david steele

a)  Draw and/or use Voice Thread, and annotate an ECG line of how your thoughts and learning change during your participation in this topic.

The first week of this topic I was a little blurry of what was going on.  We were given the topic handbook which was pretty big, so it was kind of hard to get a grasp of exactly what was going on.

By the second week I had more of an idea, but still not to good a one.  I was still a little vague on what web 2.0 tools were but knew a little more about them and knew we were meant to be doing a project on one specific one.  I was also vague about the stages of inquiry learning.

By week three I was comfortable in developing our webpage and had an understanding of edublogs.  I was getting more involved with the topic and felt ok about my progress.

Week four we were looking at the Quality Teaching Framework.  I did not understand it amazingly however when we were doing the group work in the lectures it opened my eyes a bit more.

By week five we were looking at other group’s presentations on Web 2.0 tools.  This made me understand more on what we were meant to do, and how our group could plan ours.  Also by looking at the collaborative planning template I could understand more about our next assignment.

Weeks six and seven were very productive.  We were looking more in depth on how to do the Integrated Learning Plan, and my group done our presentation on our Web 2.0 tool, Google Earth, which went very well.

With week eight we were pretty much coming to the final parts on how to set out the Integrated Learning Plan, and I was making progress on my personal blog.

Weeks nine and ten me and my group were working on and finishing our Integrated Learning Plan.  We were working collaboratively and coming up with some good ideas.  I also finished my personal blog, so this topic was completed.

b)  What did you find most valuable about the topic and why?

I think that there were a few things that I found most valuable about this topic.  Before this topic I did not know much about web 2.0 tools, especially how they could be used in an educational setting.  It was very affective how we were able to research a web 2.0 tool, and hence learn about it, but because we were presenting that tool to the rest of the class everyone else could see how to use it as well.  Then we could go to the CEGSA website at any point and look more into a specific tool that interest us.  Also the assessment requirements were extremely well set out so we could see exactly what we needed to do to achieve a high grade.  Having an easy to understand rubric is pretty important in any kind of education, and I think that we all benefitted from this.

c)  How could the topic be improved?

I am not really sure that this topic could be improved.  We missed 4 weeks at the start of the semester, and the amount of work that we were required to do for the remaining time could be realistically achieved.  Also every lecture allowed for group work and hands on activities that involved the entire class, so nobody could be left out and not get an idea of what was going on.  The handouts were also informative, as well as the topics wiki site that we could access anytime of the day.  Overall I learnt a lot from this topic, and I can’t think of anyways to improve it.

d)  What new knowledge and skills will you try to incorporate into your teaching practice?

a)  Describe what you have learnt about planning an inquiry-learning unit and how this new knowledge connects with your prior understandings and experience.  In particular, reflect on your thoughts when aligning the desired outcomes with the assessment tasks and learning plan (e.g. was the planner valuable and easy to use and why or why not?).

            Include links to the planning template stored as a publically accessible (but not editable) Google doc file.

PLANNING TEMPLATE LINK

When we were first given the inquiry-learning unit task, it seemed rather daunting and hard to understand.  I guess this is mainly because it was new and although I had designed units of work before some of the stages were hard to understand at first.  I was familiar with using SACSA and a few other aspects of the template, but I was not to knowledgeable in the stages 2 and 3.  If I was just given the template with no instructions, it would have been near impossible for me to create my unit using those guidelines.  This is why the lectures I found were very informative, allowing us to go through each stage in specific lessons, with handouts and group activities that allowed us to understand it more.  I think if I were to miss any lectures like some people did, I would have found it extremely difficult to know what exactly was going on.  The course was designed really well in relation to this.  Because we were able to work in groups with this assignment as well, we were able to split up the workload which was very helpful, and collaborate with one another to brainstorm ideas for the unit which helped us make ours as good as it was.

b)  How did you self-rate your culminating assessment task and what did you learn from using the QT framework?  (E.g. which elements did you find easy or difficult to incorporate and why?).

I believe that our groups culminating assessment task was pretty good.  When coming up with it we looked at all of the stages of the unit that we designed, and brainstormed how we could use nearly everything that the students were meant to learn through out the unit and use this knowledge in an end of topic assessment task but at the same time still doing something different to previous lessons.  It was also created so that the students were learning something new, but at the same time having fun.  Also, we tried to relate the assessment task to the SACSA aims and outcomes since they were what we needed to achieve from this unit.  Using the Quality Teaching framework was definitely challenging since trying to have every dimension included was a hard task.  The main idea that we had was although some dimensions may have been rated low, the others were rated high to balance them out, so with the middle rated dimensions we resulted a mid range average rating for all of them. 

c)  What did you learn from designing the stages of your inquiry activities and from designing your two individual lesson plans that integrated ICT?

From designing the stages of our inquiry activities and from designing our two individual lesson plans that integrated ICT, I learnt that there are so many possibilities for using ICT in a classroom environment.  From this topic so far, we have developed understandings that there are so many programmes and resources out there that can be used when planning lessons in an educational setting that involve ICT.  Pretty much when coming up with ideas on how we can integrate ICT into curriculum, that persons imagination is all that is going to hold them back.  The options are almost limitless, and I think that if we look at one another’s unit plans everybody would have different ideas on lessons that someone else would not have even thought about since there is just so much you can do. 

Here is the link to my comment on someone elses blog:

Comment

a)  Which tool were you allocated to investigate and who did you work with?

            Include a link to your CEGSA web page.

The Web 2.0 tool that I was allocated to investigate was Google Earth.  My group consist of Lucas, Peter and Myself. 

Our CEGSA web page

b)  Do you think the tool is of value in your teaching practice?  How and Why or why not?

When we first got given this tool to research, we all had used Google Earth before but at a very intermediate level.  From our experiences with it we all initially thought that Google Earth although was quite an interesting and entertaining tool it would be rather limited for educational purposes.  This was until we did further research and realised how much potential it had in an educational setting.  Not only can people view the world in detail (which has massive educational potential anyway), but we found that you are able to use already made lesson plans as well as make your own.  These lesson plans might be to study famous voyages from the past, track storms, explore volcanic activity, follow scientist’s journeys over the globe, as well as many more.  You can use it from literature to environmental science.  Google Earth can help you bring a world of information alive for students. You can use Google Earth demos to get your students excited about geography, and use different Google Earth layers to study economics, demographics, and transportation in specific contexts.  Realistically the only limit to Google Earth’s classroom uses is the teachers and students imagination.

c)  Explain the positive, minus and interesting points of working collaboratively with others to co-construct knowledge as part of a personalised inquiry process.

Working with a group to co-construct knowledge as part of a personalised inquiry process definitely did have its benefits.  Obviously the fact that we were able to split up the workload was extremely beneficial and time efficient.  We were also able to pull together resources among one another, and get different opinions on certain topics relating to our project.  Also people were able to work with their individual strengths which in the long run advantaged the entire group.  A disadvantage is that it was sometimes difficult to get together at certain times due to the fact that we all had different time table, as well as work and other commitments.  It was not a problem in our group, but sometimes in group work a team member may slack off which disadvantages the rest of the group.  It was interesting that with the wiki we could all add our bits of input at home, and another group member could view it moments later and make alterations if needed be.  I believe this helped out a lot.

d)  Reflect on how your workshop went: Did things go according to plan and did participants achieve your intended learning outcomes?  Why or Why not?

With our workshop, I believe that it ran extremely well and went totally to plan.  Our group had met up to organise it a couple of times before the day which definitely prepared us more.  We divided what we needed to cover in the workshop up into even parts for each of us to cover, and we decided what to cover in our workshop by looking at the rubric and seeing what we were going to be assessed on.  We wanted to make it informative, but we also aimed to make it fun and interesting to the ‘students’ we were teaching.  From what I observed I think that everybody learnt a lot, had a really fun time playing around with Google Earth and saw that it can indeed be used in an educational setting. 

e)  What other tools have you learnt about in this topic and do you think these have potential to enhance learning and teaching? (incl. your blog).

I really enjoyed using Voki, which allowed us to create our own characters and let us add a voice to them if we wanted.  Although it was fun, it seemed as though its educational purposes were limited.  I believe that a much better tool was Scratch, which was similar allowing one to create a character with a voice, but you could make it move and add other effects making a little movie.  It did have massive educational potential to enhance learning and teaching, and was quite entertaining as well.  I also found the Smart Board workshop to be valuable, since I am keen to find out everything there is to know about them since they are being used in schools these days so I am going to have to learn how to use them effectively.

a)  What is your level of skills and expertise with web 2.0 tools and knowledge of how these can be used to enhance learning and teaching?

When I first went to the lecture of this topic and the idea of web 2.0 tools were mentioned I did not have a clue what was going on.  I had never heard the term web 2.0 tool before, so I was unaware of what they were and how to use them.  I figured they were obviously tools you used on the web, but what they were for I had no idea.  When they were described a little more I realised that web 2.0 tools were available on the internet, and found that I have actually had a little bit of experience with some of the tools before.  I had used Youtube, Google Maps, Skype, and a couple of others but only very briefly.  There for my knowledge of how such tools can be used to enhance learning and teaching is practically non existent.  I can imagine that there are ways to do this using these tools, but I definitely need more knowledge of them before I could even begin to understand how. 

b) What frameworks and approaches do you use or know about to plan quality learning for students? What do you see as the strengths and limitations of these?

When I have been planning lesson and unit plans in the past, I have usually started by knowing what it is I am wanting to teach the students, such as the subject and the topic involved in that subject.  I would usually then brainstorm ideas of what could be done to teach the topic, keeping in mind that not only do I need to teach the material but also make it enjoyable to learn.  I would also take a look at the SACSA framework for the particular topic and year level I am teaching, and make sure that I cover the appropriate aims and outcomes for the intended learning of the students.  Once I have done this, I am fully aware of what needs to be done to teach the topic, so I can then start to plan out the unit/lesson outline in stages along with the goals that I want to achieve for the class, taking into account the students interests and learning styles.  From here I can look at what I have done, change anything if needed or add better ideas I come up with until I am happy with the final result.

This approach has strength as it is very well planned out and is intended so that the students can learn at their full potential.  It is essential to plan units and lessons, because if you don’t then it will be extremely hard to survive in the classroom.  Saying this though it has limitations because although it is great to be organised you can not prepare yourself for everything.  There may be extenuating circumstances that prevent you from going to plan so as a professional you need to quickly adjust to overcome this.  Changing your original plan on the spot may be necessary, so it is important to also be flexible.

c) What would you really like to find out or learn in this topic?

My ICT knowledge is definitely not at a beginner standard, nor is it at an expert standard.  From this topic I would really like to learn about things that I have not used or even heard of before, and develop my skills with things that I am some what familiar with.  By the looks of the outline of this topic I believe that I will be achieving this goal, as I am already starting to do so.  Also I would really like to learn how I can use such ICT skills within a classroom environment to teach students and allow them to learn at their full potential.  This should also be able to be accomplished so I am extremely happy that I selected this topic.

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