blog

Kidspiration

Mon, 30 May 2011 15:55:27 +0100

I have resently found a fantastic site that was mentioned in the text book Meaningful Learning with Technology. Kidspiration is a mindmapping tool for young children in primary school. I have downloaded the free 30 day trial as I could see many applications of using this tool in a school setting with students at Educational risk (who I work with) and special needs children because of the amazing images and talking tool. To link to this site click on the image.

finishing touches

Sun, 22 May 2011 11:16:50 +0100

I have spent a hour checking through my website, making sure I haven't missed anything out. While checking out my pages I noticed a couple of error, mainly cosmetic, and fixed them up pretty quickly. I have enjoyed this unit, the hands on learning, although was very daunting at the beginning, has since become my most enjoyable units. I would like to continue with my website after this unit finishes. The text book refers to lots of differnt types of technology that could and is being used in the classroom. One of the chapters I enjoyed was chapter 9, visualising with technology. It was this chapter that gave me the idea to use Google Earth as my second resource, and after looking at Dani's lesson using Google Earth - Tsunami - it made me want to look into the site further. The lesson I decided on was on estimating distances. I used Realmaths.org. http://www.realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/RealWorldMath.org.html and found this site to be full of fun activities. I have since introduced the website to other teachers at the school I work at via the school intranet, the year 6 teacher is going to trial it in one of his lessons.

Linking images to external link

Sun, 22 May 2011 11:46:18 +0100

I have spent sometime including a comment box into my blog page. I realise it has taken me a while to do this, the reason I have taken so long is that I was worried about the kinds of comments I might receive from people. I have heard from friends that you can get some offensive comments. So after reading backover the text book, and looking at how you can filter your blog page (chapter 6 p 120) I decided to include a comment box. As a result, I received feedback from a friend on my comment box, who suggested I could improve my website by providing additional links to external sites by hovering over the screen shot images I have on the teacher resource page. I thought this was going to be one of those tasks that was way above my computer skills, but I was surprised to find it was just a simple case of double- clicking on the image, click on choose a link and continue as normal, which is; choose a page- external link- copy and paste url site into the box- save. Easy! I now have links to all the sites on teachers resources, people can hover over the image or title and that will take them to the website. Very pleased with myself, and thanks to my friend for the advice.

Blog comment box

Tue, 17 May 2011 10:33:46 +0100

Today I spent some time including a comment box on my blog site. To the comment box I had to open an account with Discus, then decide what limitations I wanted on the site, I copied and pasted the html code into the yola html widget, had some one comment in the box and wow, I had another dimetion on my website. However, I've come to view it tonight and there is no comment box! Back to the drawing board- perhaps I forgot toclick save? Some days are so frustrating ! I'll have another go.

Text boxes and Yola

Mon, 16 May 2011 15:02:31 +0100

I have decided to include screenshots of my lesson outline and although I have found working with yola is getting easier there are limitations to it in regard to text boxes. Through trial and error, I have found the easiest way to make my pages work for me is to start off with the page layout as a single column rather than have multiple sections on the page. That way I can chop and change and include text and picture widgets more easily. I have also posted on the discussions board for feedback on my website, just to get a feel of how its progressing. Sarah said it was great- thanks Sarah, and someone else suggested the layout of my teacher resource page needed shuffling. I knew just what she meant! So I have spent some time on that tonight and hopefully it looks more appealing. Thanks for that.

Group assignment

Sun, 22 May 2011 11:09:15 +0100

Well, we have finally finished our group assignment and have submitted it. We are all really pleased with the outcome, personally I have learnt so much from this unit in regard to using new software. One of the most exciting new products I have used was jing. I have learnt to screen capture documents and photos and send them via Skype to other members of my group. I have also used jing for personal use, capturing photo's and croping into an album is so much faster with Jing.During the school holidays I had access to the new SMART table,here is a link to the site http://www.smarttech.com/table. It gives ideas on how to use the SMART table and the really good thing about this is that it uses the same apps as an ipad.The SMART table was an interactive resource was fun to use and the clarity of the images was amazing. My friend and I used both hands to simulate four children using the table and we found it to work well. I thought it was very much like a huge ipad fixed into a large plastic table! I can see many benfits for using this with children with special needs and I would love to see it used in a classroom setting. One of the drawbacks I could see for this type of technology is the cost, although we had not been told of the price, we were told they were more expensive than the interactive white boards. I wonder how many schools willl be able to afford this type of technology?

Assignment 2a- Template

Wed, 04 May 2011 02:59:04 +0100

As we had to use a template in our part 2B assoignment I thought I'd apply the knowledge I'd learnt from that task to creating a template I needed to complete a task in 2A. I have created the document I wanted and was very happy with it. I opened up a template in microsoft word - letter heads- and tried to copy and paste my already completed doc into the template. No matter how many different ways I try I can not get the document to paste into the template. I am so frustrated that something so straight forward can be so complicated. The result I have google searched the answer, but no of the replies have been successful. So I am posting it on our discussion board, hopefully someone can tell me what step I'm missing out.

Teacher resource 2

Sun, 22 May 2011 11:56:31 +0100

I have at last finished my teacher resourse 2 example.However, I am a little disapointed with myself for not using the ipads as a teaching tool. I searched for a number of sites and came up with the Apple.com home page which has an education section, it shows teachers how to use the ipad in the classroom the link is.http://www.apple.com/education/?aid=Edu-IntSearch-C I was a little unsure wether to use this site as the lessons were Applications to use on the ipad and I really ran out of time looking for an 'authentic' lesson to use. Unfortunately I have had some family issues which took up alot of my time- so I had to go with a safer option and use Google Earth, Estimating Distances. The site that I found this from was very interesting- I would recommend it to other teachers to use, the link is http://www.realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/RealWorldMath.org.html and was one that Dani used as his example. In the text book Meaningful Learning with Technology , chapter 9 looks at mapping and GPS software and Google Earth, so I thought I would use that as my lesson 2 for teacher resource in my assignment 2b. I have learnt many new skills in this unit, some of them small but time saving, for example I have learnt how to hyperlink a page by right clicking - something I never knew how to do before today! This was just purely trial and error, I knew I had to link the page and I tried saving the page as a file and attaching it as a link but with no success. I had to save the file to my desktop as a 'save copy to link' and then I saved it to my document as a hyperlink. Small steps to some people - huge steps for me.

Endnote

Sun, 22 May 2011 12:05:53 +0100

Well, I have at long last used Endnote! It took me a whole day starting at 10am and believe it or not I finally put my laptop away just before 2am! This unit is based on authentic learning experiences and I am one of those people who benefit by 'doing' rather than listening or reading, but I am looking forward to being able to use these technologies more confidently and more inportantly- quickly! As I said, I have now looked into Endnote, but I had to view the video Jenni and Dani made to assist us. In fact I have now watched those clips on how to edit and reference in Endnote more than 4 or 5 times in the last 2 days. The clips that have been placed on the resource page have been the most useful tool for me in this unit, that, and the Skype EDN 113 chat. I could not figure out how to import a journal Article from the Murdoch library site into my Endnote library, I typed the problem into the Skype chat and within minutes Donelle replied. After sending her a jing screen shot of the page I was on, she was able to direct me to the download button on the library website. The link was 'import' and I just could not see it!! Now I have tried Endnote, I will now use it with my other units hopefully eliminating any referencing mistakes.In the lecture and also on the disscussion board there have been many references to EndNote, there has also been a number of videos produced for use to watch to assist us in our learning of this new resource. I have found this to be of great benefit, as I am new to EndNote I actually found it easier to open up the tutorial Dani had made and follow it step by step as I installed my new refernce into my EndNote library.

Interactive white board lesson

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:14:27 +0100

Today I actually managed to start on my assignment 2b, the Interactive White Board Lesson. I was so excited to be starting this but as my referencing and technology skills are so underdeveloped ( I know.. that's why I'm here) it has taken me 8 hours to complete!- and I haven't finished the referencing yet! My problem is knowing which part of the site to find the relevent information in. For example, I found an interesting IWB activity- on the Learning Federation website, I clicked on it and had a play around with it, now, how do I reference this site? Is it the Learning Federation home page? Or is it the activity page? I have spent hours going back and forth between the example that Jenni has provided on the EDN 113 unit site and EDN 113 Living and Learning Skype chat! I have found out that the Learning Federation site is referenced as 'Education Services Australia Ltd, 2010. Now I need to figure out how to correctly reference the Scope & Sequence page!