Education as a Student Teacher

As one of our tasks in class this semester we had the option of creating our own Web quest or LAMS task.  Rachel and I decided to make a LAMS task as this was new to both of us.

We created a task for stage 3 based on the Antarctica section of the H.S.I.E syllabus.  It was quite easy to pick up how to use the program.  The hardest part was coming up with the ideas to incorporate into the task that were making the most of the online medium and were creative and linked to the syllabus.

With the right scaffolding I dont see why students couldn’t create their own LAMS tasks for other students… something to consider when I finally have my own class.

What do students learn when they play games?  More importantly, what do students learn when they create games? A presentation from Scratch, an online computer program that enables children to design and create their own computer games, suggests that students learn vital mathematic and computational ideas. What is also great is the children are learning these concepts in fun and meaningful context.  By creating their own game, students are involved in the design process and use a number of higher order thinking skills.

I developed a game using scratch to be used when teaching Antarctica. However, it was very time consuming. Even though the students learn many skills from creating their own games, it would have to be used very wisely in an educational context. I feel that a lot of students would get very frustrated very quickly if they haven’t had a lot of practice with logical reasoning. And in terms of time, you really need to weigh up the benefits and skills learnt with the huge cost of time.

Daniel Meadows defines digital stories as “short, personal multimedia tales told from the heart.”  After completing my own digital story I really feel that students can achieve a lot by making one themselves.

Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling describes a number of skills achieved by students from creating their own digital story.  Such as conducting research, synthesizing large amounts of content and gaining expertise in the use of digital communication and authoring tools. It also helps students to organise these ideas as they learn to create stories for an audience, and present their ideas and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way.

I imaging students would feel a great sense of accomplishment after developing their own story.  Sharing their story with their class mates would then, not only demonstrate their skills in story writing, and their ability to adapt to the medium but would share a personal message.

One of our class tasks for the past few weeks has been to develop and create a digital story. This involved writing a script or story and recording my voice onto garageband. I then chose some photos that matched the story and used iMedia to create a movie. The criteria was that the story had to be based on education…

Have a look, hope you like it!

For a few years know I’ve heard lots of people talking about these so called ‘SMART’ boards. I finally saw one just last week at a school where I work. I’ve never seen how these boards work so I thought I’d do a bit of research.

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After looking at this power point slide about them I learn in the first two slides that the boards require a computer, and can be attached to a DVD player or a VCR.

The SMART boards are able to save work that has been written on them and are touch sensitive.

With the white board able to connect to the internet, it really opens up the possibilities for collaborative work such as wikis or blogs. It also suggests ideas like virtual excursions and field trips.

The uses for these are amazing and seem much more accessible than some of the mobile devises I have learnt about recently.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/extraketchup/408727666/

I recently finished my 5th prac at a school in Sydney with a Kindergarten class.  The school has a specialist teacher for the teaching of computers.  The students have computers for half an hour a week and I was able to observe one computer lesson whilst on prac.  The students were involved in drawing pictures using a free program known as Tux Paint.  The students really enjoyed using this program and were making some quite impressive works.

I have concerns though about how much students can learn when they only have 30 mins a week on the computers. The Kindy class took at least 10 mins just to log in.  If students are being encouraged to create their own movies, computer games and tasks, then they are going to need more frequent access to computers than once a week.

Whilst doing some work on another assignment, I came across a great article on computer games. The article is based on the idea that computer games could soon be used in formal educational settings as they are proving to promote socialisation and literacy. The article describes computer games as the “most powerful learning technology of our age.” Researchers and game companies are looking for ways to develop ’serious games’ where learning is integrated in to ‘real-world’ situations. There are of course a few hurdles that are mentioned: the issue of violence, and what “exactly” will the students learn form the games and how can we assess them? and finally, how would students feel if we brought something they enjoy doing in their free time into the classroom?

I’m not sure how well bringing computer games into the classroom will work, especially when a lot of schools only have 30 mins a week with computers. I also feel that the interest and motivation won’t last and that students will soon get bored of them. Then there is the case of students who don’t even like computer games, what will be the cause of action for them?

While viewing this vodcast on mobile learning my mind wonder a little and began to think how “it’s not true that technology is used that much” so I thought a little harder and realised that I really do use technology ALL the time! When I’m not on the lap top my sister is, just today I received a picture on my phone of my boss’s baby born last week, I’m constantly email people from uni about assignments or group meetings, in my last job i used a PDA to send the information from different stores to the head office.

We really are totally immersed in technology so it makes sense to use it for educational purposes. Some of the points that the clip raised included increased concentration, self paced learning, children who work fast can do extra work on mobile technologies or ones who are struggling can do extra practice. Students are more likely to repeat work to get 100% on the mobile devices as opposed to paper work. Privacy in learning, students can learn about topics that often hard to learn about in a face to face situation, such as personal development.

So many articles about ‘new technology’, the internet and how it will be used in the future insist on changing and developing the good old three R’s (reading writing and arithmetic). Sara Armstrong and David Warlick article is no different. They explain that with new technology reading will become “Exposing Knowledge”, arithmetic will be “Employing Information”, writing will become “Expressing ideas compellingly” and they add a fourth “E” “Ethics: right and wrong on information highway.”

I totally disagree with these ideas. Although technology is playing an increasing role in our society, I believe that the three R’s cannot be replaced. Technology is only adding to the things that must be learnt by students today.

Not only do students have to learn how to read, they have to learn to discriminate what they read at a much greater level than ever before.

Not only do students have to learn to write, but now there are even more ways of communicating ideas, will i podcast? this or film it? or write it on my blog?

Students will need to learn a lot to do with new technologies but it is in addition to what they already learn in aim of being literate in society, not in place of it.

After skimming through The Computer Delusion by Todd Oppenheimer, something he wrote really hit home for me, “computers at best engage only two senses, hearing and sight  – and only two-dimensional sight at that”.  Even if the kids are creating 3D models on the computer, its still a 2D replication of a 3D idea.  And where does this leave the kids how learn best kinaesthetically?  This article takes me back to my first post, where I explained that I believe kids need to do and make things in the world around them.