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 ;) ).

thanks

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!

thanks

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.