Think of all the time you’ve tried to get the latest tech app to work . Think about all the time you’ve spent creating posts that crash or never upload.Count up the hours. Count up the hours and then you won’t have to wonder why you never get time to study for your KLA exams.
I can no longer insert jpegs into my blogs. I don’t know why. The computer just decided to stop allowing this-go figure.
I’ve found a few websites where you can make comics and then download them . They are all free.
Have a play
I’ve been playing with LAMS and actively constructing my knowledge and understanding – a beautiful thing! LAMS (Learning Activity Management System) is a great platform for creating authentic learning tasks.I like how I can create a lesson and have the students complete a set of questions and get immediate feedback on where they are struggling or succeeding.The beauty of using this software is that I can quickly review a section or topic based on the students responses.
The ability to store,adapt and change the lesson at a future time is a very powerful feature of LAMS.I like how I can share lessons via the LAMS Community Website .In addition I can borrow and adapt. The ability to refine lessons and questioning over a period of time is another great feature of LAMS.
Obviously the more I work with this powerful tool I will be able to integrate additional functions and utilise the functionality in new and exciting ways.
I’ll leave you with a quote from James Dalziel – the founder of LAMS
Initial evaluations of LAMS in K-12 school and university environments during 2003 have indicated LAMS has a profound impact on both student learning and teachers’ conceptualisation of the learning process. Research into this impact is ongoing, but one striking early example is in student willingness to engage in whole class discussion of ideas. In one K-12 school pilot evaluation, only 15% of students were willing to discuss ideas in front of their peers in the classroom, but over 80% of the same students were willing to discuss their ideas within LAMS.
IMPLEMENTING LEARNING DESIGN: THE LEARNING
ACTIVITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LAMS) -James Dalziel ASCILITE 2003
I’m reacting to Madhu’s Blog about a Comic book I created for Maths. Thanks for the profile Madhu.
I found on my prac that students reacted very well to Comic style work sheets. I was able to create some lessons using Comic Life and they were well received.
There is a strong level of disengagement with students and mathematics at the prac school.The school had only one Extension1 student and eight 2 Unit Maths students .The majority of students were studying General Mathematics. Teaching resources such as the Comic Book benefit and engage students who are struggling with 2 Unit and contemplating dropping to General Maths.
Comic Books simplify some of the concepts involved in the topic and reinforces them with extra diagrams and explanation.
Eventually the class would create their own topic summaries to share
“Having students create their own comics can improve motivation, literacy and conceptual understanding.”(Pelton et al 2007).
Here’s a little snapshot of the comic. I created the South Park figures from the South Park website – it has a free section for creating your own characters
Pelton,F. Pelton,L. T. & Moore, K. (2007). Learning by Communicating Concepts Through Comics. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 1974-1981).
Annie’s post-“Skate to where the puck should be” makes me reflect back to the dimension of Classroom management named “WITH-IT-NESS” .
“Effective classroom management involves being with-it,maintaining focus and time management” -Educational Psychology p434Woolfolk& Margetts
‘With-it’ teachers are in tune with their students.They anticipate trouble before it arises ,they have eyes in the back of their head.-Educational Psychology p434 Woolfolk& Margetts
I learnt the hard way that my ‘with-it’ skills needed fine tuning during my prac. It’s definitely a major focus of next year. A skill I want to have razor sharp.
Bye
Danny’s eloquent post on the problem’s facing first year teachers is very much how I see next year unfolding plus throw in classroom management issues for good measure!! I agree that demands are heavy and time and resources limited.
I guess all we can do is be commited to change, attempt to be innovative and incorporate technology whenever we can. On top of that be the best we can.
The clock is ticking not long to go now until we can put it all in practice.
I just read Matthew’s blog on his discovery of Flash Maths . I visited the site and found it most helpful. There are a lot of applets that allow students to interact with Maths in a stimulating ,visual authentic way.
The stats regarding the improvement in understanding are impressive. I’ll hopefully be able to have a play with this next year when teaching.
Thanks Matthew
Reading Basil’s blog on the Karl Fisch blog. I thought I’d weigh in for my two cents worth. On both pracs I meet about 15 teachers in my KLA (maths). Not all used technology in their lessons, but all used technology in the staffroom – writing reports,responding to emails,working on the internet etc.I definitely think you would have trouble finding an absolute tech illiterate working for the DET today. Even if you did, big deal, they would be an isolated dying breed.
My other thought is you don’t have to be technologically literate to be an educator today. It’s just a smokescreen.You can teach perfectly well (albeit probably boring for today’s kids) without the aid of a computer if needs be.
Let’s have a look outside the field of education for a moment. U2 the biggest rock band in the world -selling millions of records. Many of their greatest hits have been produced by a self-professed “non-musician”- Brian Eno. The band loves the way he gets them working,thinking and creating during the recording & writing process. He get’s the best out of them, not by playing guitar better than the Edge,or singing better than Bono,but by guiding and opening them up to explore their creativity.
You don’t need to be fluent with technology to get the best out of your students – you just need to be a good teacher.
I just read Maree Skillen’s blog on socialising in cyberspace regarding the benefits and potential risks that this brings.
I have a 15 year old who loves using social-networking sites to communicate with his friends. A lot of his friends can talk for hours on-line ,but f2f it’s like striking up a conversation with a mute person.
We recently had to ‘ground him’ from using MSN and BEBO. These sites are very addictive – we would regularly find him conducting chats with up to 5 people at the same time. Quickly going from one converstion to the next. All the ‘conversations’ are quick basic one-liners with nothing of real depth.That wasn’t the main problem
Anyway we allowed him about 45minutes per day – but everytime we turned our backs or went into another room he would jump on. He was definitely getting more addicted. Finally he sneaked on when we were out and had been given instructions not to spend anymore time on there. He had already been on for over an hour that day. He lied to the babysitter and told her that we said it was ok to go on- So we grounded him for two weeks- pass worded the computers. He can check emails but no more BEBO or MSN for two weeks.
I believe you need to set strict boundaries for time spent on the internet and social networking . They are teenagers and need to operate as part of the family and know that they can use the computer for specific things at specific times. Limits are good -kids know where they stand .
So I don’t worry anymore – I liken it to the telephone as well. I wouldn’t let him spend hours and hours on the telephone , so I’m not letting him spend hours and hours on the internet.
I have already spoken at length about Prensky’s brave new world (as have many in the course). Perhaps the course are using journalism as reference material to invoke controversy and discussion. I was reading Jamie McKenzie’s in depth analysis of Prensky’s article this morning and was quite amused at the number shallow claims and lack of credible sources that Prensky uses to drive his argument home.
Remember all the information on physically changing brains structures that Prensky hyped by quoting ONE source -quoting Dr Berry. Well he doesn’t even exist. Here is what McKenzie has to say:
Does Dr. Bruce exist? What has he written?
A search at Google and Google Scholar shows that the only time Dr. Bruce D. Berry appears is in articles citing Prensky’s work. There are no publications of his own listed anywhere. Nor are any listed at Amazon.com. Nor is Dr. Bruce listed at the Baylor College of Medicine at http://www.bcm.edu/directory/ His work cannot be found at ERIC. Where does he work? What has he written? We cannot find him, his research or his books.
McKenzie goes onto say:
‘many technology cheerleaders have adopted Prensky’s language to describe the relationship between various generations and things digital. His view is intellectually bankrupt, but simple-minded thinking is often attractive’.
In the end, the majority of us saw through Prensky’s straw man argument. I find it quite interesting that we need to work through articles of this quality when we could use our precious time on something factual.
