#hashtagearemylife #omg #yolo

#ihearthashtags

They are pretty great. Even though it can be annoying when my younger cousins constantly hashtag on facebook about everything in their lives. #yolo #swag #lol - you get the idea.

But what about #help! #religionassignment
and tagging too! @missFoddy. @teacher @schoolreligionclass

I'm talking about using twitter for study. I tweeted David yesterday with an assignment question and he got back really quick (I was actually impressed). It also means that students can search hashtags for answers as well. So when students are studying for an exam, this would be handy. Also, collaborative learning on tasks could also be handy.

Theres also another tool here fakebook. Facebook for a classroom. I've heard its good for history and also religion and also character understanding in english.

I'm starting to see now how much we should be using social media in our classrooms. As I mentioned on twitter, I caved and got pinterest, something I'd been avoiding because I find social media a distraction, but I must admit I love it. I've already collected about 75 teaching resources already.

Jill's blog was the reason why I decided to get pinterest. Also, I'd heard raving reviews from many of my teaching colleagues on prac.

assessment and technology

Do we need to get rid of hand written maths tests?

Seriously? - with technology aren't they are bit outdated? We've got all the technology in the world to make tests online- lecturers do it all the time.. why aren't we doing it in our classrooms?

This article  provides some maths online test resources and also says 'it's so easy' - but is it?

for the students?

I also want to ask the question... why are we still using maths tests at the end of term? all the time?
In my experience with a test, they only really examine students understanding, memory, and maybe a little application. Depending on the question, it can ask students to analyse and evaluate - but this doesn't happen a lot in maths in tests. And tests certainly don't help students create. Of course, I'm referring to Bloom's taxonomy (the version of Bloom's that I use comes from Frangenheim (2012).

Back to testing online. I know that when I'm testing students on maths, I want them to show me that they can do the working out, which shows that they understand and can apply the laws, processes and formulae that they need to. With online testing, this is not necessarily the case. Also, in terms of validity and reliability of assessment, students can also cheat with assessment, unless there are some blocking of sites set up through the schools wifi- magic.

At the same time, for formative assessment, I can understand using online tests as a tool, but then again, the teacher may be restricted on the amount of feedback that can be provided.

I've seen students through one of my tutoring groups that I have at my old school struggle to answer questions to online maths quizzes because they weren't 'able' to do the working out. They thought that they had to just 'get' the answer straight away, but I mentioned that it may take a few steps to work out on pen and paper, you may not be able to figure it out straight away. I think the website they were using was http://www.mathsonline.com.au/

If you watched my online artefact you might be like 'hang on a minute alice, you've just gone against everything you said when you said you would use geddit as an online tool". Well, you have a point. However, in the context I mentioned that I would be using it for physics to check students understanding but ALSO to build self regulation - which geddit does. Geddit also lets the teacher provide feedback, and as a formative assessment tool, the teacher can identify what the students really aren't getting. And, I would tell the students to use pen and paper to do their working out, because if they can do complicated physics calculations in their heads, they should be at university and not school. Also, Geddit allows your to put multiple choice, short answer and long answer questions, so I would probably use a combination of these in the classroom. Different context and purpose.

So in answer to my first question, no. We don't need to get rid of hand written maths tests, if anything we need more maths assessment that allows for more higher order thinking. In this case and context, I argue that less technology is actually better.

My unit plan and some resources

Well, after finishing assignment 1, I'm getting more excited about my unit plan. I actually enjoy writing unit plans because its so practical in terms of teaching.

I'm using a unit that I wrote for another course for year 12 physics about circuits and testing variables on circuits to check energy efficiency and things like that.

Today, I did a quick browse of the web for some resources and I found a two that I thought Ah! that will come in handy when I will teach...


The first is a tool for making Gifs. Gifs, in my opinion, are under-utilised in education at the moment. Basically a gif is a image that moves or a really short video on repeat. For anyone who has never seen a gif, think the pictures in harry potter.

When I came across this website I thought what a brilliant idea... getting students to make gifs to show how something works. In physics, we use a lot of diagrams to explain how things work. I think it would really help if these diagrams could move. So either, I could make gifs to show for example, the water flow metaphor for electricity, or get the students to create gifs to show me how their circuits should work in their assignments, or get them to make a gif to help them remember how to do an equation. The possibilities are endless.

The other resource that I found that I thought ah! this would really help build student understanding and help them apply their knowledge, is a circuit digram/circuit simulator see here. I think I would use this in my unit plan when students are hypothesizing about their experiments to help them check and plan. Also, it can help teach the essential items in circuits.

I'm still working on getting some more resources etc, but I think this is a good start.

EDC3100 assignment 1 submission

Alice Foddy 0061035466 EDC3100 assignment 1 submission.

Well, I guess this is it.

For my assignment I've created a Prezi. The link is here. (I'm praying it works). I made it public so it should work.

I've included my reference list in this post because I don't like the way that the prezi made my references look. So I've embedded it below. I'm just picky.

I've also included a PDF of my script/transcript of the audio in the prezi. This will help the marker to know when to click. I thought this might be helpful because it can be annoying if you click to the next slide and I hadn't finished talking and you have to go back. It may not be entirely precise.. as in I may have said something slightly different, but you'll get the idea. I've also included the timing for each of the slides to show that it runs for less than 7 minutes. But I wouldn't hand the my reference list and script to parents in a real life situation.  I just thought it might be useful for the marker to have. 

Below are the links. I think I've embedded them ok. It links to google drive and I've also made them public so hopefully they work as well.

Script

References

Lets think on our feet!

Flicking through (wait, its more scrolling than flicking... whatever) scrolling through feedly I came across Jill's blog - Which I love (and hate, those macaroons look amazing!). Anyways, the post about having to deal with tech mishaps in the classroom was so handy. It just reminded me that in my unit plan and while on prac, I will need to think about what will happen if things do go wrong. The link in Jill's blog lead me to the list of how to cope when lucifer makes a visit to the classroom and unplugs the internet. 

I think it is important to just know your content, know all that you need to, know your objectives, know what your students need to do and achieve by the end of the lesson. 

I unfortunately had a tech mishap on my last prac, but luckily it was right at the end of the lesson, and it gave the students 10 minutes to think about their assignment. Mind you, that whole lesson was a muddle because there was noise outside, it was friday afternoon before a big day, and I was trying to teach and engage the students in stuff that was super important, but there were silly people misbehaving outside of the classroom which were distracting them way too much... anyway... thats behind me now, but I did learn that when there is a will there is a way, and students will learn, but we might have to use a different way.. that may not include ICT sometimes. 

Organisation through ICT.

There are so many students out there that don't have the skills to be organised, hate writing in their planners and constantly hand in assignments late.

What can ICT offer to help students become more independent and organised?
- Apps... lots of apps.

Though they basically only substitute a student planner, there are apps for homework, there are apps for calendars, there are reminders on phones that you can create. If teachers want to get personal, they can even send out group text reminders.

Theres a list here  of 100 organisation and productivity apps. But if you want a few less heres a list of 30.

Hope this helps people :)

Senior stress

Hi everyone, 

This post is a little less about pedagogy and more about benefiting student wellbeing in the classroom. I wanted to start off with just an anecdote. 

About 10 minutes ago I observed something in my brother that I've seen in myself so many times, but this particular thing happened to me a lot when I was in year 11 and 12. My brother is in grade 12 this year. 

What happened was, he came into the living room room, balling his eyes out, convinced that he could not 'do' a part of his assignment. Even though myself and my parents, and he probably knew deep down that he was more than capable of. Like so many other grade 12 students he is so scared of the number that he will get at the end of the year. My brother has always been stressed about our academic work. I remember him being really little and getting so frustrated that when he was rubbing things out on the page he'd rip the page. I've also had similar experiences as a student both in school and at university. 

We can say to ourselves that "its one paragraph, in one assignment, in one subject, that gives us one number that defines our lives for one year". However, we think that if we muck up that one paragraph, it will mean that one mark from that one assignment could impact on our position in the class which will lower that one number so that we can't get into the one degree that we want. We put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves, and it probably isn't healthy.

To my friends out there that are working in secondary, we will have students that are just like this, you've probably met them. And its not always obvious the ones that are stressed because they express it in different ways. 

I'm going to a big bold statement out there that I truly believe. I think we need to teach students that it is ok to fail. In fact, it is a good thing to fail. (I even dare to say the whole "students don't need a ribbon or a trophy for everything"). We need to teach our students to be resilient. 

I want to introduce everyone to a program called superbetter, I've used it occasionally when I have the time to go on and complete the activities. Its basically a game watch the video as well, but it teaches you that its ok not to do great in something, it encourages you to do better next time, it helps your realise the power within yourself, it teaches resilience. Its an example of how we could be using ICTs in our classrooms to not only teach content and academic skills, but also life skills in general. 

If I was to use this, I'd get each student to create an account. I'd get them all to add one another as allies and play together to increase their resilience as a group. It also means that, as an ally to them, I'm able to help them out with any issues that they are having. Of course the program is not perfect for the school environment - considering some schools don't allow students to use facebook, the idea of the teacher communicating with students online about their issues may not always go down well either. 

All the timeline!

One of my teaching areas is Study of Religion. On my pracs, I have taught religion in grade 9 and grade 10. I have loved my experiences in these classes, however, there seems to be a lack of technology use in this subject area. I think this is largely due to the fact that a lot of religion resources are quite dated. It is worth noting though that I heard somewhere that the first ever website created was related to religion.

Anyway, regarding the history aspect of things in religion, there is the opportunity for students to create online timelines. There is a list of the top 10 free timeline generators that I've found. In most of them there are opportunities to upload images and notes.

I hope this helps all you history teachers and religion teachers out there :).

Dragonbox and SMAR... but does it really fulfil the requirements of the curriculun?

After starting to go through the learning path for this week, week 3, I tried out dragon box and I've investigated a little into the SMAR model after it was discussed in the tutorial, and I've come to the following conclusions.

Dragonbox is great, I'll give you that. I really do see how it redefines how students learn algebra. It moves them away from working with numbers, and allows them to understand key processes in an entirely new way. The results show according to their testimonials.

Also, the dragon box system could be used from grade 8-10 according to the australian curriculum. The dragon box content or games played covers all of the algebra content descriptors.

However, I researched into the standards elaborations for grades 8-10. One thing that was part of the standards elaborations that the dragon box system fails to meet it the reasoning and justification aspect. I know that the intention of dragon box is not to assess, however, students need to learn how to communicate their working, reason and justify their answers regarding the questions. In my experience at school, the teachers have always gone through worked examples and asked students to practice the skill of providing correct working out and justification for questions.

Therefore, if I was to use dragon box, I would only use it as a tool for learning basic content regarding algebra, but I would also focus on building students communication, reasoning and justification skills.

I also thought about what it would be like to have dragonbox as a card game!

Using ICTs in my classroom for the visual, auditory and kinesthetic students

I was thinking about how I could use ICTs to benefit the learning of all of my students. I was a bit stuck on where to start researching, so I went back to the whole VAK (or the VARK) model.

I found this website which outlines strategies that can benefit the learning of students in all 3 learning methods.

I thought about some ICT tools that could help with each suggestion.

Visual:
1. Colour code or highlight your notes - Diigo is perfect for this!
2. Use flashcards - there are actually heaps of flashcard making sites out there heres one that I found.
3. Translate core concepts into diagrams - again, there are plenty of sites to create things like concept maps. Even word and excel can help with creating diagrams.
4. Use symbols to emphasise important points- I can't think of an example website for this one, however, using consistent symbols in created ICT learning resources could help here. e.g. in powerpoints having a symbol of a pencil for the information the students should be copying down.
5. Always take down notes and create lists - I know macs have a stickies app that can help with this, students also have notes on their iphones to be able to do this.

Auditory:
This is my preferred area.
1. Add rhythm or music as a learning aid - in class I don't mind allowing students to listen to music. The Pandora website, which is a free radio station may help in this.
2. Recite key points aloud - If the teacher has created a prezi they can add audio, there are also text to speech functions included on macs (and PCs I'm sure of as well) that can help with this.
3. Participate in group discussions - Blackboard collaborate sessions were the first thing that came to mind for this one.
4. Record your classes - why not create a youtube video?
5. Teach others what you want to learn - I think skype is a great tool for this. In high school I used to talk with my best friend all the time about our maths and physics over skype. Although, when we were trying to talk to each other about complex equations, it got a bit difficult.

Kinaesthetic:
1. Using puzzles, games and the computer - well fancy that! Computer is already there! For things like Algebra, dragon box is a good game to play (see the learning path for week 3, I will be posting about this later this week).
2. Study outside or in new environments - Ipads and iphones- well any piece of technology that allows for students to access information in a different environment can help achieve this.
3. participate in laps or go on excursions - virtual excursions do exist out there for historical monuments.
4. Think of practical applications for concepts - this point is not necessarily something that ICTs can achieve on its own, this is down to the teacher's pedagogy. Providing practical examples and problem solving can be achieve through many ways online including webquests.
5. Study in short blocks - using timers on your phone could help with this.

I should mention here, I did try and research visual auditory and kinaesthetic strategies regarding the use of ICTs in this area through the library. However, there doesn't appear to be much research in this area. I will keep searching, but if someone finds any, I would love to have a read!

Literacies and ICT reflection

 The inspiration for the reflection came from reading Charmaine's blog post about literacies. I agree with Charmaine that literacy is essential and that we must foster literacy skills that benefit the use of ICTs. I started thinking about how I could use ICTs with the 4 resources model in my classroom. The picture below describes the 4 resources model.

In ICTs we have a lot more codes that we need to learn to be able to manipulate the many 'texts' including websites, software etc. To participate students need to have the knowledge of how to manipulate the text to communicate their ideas effectively. To use the text, students need to be able to analyse the purpose and audience of the text and discern whether it is right for their context. Students also need to be able to analyse and evaluate how their own texts or texts from others impacts on them and others. 

I also did a little bit of research to see what the literature says about using ICTs and literacies. And I found that there was a lot of research about how to teach students to be ICT literate, but not how to use ICTs to help become literate. - That sentence may have got away from me a bit. The first article I found focuses on the first idea. 

Gamble and Easingwood (2000) mention that an ICT literate person can read, digest, re-present, and display information. They can also story tell and speak in public. They can be creative and use text, graphics, speech, video and animation to do this. 

They argue that technologies can make it hard for people to concentrate and can diminish peoples sense of culture and community. Even though a computer is just as essential as a pencilcase these days. 

They ask whether students have the skills to access and decode multimedia text.  To create multimedia, know how to create text, scan/draw images, record sound and therefore we need to teach these skills to some degree. This is where the 4 resources model comes in. 

The second article that I found by Monteith (2005) focuses on the second idea. It mentions that ICTs provide an opportunity for us to rethink the way we teach students in literacy. This is especially because text can come in many forms and we can interchange these forms. Text in a word document can be converted to audio and we can print it. 

Upon reflection, I think its safe to say that I need to be able to teach students using the 4 resources model how to use, analyse, participate and code break ICT texts. But I can also use ICTs to teach literacy skills such as code breaking, analysing, using and participating. 

For example, in terms of using ICTs to teach literacies, I could use Diigo to help students to break the code of a text. Students can participate in texts through blogs and discuss with others the meaning they get from texts, determine the purpose and audience of the text, and analyse the impact it has on them. I could also use online surveys to show how texts can impact people, by asking the students to determine the impact a text had on them. Students could collaborate on twitter with people around the world to see how their own texts can impact others. I'm just throwing around some ideas here. I would consider designing literacy activities for students using ICTs in my unit plan for assignment 2. 

References

Gamble, N. & Easingwood, N. (2000). ICT and literacy: Information and communications technology, media, reading and writing. London: Continuum.

Monteith, M. (2005). Teaching secondary school literacies with ICT. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

21st century skills?

While on twitter yesterday I came across this article . It talks about how the 21st century skills that we as educators love referring to and teaching, are actually no different really to 18th century skills, it's just that we are doing these things in a different way. If you turn on diggolet while reading it, I've highlighted some bits and also added some notes that I've shared with EDC3100 (I hope it worked).

I found the most interesting point was when he described that the skills students have now regarding communication on the internet aren't learnt in the classroom, because we apparently don't allow the use of social media and communication sites. Student's are not becoming technology literate in the classroom, and this is often because teachers are not technology literate themselves. - I do not think that he has researched this enough to be honest, he might be surprised if he did.

But I do think he is right, we are not teaching students to be technology literate, they are learning it by themselves and are often better at it than we are. So why don't we use this in the classroom to help other students learn? If we struggle with ICTs why can't we get the student's to help us?

I read it on the internet, it must be true...

After reading going through this weeks learning path, I began thinking about how ... I don't really want to use these words... but.. gullible.. naive.. students that are native to the technological age are.

I found this article that illustrates my point precisely. Students struggle to evaluate the credibility of information on the internet. They also can underestimate the power of the internet and how easily something can 'go viral' and reach every corner of the earth. Some teachers have even put photos of themselves on the internet asking people to share the picture as much as they can to demonstrate to students how the internet works.

Back to the gullible point. I remember one of my teachers in high-school showed us a story of another teacher who changed the information on Wikipedia to say that Jesus was born on the Gold Coast. And of course, the students believed the information written on the website.

So the question is... how do we guide students to be more critical of what they are 'consuming' on the internet?

Just as a side, I'm coming from this from a secondary perspective where students often reference the internet in their assessment and do a lot of research.

I remember last semester while I was on prac, my mentor actually had a set of questions that the students needed to answer regarding a web resource before they could include it in their assignment. I should have got a copy of it! Anyway.. I did some searching on the internet and found 2 websites that list characteristics that help to determine whether a resource has credible information or not.

This one 

and this one 

Some of the tips include looking at the URL of a source and checking whether it is from and organisation, the government or some other source. Students should also be checking whether the information has references in it as well, whether the author of the site has done research themselves. Is the Author listed? Are they an expert in the field? Is the information congruent with what has been learnt in class or what is described on other websites?

In reality, the naivety is no different to when people believed everything they read in the newspaper. Now the newspaper is on the internet and any old soul can publish it, and any old soul can read it.

Just a quick thought about 'command F'

My life would be very difficult without 'command F'. Honestly. By pressing 'command F' (or ‘control F’ if I’m not using my mac) I can find the most important information in the click of 2 buttons regarding any topic in a document or website. Without it, I would be spending so much of my time reading things that are unimportant and aren't related to topics. It leaves me more time to answer emails, write reflections such as these, as do even more research! – This idea came from the videos of all the students commenting on what life is like now for students.

Reflections from a ted talk, someones blog, and some research!

While checking my Feedly feed this morning I came across an awesome TED talk (I'm loving the excuse to watch TED talks). Jon Gosier talks about the impact that technology is having on the world. He mentions that the more e use technology to innovate our lives and make our lives easier, the more we are actually oppressing those who don't have access to the technologies we do. He uses an example from a medical perspective to illustrate this. He mentions that the more we use technology to record our medical information, the more we are restricting our ability to treat people effectively who don't have access to technology. The people who are still using pen and paper to record medical information in the years to come, will be disadvantaged in time and resources compared to those who have their medical records available at the touch of a button. 

Does this translate in education? Are we oppressing those in third world countries and restricting their learning because we are so much more advanced? Think of the refugees that are coming to our country, who are having to catch up not only on language and academic skills, but also the technological skills as well. 

Jon says that we innovate technology around the world based on the assumption that everyone will have access to the innovation. He also says that we need to think less about efficiency and more about efficacy. We need to think of the global outcomes of our actions. The link to Jon's TED talk is here.

This TED talk lead me to think about what would happen if we moved to a Bring Your Own Tech (BYOT) initiative. It lead me to think about the global impacts of the BYOT movement. If all of Australia, the USA and UK created this initiative, would we have some schools, or areas that are disadvantaged by this movement because they can't afford to buy technologies? I did a little bit of research, and I couldn't find the answer to this specifically, however, an article I found lead me to think about the impact this has on teachers. Cardoza and Junks (2014) investigated teachers concerns regarding this movement. They found that teachers are mostly concerned with their own ability to use technology, the amount of preparation time needed for lessons with a technology focus and also the lack of professional development. 

I thought about my experiences regarding technology use in schools. n regards to professional development specifically, I remembered that on my first prac, they didn't have professional development as such, but rather in each staff meeting, a teacher would share a new tool or experience that they found using the technologies they were using. 

In saying this, teachers should consider adopting a growth mind set when undergoing and investigating new technologies (follow this link to Laureena's blog that talks about the growth mind set). I specifically like Laureena's mention of the impact that the teacher mindset can have on student mindsets regarding the use of ICTs. 

I think my random spurts of research and thinking has opened up more questions than answers for now. Are we disadvantaging some people because our use of technology is advancing? Will the BYOT movement increase this disadvantage? Do we need to do more professional development for all teachers regarding the use of ICTs? Or is an 'in house' sharing method just as efficient? How important is the growth mindset for teaching and learning about ICTs?

Cardoza, Y. & Tunks, J. (2014). The bring your own technology initiative: An examination of teachers' adoption. Computers in the Schools, 31(4), 293-315. doi:10.1080/07380569.2014.967626

Students creating websites to transform their learning

Today, in the EDC3100 lecture we were briefly introduced to the website below.

http://www.wix.com/website/templates

After investigating the website (which is a free website that students can make websites on ... yeh confusing) I thought I would have a go at applying the TEST framework to help me deduce how I would use this website in my teaching, how it could benefit learning and what I would need to think about when using this learning tool in my classroom. Potts (2011) research of creating online material through websites and other mediums found that "creating and sharing material was a positive and enjoyable experience" (p. 610).

Task:
The task associated with this website, would be for students to create a website. Students may create websites for any number of reasons. I was thinking of using it as a tool for students to analyse a ritual using various frameworks and think about how they could present this information in a Study of Religion class. I also thought about using it as an assessment instrument to test students abilities to create an informative website regarding renewable energy, or some other concept in science. Ultimately, the options are endless.

Environment:
What environment do we need to be in for this to work? - I think this is the easiest question to answer.. a classroom, or the students study area at home. Students can access this information and work on the task anywhere that they can gain access to wifi.

Skills:
Some of the skills students may need include being able to navigate a website, be able to communicate in an appropriate manner on the internet, being able to design how the layout will look, be able to synthesise and also categorise information in a way that is easily communicated and flows. students also need to be able to use content on the internet appropriately in terms of copyright (Potts, 2011, p. 608).

Tools:
Tools that could help me teach students how to use this technology may include videos that describe how to navigate the website that creates websites. The internet can be helpful to troubleshoot for students who are stuck and also myself. The other students in the class who have made websites before can also work with the other students to help them create their websites. The teacher will also need resources to help discuss copyright laws.

Reference

Potts, H. W. W. (2011). Student experiences of creating and sharing material in online learning. Medical Teacher, 33(11), e607-e614. doi:10.3109/0142159X.2011.610839

Introverts = extraverts online... and vice a vice!

I was pondering in class how the introverted and extroverted students in our classes would react to all this technology. I know myself that I'm a bit of an Ambivert.. so I have a nice mix, I can choose when I want to be extraverted or introverted! Get me in front of a class and I can be as extraverted as you want me to be, but see me 5 minutes after class and I will be hastily reflecting on what I did and need some quiet time to think. I have met plenty of students from the whole range of introvert to extravert. I did a quick research of some reactions from introverts and extraverts on social media and also in academics.

 

Just pondering the above image, I would have assumed that the extraverts would thrive in a stimulating online environment, however, after reading some articles (below) I found that it seems to not be the case. 

This article says that extroverts sometimes find it hard to be on a computer all day and therefore don't like social media, they prefer to be out and about. Where as introverts can really thrive in the online environment. I would deduce that this is because they feel more free to express themselves, and can use social media as a tool to filter who they interact with and how much they want to share without feeling like they are being judged. The author describes in another article that 

the rise in social media also means that people are glued to their screens and do not want to talk. That means that extroverts will not be as stimulated by discussion and may feel a bit lost. 

I also found from Deryakulu, Büyüköztürk and Özçınar (2009) that 'introverted assimilators' thrive in the academic environment and tend to achieve better academically.  

Upon reflection, I think that in a class I would have to gage whether it is necessary to cater for the introverts and allow them to thrive through using social media and other information sharing mechanisms, or whether I would need to cater for the extroverts with face to face discussion. 

Reference

Deryakulu, D., Büyüköztürk, Ş., & Özçınar, H. (2009). Predictors of academic achievement of student ICT teachers with different learning styles. Anxiety, 8, 0-79.