedagogy – week 3 was this quote from Rainie and Wellman (2012)  which states that:

“Despite all the attention paid to new gadgets, technology does not determine human                        behavior; humans determine how technologies are used”.

While I agree with this to a certain extend I think it is a pretty limited statement.  While technology does not specifically determine human behaviour and ultimately each person is responsible for their own actions, I do believe that people are greatly influenced by technology, and technology provides the means for some human behaviours.  I’m not saying that we could get rid of technology even if we wanted to, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like if technology did not exist in the capacity it does today.  These are just my thoughts but I would be interested to know what you all think.  Could you see a world without technology?

I found these interesting readings on the positive and negative impacts of technology on a developing child.