Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Developing my use of ICT
My generation has been brought up with
computers but as the years go on technology is changing and we have
had to adapt ourselves to the new technology. We are always having to
learn to use something new.
Since I have started University I have started to
learn a lot more about ICT and have been introduced to things I did
not know.
I have been shown:
- How to Blog
- How to use the internet appropriately for research
- How to be a reflective learner
- How to use web 2 apps
- How to create animations
- How to tell a story with pictures
- How to reference using Word
Not only have these helped me week by
week to complete each task given to me but I feel that they will help
me in the future while I
am studying at University.
I have found blogging quite a difficult task as I find it is hard to get your message and views across in an appropriate way but with a little practice I think that it will become much easier and who knows by next year I may become a Professional Blogger.
Thanks for reading my blogs!!
Role of ICT within Education
The video above is very interesting and shows the use of ICT within education.
There are advantages and disadvantages but if used in the right manner then everyone can benefit.
In the video it states that:
'ICT is always developing and the more it develops the more we change'.
This statement is very true as most people today rely on their mobile phones/laptops/tablets etc and most children sit inside on their computers instead of going outside to play.
The changes of technology have an impact on:
- Employers- look to hire people with good ICT skills in order to enhance the technology being used in the place of work.
- Teachers- often struggle to keep students focused because of mobile phones.
- Career- If there is an employee who lives in Australia and needs to attend a meeting with other employees from the Uk then they can hold a meeting online.
- Distraction- students get distracted easily by games and social networking sites.
- Trust- the teacher can not always know exactly what the students are looking at on their computers.
- Expectations- 12 workers each had a specific job to do but now a machine can do all of their jobs at once and only 1 person is needed to run that machine.
Using laptops in School, Good or Bad?
Good:
→
easier for teacher to send students back their work without chasing
them
→ Can
access the work at home, in office or classroom
→
Organisation will improve as all files can be saved together in one place
→ find
answers quick on the internet
→ Can
look up meaning of words that are not understood
Bad:
→
information not always true and not retained
→ Copy
and paste
→ Time
consuming as teachers have to test each website before showing them to
students
From the video 'The role of ICT in education' from my previous blog, the teacher explains how she had set up a private chat room for her class. She says it has helped her in many ways as:
→ students can send their work to her and she can send it back without having to chase them around
→
students can comment on each other's work
→ they
can ask for help if they are stuck
→ if
students do not want to speak in class they can simply write down
what they want to say
Referencing made easy!
Since I started
University I have found out how important it is to reference and that
it must be done to an appropriate standard.
When we were given our
assignment I found it difficult to keep track of all of my references
and lost many of the names of the books I had used.
One of our lecturers
introduced us to referencing on Word. I had never used it before and
so I gave it a shot. It took a little getting used to but as I was
going along I could type in all of the details from the
book/journal/website that I had used and Word would reference it for
me.
After I had completed
my assignment I clicked on a certain button and Word automatically
arranged my references into a Bibliography and put them in alphabetical order so I did
not have to.
There was a small
problem with some of the references. As I was using the older version
of word some of the references were not showing up in the correct
'Havard Referencing Guide' style and so I had to change a few things.
Overall I think that
this will help many students who struggle with referencing and will
help them in the future to understand.
Below I have put two
links:
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Voki Continued....
After
making my own avatar by using the web2 app Voki, I decided to explore
the site a bit more to see what they had to offer.
The
Voki service is free but there is another service called Voki
classroom.
Voki
classroom is free for a limited time but then a subscribtion fee has
to be paid.
I
think that this service would be very useful for teachers who have
several classes as a hierarchy table can be made where the teacher is
at the top. Then the classes. Then each student.
The
students can personalise their own profiles.
The
teacher can assign tasks to each class or student individually.
Students
can then easily view and complete their assignments using 'Student
view'.
The
teacher can review all of the work from a lesson or from a particular
student.
An
automatic webpage is created once the students have completed the
work. This can then be used to showcase the student's work or it can
be set to private by using a password.
Overall
I think that this web 2 app is very helpful and would be very handy
for teachers when it came to keeping track of student's work.
Are web 2 apps educational?
PRESS PLAY ABOVE!
There
are many web 2 apps being used in education today to help children
have fun while learning. I have been exploring VOKI. Voki is a web 2
app where you can create an avatar and then add a voice to it.
Creating
an avatar:
- make an animal/monster/anime/3d avatar
- upload a photo of yourself
Adding
a voice:
- Choose an accent/language/sound effect
- Record a message
Ok
so this sounds like a lot of fun but how can it be used in an
educational way you ask?
Most
children get bored when the teacher reads aloud and they have to copy
it down but by adding a different voice/ sound effect may make a
difference.
By
using this web 2 app the teacher can put up a 3d image of themselves
or an avatar and put their voice to it. They can then record a
message and just press play. They can make things more fun by adding
sound effects to the voice. The children can get involved and make
their own.
I
think this would be a brilliant, exciting way for children to learn
in a Primary School but I don't think older children would listen to
a talking cartoon head.
Twitter-Web 2
Web
2 is used to share information whether it be through a blog/ wiki/ or
other service.
One
of the web 2 tools that I am familiar with is Twitter. I have been on
twitter for about a year and mainly use it to read what celebs are
getting up to. It can be very useful in many ways but also very
dangerous.
Advantages:
→ Free
→ Can
link with other social networks to find your friends
→ Simple,
easy to navigate around
→ Can
'retweet' messages for everyone to read
→ Business
owners- can inform people about offers/events etc
→ 'trending'-
can type in a word on search bar and see what other people are
writing about that subject
Disadvantages:
→ Children
are vulnerable and may contact the wrong people
→ limited
to 140 characters in 1 post
→ Cannot
post videos only links
→ unsure
who is reading your tweets
I
know that twitter is very useful to most people to contact their
friends/ colleagues/ customers but only if it is used in the right
way. If not then it can be very dangerous and get a lot of people in
trouble as everyone around the world can see your tweets!
Autism in Schools-5 Misunderstandings
One
educational blog I am following is called 'The Creative Educational
Blog'. A few months ago they made a post called ' Autism in School-5
of the most common misunderstandings explained'.
I
was interested in reading the blog as I wanted to know a bit more
about Autism and I wanted to see what other people thought about it.
The
5 main misunderstandings are:
- Autism can be cured
- Autistic children are mentally ill
- All autistic children are brilliant
- Autistic children were never loved and are incapable of loving
- Autistic children neither need nor want friends
As
I read on I found out that these are all myths and I found out the
truth.
The
truth is:
- Autism can not be cured → with medical help and strong support the overall developmental outcome can be improved.
- It is not a mental illness → biological illness that inhibits brain development and growth.
- Like other children, autistic children have different strengths and weaknesses.
- Autistic children may want friends and want to show love but they could be incapable of expressing what they need or desire.
I feel that this blog is important and should be shared to ensure that people know the truth about Autism and can stop believing all of the myths that they hear!
Texting Can Save Lives.
TEDTalks
is a website where there are a collection of videos from many
speakers. There is a video for everything.
A
video that stood out to me straight away was a video called 'Texting
that saves lives' by a woman called Nancy Lublin.
In her talk she says
that most teenagers have a mobile phone and can text and will receive
every text that is sent to their phone even if they do not reply.
Nancy says that police
officers can not help self-harmers/ homeless people/ bullying.
So she set up a website
called DoSomething which is for teens and deals with the causes that they care
about. Nancy discovered that a lot of teenagers who were too afraid
to speak to someone for help would text in with their problems.
She explains that this
service helps teens as they do not have to speak out loud or show
anybody what they are texting it is all confidential.
Nancy says that her aim
is not to help the teens get councilling or any kind of help but to
help prevent anything like it happening in the future!
This service can help
many teens and save lives!
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