Zimmertwins movie

During lecture we had a look at a display on ultranet seemed interesting. Apart from the basic classroom and school tasks incorporating ICT within the school agenda like the students e portfolio and the ultranet have to be worked on. During my practicum I did not notice it being used at all, there was an introduction PD in my first practicum school.
Two things which Greg said in class I will always remember is firstly, as a new teacher take your time to get the basics right and strong like the classroom management, knowing your students, planning, assessment, other skills like ultranet can be learnt over time these are only supportive skills.
Secondly, these ICT tools can be used to protect our environment, I have mentioned previously in my blog I was stunned by the amount of paper being used and wasted every day in every classroom! It has changed a lot in this terms in corporate culture, same should change in the education field. I am wondering how shortage of laptops or computers in classrooms and the culture of worksheets in primary schools work together to help towards saving trees ?

www.dvolver.com/live/movies-469664

This was a movie I created but would not load on as a movie and it disturbed the setting for the rest of the blog it has come up as a blank screen.
It was fun making a motion movie myself. Grades 4 -6 will find it interesting. It can be used to communicate issues in school, use as starters in school projects.

My thought with ICT is also that it helps to keep focused on learning by engaging them well in the task.





http://www.reasonablyclever.com/ you can create 3D leggo like character stories. I tried my hand on making a 3D character.
Greg's short , sharp , to the point passage of writing for dictation was an eyeopener, how much we depend on spellcheckers? In english so many words sound the same but mean different. http://www.ziptales/ .com a purely australian website , I liked the make,and do, I love crafty and creative ideas so I feel this is a great website personally and I can also use it to teach children for literacy, numeracy and creative arts like telling a story by making your own puppets. This reminded me of the jelly fish I taught kids too make which I came across the book. This website is great as we can even share with the children the process of making the item , they learn to read and follow instructions together as a whole class on IWB , they also learn to write procedural texts as part of their literacy writing.







Going on to http://www.sketchswap.com/ was funny would be good to swap within a school as Greg suggested can also be sharing the sketches between two classrooms or schools somewhere in India Finland or France.



It is interesting for students to their ideas along with their own sketches. this is using the modern ICT age. Not perfectly sure how is it clearly useful but may be great for engaging activities, a learning curve for sketches just through observation, great starters for discussions for critical thinking and analysis for further research topics for groups.


www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache was a great website to look at for planning and creating your own animated movie! www.xtranormal.com/watchmovies is the adult version of animation, may not be very suitable for primary classrooms. All this is great, but I know if I want to introduce this for my students firstly I need to get hands on, in it , create some by myself and need to consider the logistics for work in the clssrooms with limited computers or even if it in ICT labs do the students get to finish their work within the session as in some schools the ICT sessions are also shared with other classrooms.












Build your wild self is fun to be used in a classroom in the beginning of the year which helps children to express themselves, can also be printed out to introduce themselves in a funny way. teachers can also use it to talk about the different features and what they may mean like the different ears which animals have them where are these animals found? make yourself if you belong to a particular place like if you are in a cold place, the features you will have are? Describing new self involves creativity and thus increasing the students literacy. A classic example of integration of literacy, creativity and ICT.

















We had a look at http://www.zimmertwins.com/ . A really interesting website to create simple movies by kids , I feel this can be used to create or retell simple stories. Instead of copying picture stories. we as teachers can create a movie without any speech and get students to add appropriate punctuation. This is also great for children who are very reluctant writers, writing should not stop their comprehension being expressed in a suitable way.
We can even get students to continue eachother's stories by looking at the pictures.
Great for Vel levels 3 and 4 , the students can also use the starters and continue the story in their own way. After putting all togeter to make a movie , they can write a narrative of their own story.

In my themed weekly plan the internet was used very often within the classroon either on the IWB or the computers by the students themselves.
The week after holidays we worked on literacy on the theme 'Penguins'. First we learnt the different features of the penguins using a book. Then the children got different info sheets about penguins which they read as pairs and got the information on a Y chart. This really worked well and this format greatly helped them to share with the whole which in turn was fun to learn , made them read and put down the inf they read in their own words.
Next we had to find out about the different penguins. First time in the school our Grade 2 was the first one to use the new laptops within the classroom individually. The children were very excited and were enthusiastic to use it to get information about different penguins.
Finally after putting the info on paper, the drew their favourite penguin on paint with their info in the text boxes in paint.

Some of the things I learnt how ICT can be integrated in classrooms for learning are:

Drill, practices or instructional software lets students practice maths facts, spelling and vocabulary, which was very frequently seen in schools during my practicum.

Simulations, problem solving software like mind mapping help students develop their understanding constructively.

Teacher allow students multiple ways to demonstrate achievement. eg Web pages, publishing newsletters and brochures.

Visual and interactive resourses help keep students' attention, drills and practise materials gives students to learn in private space and in own pace.

By reading, I also learnt ICT helps by distance course subjects for schools who lack teachers, simulations help repeated science experiments for schools with low budgets.

Other interesting things were-
Students find writing and calculating boring or tedious! - Word processing /calculators / spreadsheets help.
Students cannot travel to places to learn about - Virtual tours.
Students lack motor skills when designing-Drawing software and computer assisted design(CAD)
Some physical or social phenomenon occur too slowly or quickly or at a great distance for observation - Simulations, Human body (BBC), aussie eco ranger.

I felt these were truly useful ways of using ICT in classrooms for promoting learning.

Aboriginal Dreamtime stories from Dust Echoes program

In today's workshop , we again worked on Inspiration The main focus of the Dust Echoes is retelling the story, with younger classes they can put pictures in order to retell the stories heard.

Played the story - Pressed pause which I wanted to paste on inspiration for retelling the story - Clicked print screen pasted on paint and- pressed on dotted frame and edit copy then pasted on the inspiration. Continued with different images I needed for my retell also added text under the images to tell the story. I have tried to add a creative twist by putting the images in the shape of the Brolga bird.

Today got Greg's help first hand and really got the hang of copying and pasting from inspiration and using paint .

I thought it is really practical way of retelling the story whithout speaking. Especially when done with groups it will involve discussions about the story , critical analysis, the layout and presentation , the thought gone behind it and the meaning of the story itself covers many of the disciplinary and interdisciplinary domains of Vels.

Today we also worked on Excel to learnt to create column graphs and Pie graphs using simple questions with M & m's . The question was how many m & m's are there of different colours. We can also do different and complex variations of the question like percentages , modes, averages to work on excel to create a graph. Using M & m's is a real life thing to use to learn maths.

Column Graph of the Mand m's

Pie Chart of the M & m's , showing the number of the coloured m & m's.

Learning federation website was very useful during my practicum , I used it as much as possible to explain different concepts on the interactive whiiteboard. It was useful to teach, place value. number patterns in maths and values of friendship and cooperation. I used some 'learning objects' repeatedly for students to understand. I feel such sites are useful for a very interactive , engaging , active lesson , with appropriate animated visual representation catering for visual learners. Checkout it is really handy! I also liked the ICT showcases on the LMS which give ideas of how ICT can be used in classrooms. I agree with 21 century the digital age and should be incorporated into our classrooms. But I will not deny the other thoughts I have like which may seem against the digital culture, the fine motor skill of handwriting found only in humans , are we giving now less emphasis on it as we are more into typing in computers and laptops and this skill is very important as part of the primary school. Technology is fanatastic for children with special needs like cerebral palsy , due to lack of fine motor skills theyneed not be left behind in learning , for them laptops come in great help.

As my mentor tacher often said , in VCE we still writing, are they going to introduce laptops in VCE. Is technology still a very easily accessible form communication? Every classroom has only 4 computers to be shared. Do they make our environments sustainable, apart from saving paper. In my practicum I observed the usage of paper was appaualing , the printed worksheets and wasted paper, children need to be taught recycling, saving paper and awareness among staff.

Jumping Frog

Jumping frog activity can be used for group activity for all primary grades, and complete the design brief . The lower grades should not be disadvantaged by sentence formation, grammer or spelling, they can be encouraged to complete the design brief by even drawing.

Investigate the design on the sheet and sharing with whole class after 10 mins of the design. The children who have finished can work on the extended activity like make the frog jump for more than 30cms or by using bigger cardboards and frogs.

This activity acn be one of independent activity or as part of a unit.

I am trying to upload the design brief which is in word format it does upload on the blog, I wonder if I actually need to use paint?

http://www.quia.com/ was a fantastic website for creating quizes for children can be done from preps and extended to yr 6. was very exiting doing the quizes. Can be used for formative or summative assessments in class.
My quiz which was on different terrains with clues of their features and the animals which live there. My quiz's URL is Http://www.quia.com/quiz/2513941.html

Created a game called battleship , it is similar to quiz with incentives in the form of games. My URL for games is Http://www.quia.com/ba/410300.html

The website Quia is a very attractive tool which I will be very inclined to use in my classroom as an individual assessment activity or just even a whole class activity on the white board.

I believe such kinds of summative tests are good , as an experience for the students, for the students to clearly see how much they have learnt and also helps the teacher to understand in fact how much learning has taken place, but the questions prepared in the quiz should not be twisted or tricky just by changing the wording or hard to understand language. I also think such quizzes should be done for testing each week which becomes a part of the revision process and also on a smaller content when it is still fresh in students mind when compared to end of the term or every month. Such quizzes will also help all students to be at par , as even if the missed out on learning they can still learn with the information given.
These tests are also easy to show to parents who wants to see something concrete. These can also be done in turns , a whole period need not be wasted with printed tests.

I liked the Enchanted learning website , which is of special interest to me as it has art and also craft for hands on activities on different domains of learning.
The design brief and a box guitar are activities which can be used as very engaging activity for thinking skills and also developing writing skills in literacy.

22/9 Two weeks back I read 'The reading Bug' by Paul Jenning i found it to be very useful , has got a lot of list of books which can be used for different ages , that is the just right books for the age appropriate. The list has helped me many times in choosing a book for the class .
Paul Jenning is also a big hit in my class.

Last term in my school rounds in grade 2 we just finished researching and writing on the famous aboriginals and australians and we also looked up some dreamtime stories on the dust echoes.

E portfolio on web

We got some directions on how to create an eportfolio , which can cutomised for a teacher or a student. It was amazing, when Greg showed a sample of e portfolio in the lecture. I have only seen my son's portfolio in his kindergarden in a big book form. In the e portfolio it had all the work done by the students with teachers comments setup in a creative way and also visual clips of the student inaction like speaking in front of the class , describing an artefact they had got from home.
Greg also showed us a sample e portfolio made by a teachr which included her personal profle, her experiences as a teacher, her philiosophy, some resourses she uses, her classroom setup , personal achievements and also the resume. I thought an e portfolio which includes much more than a resume is quite applicable for a teacher who needs to show the person he/ she is as a whole.

I also looked up at http://www.getideas.org/ it looks and sounds very interesting. It talks about communication, collaboration and sharing the power of knowledge, which are some of the skills required for the 21st century along with critical thinking, problem solving , innovation.
I soon plan to become a member of this site to learn more by communicating with other teachers and leading teachers around the world ie peers around the world and get support with ideas which inform my teaching thus my learning.

Upon reading, Australian digital portfolios model website www.pa.ash.org.au/natcom helped to bettter understand the purposefulness and resoursefulness of portfolios in a school environment. Now almost all schools are in the process of creating e portfolios by their students and which will evolve and develop as the students progresses through school. Upon reading I have come to understand e portfolios are the 21 st century based celebration of student as a learner, a structure to track progress, promotes student's ability to reflect on their learning and producing work for authentic audience and sharing learning among peers inthe school and other schools.

Brochure for Tasmania Tourism

Never used publisher found out it is great for preparing interesting brochures but need to get lots of ideas from the web or magazines or actual tourism before I can get students to work on it. I need to practise on it.

As Greg said introducing different types of brochures to children in class , I think creating brochers is a fantastic activity for literacy and covers a few domains in vels.
This workshop was a big load of information. It is great for the middle year students but maybe also the grades 2s and 3s to create a brochure of their favorite place they visited, this will also help children to learn more about the place through restrictmed research. Children can create creative brochures using their literacy skills, thinking and design skills. I think with lower grades they might get more carried away with putting up pictures.
In my previous practicum the students actually had to prepare a menu with the resturant name and drawing. Thinking this can be done in a more presentable way by using the brochure in MS publisher by taking turns in the computer.
My thought is when we are talking about ICT , in reality how many students have access to computers in a day for 25-30 students if there are only 4 computers in the classroom group ICT work will take higher priority in such classrooms than individual work. B ut this is still better than no exposure to computers and most common forms of technology.

On this thought, duing my practicum we had an opportunity to have laptops available for each stuudent in the classroom which we borrowed fromthe library, which was useful and worked out well for literacy lesson on my unit of work on Penguins , incorporating ICT for reading and writing. In the first week we also learnt using paint mainly for the printscreen function then cut and paste on blog.
In my practicum one of achievements was to finally getting students to draw their favourite penguin with special physical features by using paint and writing the information in the form of labelling , they learnt about their penguin in a previous session.

Week1

Inspiration was truly inspirational which I can use it to express my learning and ideas creatively.

I never had a blog and I still need to get a hang of it, but it is nice to see what I have 'created' in the web. I have read many blogs in the internet on different issues, it is a wonderful way of communicating ideas, opinions, methods with the common people across a whole range of issues around the world.

Inspiration software will be great to have in a school.
I think it will be great to use with students across all levels. It will be fantastic for children who are visual learners. This graphical way of working with ideas and information will help students understand better by making concepts more concrete. It also helps in making connections with different concepts and helps students in their deeper understanding.
Using it as a teaching tool will help teacher to get full attention and engagement from the class and as students every student can work in their own pace and learning style, it is tool for their own deeper understanding.





Concept maps is also great , found it very easy to use, best for middle and upper primary students linking into different concepts and putting it all together in one piece.
Need to further explore this kind of mapping.

I wonder if many schools can arrange a computer for every child, still will be great to use it for the whole class shared time on the interactive white board. But I think mind mapping is great when done individually.
I am yet to find out how to use hyperlink. I am excited that I have a blog and know how to create one.
Idea maps, concept maps and mind mapping are different ways of graphically representing ideas and information. They can be used with text and pictures to create ideas for a 'story' or making connections within a concept or prior knowledge to new concepts. I liked the mind mapping which I created for a wider topic pollution which helps to see the bigger picture and as you research you can make more connections and link to the main topic or idea, it simplified the complex issue.
Inspiration is useful across all the disciplinary domains of VELS as well as interdisciplinary domains of thinking, personal learning and also interpersonal learning when done in a group.
This workshop showed and made me realise role of technology in learning in the 21st century. This is ICT in the 21st century, I am sure this is only a glimpse of what is available in technology. Also in the lecture it says it was part of the 'informal learning' now it is essential to incorporate it into the 'formal learning', education. ICT keeps learner engaged in the learning process and also the learner has acess to the very wide set of resorces. Inspiration is on Victorian education list of websites for ICT for visualising. Finally ICT has become part of our daily lives and thus needs to be the commuter for the formal education and at the same time also saves the trees by reducing the usage of paper.

ICT belongs to interdisciplinary learning and can be used to help in better understanding of other areas of learning. In this workshop I could clearly see how ICT was being used for 'visualising thinking' and 'communicating'. Use of graphic organisers and making mind maps by linking prior kowledge to new content help in visualising thinking.