Week 6 - Final Reflection

This week is the final week of our course and the full time students will be leaving the university and heading out into schools in a few short months.  It's a pertinent time to reflect on what I have learnt about modern technology in the classroom and how it can be utilised.

Surveying all the technological tools and software programs available to classrooms in 2010 via the use of smartboards and the internet, I was reminded of my childhood.  I attended primary school in New Zealand from 1977 until 1985.  There were no computers!  However, our small country school did receive a video camera for a few months, and we used it to record ourselves reading stories and poems at lunchtime.  I'm not sure our teacher even thought to integrate use of the video camera into our curriculum.

Similarly, it would be possible to use the programs, tools and games that we have been introduced to this year as 'extra time' activities for early finishers or for reward systems.  But I think that the best learning value to be had from these technologies will be when they are integrated with the daily curriculum, and not just used as extra stand-alone activities.  Although it may take a bit of initial work to make this happen, I envisage that eventually,  the ultranet, for example, could be populated with activities, games and tools such as those we have been introduced to this year, and used as part of the day-to-day curriculum.  This way there will be an incremental building up of easily accessible resources. 

I personally believe that too much screen time is detrimental for young, developing brains - particularly passive screen time, where children are not required to think. However, I can see that judicial use of learning technologies, integrated with an engaging, inquiring, authentic curriculum that also involves a significant amount of hands-on, creative, and inquiry-based activities and units of work, would be of great benefit to children - particularly in stimulating their interest and motivation, and allowing them some control over the design and outcome of their work.  I look forward to being smart in the classroom with the technologies available to me when I begin teaching in 2012.

Week Five Animation in Primary Schools

In today's lecture we viewed a number of computer animations.  These involved variously clay, toys, paper and lego animation.  Greg stressed the importance of integratingthe work across learning domains particularly as ICT is an interdisciplinary strand.  He also noted that it is important to celebrate children's successes but then to move on and make the work better.  I could see how useful this sort of work would be in populating the student part of the Ultranet, and for parents to view from home.

Firstly in the workshop we looked at the moviemaking site DFILM at  http://www.dfilm.com/live/moviemaker.html.   I made a quick movie (complete with typo!):



This is going to be a great tool to use in the classroom.  It's really easy to use so it will be good for all year levels.  It's quite fun to do and will get the children really engaged for example when they are developing their e-portfolios.

Next we travelled to Build Your Wild Self at http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

And then Zimmer Twins! http://www.zimmertwins.com/movie/starters.  The children can join up and make movies which then stay on the website for others to view.   This can be introduced at any level in the school. n It looks as though it would be a great tool for introducing children to the idea of animation, storyboarding, sequencing etc.

Next up was Sketch Swap at http://www.sketchswap.com/.  It's important to be aware of appropriate content for children with this site.  I submitted a drawing and got back a bunch of text saying "bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored" and so on!

Reasonbly Clever - http://www.reasonablyclever.com/ 

RollerMache at abckids - a toolbox to help create anything you would like to!  http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache/plan.htm

Here's a great website: http://www.storygames.com/.  Below is an example of what can be done using Rebus:

There are all sorts of classroom applications to be found at http://www.ziptales.com/, particularly for literacy, numeracy, and science, for example.  Ziptales is $200 to subscribe to for a whole year.  Here is an example of what is on offer:

It is great for children who are great readers at Year 3/4.  For example they can do online storytelling, then complete a quiz to check their comprehension.  Here's another screen grab, about fairy tales:

For science, the ABC's science site is really useful with heaps of information for research, and games for kids to play and learn such as the Catchment Detox game:

It will be really worthwhile getting together a resource with all of these sites and more, and updating it as I find new sites.   As a teacher I would like to integrate use of such sites into everyday teaching.  Most school now have interactive whiteboards, and at least 3 or 4 computers in each classroom.  There are many and varied uses and skills that can be developed.  Even basic use of MS Word with the monitor turned off - dictation - to illustrate homonyms!

All in all a productive workshop....