Week 4

Learning Federation

During both our lecture and our tutorial this week we were introduced to The Learning Federation.

This website seems extremely useful and has some fantastic resources for all areas of VELS and the curriculum. The learning objects of this program state that it contains interactive multimedia resources that support learning of concepts and skills in a range of curriculum areas in the P-12 years. I can definitely see myself using this resource to help me teach my students new concepts and skills in many different areas of the curriculum - it's fantastic!

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Inspiration Task - Dreamtime Stories

Our first task for today was to choose and watch an aboriginal dreamtime story from the Dust Echoes website, these stories are found at www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/dustEchoesFlash.htm.

There were twelve different stories to choose between and I chose one that is called Mermaid Story. It is a beautifully animated story about an old song man who decides to go walk about as he feels unneeded, unloved and unappreciated by his family. He believes that they do not care about him or his feelings and are not showing him any respect.

On his walk about he finds himself drawn to a water hole where he meets some extremely beautiful young mermaids who show him and take him into their world. He loves singing to them and they admire him and show him the love and respect that he was longing for.

Whilst he is with the mermaids singing, the song man is very happy for quite sometime, until one day he starts to remember and think about his family. He imagines his family grieving about his disappearance and longing to see him again. In his heart he knows that he must make a choice and realises that he misses his family terribly and must go home to be with them. He also realises in his families absence that they do love and appreciate him but he could not see that.

Although the mermaids do not want him to leave as they love him singing to them, they take him back through the water to the water hole where they first met. They say their goodbyes and cry as they watch the wonderful song man walk away out of their lives.

When the song man arrives back to his family they rush up to meet and embrace him. The song man now understands after his experience with the mermaids that he is loved and he does belong here with his people.

Therefore the message in this story is all about belonging and the pull of family and the country.

Once we had watched our chosen story we were then asked to use the Inspiration Program, that we have previously learnt about, to create a retell, or concept map, of our dreamtime story.

I think that this was a very interesting spin on a potentially boring activity such as a retell. I also believe that the students would enjoy choosing their own pictures to use from the story and develop some fantastic skills associated with learning how to do a retell of a story in such a different and dynamic way. As you can see above, this is how I chose to present my retell of the dreamtime story entitled Mermaid Story.

M&Ms

The next activity that we did in our tutorial was a spreadsheet activity using M&Ms. It is a simple activity that is both enjoyable and educational for the students and can even be achieved in classrooms that only have one computer (it would just take longer).

Using a packet of M&Ms and Microsoft Excel the task requires students to sort all the M&Ms from their packet into their respective colours. Once they determine how many M&Ms of each colour they have, they need to input these amounts or results onto a spreadsheet in excel. Using these figures the students need to then design a spreadsheet that graphically shows their results. They can also include other pictures to be as creative as they like, however they must ensure that they have included all the colours that they found in their packet and the correct amount of each colour is displayed in their graph.

Below is an example of a spreadsheet design that I did in our tutorial.

This activity is a mathematical sorting activity that can also include prediction tasks. This can occur if you were to ask the following questions, for example; If the packet is brown will there be lots of brown? If the packet is yellow will there be lots of yellow M&Ms in that packet?

Once each student or pair of students have created their spreadsheet of colours found they can discuss the results as a class and perhaps the teacher can make a whole class M&M graph that incorporates everyone's results together.

At the end of this task there will be some questions that the students will be required to answer. These questions are designed to ensure the students are thinking about the activity they have just done and showing the knowledge that they have learnt. Some sample questions may be:

How many M&Ms were in your packet in total?

How many blue M&Ms did your packet have in it?

Why do you think some colours don't appear too much in each packet?

What colour is your favourite?

If you were to do this activity with older students you could also include some chance and data related questions and activities.

Again I think that this is a great activity that I can see myself incorporating into my classroom. Obviously you need to be mindful of allergies (especially nut allergies) but it is definitely a good activity that could be done with something other than M&Ms if necessary. Not only does this activity help students with their numeracy skills but it also incorporates literacy, ICT and social skills too. It is fun yet very educational at the same time - definitely suits my teaching style!

Week 3

Design Briefs

During this weeks tutorial Greg started by speaking to us about the importance of design briefs within the classroom. When we speak about technology nowadays most people think of computers. However technology is not and therefore should not be thought of only in an ICT sense. Many problem solving activities, that have a technology influence or background, do not require the use of computers to reach a solution. Greg showed us an example of a design brief that could be used in the classroom for any group or individual problem solving activity. The sheet or page is broken up into boxes with the following headings - problem to be solved, investigate/design, produce, resources and analyse/evaluate. Some reasons why students need to use design briefs is firstly so that they are able to build and create problem solving ideas and solutions, as well as learning how to work and cooperate with each other. It is also teaching a process with the expectation that the students will develop thinking skills and more specifically higher order thinking skills such as collaboration, researching and enquiry/inquiry. I feel that the most important part or box on the sheet is the evaluate box. It is very important for the students to evaluate and reflect on what they have done so that they can learn what they could have done differently or better. It is also important to evaluate the teamwork of the group and the level of cooperation and decision making that occurred as well as the final solution to the initial problem.

Making Frogs Jump

In our technology workshop this week we were given a design brief and the following items to use - a piece of cardboard, a rubber band, some sticky tape and a picture of a frog. Our aim or problem to be solved was to use all the materials to design a frog that jumps. Rob and I decided to fold our piece of cardboard into thirds and stick our frog picture onto the card. We then thought to hold the cardboard down with our finger to create the potential energy or the stored energy and that meant that when we lifted our finger off the cardboard the frog jumps across the table.

We found in our design that we did not need to use our rubber band however because the design brief was to use all the materials we simply wrapped it around the cardboard. It is therefore worth mentioning that we only put the rubber band on to met the design brief not to enhance our frog to jump further or higher. In looking back and evaluating our design we discovered that there were actually a couple of different ways that we could have used our rubber band to help our frog jump further and also potentially higher.

Some other groups in our class had some great ideas that were very different to ours. Some groups used the cardboard as a type of launching pad and then used the rubber band to flick the frog and therefore make it jump. The groups that used this design found that it was better to put some of the cardboard onto the back of the piece of paper that had the frog picture on it as it increased the weight of the frog and therefore the height and distance that it travelled was also increased. The fact that our peers in my class came up with different designs to solve this problem showed me that this activity does have many different ways to be solved.

On a larger scale this further enlightened me to the fact that the students in my classroom will have different ideas and ways of solving the same problem, which should all be acknowledged and recognised as different ways to solve the same problem. As long as the frog jumps it is solving the problem, and it doesn't necessarily matter how far or how high and it definitely doesn't matter which group had the best design. There is no right way or best way to solve the problem!

www.quia.com/web

The next part of our workshop involved making online games using the following website www.quia.com/web This is a fantastic website that enables users to make and design their own quiz, activity or survey for other people to have a go at answering. We were able to use the 30 day free trial available on this website to make a quiz and an activity that can be played anywhere in world! I would very much like to use this activity with my grade perhaps at the end of a topic so that the students can display how much knowledge they have gained and learnt throughout the term. It would also be fun to get the students to give each other their quizzes to see how tough students can make their questions and also how well they are able to answer them. During our tutorial we had a go at making a quiz and I chose to make some multiple choice questions about water conservation (see image below), as this is our topic for our web quest, so I was experimenting with what the students might come up with. I found the program very easy to use and I think students would be more than capable of making their own quiz.

We also had a go at designing an activity and I chose to try the game hangman. This was also very easy to design and could definitely be used in the classroom. I feel that it not only increases the students ability to play these games and therefore develops that part of their brain, but it also teaches them how to think in a different way by making them come up with the questions. This therefore requires them to think about what are the appropriate hints or clues that can be given without giving away the answer completely.

Overall I think this website is fantastic and has so much potential to be used in my classroom - especially if I have a grade 4, 5 or 6. I enjoyed thinking on that wavelength and I am sure students would love to as well.

Week 2

ePortfolios
Today in our lecture and tutorial we learnt about ePortfolios. An ePortfolio is an electronic or digital portfolio that contains a collection of evidence that is assembled and managed by a user and displays progress and achievements. In other words it is a compilation of student work made up of documents and achievements that are displayed in such a way that others can see how their skills have developed and progressed. We were shown an amazing example of an ePortfolio in the lecture today that was very motivating and inspiring. As a mother I would be absolutely blown away if my daughter's teacher went to the effort of making something this detailed and fantastic for her. On the flip side as a teacher I would not like to guess how long and how much time has been spent developing and compiling these ePortfolios that are of such a fantastic and detailed standard. However I think that completing ePortfolios for my students would definitely be very rewarding, especially if I managed to achieve something as impressive as the example shown. I feel that it is also very important to note that not only did this ePortfolio look visually fantastic but the content was also very thorough, relevant, detailed and showed
evidence of student learning and reflection.

As shown in the diagram ePortfolios are not only for students and educational purposes but they can also be a great resource to have in order to provide evidence of professional development and employability when seeking new employment. Therefore to have one of our assessment tasks as making our own ePortfolio I think is a great opportunity for all of us, as pre-service teachers, to develop a new skill, that will not only be useful with our students but also provide us with a tool to hopefully assist us in getting our preferred job next year. It also provides us with an opportunity to reflect on where we are in relation to our teaching career, where we see ourselves in the future and what we as individuals can bring to a school. At this point in our course I am extremely pleased that the work and assessment tasks that we are doing are not only relevant to our course but they are also very useful and valuable tools that we will be able to use throughout our careers as teachers. I am also very grateful with the chance to reflect on what I'm doing, how I feel about it and what I would like to accomplish in my future teaching career. When we construct our own ePortfolio it is important to include our resume/CV in order to show evidence of our achievements and awards. It is also very important to include what area of study our bachelor degree was in, particularly having done this course as we need to show what experiences we have in other fields other than teaching as well as how these experiences could help benefit my teaching career.

Applying For a Position
In our tutorial yesterday Greg also kindly talked about and assisted us in thinking about the job application procedure. The application process involves completing an application form in which we need to address some key selection criteria as well as including our resume and a letter of application.
The most important message that I got out of this tutorial is to make sure that I have answered the key selection criteria in the application. The other very important, yet obvious message, included making sure that we keep to any application requirements, for example if they ask for 3 referees do not include 2 or 4, and likewise if they specify that the application should be no longer than 10 pages do not write 11 pages or use 6pt font to cater for the extra page. These requirements are set for a reason and if a lot of applications are received for one position then the selection panel will be looking for an easy way to reduce the number of applications they need to read.

If you are lucky enough to be short listed for a position and are therefore selected for an interview, the following points are how you should approach the interview process:
Interview
- arrive early
- dress appropriately for the school
- make sure that you have researched the school, including their website, so that you can display your interest and knowledge of the school during the interview
- make a point to learn the panel members names so that if John is going to ask you a question you can then turn to look at John
- if you did not hear a question very well or you need time to gather your thoughts ask the panel to repeat the question if necessary
- if it has not come up during the interview feel free to ask what grade level you are applying for
- always have a question ready to ask! eg. what is your mentoring approach? what year level are you looking to fill? when will the new hall that is mentioned on your website be finished?
- never talk money, it is not appropriate
- always shake hands at the end of the interview and make sure that you say "I'm really keen to be part of the team here at Billanook Primary School"
- let other schools know if you have taken a position elsewhere, it is polite

Microsoft Publisher
Finally in our tutorial today we learnt how to use the Microsoft office program called Microsoft Publisher. I personally have not used this program before however I have seen other teachers use it to make various things so I was very keen to learn how to use it. It is a wonderful program that allows you to do some fantastic activities with students. One example of what you can use the program for is to make a brochure. Below is an example of a brochure that I started making about going to Hawaii for a holiday.

Students could be given a project to make a travel brochure and this program would be perfect for them to complete the task. The students may be given, or get to choose, a holiday travel destination that they would like to visit. They would then need to research the city/country including such things as the weather, the cost to fly there, the available accommodation, what things there are to do there, what are the main attractions, who is it suitable for, the population, the currency etc and when they had found out all the information they required they could then use publisher to collate their research information into a travel brochure. As a group today our thoughts were that this program could be used with students from a grade 3 level and upwards, as it is a very friendly and easy to use program for students. A travel brochure is just one example of what you can use Microsoft publisher for, however there are many more applications and uses for this wonderful program. I can see myself practising and becoming very familiar with this program so that I can utilise it to its full potential.