Assessing With Podcasts
After reading Shalena’s blog posting titled “How to Use Podcasts at Your School”, I am very much convinced that incorporating podcasts into my everyday teaching will successfully result in strengthening my students’ understanding of a range of topics.
Within her posting, Shalena mentions a number of benefits brought about by using podcasts in classrooms, such as the ease of creating them, the requirement of minimal equipment and their ability to “reach a wide audience.” I also am very fond of Shalena’s idea of using podcasts for assessing students so as to “give children a new and exciting way to be creative and express their ideas”. I strongly agree with Shalena on this creative approach to assessing students, as I believe that the way in which students are assessed should vary from the traditional methods and instead reflect the changing world around us.
Source: http://images.apple.com/au/education/profiles/kids_congress/images/index1_k12page3.jpg
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Long Live The Geeks!
As I was perousing the net for some interesting computer images I came across an interesting article called Geek Redefined which looked at the evolution of the term “geek” as displayed below:
Definition of “Geek:”
· Circa 1970 (Merriam-Webster): a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.
· Circa 1990 (common usage): a nerd who loves computer code and techie gadgets.
· Circa 2007 (Wikipedia): an individual who is fascinated by knowledge and imagination, usually electronic or virtual in nature.
I found it interesting to see how having technological expertise is becoming a much more valuable asset as time progresses and technology continues to become more and more highly developed. As discussed in this article, society now has a new found respect for ‘geeks’ and no longer regards them as “nerds with bad clothes” with “no social skills”, but rather as people who are knowledgeable and completely vital in a computer crisis. I think this article just strengthens my desire to make my students feel confident in using technology in the classroom. In doing so, I feel as though I will be preparing them for any technological challenges they may in the future as well as setting them up for success as members of a society where technology is progressing at a rapid pace.
Digital Stories: Teaching Kids Foreign Languages
While I was searching for an article on the net about digital stories, I came across an interesting paper titled “Using digital stories to improve listening comprehension with Spanish young learners of English”. This article examined a study of the effect that digital stories had on the understanding of English by a group of 6 year old Spanish children from six states in Madrid. As I read on I was very much intrigued of how these online stories helped these young Spanish children to grasp a better understanding of the English language. Such advantages of digital stories mentioned within the article include their ability to “facilitate learning since children are actively involved in decoding and understanding the story” as well as allowing student to work at their own pace so that they could “afford a high level of individual control”.
This article interested me particularly, as not only am I studying Primary School Education at university, but also International Studies where I am learning German which I hope to later be able to teach in primary school. Hence, to be aware of the benefits of technological tools, such as digital stories in teaching a foreign language, I can thus incorporate these Internet-based stories into my teaching methods so as to hopefully further develop the listening comprehension and literacy of my students in a playful and enjoyable context.
Source: http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/lisafx/lisafx0709/lisafx070900032/1640209.jpg
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Sand Castles Go Digital
When I reminisce about the days of sand castle building as a child, technology is the last thing that comes to mind. However, after reading Idet Harel’s “Sand Castles Go Digital” I am now enlightened on the subtle link between the beach and the computer, in that they both deal with Seymour Papert’s theory of constructionism. I strongly agree with this theory, seeing that my past experience as a childcare worker has taught me that kids really do learn best when they take charge of their own learning by becoming a designer or constructor. Examples of online constructivist activities are discussed by Jacqui’s in her blog posting on the same article, where she talks of benefits of programs such as bubbl.us and Kidspiration in allowing “students to create mindmaps” which are “clearer and easier to edit”.
I think one of Idet’s most vital point in her commentary was that it was “not the technologies themselves” that were important, but rather “the ways that we use the technologies and think about them.” I believe that if technology is used in a thought-provoking manner as an alternate to the sand castle building technique, it can help to engage children more strongly by enabling them to continue building experience.
Source: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/arts/apictureofbritain/images/gallery/wales/human/3/web/112101392423323168243_1_web.jpg
Uncategorized | Comment (1)Concept Mapping: For Students and Teachers
The article “Mapping Knowledge: Concept Maps in Early Childhood Education” by Maria Birbili discusses not only the advantages of concept maps for students but also for teachers. According to Birbili, such advantages of concept maps for children include their ability to help children “organize and spatially represent both what they know and what they are thinking” as well as “depict relationships amongst concepts”. This in turn enables teachers to discover what it is the student knows and can also be used as an evaluating tool. Teachers can also benefit from using concept maps to help them “to plan, structure, and sequence the content of their teaching”.
I think it is crucial that teachers not only use technology for the children, but take advantage of the benefits they can gain from it too. When I become a primary school teacher, I definitely plan on using on concept mapping not only as an evaluation tool but to also aid my lesson planning.
Computer-based Concept Mapping
After reading fellow blogger’s Hayley’s post regarding the article Computer-based study strategies, I would have to say I’m not surprise that computer-based mapping is becoming so popular in classrooms nowadays. It is true, that children’s written work on a piece of paper does indeed have the tendency to get a bit messy from time to time, so I also agree with Hayley that online concept mapping is a great way for kids to not only express themselves visually but to also correct themselves, should they happen to make any errors. Naturally concept mapping not only has benefits for the children; it also makes the job of marking their work a much more simplistic task for their teachers. By having a comprehensible layout as well on the computer, students can demonstrate their knowledge of a topic in a clear and efficient way as well as engage in creative play by incorporating various colours and images in their concept map.
Source: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/Assets/images/cmsteps.gif
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