Learning about spreadsheets...

Initially, I thought this topic would be fairly manageable. I soon realised there was more to learn about spreadsheets than I thought!

Adapting the mark book example to suit my own reporting processes was quite good. It was helpful to think about how I would best mark students work, and how I would format this using a spreadsheet. It was also really helpful learning how to highlight the students who are below average with their grades. This would be a handy tool to keep record of which students to follow up with in their work.

Then it came to the 'mail merging' stage. This gave me a slight headache as my computer was not doing what it needed to be doing. I soon realised (with the help of Mark!) that I had not labelled my columns as clearly as they should have been in my excel document. This meant that the mail merging stage wouldn't work smoothly.

Anyway, it all got sorted and I can see how this lesson would be so useful when the dreaded time of reporting comes along for teachers!

Educational comics

Learning about educational topics was something quite different but also insightful in learning how to use this type of literature as an effective learning tool. 

The 'comic life' software was great in creative your own comic but there were definitely some frustrating elements to the software.  

Other benefits of using educational comics are evident on these websites:

http://www.slideshare.net/vikgo/20-effective-ways-to-use-digital-comics-in-the-classroom

This website discusses that:

- comics are an easy way to remember information

-comics can motivate children who do not enjoy writing

-helps students organising through storyboarding and sequence

Another link that discusses further educational benefits of using comics in the classroom is:

http://www.openeducation.net/2008/01/23/innovative-teaching-comic-books-in-the-classroom/

Multimedia Stories...

Last Week we learnt how to create an effective, yet educational powerpoint, aka a multimedia story or presentation.

I have known how to make power points but this week was helpful in making a powerpoint interactive and fun. I know that I will definitely use this tool in the classroom to enhance the learning of a particular subject or use this tool as a revision strategy.

7 key points to blogging.....

Educause Learning Initiative-advancing learning through IT Innovation

1. Blogs are:
-An online collection of links and thoughts.
-Easy to create
- Internet connection is necessary

2. Who is using them?
-Entertainment venues, news, politics
-Educators

3. How do they work?
-It is an online journal in which hyperlinks, text, images, media can be added.
-they allow feedback to be given from other readers by leaving comments.


4. Why are they significant?
-Blogs are an ideal way for people to share knowledge, discussion and reflection.
-Blogs also can be an informal way for authors/and readers to share ideas.

5. What are the downsides?
-can be biased/inaccurate
-they are unmediated, allowing people to express anything they want. This is inappropriate for an institutional blogger.
-highly volatile meaning bloggers can delete or edit posts anytime.

6. Where is it going?
-estimates suggest as many as 50 million people are now blogging because they are so easy to create and modify.

7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?
-can be used for reflection about classes, careers, current events.
-they offer students/staff a new form of interacting with peers and a forum that can be extended beyond a classroom setting.

Lecture 3

It was helpful today exploring the different podcasts that are available and seeing how to access these. I am actually inspired to listen to more podcasts because now I know how to actually find and access them!

Another interesting element of todays lecture was creating an educational podcast for the purpose of using it within a classroom! How great that there is free software out there that can enable you to create a podcast so quickly! I think I will seriously consider using podcasts in my classroom to teach and engage students with learning about a specific subject.

Second lecture...

So, it has been interesting learning about the different uses of Wiki's. I have known about Wikipedia for a long time. I know that is it a useful tool to quickly look up a definition or to get some fast facts (not always correct facts) but it has been interesting to see how wikis can be used within the classroom. We discussed in our table group that a wiki that can be accessed by a group of people could be helpful in a classroom for parent notices or even students ideas for camps/assignments.

Other aspects that I have learnt from this lecture is setting up an e-portfolio. I am not too skilled with working with computers so setting up an e-portfolio is a useful skill to learn but it is also slightly overwhelming working on something that is very new to me. I'm sure Ill feel more confident as the weeks go by!

Learning about the Internet

Teaching children about the internet can be a complicated process but there is no doubt that they need to learn essential skills in how to approach this tool.

I have learnt that the basic skills I take for granted when using search engines need to be explicitly taught to children. Children have many misconceptions about using 'google' as a search engine because they do not know how to use it in the most effective way. Skills such as note taking, identifying key words and finding accurate and reliable websites are crucial for students to master in order to understand and discover relevant and appropriate information.