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.
