Having the opportunity to develop ourselves professionally.
I found this task extremely hard as I find it difficult to tell people how I really feel although I tried by best to provide 100% honest feedback that I truly believed was my honest opinion…….
Two of my peers rubrics on their individual blogs, marked by me…..
Technology has changed classrooms in many ways. Just think; we now have smart boards, laptops, collaborative thinking and learning, we are able to access information for China, the USA. Technology has opened up doors for education that only a few years ago were never available.
One way technology has changed the original or norm that society would call educating students would be the idea of a ‘flipped classroom’. This is where the responsibility and ownership of learning is transferred from the teacher to the students. Technology is enabling students and teachers are to be able to represent information in many different ways. This will allow students to express their ideas and assignments in ways that are beneficial to their learning styles.
An online site that is available for students to use for presentations is www.prezi.com , this site allows teachers and/or students to make online presentations that can include pictures, YouTube links, files and is a completely online site.
My example of a prezi is included below:
http://prezi.com/kks2abgrh0q3/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
I believe that technology is improving our classroom environments because students are given the opportunities to get information and explore ideas that were never available to us before the internet and collaborative working, although the question still pops into my head: if we are using technology every day, using computers to do our typing, searching the web, will students of the future know what handwriting is or will this become an extinct learning form?
Lifelong learning is learning through our lifetime. This learning used to be a formal form of learning, you would have to enroll in tafe, take a class or a course for something as simple as learning to put your make-up on correctly, but just think how ‘kids these days’ learn to do all these types of things. They simply Google it or watch a YouTube clip. The way in which we are learning throughout our lifetime is changing, we are able to informally learn about topics that were never available to us before. We are able to harness digital skills to make us lifelong learners that extend beyond our schooling.
We are living in the age of knowledge, everybody wants to know why things are happening and the ways in which they can investigate and/or find out their desired answers. Lifelong learning makes finding out these answers and building a knowledge base of how to investigate these answers. Teachers are the people required to embedded students with the skills to lifelong learn.
We need to create lifelong learners……………..
Digital burring is the things that we do in our private digital life that influence what we do in our work/learning digital life. Digital blurring can be the set of skills that transfer between these two different digital worlds, for example taking photos, playing the wii or emailing all provide skills that can be adapted or transferred into other areas of teaching and learning.
Jane McGonigal believes that gaming can make for a better world and after watching her video, I am now also a believer in this theory.
Just think: You are doing a presentation on China, you cannot physically take all your students to China but what if you could virtually expose your students to China, their culture, the food, the people, wouldn’t you want to give each student the chance to do this, virtual worlds can give your students this experience.
There are many other games and online resources that can be used within the classroom to not only enhance student’s digital skills but provide many different learning experiences in all different classroom subjects.
Helpful links
worldwithoutoil.org
archive.superstruckgame.net
My Sploder Example
Digital Fluency is “an evolving aptitude that empowers the individual to effectively and ethically interpret information, discover meaning, design content, construct knowledge, and communicate ideas in a digitally connected world” (Boise State University, 2014, pg1).
Children in schools need to become digitally fluent to be able to move into more complex digital outlooks in higher levels of schooling but also to play a part in our digitally changing society. There are many basic digital processes that students should know by the time they leave primary school, some of these are:
Students don’t need to know everything about these processes but should have a basic understanding of how to use these programs.
Scratch is an example of a basic animation program. Scratch is a completely online site that allows children to create animations and/or games. I believe this site would be a great tool to teach children the different ways of viewing animations and the ways in which basic formations can create animations. I believe this would be a great tool to use as a project assignment for children’s technology work as they can make the animations as complex or as simple as their skills will allow.
I believe that children need to discover and become digital to succeed in our everyday world. This is done by play, exploration and inquiry, children need meaningful learning experiences.
References
Boise State University: Definition of digital fluency. (2014). Retrieved from: http://at.boisestate.edu/home/definition-of-digital-fluency/
Resources
Make movies, games, animations ect Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/20585654/#editor
Digital Information is a tangle of images, text, web links and audio files that provide us with quick, multiple ways of understanding and interpreting information. The way we are receiving information is no longer just written within the pages of a book but, how do we know what information we can trust? Is there information from digital resources that is false and misleading?
Of course there is information available on the internet that is not a viable resource but you just need to be smart about where you are looking and what you are searching. A good idea would be to look at the URL, .gov and .edu sites are run by massive organisations and are viable resources for information.
There are also organisations such as; PANDORA (http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/10691) and National Archives of Australia (http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/digital-transition-policy/benefits-of-digital-information.aspx) that keep information that was once known to us as archives. You would remember these from your local library, parts of history and information. These known sources are turning websites and archives into digital resources that will be consistently available for use within classrooms. These websites would be a reliable source for history components of your currents class and can be used as a learning tool for students to find there information.
http://digitisation.net.au/ provides much needed information for teachers, parents and caregivers who aren’t feeling digital or need a push in the upcoming direction. This site also explains different ways in using technology to gain the most experience and valuable knowledge.
Additional Resources
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO4BgY64XFs (A house run on completely digital technology)
The Digital divide is the difference between the people who have access to resources, new information and tools, such as the internet. It also defines the difference between the people who can use this new technology and the people who can not.
I have made a infograph which not only explains the definition of a digital divide but it also allows you to see and view the statistics of children who are unable to gain access to simple things such as the internet or even evolving technologies.
There are a number of different types of infograph’s but I have chosen this one in particular as it shows information on the digital divide as well as providing images and graphs on the topic. I have viewed a number of infograph’s on this topic and one similarity that stands out among the graph are the use of pictures to tell the information. I believe many people have chosen to take the picture option as it enables the graph to become eye catching.
I have added a lot of information into my infograph which can be seen as a down fall to people who like quick snapshots of what they are reading instead of a paragraph of information. I have seen a very well completed infograph that was comprised with dot points and pictures, I believe this was a very eye-catching and clever graph and provided a opposite view to my own.
As a parent, caregiver or teacher we can’t constantly know nor have a grasp on each website/ digital technology that each individual child is viewing or participating in, especially if you are feeling like a digital immigrant but we can gain insight and make ourselves more digitally aware.
Cyber bullying is a negative use of our new digital age so it is becoming increasingly more necessary to educate our students about the issue and begin prevention technics with all students and children.
Teachers, parents and caregivers need to tackle the issues of cyber bullying collaboratively. Keep an eye on children’s changing behaviour, if they are being withdrawn, this can be a sign of cyber bullying.
Parents, you need to be aware of the websites, apps and channels your children are participating in and viewing. If you are a digital immigrant, then click the link below called ‘Keeping up with your kids online’ to view a tutorial of popular websites and how to parental control your children’s internet viewing.
Teachers, you need to be the adult who is there during the time when the parents are not around. We to need to be digitally aware and become digitally native. Monitor your digital footprint, what are you putting out there? Be the person that students turn to in their time of need. Educate our students on the right ways to use the internet and the effects of bullying.
We do not want children paying the ultimate price, suicide, at the expense of cyber bullying.
Helpful Links
‘Keeping up with your kids online’
http://mediasmarts.ca/tutorial/e-parenting-tutorial-keeping-your-kids-online-activities
‘Bullying, no way’
Resources
Media Smarts. (n.d). Canada’s centre for digital and media literacy: e-Parenting Tutorial: Keeping up with your kids’ online. Retrieved from: http://mediasmarts.ca/tutorial/e-parenting-tutorial-keeping-your-kids-online-activities
Is your child being cyber bullied?(2014). Retrieved from: http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/is-your-child-being-cyber-bullied-signs-uae-parents-need-to-watch-out-for-2014-03-19-1.542156
“A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success”
Xamia's Digital Teaching World 