The new technologies that I have been shown over this period of this course have shown me some new and exciting ways to go about setting up learning experiences in my classroom. As I am someone who has limited skills on the computer I have enjoyed learning some new skills. I have been shown plenty of information and tools that will be invaluable to me in the future.
The use of ICTS’s in schools has become more and more important in the last 10 years and it is important that we as future teachers keep up with the times and continue to expand our knowledge of ICT’s. Back in 2002, the then Director General of Education Queensland stated:
“ICT’s are at the core of teaching and learning in the 21st Century. Queensland's future depends on how successfully we integrate ICT in the curriculum and daily learning and teaching. ... Many teachers already use computers to enliven teaching and inspire students. In order to build a 21st Century schooling system..., we need teachers to understand how ICT promote higher order thinking skills and deepen understanding in all key learning areas (State of Queensland, 2002)”.
The statement above shows just how important the State government believed the use of ICT’s in the classroom to be way back then. Since then, significant efforts have been made to increase the use of ICT’s in the classroom. In 2005, Smart Classrooms three-year strategy was launched and subsequently set a new direction for ICT in schools. This strategy provided a cohesive, future focused mix of products and services for schools to teach, manage, learn and innovate with new technologies, and specifically focuses on sustainability, utilisation and transformation (Queensland Government, 2005).
Today there are also many learning design frameworks out there specifically designed for ICT’s and in this course we looked at three of these, they were TPACK, Learning engagement theory and The Big Six. Personally I like TPACK as I found it easy to relate the activity types to the essential learning’s and standards set out by the Queensland government for teachers.
If you look at the diagram above you can see that TPACK or Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge is designed to be the integration of teachers’ knowledge of curriculum content, general pedagogies, and technologies. What is also shows is that TPAK can help to combine curriculum-based integration with technologically supported learning activity types within and across the majority of the key learning areas across all subjects. As this is brief overview only, in order to gain a better understanding of TPAK I suggest that you clink on the link to read more. To read more about TPAK please click here.
Today there are more and more technologies that are becoming available and throughout this course we have looked at a few of these. We started by looking at Blogs and RSS aggregators which in I believe to be a very valuable tool to use in the classroom. I believe blogs to be a very valuable resource to use as I stated in my week one reflection (click here to read week one reflection). The RSS aggregator allows the teacher to monitor their students work, as well as to ensure that their student’s blogs are following the rules of Netiquette and being used in a safe and ethical way.
In week one, we also looked at concept mapping and setting up a wiki. Both these tools I believe to be great and I will definitely be using them in my future endeavors both in and out of school. The use of a wiki is a great tool that can be used in a variety of ways. For example, as a wiki is an online space where users and guests can edit, modify, add, and remove information with intuitive editing tools, this can allow the class to work collaboratively to finish a task. The use of a wiki allows for many different people to collaborate and work together and allows students to display higher-order thinking by involving them in the transformation of information and ideas in to a new and exciting media.
We moved on to look at setting up websites, which I found very useful as I have always wanted to know how to set up a website and thought that it could be used in a classroom. The website could be used in the same way as a wiki but it also allows the information on the site to be controlled only by the people that create it, which would allow the teacher or students complete control of their work. I believe that the creation of a web site could be a great assessment piece that could replace a regular old essay or term project especially in History (which is one of my teaching subjects).
The next tool we looked at is Windows Power Point and I must say that as someone who has never used it before I was surprised at the various uses that it can have. In class we looked at using power point in a few different ways, but just the other day I was looking for a tutorial on using it and I came across a new add on that Microsoft has brought out that I believe all teachers should look at and use in their classrooms. It is called Mouse Mischief and below is a link to a demo of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0PIWbwmhg
We also looked at using images and video and as my preferred teaching subject in HPE I already have an understanding how these can be used in a classroom. I recently attended a residential school in Rocky for biomechanics and we used a fair bit of images and digital video to analyze specific body movements of athletes. The use of images and video can help students to understand the way that specific body movement can be done in the correct and most effective way which is important in PE. There are many other uses for images and video but this is just something that I can see as a benefit for using them if I teach PE.
I have to admit I was away sick for two weeks and missed some information that may have granted me the knowledge of how to use some different tools, but I have read the lecture notes and have looked at a few of the other tools and have found a few other that I would probably like to look into in more depth. For example Google maps and Google earth I feel would be beneficial if I end up teaching history. To be able to show the students the exact place on maps and in real time, that significant historical event happened, I feel found help the students to gain a better perspective of the event.
There were other tools that we looked at that at the moment I would probably not use in my classroom at the moment, as I don’t know how to use them yet. I would however like to learn how to use things such as podcasts and animations. I am also interested in learning more about learning managing systems such as black board and moodle as I believe that they will be a valuable tool to use in a classroom.
The longer the course has gone on the more that I have come to understand that ICT’s are now an important tool in the learning experience. I believe that ICT’s can help to engage students in a new and exciting way and allow students to have access to learning anywhere and anytime. I believe that ICT’s can help to promote higher order thinking and will help facilitate ‘life-long learning’.
They can allow students to gain information easily and help transform this information into real life situations. ICT’s can also allow teachers to provide effective pedagogy that can incorporate a variety of different teaching strategies and provide the opportunity for an inclusive classroom environment. Another important thing with ICT’s is that they can be implemented across all key learning areas and subjects.
The only problem that I can see with using ICT’s is that we as teachers should not lose site of the traditional approach to teaching. That is that teachers should not focus too much on using new technology if it is not the best way to teach something. I believe that a mixture of the new and the old will be the best way to effectively teach. If you read my post titled week 5 you can see that I have had a discussion on the way that I would use ICT’s in my classroom.
I would like to finish by saying that I have come to find this subject very beneficial and I am excited about using ICT’s in the future. I will continue to practice using the tools that we have looked at and will also search for any new tools that I could use in my classroom.
References
Queensland Government (2005). Smart classrooms: A strategy for 2005-2007. Brisbane: Department of Education and the Arts. [verified 20 oct 2006] http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/
State of Queensland (2002). Information and communication technologi es for learning: School kit (2002-2003). [viewed 1 Oct 2003, verified 20 Oct 2006] http://education.qld.gov.au/itt/learning/docs/infokit.pdf
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