Scoot on to Scootle for teaching resources

Good afternoon fellow bloggers,

Today’s post is to talk to you all about scootle, if you have heard of scootle and are an avid user (yay!?)  If this is the first time you have heard of scootle, I encourage you to sign up.

Scootle is a free resource sharing site created and endorsed by the Australian Government department of Education.  Scootle, is essentially a bank of resources accessible to practising teachers and pre-service educators.  Scootle’s mantra is to learn, teach and collaborate using digital resources to support the Australian Curriculum (hence why it has earned a place in a blog post).  Scootle allows for a collaborative sharing and learning space for teachers to extend access to digital resources they have deemed suitable in their daily practice. 

Scootle allows the user to refine a search for digital resources by key learning area, year level, assessment, learning objectives and digital format (images, videos, websites, interactive sites, apps, audio files).  Additionally, as the site has been created to support the emerging Australian National Curriculum, Scootle allows the user to categorise digital resources ‘by the Australian Curriculum’, therefore organising the bank of resources not only by  key learning area but by further refining resources into the content strands for each year level associated within the key learning area.

Scootle is free to use, however be mindful that you will need to register your current university email address (this is because the Scootle registration only acknowledges email suffixes with edu.au or .gov.au.) 

I would seriously urge all of my blog followers to investigate Scootle, register and add Scootle into your ever growing arsenal of resources.    

For those interested, you can find the link to the scootle website to find out more here. 

 

Thanks for stopping by

 

 

M

Concept mapping ICT’s in Education.

Good afternoon fellow bloggers,

Today I used a concept mapping program called Text 2 mind Map, initially I found the program difficult to manoeuver and felt there were limited avenues for support.  I felt that my experience with the program was based solely on trial and error.

Creating the concept map allowed me to identify tangential links between knowledge that was known, knowledge that was un-known and knowledge that had not been considered relevant.  The activity allowed me to produce a visual representation of relationships between ideas relevant to ICT and education, with an emphasis on creating causal links between my ideas, create space to evaluate the beliefs I currently hold about ICT and education and analyse the patterns created within the concept map.

My map shows an emphasis of thought generated into ICT in terms of impacts on curriculum requirements and how ICT is both expected and anticipated in instruction and delivery of learning experiences.  The concept map shows isolated understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of ICT in pedagogical practices.

The experience of creating the concept map has allowed me the opportunity to critically evaluate the areas of known or familiar knowledge and direct my learning toward an avenue that may not be as well known.  With respect to creating the digital artefact that will explain to parents and caregivers my rationale for priorities of ICT within education, I believe I can now delve into research to validate, verify and extend rationales for the importance of utilizing ICT within educational experiences.

For those wishing to trial Text 2 Mind Map you can locate the website here.

As a classroom resource, I believe concept maps are an essential teaching tool that provides a myriad of benefits to learners.  Namely, the construction of concept maps requires students to experience the continuum of Bloom’s Taxonomy whereby the generation of ideas requires a lower cognitive demand, and the organization/structure and reflection of ideas and considerations to the relationships between these ideas requires higher cognitive demand.

As a program to facilitate the creation of digital concept maps, I personally would invest in a search for a more user friendly program to teach students.  However, for older year levels this resource may be appropriate.

For those interested, here is an image of the concept map I have created using Text 2 Mind Map you can find a PDF version .

text2mindmap

.

Thank you for stopping by!

 

 

M

 

QR codes to assess student learning.

Hi all,

 I hope the beginning of semester two has left you feeling established rather than overwhelmed.   From a personal standpoint I find myself on a sliding scale of panic and intrigue.  Today’s post comes from information found on my daily ritual of Facebook surfing, I stumbled across a page discussing an application that uses QR codes to organise and assess student learning. Never in my wildest imagination would I have considered QR codes could be adapted for classroom use, however, this is what I have found. 

 QR codes (Quick Response Codes) have always been a form of communication/technology that has had the dual effect of confusing and intriguing me.  I have never quite been able to wrap my head around how information/data is encrypted into these codes, their purpose or the extent of use they have.   It sounds almost like science fiction but an app named ‘Plickers’ has been released to assist teachers in gauging student understanding as a tool for formative assessment.  The app allows you to formulate or ask questions to access student’s prior knowledge or act as formative assessment at the end of the daily lesson.  

 The magic of this app is that students are assigned a personalised QR code that can be scanned by the teachers chosen device, the students answer is obtained by the orientation in which the student holds their card.  The app instantaneously collects and collates the data to provide the teacher with an organised bar graph denoting a percentage of students who understand or answered correctly.

 I am curious to know what a) if my fellow bloggers would consider using this app in their future classrooms?  B) what my fellow bloggers believe would be the benefits or the disadvantages of such an app.

 From a personal standpoint, I could see the merit in an app like this and the potential uses in a future classroom.  Namely, the fact that the assessment system relies on assumed technology teachers generally own.  Additionally, I see the advantage that students are an active part of their assessment but do not require individual technological devices (ergo, avoiding limitations or barriers of access). 

In regards to potential disadvantages I would be wary that student’s may lose or damage their QR codes (however, this can be remedied by laminating and storing the QR codes in a secure location or personalised student cubby).  Also, there would need to be tutorials to demonstrate to students who they would need to engage with their QR code (ensuring they were holding it correctly, that they had selected and displayed their intended response). 

So my fellow 3100 bloggers, if you are interested in my post this morning feel free to comment or re-post.  I think this is an interesting app that could prove to be a very valuable resource.  Also fellow bloggers, I am curious to know if you would use this product and if you foresee any potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities or threats from utilising an application like Plickers in your classroom.   

To utilise ‘Plickers’ you will need to download the app to an electronic device of your choosing- smart-phone, tablet or laptop.  You must ensure that you follow the tutorial to register your class list to assign each student with their personalised QR code.  To view the tutorial click this link.

To find out more about the history of QR codes click here.

To find out more about Plickers, please access their official website here.

 Thank you for stopping by!

M

Filling in the blanks

Hi all!

This week as part of our course work we were asked to complete a fill in the blanks activity.  Here is what I believed the paragraph to say. (My answers can be denoted by bold font).

The questions that parents face as they raise children from infancy to adult are not easy to answer. Both fathers and mothers can become concerned when health problems such as conjunctivitis arise anytime after the earliest stage to later life. Experts recommend that young children should have plenty of sleep and nutritious food for healthy growth. boys and girls should not share the same bath towels or even be in the same rooms. They may be afraid of the darkened room.

Immediately, after reading this I realised large portions of this paragraph made limited sense.  I am reminded that each individual would have contemplated and deciphered this paragraph to read entirely different.  Additionally, this activity shows the value of context, without the context of a problem or activity individuals rely solely on their prior knowledge/experience to help them decode unfamiliar content and adapt to their current ways of thinking.  I would be interested to see the variations of responses and contexts different viewers.  From an educational standpoint, schema’s and ways of understanding and interpreting the world are a very important consideration for the development of learning experiences.  Each student is fundamentally different and process the world around them in entirely unique ways.  I hope throughout this course there is targeted information on how to incorporate ICT to assist in differentiation.

For those who wish to investigate schema’s and the process of categorising and organising thoughts you can find more information at this website.  Additionally, further reading can be obtained by investigating schema related theories by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget who discussed the evolution of childhood cognition through a continuum of milestones.  Piaget discusses the notion of two distinct forms of cognitive processing: assimilation and accommodation.  The above activity whereby context was removed required our brains to process new and unfamiliar information by utilising our prior knowledge and experience to assist our understanding, we were asked to assimilate the un-known task with information we currently know and attempt to merge the two.  Accommodation, refers to a procedural acceptance of new information integrating and re-evaluating previously conceived ideas and altering the schematic architecture of an idea to formulate a new idea. 

I am very interested to see the variations of this activity of others, and hope to re-post soon.

more information on the work of Jean Piaget can be found here. 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

M

In the beginning…..

Hello and welcome fellow bloggers!

Today marks a special occasion for me here today, my first blog post ever!  *Fan fare!*  The purpose of this blog is to map my journey through my ICT and pedagogy course and professional experience of EDC 3100 run through the University of Southern Queensland.  I am very excited, because I ticked off a few ‘firsts’ today, in my enthusiasm to get things moving.  Firstly, I created my word press and customized it all by my lonesome (which is no tall order) and I am pretty impressed!  Secondly, as part of my introduction I created a popplet!  If you are feeling in the dark, allow me to illuminate things for you (I had never heard of popplet either).  Popplet allows you to create an interactive concept map, and is an interesting tool to assist you in the organisation of your thoughts.

Being a novice when it comes to technology, I was genuinely surprised by the relative ease in manipulating the software and creating my project.  After I found my bearings I put on my teacher hat, and considered if I would genuinely use this within my classroom, and to be quite honest: yes I would.  The options allow for the user to embed media files, images and create text boxes and I felt genuinely comfortable in using the software and believe that even lower grade students would be able to navigate this software.

I used popplet as a creative way of introducing myself to my fellow EDC3100-er’s, hopefully they too have found as a viewer the software easy to use and see the creative, organisational and educational benefits to using popplet within their own future classrooms.

If you are keen to create your very own popplet you will find a link here.

Also, for those interested I will attach a link to show you my own personal popplet.

Thank you for stopping by!

 

M