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Friday 26 April 2013

Module 6: Exploring photos and videos on the web.

" A picture paints a thousand words." - (Chinese proverb, adapted and coined by Frederick R. Barnard). 

"A picture paints a thousand words" a famous proverb but often taken for granted. Generally speaking, this increasingly becomes apparent as we progress into adulthood as at times we tend to forget the power of imagery. In our CAFE Readings and Daily 5 reading program we have begun to emphasise the importance of reading texts in three ways: read the words, read the pictures and retelling/summarising the text. Making a concerted effort to read the pictures with the students has helped to shift the students' mindset of perceiving images as only having aesthetic value to viewing images as one valuable component of a whole text, that further support and add meaning to written text. After exploring Picasa, I think this tool has the potential to support the development of students' visual literacy skills.

Being able to create web albums on Picasa is particularly useful for storing, organising and sharing a range of photos. These features would be helpful when students are working on a project together, making it easier to collaborate as everyone in the group can access photos anywhere, anytime; furthermore, with the photos being stored on the web reduces the risk loosing photos or corrupted in comparison to being stored only on a camera or hard drive. 

Overall, I found Picasa fairly simple to use and would present minimal difficulties when implementing use of this tool with the students. Despite this, I did have extreme difficulty incorporating a creative commons licence and tagging my photo for some reason, even after using the 'help' option.  


Below, I have created of possible ideas Picasa could be used as an educational tool at St. Mark's. 
How can Picasa be used as a learning tool in our school?

  • A tool to gather evidence: students could take photos of themselves developing a new skill, working on a project to show their learning progress. This can be easily organised according to date and category using the functions provided by Picasa. The benefit of this, is that it would allow students to reflect on their own learning progress, to develop pride in their achievements and help discover areas for improvement. 
  • A tool to capture key events: Students can combine and share photos from excursions, incursions and special school events. Students can create collages or 'photo movies' to share with the school community, for example, on our Kids News program or uploaded onto the School Wiki. Another way for students to practise summarising events and working through the editing process. 
  • A storytelling tool: Using photography students can retell or create a story through photography and create a movie with their pictures. Students can take advantage Picasa's editing tools to create the desired effects and add text to enhance their story. 
  • A tool to support visual literacy through the arts: Students could create photos that incorporate different media techniques (such as taking pictures from different perspectives and angles), focusing on body language, facial expressions and colour to express emotions. These visual elements can then be analysed and interpreted as a class.
It will be interesting to see if and how Picasa will be used in our school once the 5/6 students receive their Google Accounts. I wonder if any other teachers have used Picasa as an educational tool and how they have used it? Please share if you have any ideas!

Saturday 13 April 2013

Module 5: Creating and Communicating Online.

"I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in." - Bill Gates.


Too many times over I have heard people complaining about technology taking over our lives and education. Concerns regarding technology's (and more specifically, social media's) impact on students' ability to communicate are far too many! If we had this attitude about all technology should we not then ban the use of cars as they are they are one of major causes of death rates and contribute to the ever increasing obesity epidemic? Technology is not the problem but rather how we use it. When used thoughtfully and respectfully technology has the potential and power to enhance communication skills, expose new avenues to communicate through, broaden options in the ways we choose to communicate and expands our audience! Exploring Bubbl.us, Glogster and Prezi has made this clearly evident to me. 

Bubbl.us

During my teaching course I used a program similar to Bubbl.us but never really incorporated into my teaching. Once I got started on my brainstorm in Bubbl.us, I was smittened! It was so easy to use - almost instinctual and made it so clear to visualise the connections in my thinking and learning, and in turn, it prompted new thoughts and connections I had never made/thought about before (plus, I'm a real sucker for pretty colours and clean and tidy lines). 

If using this program had this impact on me, imagine how this tool could deeper learning for students by allowing them to make and see their own connections and prompt new ideas or ways of thinking. The ease of using Bubbl.us is key to being a quality educational tool as it would allow students to focus primarily on the learning task not about becoming familiar with it's functions.  As I'm sure you would've all experienced, there are two types of students: those that complete their work in a blink of an eye but have put minimal effort into the presentation aspect of their work and those that seem to spend all of eternity straightening every line, colouring every gap and continually revising the layout of their work. With Bubbl.us students can present their thinking in a manner that is clear and aesthetically pleasing - and best of all it allows students to do all of this efficientlyOne challenge I had with using Bubbl.us was trying to unpin and re-pin bubbles to a different area. This might be frustrating for students who wish re-organise their thinking. 

Our 5/6 team at school, have already planned to use this tool as a part a pre and post assessment task as a part of our inquiry unit to compare how much they knew about the topic prior to the unit and how their knowledge has developed and/or thinking has changed towards the end of their inquiry. 

Glogster

Although I loved the variety of images, headings, backgrounds and the ability to make the poster multi-modal (through incorporation of images, text, audio and video), I found it challenging to use this tool. It took me a little while to get my head around incorporating a Youtube clip into my poster and organising the different components on the page as I wanted   i.e. placing an object behind or in front of text. Despite this, I can imagine that students would love to use this program to present their assignments, especacially those who find working on the aesthetic aspects of their work to be tedious. One thing that I particularly liked about Glogster is that it allows students to incorporate videos and audio of themselves on the poster, therefore, providing multiple ways in which students can express their understandings and ideas.



Prezi

Using Prezi felt like working with an upgraded version of PowerPoint. It was really simple to use the program and made my work look professional. I chose to create a presentation on the Holy Spirit as it may come in handy while preparing Year 6's for their Confirmation. I would definitely like to trial using Prezi with the students at school to provide them with another option to present their work. Using programs such as Prezi are also a good opportunity to discuss the improtance of incorporating quality content and considering the aesthetics of  your presentation in order to grab and maintain our audience's attention. When using Programs like Prezzi or Glogster with my students I think I will ask them to work on the content on Word or PowerPoint first becuase once you start playing with the different features of this text it becomes very challenging to be produtive!





Have you been using these tools with your students or have any new ideas? If so, I would love to hear from you!

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Module 4: Digital Storytelling: Podcasts, Vodcasts, Videos & Web 2.0.

"I know only one thing about the technologies that await us in the future: We will find ways to tell stories with them." - Jason Ohler. 

Word of mouth, song, dance - stone, rock - clay, bamboo, wood - papyrus, paper - photography - radio - television - video, CDs, DVDs - computers, mP3 players, iPads, smartphones and the variety of digital mediums available through Web 2.0 tools in our digital world. 

Wow! Talk about coming a long way and being spoilt for choice! This module has opened up my eyes to how many digital storytelling tools there are available to educators - I find this overwhelming yet exciting at the same time. Although, I imagine that there are even more tools out there that this module has not included, therefore selecting some of the most useful and accessible for the classroom and for this I am grateful because it provides some focus through this exploration of Web 2.0 tools.

 Through this module I downloaded a Podcast for the first time. I explored some of the Podcasts from the ABC web site and found some Educational Podcasts where other teachers share their own ideas and experiences. I think this is a great way to connect with other teachers from around the globe to inspire my own teaching. 

I also explored Animoto. I quite enjoyed using the program and think it would be great to create presentations to tune students into a new unit of work or lesson. Also, it would be great for students to showcase their learning at the end of an inquiry unit (the 'So what?' section) to provide evidence of how they have applied their learning in the real world. I don't think I would use this program unless our school subscribed to it as being limited to 30 seconds makes it extremely challenging to make a meaningful clip without rushing the presentation. On my trial clip, the vocals on the song I had uploaded had just begun when my clip ended! 

My favourite tool by far would have to be YouTube clips. I use these all the time in the classroom. The variety of videos are extraordinary and are free to access. This year alone, the 5/6 team have used YouTube clips to look at how persuasive techniques are used in advertising (i.e. Sam Kekovich adverts), use of propaganda through cartoons during WWII, writing inspiration (i.e. Writer's Notebook seeds), math tutorials/songs and an assortment of clips within the Digital Literacy sessions.  I even use it for my own learning to gather lesson ideas or different ways to explain a concept to my students. Sometimes, if I see a funny advert on television or a clip that someone has sent to me, I share the clips with the students just to have a laugh! It's also really helpful to have web sites such as TeacherTube that filter clips, making it more efficient for teachers to find useful educational videos. The only challenge I have with using YouTube clips is that downloading the clips eats out of my web account at school, but I'm lucky to have a supportive leadership team who have always been willing to top up my account.

Ultimately, we still use storytelling, share our experiences for similar purposes as humans have done many years ago (to engage, teach and entertain). Many of the traditional methods are still valid today but now Web 2.0 tools provide us with more opportunities to share and experience the world through others' eyes. Yes, there are more bells and whistles with Web 2.0 tools which can make such experiences a little more flashy and exciting but more importantly, it allows us to move from connecting with a smaller, more immediate audience to connecting anyone in the world. Web 2.0 tools can be used by students to share their learning, thought processes and creativity with others apart from their teacher and outside of their classroom environment, therefore, making their learning experiences more purposeful. 

I wonder how I will attempt to use tools such as Animoto, YouTube, Photostory, iMovie etc. in future to allow students to share their learning in a creative way with others and to learn from others too? I'm excited to see what other storytelling tools will become available in the future. 



Image courtesy of: Wesley Fryer
Image received from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/3067537756/

Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/3067537756/">Wesley Fryer</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>


Further reading: 'Educational uses of digital storytelling'
 ' Not another History Teacher - History and Technology: another perfect pair'

Saturday 6 April 2013

Module 3: Creating & collaborating with online applications.

"Work smarter, not harder." - Allan F. Mogensen.

Google... what a genius little invention this is! Such a simple idea (in theory) but brilliant! My colleagues and I have just started using Google Docs, mainly within our writing lessons and as a feedback tool. Now that I have had a taste of Google Docs I'm wondering how I ever got along without it. I wish I would've used Google Docs during my uni days as many of our assignments required collaborative work and many of us lived so far apart from each other that we survived on sending attachments through e-mails back and forth. 

In this blog post I will share with you some of the ways in which my colleagues and I have been using Google Docs in the classroom/school: 

1. ADIOS PHOTOCOPIER
- For those activities that may require a photocopied sheets, we now create the sheet using Google Docs (ensuring that the document can be accessed my anyone who has the link), convert the link into a bit.ly link so the students access the documents and work on them online (collaboratively/individually). Click here to see one simple example of this. 

2. REFLECTION & FEEDBACK TOOL
- By creating a 3 columned table on Google Docs using the traffic lights reflection tool (see pages 9-10) the students were able to anonymously reflect on their learning and provide feedback to the teachers regarding the lesson. Click here to see my class' first trial- it's not perfect, but you'll get the idea.

3. COLLABORATE WITH STUDENTS OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM
- As one of our students is entering the Junior Mayor competition, I have been assisting her with writing her speech. Since, her family decided to go on an overseas holiday towards the end of the term we have been collaborating on her speech through Google Docs. This tool has also allowed us to work on her speech more efficiently and effectively by allowing us to make immediate changes without making multiple copies by sending the document back and forth through e-mail. Watching the tutorials was really insightful as I didn't realise that there was a 'chat' function to communicate with those you are collaborating with, which I'm sure will come in handy for us. 

4. ASSESSMENT & GATHERING DATA
- Last term, we trailed using Google Forms to conduct a pre-test on time (thanks to the awesome help of our 5/6 coordinator). In conjunction with the Flubaroo Grader, it corrected the students' responses automatically and provided the teachers and students with instant feedback. I am also intending to use Google Forms to gather data of parents to see how they can share their time and talents to support the learning of our students. 

CHALLENGES
One of the challenges we have experienced using Google Docs, is having the whole level opening one document at the same time - this challenge results from issues with our internet (which is getting fixed now) not from Google itself. One way we have tried to work around this issue was to alternate the timing of lessons between classes so that all 5 classes weren't opening the same document at the same time. 

In this module (and in previous module), I have particularly enjoyed watching the "...in plain English" videos - his explanations are easy to understand, concise and is presented in an engaging manner. I could see us continuing to use these videos to introduce Web 2.0 tools to our students through our Digital Literacy programs. 

So far, using the Google Drive function in Google has helped us to work and learn more effectively and efficiently, and I highly recommend giving it go with your students if you haven't already (especially if you have the technological resources available). If anyone has been using the Google Drive with their students in any other ways, I would love to hear from you! 


GOOD LUCK!

Wednesday 3 April 2013

Module 2: Exploring the use of blogs in K -12 learning spaces.

"Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out aloud." - Andrew Sullivan. 

"What is this 'blog' you speak of?" Having to ask this question felt just as embarrassing as on Year 6 Day when the kids asked me to take pictures for them on their iPhones and hadn't a clue how to switch the camera from 'selfie' mode to normal mode (I hadn't even stepped foot into the world of smartphones yet)! 


Last year I finally had my first experience interacting on a blog as our 5/6 coordinator developed one for our students to share their ideas, experiences and understandings with each other based upon our units of work and key school events. This year, using blogs as an educational tool has become a stronger part of our learning culture in the senior school. Personally, I feel that the key benefit of using blogs for learning is being able to provide our students a platform to share their ideas and reflect on their understandings with each other in and outside of the learning space. Blogs give the students' writing life; therefore, making it a more meaningful and purposeful  learning experience for all. Although, it is early days and we are still learning and trialing the best ways to implement the use of educational blogs, it is clear to see that it is moving us in the right direction of being facilitators of learning by allowing the students to interact and learn from each other. 

Another key benefit of this is that it allows the school community another way of becoming more involved in the students' learning at their own leisure. This year, the 5/6 students were asked to teach their parents how to write a blog post to share their own experiences and understandings. By asking the students to familiarise their parents/families with our school blog this will hopefully encourage the St. Mark's community to continue their involvement in this way and provide another avenue for students to share their learning with their parents. 

Blogging for learning as also assisted students with practising the writing process. As all posts students write need to be moderated before they appear on this site. By setting grammar and punctuation expectations early on, the students are aware that only '5 star quality' posts are excepted.  

One of the small challenges of using blogs as a tool for learning is having to moderate all students posts as this is a time consuming process but it a price worth paying knowing that we can use technology to provide our students with an opportunity for rich collaboration, discussion and reflection. 




Recommended: Kath Morris' "Primary Tech"  - Blogging and students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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                                               Why did I choose Blogger? 

For this module, I chose to use Blogger as I have already started to gain familiarity with using Global2 Edublogs with our students. Additionally, I thought this would be a really good opportunity for me to further explore the Google Toolbar and it's functions. Now that I have a Google account, I am just beginning to enjoy some of the benefits of having so many things linked together such as my gMail, Google Docs and a range of helpful gadgets on my Google page and best of all being able to access these things any time or place with internet access. 

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Module 1: Web 2.0 and personalising my Web space

"If it isn't on Google, it doesn't exist." - Jimmy Wales.


Happy Easter everyone! Hope you all had a choccy-filled holiday.  Speaking of Easter, have you ever experienced those moments during an Easter egg hunt, where you're searching around madly for Easter eggs - you know they're there but you just can't see them even though they're right in front of your eyes, in the most obvious place possible? Or even after a few months later when you're just randomly pottering around the house and you find a sneaky egg or two just sitting there, abandoned, longing to be discovered and eaten (despite it's 'whitish', non-egg like appearance)? It was this year's Easter egg hunt (and no, you are NEVER too old for an Easter egg hunt) that reminded me of my Module 1 experience. 

I have been using Google as a search engine throughout the majority of my education and to find teaching tools and lesson ideas. When using Google, I only went as far as using the 'Search', 'Images' and at times the 'Maps' or 'Google Earth' functions on the toolbar. I knew the toolbar existed and I'm generally a pretty curious person who has to click/press any button just because it's there (seriously, you don't want to get into an elevator after me unless you wanted a tour of the building)!  Yet, I never explored the toolbar further. Why? I don't know. Just like my Easter eggs, all these amazing tools were right in front of my eyes! It was only until I participated in some Webinars with Mike Reading and attended the Google Apps For Education Summit 2013 in Sydney, that I discovered that there was so much more to Google and there were so many exciting tools we could use with the students at school and best of all most were pretty simple to use and FREE!

Through Module 1, I discovered iGoogle for the first time - I had absolutely no idea it was there and so disappointed that I discovered it too late as Google might be removing this feature later on this year. I really like being able to customise my page with gadgets that are relevant my career and personal interests.  I can see myself opening up my page on the IWB in the morning and using the 'Word of the Day' gadget when we are focusing on Word Work within our CAFE reading program, analysing the weather radar/newspaper articles together or using the 'How To' gadget to share little tips and tricks with the students; for example, today I learnt a shortcut method to multiply with  with my hands! I made sure that I didn't sign into Facebook or my Twitter account so that these details would not be available to the students - also your Gmail address doesn't appear on the site either. 

I wonder what new features Google will surprise us with and how it will impact our teaching, learning and use of technology in the future? 

http://www.google.com/doodles/happy-easter-2000

I have a blog!

"There can be infinite uses of the computer and of new age technology, but if the teachers themselves are not able to bring it to the classroom and make it work, then it fails." - Nancy Kassebaum, U.S. Senator.

Welcome to my very first blog! My name is Bianca and I am a Year 5/6 teacher at St. Mark's Primary School, Dingley. I graduated from my teaching course at ACU (St. Patrick's Melbourne Campus) in 2010 and began teaching at St. Mark's in 2011. 

In 2012, I joined the Contemporary Learning Team at our school to discover and incorporate the use of contemporary teaching and learning tools/practises within my own teaching and share these new tools and understandings with other teaching staff at St. Mark's.  

Through the Web 2.0 course, I hope to discover, explore and gain more confidence incorporating digital contemporary learning tools within my teaching practice. I feel that this course will be particularly useful as the 5/6 students at our school are currently involved in a 1:1 Laptop program; therefore, by exploring and trialing Web 2.0 educational tools alongside the 5/6 teaching team, we will be more likely to use these tools to help ensure that the students are getting the most out of the 1:1 Laptop program. 

So, let the expedition begin!