Nearly there!

EDC3100 is the last assignment that I have due before the end of the semester. I must say, just like Tiarne and Natalie I will definitely breathe a huge sigh of relief when the semester is over. Since I have finished professional experience I have had so much going on with work and uni that I barely have had time to relax and properly reflect on exactly how well prac went for me. Good thing this last assignment is all about that reflection or I might not have had a chance to reflect at all!

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am so grateful to all of the blogs I follow for inspiring me and providing me with resources and opinions that I wouldn’t have thought of. It’s been thought provoking and interesting to say the least. Until next time, Crystal

Looking Back

In a previous post (this one) I talked about basic digital citizenship. This included a lot about cyber safety and cyber bullying.

When using the internet in a classroom it is always imperative that all sites that are planned to be used have been checked and match the following criteria:

• Relevant information
• No scams or spams
• No inappropriate pop up advertisements

While many school servers block most inappropriate content, it is important to ensure that all sites you show to your class are appropriate in what they display and show. It is also important to show your students how you use your searches to find relevant information. It may also be useful to download or show students how to download something as simple as ad blocker for chrome. This add on does exactly as the name suggests. All pop up ads that would usually come up and tempt impressionable people to click on them, don’t appear. Which can be extremely beneficial in a classroom environment and in an environment where students are given the opportunity to search for their own information using ICT.

What do I know about ICT integration?

Safe and ethical use of ICT:
ICT comes with many many benefits, but it also can come with many dangers. Using ICT in a school needs to be done with caution, particularly if you are using the internet. The internet comes with its own list of scary things such as scams, spam, and cyberbullying.
Scams are where people try to steal your money by asking for all of your bank and credit card details. They can look as though they are from a proper company, however they ask for things that a real company would never ask for, including specific numbers. It is best not to pay for things online unless you are sure of their credibility.
Spam is just emails or ads that are mostly harmless, but annoying. These can come through emails or as pop-ups. Some spam emails or pop-ups can contain viruses which will infect your computer and steal the information that you have stored on your hard drive or they can steal your usernames and passwords straight from the internet.
Cyberbullying is a huge issue that most teens are faced with on a day to day basis. This is where people openly bully another person online. They can use their real or fake account to do this and they send nasty messages to their victims.

The bullying quiz:
I got 50% on this quiz. I thought that most people who bullied others had low self-esteem issues. I was wrong. While they may have other issues, they tend to suffer from high self-esteem issues rather than low. Also, due to the amount of times I was spoken to in school about cyberbullying I was under the impression that it was the most common form, however most of bullying occurs face to face.

CyberSmart kids quiz:
Mostly all of the answers were common sense answers. For the fourth question, I thought about it and got one wrong when I said you can post your email address online. I thought this was okay due to needing it to sign up to pretty much anything, including the sites we were required to sign up to for the course. However, you should not share your email address online… Who knew?

Overall?
Overall I felt I did alright in the cybersmart quizzes and I feel as though I knew quite a bit about online scams and bullying. I can relate this directly to growing up in a world where things like scams, spam, and cyberbullying are considered almost commonplace. While I did get some answers wring on both of the quizzes, I still feel as if I have a fairly good understanding on how to safely use the internet.

PowerPoint Presentations

Scrolling though my reader I stumbled upon this post by chloemprice praising PowerPoint Presentations and honestly I couldn’t agree more. The easiest way for me to effectively integrate ICT into most of my lessons was to create presentations that I would then show to my class.

PowerPoint presentations were my lifeline that I desperately clung to during prac because it proved to be a practical and useful resource. Not only that but it also amplifies my future teaching because I am able to save the presentations and reuse them next year if I teach the same subjects again.

The software also enhances student learning because it is engaging as you typically don’t stay on the same slide for too long and you are able to easily alter the slides if something goes wrong. For example, while I was on prac, an image hadn’t copied properly and it confused the students so I was easily able to remove and replace that image.

PowerPoint Presentations. Thank you for supporting me.

ICT in the Classroom

I am currently trying to plan a lesson for a year 1/2 class where I am introducing the concept of digital clocks in relation to analogue clocks based around o’clock and half past. Which seems great and can be a really great lesson.

So obviously I’m thinking yes, I can incorporate ICT into this lesson. I mean, digital clocks? Yes. So I decide to look for some online sources to help my lesson… and I have found this great site  that allows students to use the interactive whiteboard to put the correct time into the digital clock. The only issue is that for this to be effective, and not just replacement, you would need to  do the activity in small groups… which might not be practical in a classroom full of other students!

What to do…. Bringing in a digital clock might help…. hmmm….

First Day of Prac!

Ok so I’ve just gotten home and settled after my first day of prac! My mentor seems so lovely and my class seems very bright. I know I said I was nervous and a bit worried before but now I have met my class I’m a little less nervous and about the same amount of worried.

For my first time ever I am doing prac in a composite class which scares me a little because the only other ‘school’ prac I have done was a prep classroom. Which leads me to why I’m worried. For our assessment we have to evaluate our ICT integration in the classroom. And I have to plan to ensure both the year levels in my class are being challenged in their learning and thinking. And I am worried that with everything I have going on, either ICT or differentiation could be forgotten about and for the students in my class, it wouldn’t be fair for them to take the hit…

GAH! But now I will just have to think of some interactive ways to use the SmartBoard and 6 iPads in the room… They do have a digital camera though and that counts as ICT, right?

Professional Experience

Tomorrow I am going to be meeting my mentor for the first time and I’m really nervous. I wonder what they are like, what their class is like, how they teach their class, what I will or will not be able to do, are there going to be enough opportunities for me to demonstrate my ability to integrate ICT into my lessons, what if I totally flunk out and suck at teaching?

I know professional experience doesn’t start until Monday and I have most of the weekend to prepare but I am just very worried that I won’t be good enough at teaching. I really hope my mentor is willing to provide me with lots of feedback so I can become a competent teacher.

ICT has so many uses in the classroom but in my experience a lot of classes most commonly use it as replacement rather than amplification and transformation… kind of like how the internet has so many uses but one of it’s main uses is looking at cats. Go on. You know you want to watch it even though you have so much work to do… it’s only 2 minutes and 39 seconds long.

Thank you ICT

So I am currently working on a couple assignments and I have a terrible habit of opening up quite a few different tabs because I think I’ll need the other ones that I have open. In doing this I tend to occasionally go through and close a collection of unwanted tabs or in the unfortunate event that I have so many tabs open, I accidentally close the tab I was meaning to open.

So, thank you history button that allows you to open tabs that you have recently closed. Thank you history button for allowing me to make silly errors and for fixing my mistakes (sometimes). Shout out to you

Organising or Procrastinating?

I know I just made a post referencing Mr Clancy but he really has some great stuff on his blog and if you haven’t seen his blog I suggest you go and look at it… now.

Moving on, he made a post about Organisational Apps. I know a lot about these kinds of apps because I download them onto my phone and organise my life in the calender ensuring to add study time after lectures and between work and social commitments. I download apps like Clear Focus and My Study Life. And these are all great methods and I feel super productive! UNTIL I get to the next day… And I’m meant to study between 2pm and 5pm. Because I have spare time and it’ll really help me get on top of my assignments. And then I look at my calender… And find out when the assignment is due (not for 2 weeks?? I’ve got plenty of time! I don’t need to study now!). And then around 3pm I’ll actually get serious so I’ll get out all my study stuff and I’ll set my timer for 25 minutes (great method as demonstrated here) and I’ll open all the webpages I need for studying. And I’ll get my textbooks and notebook out. And then an hour later I’m somewhere on YouTube learning how to make bubblegum! You can actually learn how to here –> Click me

My Pedagogy

Scrolling through my peers posts I came across this one by Mr Clancy. It’s all about how he has built his pedagogical practice. Obviously, this encouraged me to consider my own pedagogical practice.

As a pre-service Early Childhood Educator, my practice has to be flexible to suit the desires and needs of those who will enter my classroom, whether it’s in a school or a kindy room. Because of this I believe it’s important to first consider how you view your students before you design lessons (or units) for them.

All students are competent and capable individuals with a natural desire to learn as depicted in Summerhill schools where students are free to attend (or not attend) their chosen classes. It is important when you are teaching a classroom full of individuals who want to learn that you don’t form a pedagogy that makes them feel like learning isn’t fun. So many of my teachers took the fun out of learning for me when I was in school and I desperately want to help build a generation of active learners who contribute to their world.