ICT Reflective Synopsis

ICT Reflective Synopsis

"It is the world as they know it."

Technology is improving and evolving at an increasing rate. As it does, there is a generation of students, dubbed the "digital natives" (Prensky, 2001) that will grow up immersed in that technology from the beginning of their development. It makes sense that educators should use this technology to engage and capture the minds of these students, since neglecting to do so would possibly cause the students to just "go through the motions", or "tune out" (Prensky, 2005).

My School - Blog post using the Blogger mobile app

Just a quick post from the blogger mobile app... I've included a couple of pics of the school taken on the fly.

Group 4 Digital Tools

The 4th group of ICTs involves simulations and animations to present ideas and information.

This was a bit late in the piece, but I had a shot at ZooBurst to see how it would work.

Group 3 Digital Tools - Prezi and Glogster

I had a look at Prezi and Glogster as alternatives to the industry standard, Powerpoint.

I created a Prezi to present a book review.

Group 2 Digital Tools: Audio/Visual

Group 2 Digital Tools: MovieMaker

I had a bit of a fiddle with MovieMaker to create the following video:

Group 1 Digital Tools: Website use and analysis

I set up an account with Weebly recently, and had a bit of a look at the way they do things.

Group 2 Digital Tools: Digital Audio Recording

I spent a bit of time on this tool, partly because I've spent a lot of time in the music industry and one major component of this is audio recording. This is one area that's near and dear to my heart.

Group 2 Digital Tools: Image Capture and Manipulation

Group 1 Digital Tools: Blogs

Blogs are a great place to vent your feelings and frustrations, as well as a simple way to broadcast information with the world. Blogger isn't my first experience of blogs. I previously had a couple of aborted attempts at starting a blog, and I built my website on Wordpress, which is a blog at it's core.

LOAD "$",8

In my previous post, I talked about how my daughter used ICT to put together her research project and presentation. It prompted me to reflect on my own experiences of ICT in the classroom, and it made me realize how vastly different my own learning was to that which my daughter is experiencing today, nearly 30 years later.

Applied ICTs

I had first-hand experience of a year 1 student using ICTs to put a project together.

My daughter Lily is doing a unit on mini-beasts this term, and one of the her assessment items is to do a presentation in front of the class.

Group 1 Digital Tools: Wiki Creation and Reflection

I messed around with a wiki and came up with a concept for a Small Creatures Wiki. Before you start shouting at me for putting too much stuff on there... I got carried away.

Will a picture of a spider help?

Connectivism IRL

I read a fascinating article from my favourite satire website, Cracked.com.

Working in a Wiki

As an engagement exercise for our ICT class, we worked on building a wiki to discuss the pros and cons of students using their mobile phones in the classroom.

Reflections on Connectivism

There are several traditional theories on how learning takes place. However, a newer theory, Connectivism, is starting to gain traction. It's relevance lies in the rapid pace of information technology, and the abundance of information available on the internet. How we find it and filter it is deemed just as important, if not more so, than exactly what it is.

TPACK explained simply (hopefully!)

What is TPACK?

TPACK is a fine example of teacherese. It's an acronym for Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge. And it looks like this (click on the image for a larger version):

Reflections on Prensky

I've been reading some articles by Marc Prensky as part of the required readings this week: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants and "Engage Me or Enrage Me," What Today's Learners Demand.

It's definitely thought-provoking!

Multiple Intelligences

The Multiple Intelligences Test is a fascinating activity. It takes into account more of the diversity in our learning. To quote the site,

"It has been claimed by some researchers that our intelligence or ability to understand the world around us is complex. Some people are better at understanding some things than others.

For some of us it is relatively easy to understand how a flower grows but it is immensely difficult for us to understand and use a musical instrument. For others music might be easy but playing football is difficult."

My Learning Styles

Learning styles... to know how each of your students learn is essential to helping them achieve. Research has found that actual student ability in an area has far less to do with their achievement in an area, than if the material is presented in a way that lines up with their preferred learning styles.

I took the Felder & Soloman test for myself, and the results that I got were as follows: