Overall this course has been very satisfying, as it enabled me to determine my strenghts and weaknesses when it comes to comptuer programs that i am familiar and unfamailar with. The introduction to these new programs have been very helpful and i strongly believe these programs will have a large imput in to my classroom.

Despite technology constantly changing, i beleive the skills i have gained from these programs, can be adapted to future technology within classroom situations, such as formula skills i have learnt form the program ‘Excel’ can be later implimented into similar progams that may be produced in the future.

To be honest i strongly believe that after completing this course my skills have improved dramatically, and now the only thing i really need to do is continue to practice these skills over and over again. The program i struggled with the most was actually the blog itself, particularly when it changed format and i was unable to upload my attachments successfully.

Overall i have made many improvements and i have found this course to be very helpful in terms of later teaching and also in terms of my current uni work. I have learnt many knew things and skillsand have greatly improved on my skills and prior knowledge.

Thanks again Mark for all you help you have provided over the past semester.

Once i began using the program i found it very simple to use, as it kind of reminds me of a wizard of some kind. i really enjoyed maing my photostory as it brought back a lot of memories and fun times with my family. This is why i chose to do my photstory on them.

This program is a great way for students to present their findings to the class similar to a powerpoint but purely using pictures and the occasional text. This program is valuable for teachers and students however i think some of the other programs such as word and excel would be of more use within a classroom setting.

Overall considering i had no knowledge of this program except from watching the beginners help tools on the weekly outline. Thank you very much for that i don’t know how i would of completed this task otherwise.

Reference: Music

Kurtis, J. (2007). Pictures of you (recorded by the last goodnight). on Poison Kiss [CD]. Connecticut
United States. Vigin records. 

 My family photostory

Powerpoint is one of the best waysof teaching i personally believe as it is so engaging for students. Even for myself, i find it very easy to learn whilst a powerpoint is displayed rather than just a teacher or lecture standing out the front talking and writing on the board. However in saying this, the degree of engagement students have varies depending on the animations used to attract their attention. This is the main reason i tryed to use a different animation for each slide.

Powerpoint would be a great tool, particularly for older primary grades to present information on assignments to the rest of the class and teacher.  Learning how to make a powerpoint also assits in students presentation skils as well as their speech and interaction with the rest of the class. It can also be used to build students confidence. as students realise that their peers are not always watching them, instead they are focussed on the powerpiont.

Overall i believe this program has many uses within the classroom and is simple, functional, and easy to use and gain information from.

 Interactive whiteboard powerpoint presentation

In classroom environments, the program will assist students in more than just increasing the ways computers can be used, instead it provides a simple method of recording complex information, into a logical manner which is easy to read and comprehend.

Overall, i have changed my mind about this program, and by using it to create my personal diagram on smartboards, i have sen just how easy the layout used by the program is to read and understand.

In this particular lesson/ workshop i was able to really understand the concept of using formulas, as last week i still a little confused. The only thing i really struggled with was that of the graph, and the word ’series’ used to clasify the information presented in the graph. But thanks to a little help i was able to fix this issue and realise my mistakes.

Overall i found this exercise to be forfilling as i can see how it can be useful in future classroom and school situations as well as learning pracitices.

An example i produced on excel, is based on classroom assessment results, which is just one of the many uses for excel as i explained in last weeks blog.

excel-blog

•  Grade books and recording marks
•  School class expense budget
•  Creating socio-grams for tracking
•  Creating class seating charts
•  Class lists
•  Designing spelling lists

However personally i believe there can be many more uses, such as

• designing worksheets for students,
•  recording marks in a visual manner, i.e a graph of some kind such as a pie graph etc.

I really can’t wait until the next lesson. where i hope to learn even more than i did last week.

The works hop wad also very helpful, im finding that the more I go the more i realise how ignorant i was to many programs before hand, however i feel that these workshops are very helpful as they explain more of what i need to do, and allow me to understand the progams and why they do certain things differently alot more than i would without them. As an example i would never of figured out why my publisher document would not appear on my blog, if it wasn’t for the explanation and demonstrating given in the workshop.

Overall i really feel like am progressing through these activities and projects.

Here is my : autobiography.jpg p.s you need to enlarge the size of the page to read the writing on the publisher document

By having the resources supplied by the teacher or WebQuest designer, compared to having students find resources for themselves creates many advantages and disadvantages for students and teachers.

Positive points:

• allows teacher to evaluate students method of locating information
• allows students to sort out relevant information from non important
• can easly determine if students are plagiarising
• provides the same information to all students and thus all are on an equal, this is of great use for students in particular who don’t have access to the internet at home.
• teachers can control what sites are avaliable to students and thus students are unlikely to locate inappropriate information
• objectives and outcomes are very easy to comprehend

Negitive points:

• Students are unable to improve on their researching techniques and exploration of the Web
• Teachers are unable to assess outcomes concerning the use of the internet, in terms of effective research, as the websites are already provided

As seen the postives for webQuests far out-way the negitives for their use as an eduational resource.

WebQuests are suitable for most types of learning situations and scenarios, however not all learning can be done via WebQuests. A concept or idea must first be taught and explained by a teacher in order for a child to succeed in this type of learning. Learning is an ongoing process after birth and young children are also not always suited to computer based learning, as many are too young and inexperienced.

 WebQuests are very effective resources for a constructivist approach to learning, as they provide an interactive environment for which children can be apart of their own learning. The two particular WebQuests i studied, were very effective in this area, as they assigned students specific roles within a group and as a result students are not only interactive with the WebQuest, but also with other students.

Lev Vygotsky’s idea of scaffolding, is very evident within the process or task page, this page is often a summary or outline of what the students need to do. This is very effective for children, as it allows them to easily understand what is is they need to do to achieve a satisfactory mark.  

 Overall i found both WebQuests very valuable in terms of resources, and WebQuests in gerneral to be very effective and interactive for both students and teachers.

Two webQuests i studied on Ancient Egypt:

PORTFOLIO ITEM: 3

WebQuest 1    

WebQuest 2

Despite reading the study guide for this week i was still slightly confused on hyperlinks however through the portfolio activity i was able to understand the hyperlinks and how to be more effiicent in creating them. As previously i had heard of them but never actually created them correctly, as in they never actually linked to the designated website.

PORTFOLIO ITEM 2:  portfolio-item-2-search-engines.doc