My Vodcast

Juggling Technology

I read the “Too cool for school” article by Mishra and Koehler yesterday, and today I was fortunate enough to view Bel’s and Kate’s  video about it.

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I agree having technology doesn’t make it useful in an educational sense. The teacher needs to be able to use it in a way that students can benefit and learn from and with technology.

This can be a challenge as I’m not that confident with technology, but I’m actually feeling inspired to experiment and research into how we as teachers could use phones and ipods for example in the classroom. I mean, after all, I love playing with those new toys, so why not make use of them.

Hopefully there are some more educated people out there who are willing to share their knowledge with me!

too cool for school

When reading the article “Too cool for school” by Mishra and Koehler it made me think about my own technology knowledge and attitude.

They suggest technology can and probably u be used in the classroom, but teachers have to know how to do this. To be able to integrate technology successfully, the teachers have to know a lot about the resources.

And that is where I can see the problem. How can I possibly integrate these new inventions if I don’t know much about them myself? Of course, I can always go to in services and educate myself via the internet, but for that to be affective, I completely rely on others and their knowledge, and I’m not sure if I would be able to educate myself sufficient enough to use that knowledge to teach my students.

Of course, it is definitely something I would like to achieve as I can see the educational benefits in me using technology; I’m just not sure if I, as a technology Neanderthal, would be able to keep up with my students.

Thanks to this flickrer

Let's write it down!

An article by Helen Barett has recently intrigued me.  She introduced ePortfolios and explained that they are computer based journals that record one’s learning. They often have artefacts attached to them to broaden the documentation. Barett further argues that for the learning to be deeper and more meaningful, the  person should go back over their learning and reflect on it as well as setting new goals. In her opinion this aids a more meaningful learning.

By making this ePortfolio public, other people can observe your learning and comment on it, which could further your own learning.

I have never really thought about documenting my learning, but I suppose that is exactly what I have done here on this blog. I wrote about all the new skills and knowledge I have acquired over the past few weeks and I suppose it has been very useful.

I have learnt so many new things about the use of technology and I suppose while all this is still fresh in my memory it is easy enough for me to remember. But I won’t be learning this much about technology at uni again, and who knows, I may not be using lots of the information for another few years, so documenting it would actually be a great way so I can get back to it when needed.

And now that I think about it, if I further reflect and document how my applied knowledge worked out, it helps e to analyse what I’m doing and correct it when necessary.

And haven’t I learnt a great deal from my fellow peers as I followed their blogposts?

I have now started a Wiki with some of these peers to record and reflect on resources and knowledge. So isn’t this already an ePortfolio?

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Stop it now!

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Bullying has taken on a whole new dimension with today’s use of technology and I am very concerned about this topic as I’m not too sure on how to handle it.

Last week, I was introduced to a great website, cyberbullying. This site raises awareness to cyber bullying and educates students in an innovative and interactive way about the safe use of technology and what to do when being bullied.

I was amazed by the site and felt it is was useful to teach my future students about the topic. This site shows a good insight into bullying and would be a great asset to me as a teacher. However, it must be used in an educational context and can’t just be shown to the students without any explanations.

 Do however believe that everyone needs to be aware of cyber bullying in order for us to fight it. The best way to do this would be to educate yourself, the students and even the parents and guardians, and the site is a great start to this.

My new Budd:e

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When we got our first computer with internet in year 8, I was extremely excited but also worried. My parents had lectured me that being online is just like being in the city by myself and that there may be lots of security problems that we don’t know about yet. So when I set up my first email account, I ensured that I would use the highest security settings, just in case.
 This attitude has not really changed and to this day I’m always very conscious of what information I put on the internet, and joining facebook was a huge discussion for me as I was worried about sharing all my information with potential strangers.

So internet security has always been very important to me, and now that technology is becoming so big, I’m faced with being responsible for my future students’  internet security. Up until today, this was a huge concern for me.

But there is an answer. Like my fellow students Miss Kate, I have now discovered Budd:e, a site that teaches students how to use the internet safely. And I must say, after going through it, it has actually taught e a few things too.

Budd:e is a fantastic site that is very user friendly and engaging for primary school children. If this is used appropriately during my lessons, I think I might have a chance of making my students aware of safe internet usage.

 I just hope that they will take it on board!

Copyright

Sitting in class, we are discussiong copyright in schools. The question is
You are a teacher, your small budget has been cut. you have one piece of software and it needs to go to the five computers you have for thirty kids. It's against the law to copy it. What would you do?


This is really tricky, as I believe that it is my duty to educate children, so I would be really tempted to copy it.
But now I realised that there are actually spot checks in schools. I did not know that. This makes me a little more inclined to obey the law as I obviously don't want to get found out. But wow,
this is a really challenging question!

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10 days later and still kicking!

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It is surprising, I know, but I survived my 10 days at prac and I have learned sooo much. I had the best time, being lucky enough to have had a very supportive teacher who believed in me.

During my prac, I have been able to teach all subjects, often with the use of the interactive smartboard. After initial trouble, especially during handwriting lessons, my self esteem was low. I was worried that I would never be able to use it effectively, but I was wrong... I have been able to explore and practise with it, refining my skills as I did so.

My students often spotted me in the classroom, half an hour before school started, practising extremely hard and amazingly, they came inside and helped me.
The next time I wanted to use technology, I wanted my students to create a digital story on " Living things". I had only created one digital story so far, and teaching it was a bit scary, but I decided to practise a bit at home, write down necessary hints and then just go for it.
With a few problems at hand, my students helped me out quickly.
 Here I was thinking that I would have to teach them everything and that I had to be perfect at using the smart board. But I was very wrong. My students seemed to really enjoy helping me and taught me many things, even before my lessons. So Thank you, 2H, for all your patience and help!

Living things go digital

After a very promising first week on prac, my teacher asked me to create a unit of work relating to “living things” in science.

I was very excited as I had never had the chance to do anything like this before, but I was also very nervous.

So I returned home and sat down, thinking of how o start this unit. I remembered the website skwirk.com that we had analysed in our previous assignment and I recalled that it had some great introductory videos for all sorts of subjects.

So I tried my luck to see if I was able to find anything on the subject. I was unsuccessful at first as I didn’t have a password, but as soon as I asked my teacher, she provided me with her details so I could have a look.... and of course, it had the perfect video.

I used this as my starting point and created a variety of lessons on the topic. As my focus was technology on this prac, I also decided to incorporate this into my lessons. At the end, I asked my students to take photos and create a digital photo story.

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Who would have thought... that I, as a technology Neanderthal, (and a little help from my students) would be able to get my year 2 students to create a digital photo story on living things? And even more so, be successful at doing this!

I must admit, it was a behaviour management lesson more so than anything else, but my year 2 students created a wonderful digital story on their "excursion"  out into the school grounds on their search for living things.
What a success!!!

Handwriting on and interactive whiteboard- almost a complete disaster

My first week on prac... oh well it has been an exciting, but very exhausting week. I was allocated a year two class with 23 lovely students and a brand new interactive whiteboard!

Everyone is very excited by this new technology in the classroom and my cooperating teacher is using it for most lessons, so I was asked to incorporate it into my lessons too.

Great! I had just learned so much about some fantastic interactive websites and surely that would be a great addition. And it was, I used it for maths and science without any complications, but then I had to teach “Handwriting”!

Oh dear, I’m still struggling to write in the NSW foundation handwriting on paper and a whiteboard, but ah well, how different could it be on the interactive whiteboard?!? So when I go home, I got my own whiteboard our and practised writing the letter H and the sentence that goes along with it.

After a good half an hour of practise, I felt confident with my handwriting for the practised words.

The next morning I woke up early so I decided to go into school a bit earlier than usual just to practise once or twice on the interactive whiteboard. When I got there and set up for the lesson, I began to write.

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OH NO! The pen wasn’t lined up properly with the whiteboard. There was at least a cm between where I started to write and where the writing showed up. And the whole point of a handwriting lessons is that I need to show the students exactly where to stop and start within the lines. AND my writing looked like that of a child’s. It was all wobbly. I went over to the whiteboard and checked that I could still write like a practised the night before, and there, it looked fine. Just on the interactive whiteboard it didn’t!

I was so glad that I had come in so much early than I thought necessary so that I had now time to practise on the interactive whiteboard.

By the end I had managed to compensate for the difference in writing and the lesson went well. But I will definitely continue practising my handwriting on the interactive whiteboard!

facebook or face to face?

Social networks have become more and more popular over the last few years. At the beginning, I was rather sceptical of them and with my great fear of privacy issues I was one of the last in my group to join facebook. And I only joined to say in contact and share photos with my friends in Germany and Australia. I soon began to love this new technology and used it regularly.

thanks to this flickr'r

But in the last 6 months or so I’ve noticed that even primary school children are part of this social website.

This got me thinking. Of course, it was inevitable that children begin to access these sites as they seem to gain in popularity and “everyone” is part of it. This creates an even bigger pressure for children to be “on it”.

I then read the article “Want to be my friend? What you need to know about social technologies”  by Lamb and Johnson and  began to see that there is not much we can do to prevent this from happening.

Instead of restricting our children and students in the use of social networks, we have to educate them on how to use them appropriately, as well as on the dangers that come with their use.

The world has changed and children are growing up immersed in technology. We can’t and shouldn’t stop that, but we do have to ensure that our children and students are aware of the dangers that come with this technology. So don’t be afraid but be aware!

Cyberbullying

As I immersed myself in all this new technology knowledge and ways to use it in the classroom, I started thinking about cyber bullying. I know this topic has been all over the news and teachers and schools are under great pressure to intervene and prevent this from happening.

But how do you do that? The internet is big and we can’t control everything that our students view and write. Of course, what happens on school computers in one thing, and this should be controlled by the school. But how do we as teachers prevent what happens outside of school, on the students home computers?

When I read the article “Top Ten tips for Educators on cyber bullying prevention” I expected to be given 10 straight forward ideas and tips on what to do, basically a recipe to follow in preventing cyber bullying.

But that’s not what I found. Yes, there were ten tips of what to do, but nowhere near as specific as I expected. Instead, I realised that prevention strategies can’t be like a recipe, easy one step instructions to follow as every case is different. The tips provided aid the teachers in creating strategies that fit their own situations.

I was amazed to see that all the articles provided in the literature part of this subject value the use of surveys. They encourage teachers to survey the students to find out what’s going on. I’m not sure why, but this had never occurred to me. Of course it would be the best way to find out what is happening before any interventions can be used.

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Another tip was to promote a positive environment in schools where everyone is accepted and included. If the atmosphere in the school is inclusive and students look out for each other, hopefully the risk of cyber bullying is lower.

I’m still not entirely sure how to deal with this new problem but I hope that in the coming years I will continue to learn and collaborate with others and my knowledge in all parts of education will continue to grow.

Gaming, the new way to learn?

When I started reading Matthew Kearney’s blog on learning through gaming I first thought, “Yeah, right, let’s bring gaming into the classroom, what a great idea. NOT!”  and was not really interested at all. I’ve seen my brothers spend hours at a time locked up in their rooms playing these games, and really, they did that for fun not for learning. It was just a way of spending time, wasn’t it?

thanks to this flickr'r

Even though I wasn’t particularly interested in this topic, I decided to watch the video anyway. After all, I had to react on his post in my blog. So I pressed play.

Almost immediately I changed my mind.

Hey, can children really learn and apply all this knowledge through games? I mean I know, I’ve witnessed my brothers having fun in these games, so maybe, these games can make learning more fun?

I looked at the game more closely. And yes, I do see the benefits of it and no longer think it’s a complete waste of time. However, unfortunately I’m still not particularly interested in playing the game, but I believe now, that during special allocated computer times, these games should be encouraged. I will just have to make sure that I can find a variety of different games so that all my students enjoy learning with them.

I’m open to a new way of learning.

What to teach?

I just came across an interesting post that really got me thinking. This parent addressed teachers asking them to spend their time wisely with the children in their class and to teach them for life, not just for tests.

This brings me back to my last prac. I attended the school during the NAPLAN. I have heard arguments between teachers who believed that they should really focus on the content of the test so that their students could gain the best results possible. Others argued that the students should not be probed into what to write in these tests.

The blog therefore really inspired me. Yes, I agree, teachers are there to provide students with knowledge and skills to enable them to become competent members of our community. And that is exactly what I would like to do and achieve when I become a teacher and it should be our main focus.

But how can we do this? The society is putting more and more pressure on schools and teacher for students to perform well and sites such as Myschool creates even more pressure. Are we not losing site of what is really important in education?

How can we combine these two outcomes?

thanks to this flickr'r

Assisting each other

Our last task for the subject Professional Experience 3 was to review and analyse e-learning resources and then present them to our class mates.

I must say I was quite excited to find out what websites my fellow students have found and if there were as useful as the ones Lydia and I had found. After all, if they did, this would be a great opportunity to add them to my delicious account and safe me from having to search for them later...

So I walked into the classroom and was eager to find out what the others had found.

Kerpoof, electricity, Roy the zebra and gold rush were the sites that I was particularly interested in. They seemed to be very cooperative and engaging, assisting in constructionist learning.

I was absolutely amazed by how many free websites there are and how many of them are actually great.

I have added these straight to my bookmarks so I can use them in my future lessons.

Thanks everyone for doing such a great job and here are Lydia and my resources for you to take a look at.

Sandcastles or crosswords?

Constructionism. Wow, a big word. But what does it mean?

Dr. Idit Harel talks about constructionism and refers to it as children learning by creating. She compares a child’s learning process with the building of a sand castle.

Is that not a bit far fetched?

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Not at all, I quiet agree, children learn best when they are actively engaged in an activity. And what better way is there for them to learn than through play, exploring and creating as they investigate their surroundings? Young children are very inquisitive and thirsty for knowledge and strict regulated learning activities can drown the child’s eagerness to find out more.

It is great that these researchers have focused on interactive learning websites that involve the children themselves, getting them to create their own stories and adventures as they master the challenges. With this website, the children are in charge of their own learning and are able to venture further than with some other, non constructionism based sites.

I was very excited when I discovered this website but would love to see one that is related to the Australian curriculum to make it a little easier to integrate it into my teaching.

Great interatctive learnig sites

Today during class, everyone presented the learning resources they had found and analysed and I was absolutely amazed by how many free websites there are out there on the internet. And to my surprise, they weren’t bad either.

My fellow students were able to find a large variety of online resources related to the KLA’s in stage 1-3.

Some of them were really good on were based on the constructivist theory as the programs allowed the students to create their own work rather than just teaching them.  Kerboom.com is a great example for one of those websites.

This is a really important aspect as students learn more if they are actively creating (Jonassen et al. 2008).

As we looked at the individual sites, I realised how important the bookmark “Delicious” can be, especially if we can all have access to each other’s bookmarks.

This way we can all work together in the search for great learning aids and tools and use them in our challenge of becoming great teachers.

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Cutting the cake

I just read Miss Coulson’s blog about digital stories, and I was glad to see that I was not the only one that was confused and intimidated by this task. Similar to Lydia, I too used searching for photos as a way to get started but not having to interact with the technology side of the task.

How on earth was I supposed to do this?

When we started in class, we were using Macs, and most people seem to have Macs at home too. But not me.

So I was faced with the challenge of figuring out how to do it on a PC. Luckily we had been informed about the program photostory in class.

I downloaded it and felt brave.

I gave it a go and was amazed to see that even an unexperienced person like me was able to quickly put together a digital story.

Amazing!

Well here it is enjoy and forgive me for the few mistakes in it as I’m still learning.

M²?

When I sat down to do my Maths assignment yesterday, I was sure that my computer knowledge was at least good enough for this. All I had to do was create a worksheet. How hard could that be?

How wrong I was.

Everything went well to start off with, I had all my questions ain mind and just had to find a nice picture. So far so good.

Yes, maths sheet is finished, now all I have to do is write the answers down.

Oh no, area calculation. I need to put a little 2 over the m to create square metres. How on earth do you do that?

I looked around on my keyboard to see if I could find some clues.

Nothing.

thanks to this flickr'r

I asked matt who was unfortunate enough to walk in at that moment.

Again, nothing.

Oh no, this is really frustrating, who would be able to help me?

Well, why not just google it?

Wow, within seconds I got 40 results all telling me how to do it and the different techniques for the varieties of keyboards. So now I know, all I need to do is press Alt Gr and 0178 and pop, there is my little 2.

Thank goodness we have no evolved to web 2 where people can ask questions and share their knowledge.

My maths assignment was saved!

Teaching right around the world

Today we had a video lecture during class. Carmel joined our lesson and gave a speech about the use of digital stories in the classroom.

The experience got me thinking. Her appearance in the class definately added  to the lesson.

Could I use this in my own lessons?

I intend to teach my students German. How exciting would it be, if we could have a video conference with a German class who are learning English? Wouldn't it be the best way to use your language skills by speaking to a native speaker?

I'm fortunate enough to know some primary school teachers in Germany and I'm really looking forward to trying this new way of teaching  out.

A video conference could be like virtual travel overseas, providing students to use their language skills first hand. Especially in Australia, as you can't just get in your car and drive to another country just for lunch.

I'm looking forward to it!

thanks to this flickrer

The flying classroom

When I began to read the article "Digital Video Goes To School" by Hoffenberg and Handler I was intrigued by the idea but also felt somehow reserved. Is the use of videos in the classroom really beneficial to the students?
As I continued to read, I changed my mind. "Wow, you can use video technology for all these ideas and benefits?"
I mean,yes, I know, children have always enjoyed sharing their ideas and work with their families and friends, even from other classes.
So far this has been a bit tricky.
I had only just prepared my script for my digital story and reflected on one of my own learning experiences.I remembered creating a dinosaur world with my classmates and I also remember how very proud I was when they went on exhibition and the entire school came to see them.
So what if the audience could have been extended?
If we had made a documentary on our project and filmed it, we would have been able to share the entire weeks work with other classes from all over the world.
This wonderful learning experience could have been shared with other teachers and students. The video could be used to share teaching and learning ideas with other teachers, helping each other to create the best learning environments possible.
And just imagine how cool that would have been for us students!
So why not be brave and explore the new?

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The more I'm learning about the use of technology in classrooms, the more I get scared. But I also get very excited about the possibilities open to us.
I hope I will be able to extend on my knowledge further throughout my entire teaching career, proving my students with some inspiring and innovative learning experiences.
I want my students to love learning, and I think the use of technology may make this a possible task.
Now it's just up to me to be on top of the new ideas and not to be too scared to try something new. 

Does nature make you smarter?

I just read Jane's blog and I completely agree.
The environment in which we study does affect our learning. If you sit in a sterile room filled with noises, are you really able to take in new information?
How do I learn?
I have to admit, I often struggle to be motivated to sit down and study. especially when the weather is nice and I have to sit inside and look at my walls.
But do I have to? NO! I recently decided that I don't have to sit in the study. On a nice day I sit on the balcony and enjoy the sun. This has made it a lot easier for me to actually begin with my work.
And on a rainy day? Well what could be more inspiring than sitting on my couch with my work spread around me, cuddled up in a blanket and holding a cup of hot chocolate? (Besides the look on my partners face when he sees the mess in the normally clean living room ;) ).

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So yes, I agree, the environment in which we study has a great impact on what we learn.
A challenge to create an inviting and innovating room for my class to learn to their full potential!

Learning through sharing

As you have probably noticed from my previous blog posts, I'm unsure about the necessity of it use in the classroom and as teacher education. During my last professional experience class we had to look at blogs by "famous" teachers.

Why, what's the point in that? How could their blogs possibly help me in my own teaching?

Ah well, I did as I was told anyway and gave it a go.
Oh my god! These teachers are sharing their ideas and experiences on their blog. They have their resources listed and we can actually use them.

Wow! What a time saver and how much help!

Rachel Boyd shares her delicious account for example. And it includes some very interesting and valuable websites.
So, there is a point in blogging after all.
This enables teachers from all over the world to share their ideas and knowledge with each other to help each other grow in their role as a teacher.
 I AM INSPIRED!

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I-what?

It is amazing. Every Monday morning I walk out of my Professional experience class and am amazed, no worried, about how much I don't know. We learnt about podcasting. I then read an article by Vardy, Kervin and Reid who suggest the use of I-pods in education. Of course, i know i-pods and straight away I felt a bit more up to date than I had after the previous articles. I can relate to that. Wow, I even have one, maybe this is a way I can integrate technology into my classroom, without being completely stressed out about it.So I continue reading.

Using I-Pods to focus on the children's listening and talking abilities. Wow, what a great new way of teaching. Which student wouldn't want to participate in this activity. Students nowadays are so in touch with technology that teaching them the old way is starting to look silly. technology is part of their everyday life (and of mine, now that I think about it.)

According to Cox (2005) students have been missing out on this very important strand of the English syllabus. Listening and talking. And are they not the most important skills? How could anyone possibly be expected to write outstanding essays, if they never learned how to listen and articulate themselves.

So why not use an I-Pod to help? students could listen to music, poetry or even parts of movies. Simply listen. They could then create something of their own in regards to what they have just listened to. Creating a poem about your favourite song and then loading it up on to your I-pod so that they can listen to their work. Is that not a great way to see and show what you have learnt? All this combined with following the curriculum. And I'm not even too scared to try it. maybe there are some uses of technology out there that can help us "oldies'  ease our way into teaching with technology?!

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Podcasts, the new way of blogging?

thanks to this flickrer


Podcats... until about a week ago I only thought of podcasts relating to radio stations. I thought a podcast is a great way for me to get my favourite radio show onto my ipod, but I never though that I would create my own, especially not in an educationally sound way.
     But I did...
On Monday I was faced with the task of creating my first podcast in class. And it wasn't just me rembling on about something insignificatn, it was about a reading about IT uses in the classroom. it was very daunting to record my own voice and post it publicly on the internet, ready for everyone to hear.
    But again, I did it....
So for everyone who is intersted in hearing my new acquired skills, feel free to check it out.
Bye for now

Learning at the speed of children

 Pink Sherbert

I just read a very interesting blog by Jane and it verbalised my feelings and fears about learning about technology at the same pace as children. I completely agree that children seem to be always up to date with the newest technologies and I find this extremely difficult. Of course, I too depend on technology, but by far am I up to date. The challenge of having to know more than my future students is daunting as I just don't seem to be able to keep up. 

I just found a website with interactive tutorials about a large variety of computer programs that educate you on how to use them. What a great idea, hopefully the atomic learning website will help me in my professional development.

Is it possible to learn with technology or do we merely learn from it?

I read an article by Jonassen et. al. today, and it really got me thinking. Jonassen et. al argue that teachers have not been using technology in the right way. So far, technology has been used to transport knowledge to the students, but according to their research this is far from beneficial to the students. According to Jonassen et. al. students should be actively involved in the learning and not just be talked to and spoon fed. They believe that students don't just need to be actively involved but the learning also has to be meaningful.

    I agree. But how do we ensure that we provide our students with these technological learning experiences? Educational technology has come a long way from paper and quill, to blackboards, radio, TV to computers. But as technology evolves the risk of teachers lacking behind grows. There are so many ways of using today's computer technology but not every teacher can know each and every way of using it. That is why I believe that teachers should work together on this, continuously broadening their minds to the possibilities of technology,  this would include in services and the sharing of ideas and resources with other teachers. Technology is ever evolving and it is difficult for everyone to stay on top of it individually. This is one of the many opportunities for teachers to work together and help create the best learning opportunities for the students.

       I'm really looking forward to these new innovative teaching strategies as I'm sure that they will change and improve teaching a great deal.



Photo by hinkelstone

Internet- Jungle or Forest?

Please go online and find a good, usable interactive website for K-6.  With this task on hand I started to search the internet. But where do I start? And how do I know if the websites are any good. I begin with googling interactive websites and of course there are hundreds...
        Believe me, even though it seemed like an easy task, I spent a long time in front of my computer doing some research, and to be honest, I did not find my results particularly innovative.

              I then went to class, a little disappointed in my own ability but at least not empty handed. The class grouped into pairs and we tried to analyse and evaluate the websites we had found. It turned out that lots of the other students had experienced similar difficulties, and others found some amazing resources. We were then introduced to a website called Delicious something I had not heard of before. This turned out to be a great website where people can bookmark their websites and tag them. But this was not all, as we tagged the websites, we were able to see what other websites under these tags had been added by other people. This also showed how many other people had tagged certain websites. This is a fantastic feature as you seem to be able to judge the site's popularity by the amount of users tagging it.

               This opened my eyes to just how big the internet really is, but I also hope that using a site like this may narrow the big jungle of the internet down to a small sized forest. I'm looking forward to experiment with my new knowledge and hope that I will be able to find some wonderful and innovative websites for the classroom.

Thanks to frielp for this photo.

Technology - a replacement for hands on learning activities?

thanks to this Flickr'r

   

     When I recently read a text I was strongly reminded of my time in primary school. Back then, we used to engage in hands on activities, building with blocks, cutting up fruit, painting, drawing pretending and playing a vast variety of classroom games. The only time we ever used a computer was when our teacher was off sick and the principal took over. Wewere then able to play Packman. Of course, times have changed and if students now talk about their computer experiences, I'm sure they would go far beyond my first experiences.
       I was also always one of the people that believes that children are missing out on a lot of hands-on experiences as they sit in front of their Nintendo or Wii and engage in make believe situations. What happened to just going outside and kicking a ball or engaging in pretend play with your friends?
       Resnick now argues that children can engage in creative activities through new technology... But can they really? Of course, it is a great opportunity to be abe to use all the newest technology to create your own machines and robots, but isn't that only one way of creatively expresing yourself? Is that not restricting the children to only one medium? And who will pay for all these "wonderful"  creations? Aren't there other, much more important things that need to be focussed on?
Don't get me wrong, I believe that technology is an exciting and important addition to our education and children should become familiar with them as early as possible, but should they really replace the good old paintbrush, blocks and dress-up clothes? I think not. Addition Yes! Replacement No!
So here we go, a great challenge for teachers to be able to integrate all the new and old ways of learning to provide your students with the most effective leaning environment!

The beginnings

Hi everyone and welcome to my Blog! I'm a second year student at University and I'm studying primary education. After finishing school in 2004, I moved from Germany to Australia and I have been working in childcare since. I always wanted to be a teacher and when I was finally able to start uni in 2010 when I became entitled to Australian citizenship. I was extremely excited and also very scared, but it turned out to be the experience of a lifetime.

This is my first blog and I must admit that creating this as part of my course was an intimidating task, as I'm not particularly confident with this new technology. I have been familiar with the basic use of computers and the internet, such as using word and writing e-mails, but anything beyond that has always been daunting for me. I'm very excited about this course and I hope that it will help me discover some of the benefits this new technology has on teaching. I'm sure that this knowledge will help me become a better teacher who is in touch with modern methods of learning and teaching. I hope that this will help enable me to provide my students with fun and interactive activities to ensure that they will enjoy their learning.