How to Teach Math as a Social Activity

I have just finished watching this video from the web site Edutopia. It made me think clearly about how children are really linking in their declarative knowledge with their procedural knowledge during a maths lesson.

It seems left field to think that math could be a social activity - but this school makes it work. I love in particular that although math is the key learning area the students are learning so much more. The social skills of interacting, observing, taking risks, giving feedback, being a good listener and so much more will be skills they will take with them in life.

I only hope that I can one day incorporate such a variety of skills into a lesson that will assist the students to develop in character.

This is a must see video.

How to Teach Math as a Social Activity | Edutopia

Headlice Powerpoint

I have enjoyed putting my powerpoint together. I chose to complete one that I thought could be altered for various age groups at school. The subject is relevant to all primary school students and with this in mind I wanted to create something that I thought I could possibly use when I start teaching. Head lice is so prevalent in all schools and it is vital that all children understand what it is and how to treat and prevent it from spreading. Its one of those yucky subjects that constantly is embedded in the school health system. I wanted to create a powerpoint that could be used as a discussion starter and interactive way of sharing relevant information. It is designed for lower primary - so only incorporates basic information.

My idea was to create a topic that covered the Engagement theory of Relate - Create and Donate. In addition to the powerpoint student could interact in small group discussions, do think-pair-share activities and I would also send the students home with a information sheet for parents. I think this is a great way to encourage students to take ownership of their own health and the health of others around them.

Power points are so easy to use and kids just love putting things together to show the rest of the class. My daughter, 7 years old, is constantly putting her own powerpoints together for her class discussions - these can be as simple as inserting photos into the presentation with some words to describe what is happening to her full on 2 minute presentation on an Australian animal. She is in her element when she puts her fingers on the keyboard!

I have noticed that when I embedded my powerpoint all my transitions, sounds and some of the colours have either gone or changed. I'm not sure how to fix this at the moment.

Head Lice

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Using Mahara in Primary Schools

It certainly has been a very mind bending week. As part of week 5's activities we were asked to create an e-portfolio - I chose to use Mahara. After completing this we needed to 'play' with the technology for a while and then make a posting about our thoughts, processes and learning opportunities we see for ourselves and our students. This was to be a reflection on the 'making and use' of our Mahara account.

Little did I realise what a discussion I would create when I made a post on the ICT forum! My posting included a simple (and niave) question

I have spent a number of days sorting through the Mahara thing - and have a question to pose to all.

One of the learning activities is to make a posting to our Professional Blog about the process and learning opportunities for you and your students.

My query is that at this point I see little, if any opportunities where I would use a Mahara account with primary school students. I could see the value in teaching senior high school students - putting resume together etc.

Everything I can think of that I would do with primary school students as part of keeping a profile up, displaying work etc I think I would tend to use in a blog setting.

Can people please put me on track as I think I am missing a huge thought process here. I am finding it very difficult to post to my professional blog about something that I don't see a use for at this point. I'm obviously missing something vital!

Initially I was hoping for a straight forward response that would give me the information I needed to say to myself "Oh yeh, how silly of me, of course that is how we would use it". But that didn't happen. There were dozens of answers coming my way and most said the same thing - that they thought an e-portfolio was an amazing piece of technology and they would jump at the chance to use it with children of all ages and that we should remember how tech savey students are today. I agree whole heartely that students should be given every opportunity to expand their knowledge and to embrace a technology that they can use for the rest of their lives - and be completely transferable and functional for them as adults. I heard it all and don't disagree with any of it - but!!!!
I do wonder how to use it effectively with Primary school students. Maybe I'm not as creative as others or not as good at seeing the whole picture but I do wonder if we are looking at just the class we have for this year - and when the students are young is it too much? How young is too young? I don't know....
One of my concerns is, perhaps alittle selfish, but is it too much work for the teaching staff - you would need to photograph, scan upload etc all their work you wish to include - I don't know about other people but I know that teachers are very stretched for time and having to do this for 25 - 30 students for all their important pieces of work would be extremely time consuming. Please don't get me wrong - I think it is a brilliant idea and would love to see it work successfully I'm just having a hard time seeing it realistically.
I do wonder though, if it is possible, for a school to have an account for every child - as part of the induction process they are given (or the parents) an access code for their child's own account. From Prep to Year 7 (and beyond)the school uses the account - with parents able to view what is available and adds to it what is necessary - this would have all the students details on it and it can easily be modified when necessary. The passwords would be transferred with the child when they leave the school. This would allow the student to leave with a fully functioning record of everything that happened for them within their primary years. This just seems like a mammoth task and I'm not sure that many schools would take on the responsibility to set up such a profile for each student.

I had an in depth and thought provoking discussion with a teacher yesterday about this very subject and it was given to me in a light that I had not yet heard. I like it!!! An e-portfolio is a place to store all our files, plans, resources etc etc. What better way to share these then have a system that is open for all teachers to access others within the same school. Can you imagine having access to other teachers ideas, planning and resources to assist you in providing an outstanding educational opportunity to the students in your class? I think this would be an amazing support network for all teachers to take on. Obviously there would be some people who wouldn't want all their information out for others to see, use or make comment on - but saying that we are a 'community of practice' and have the same goals for the students - we need to support each other, work together and share ideas. These are some of the things that can make a good Learning Manager a great Learning Manager.
As you can see I am by no means opposed to using e-portfolios within a primary school setting. I just think that we need to weigh up time, resources, skills of all who need to use it and the reality of how useful it is (at this particular time) to students under the age of 12. If it is parents and teachers putting all the information together and the student not learning from this then it cannot be classified as a learning outcome for the students. I think this is where we need to think about not only what we teach, but how and why we teach it.

Introducing Technology into Teaching

I have just finished watching this video and it brings home how important it is to implement teaching of technology in our schools correctly. The amount of technology available is overwhelming and sometimes I think where should I start? What are going to be the best forms of technology to use and how do I implement them into the lesson plans I need to create?

Shaun Longstreet, Associate Director of Teaching, Learning and Technology Centre at the University of California, Irvine discusses on his video how important it is to be prepared when introducing new technologies into the classroom. Because of the nature of technology, glitches, errors and problems can occur and therefore it is vital to have your so called 'back up plan' ready.

Students need to feel connected to what it is they are learning. According to the Engagement Theory of Kearsley and Shneiderman, students need to find relevance in the activity. Their basic principal of Relate - Create - Donate implies that the learning activities first need to be relevant to the students, they need to be creative and purposeful and they need to be making a useful contribution to an outside audience.

Longstreet (2009) suggests that when deciding what technology to incorporate into your plan:

"always ask if introducing a piece of technology is both appropriate and necessary for achieving a learning goal for the course" and

"it is essential to take the time to explain any technology that you expect your students to use."

Now, although much of this seems fairly common sense I think it is important to spell it out. Sometimes we really need to hear it before going off on a 'designer frenze' getting all the activities ready for our students. It is by far more important to introduce technology tools incrementally to our students than overwhelm them and ourselves with equipment, software and activities we can't use appropriately.

References:

Kearsley, G & Shneiderman, B. (1999) Engagement Theory: A Framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved on 22 March 2010 from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Lonstreet, S.(2009, March 22). Teaching with Technology: University of California, Irvine. (Video File). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lcUpSwwQoI

Using Vokis to assist with Learning Engagement

As part of our Graduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching we have been learning about various ICT's that can be incorporated into teaching activities. Voki is one such ICT. A Voki avatar is a free version of the SitePal avatars. When you create your own avatar you can use them to introduce lessons or segments that are relevant to your subject. These can be embedded into the learning framework and have great potential as a 'hook' into the new subject matter. Not only can we hook a student into an activity but they can potentially create their own avatar as part of the requirements for presentation.

Embedding an avatar into the lesson certainly fits into the Engagement Theory of Kearsley and Shneiderman. Their basic principal of Relate - Create - Donate implies that the learning activities first need to be relevant to the students, they need to be creative and purposeful and they need to be making a useful contribution to an outside audience. Using an avatar to assist in this process would be a powerful tool. The students can work either individually or as groups to complete the requirements of the task and within the task a number of avatars could be used to support their outcomes or just as a creative way of presentation.

I have attached three avatars for demonstration purposes. The first one is Anna from Denmark who is introducing herself and encouraging the students to learn more about her country. The second one is Kiyko from Japan teaching the students about Sumo Wrestling and the third is Penny, a fish from the Great Barrier Reef. She wants to explore with us her home and all its wonders. These are such exciting ways to introduce a new subject to students - and so easy to do - students as young as Prep could put one together, with support.








Marzano & Pickering's (1997) five Dimensions of Learning (DoL) talks about the Attitudes and Perceptions (Dimension 1) of students within the classroom. Good attitudes and perceptions by the students will enhance the learning outcomes for them. We need to engage the students in activities they feel are important, worthwhile and enjoyable. Dimension 5 is the 16 Habits of Mind (HoM). It incorporates within it the need for assignments to be interesting, because if not then we should try and change our experience by looking at the assignment in a new way. "The result may be a more creative final product, a better grade, and hopefully, an increase in learning."(P. 289)

Because avatars are fairly new to me I believe the incorporation of them can assist students with understanding ideas that our outside the boundaries of stand conventions (Marzano & Pickering, 1997). This fits in with "exploring a phenomenon, or inventing a new product, sometimes we need a completely different way of looking at a task" (P.289).

I look forward to incorporating them into many new lessons I create.

References:

Kearsley, G & Shneiderman, B. (1999) Engagement Theory: A Framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved on 20 March 2010 from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Marzano, R. & Pickering, D. (1997). Dimensions of Learning Teacher's Manual, 2nd Ed. ASCD Publications, Alexandria, VA. USA

Incorporating Wiki into Learning Engagement Theory

I particularly enjoyed reading about Engagement Theory and how we can incorporate it into teaching successfully. The article written by Greg Kearsley and Ben Shneiderman titled 'Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning' was particularly easy to follow and allowed me to consider easily how to embed it into my learning and teaching style.

Our task was to create a Wiki and then consider the capabilities of the Wiki technology, inparticular how they interact with the Learning Engagement Theory. My Wiki is a basic structure. I designed it to assist other students in our Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching as a place to communicate with others to include ideas and strategies appropriate to our future teaching careers.

Because the Learning Engagement Theory is based around the "Relate, Create and Donate" component it is easy to identify if your teaching strategies have followed this structure. As Wiki's are build as a communication tool for groups of people (there certainly maybe other areas of use, but at the moment this is where my limited knowledge and skills lie) it only seems logical that the Relate component fits easily here. The Relate component "emphasizes team efforts that involve communication, planning, management and social skills." (Kearsley and Shniederman, 1999, P.1). Wikis are designed for this particular purpose and therefore fit directly into this framework.

Creating an activity (Create component) that is purposeful and can have application to a specific context is highly motivating to people. If students feel a sense of meaning and purpose to the project or activity their engagement into the activity will be higher. Wikis can be used as a way of communicating with other group members and remove the necessity to send emails to each other - removing the potential to miss out someone and share the vital information. Because they can be easily manipulated by students they will be ideal to interact with others when someone is away, sick or even just in another room completing their specific components of the assignment.

I love the idea that Learning Engagement Theory focuses on having a learning tool that is relevant to the students and can contribute to something important within their lives or the lives of others - "the customer" (This is the Donate component). This makes it realistic and meaningful as apposed to learning for the sake of learning.

Although the Engagement Theory promotes human interaction within groups and does not identify as individuals interacting with an instructional program - which you may say is exactly what the Wiki is, it does indicate that "the difference between engagement and interactivity reflects the shift in thinking about computers in education as communication tools rather than some form of media delivery devices" (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999, P.2).

Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999) sums up the use of Engagement Theory completeley:

"Engagement Theory is presented as a model for learning in technology-based environments which synthesizes many elements from past theories of learning. The major premise is that students must be engages in their course work in order for effective learning to occur. The theory posits three primary means to accomplish engagement: (1) an emphasis on collaborative efforts (2) project-based assignments, and (3) non-academic focus. It is suggested that these three methods result in learning that is creative, meaningful, and authentic." (P.6)

References:

Kearsley, G. & Sheiderman, B. (1999) Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved on March 20, 2010 from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Communities of Practice

Its interesting to think back only 100 years (or maybe even less!) that communities meant a small group of people living in close proximity to each other.

Welcome to today!!

We are alive with activity and we can be a 'community of practice'(Wenger, 2006) with people we have not physically met, verbally spoken to or even have alot in common. I think it is wonderful to know that a group of people can come together from various locations (even across the water), regularly speak a different language, have completely different interests and are in essence in a different place in life, and form a community of practice (Wenger, 2006) because they have 3 crucial areas that interlink. They need a shared interest (it may only be one), they engage with each other about this shared interest and they develop experiences and resources that can be shared together. We in the GDLT are a community of practice! Many of us have never met - I know I didn't get a chance to meet everyone at Res. School, may never meet face to face, but we are all interested in becoming Learning Managers and have a desire to support and encourage each one.
The 21st Century is amazing! There is so much technology out there that can isolate people but at the same time can bring people together from all over the world. I am in awe of how life has changed even from when I went to school only 20 years ago.

When students engage with people through technology - be it pen friends via the internet, Skyping, texting on mobile phones or smart phones, interacting in online games or just chatting over msn messenger they are creating their own unique community of practice. Young people today are very comfortable in the field of global communications and I feel privileged to be part of this global interaction. I know that this will be an area that I will be encouraging my students to pursue and develop.

As Learning Managers I feel we have a responsibility to be aware of and have some knowledge of how to utilise the technology that is available today. Young people today have grown up with gizmo and gadgets and I think many would find it difficult if the 'lights went out'.
"Quick... Where is the battery - I was in the middle of playing a game with my friend in England", would be the cries from houses all over the place who had people under the age of 30. I certainly know my son (10 years old) can sometimes find it difficult when I suggest he turn off the computer and go outside to have some fun - he quickly tells me that he is already having fun.

Learning Managers need to bring the excitement back into the classroom and get them engaged on their level. I for one am looking forward to the challenge of keeping some of the old traditions - reading from a book and enjoying library visits can be much more appealing than reading online but I want to embrace the technology the 21st century has for us and the wonders of the world it can show us.

Reference:

Wenger, E. (2006). Communities of Practice a brief introduction. Retrieved March 17, 2010, from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

Setting up my Blog

This has been a mammoth task. The initial stages of setting up my blog was easy, but then came the making sure all my settings were correct. We were asked to use the image recognition feature to stop "spam". This idea is apparently very important. Well I haven't found where I am suppose to do this so if anyone can let me know that would be great.

As I started to then organise my RSS, so I could monitor everyone's posted comments I found I wasn't sure if I had done the correct thing and questioned, had it worked? Well, after re-watching all the video's I finally realised that I have correctly inserted it all but that I have actually inserted my own name as a follower of my own blog. I still haven't worked out how to delete my following - if anyone can help that would be great.

Blogging so far has taken up large quantities of my time (time is a pretty valuable resource at the moment - not alot of spare available!!) but I feel I am finally getting the hang of it.

Reflecting on my Studies

This picture (courtesy of flickr) reminds me of my learning experience. I should be constantly reflecting on what I have seen but often I should slow down long enough to see the beauty of what is God's creation. I am having trouble opening the file as a picture so you will need to open the link to see the picture.

Engaging the Students

Wow! I just watched the video of George Lucas and the discussion about his Educational Foundation. I am impressed by his passion for facilitating learning that is interactive and engaging for students. He talks on how to integrate technology into school so it will assist in the positive learning of the students.

The idea of providing an environment that supports and encourages learning in a way that has relevant outcomes for the 'world' is fascinating - if not a little overwhelming. I agree that in some circumstances we can encourage and provide opportunities for students to engage in projects and activities that have real life application. If we can achieve this surely there would be positive learning happening.

George Lucas has set up a free website that gives information about various technologies we can use in the schools as well as many other relevant educational tools. It is called edutopia. Please take the time to have a look and see if you can find any other relevant information.

Twitter in Schools

I've just read Carolyne's posting about using Twitter in schools and watched the You Tube video about how an American University is trialing the technology in a classroom of over 90 students. If you haven't seen it, you should! It certainly opens up many communication opportunities for 'students at risk' or students unable to make it to class for various reasons. I certainly think it has lots of potential and is worth keeping in mind.
Click here to watch how Twitter is being used at University.


Extension of information (updated on 4th April, 2010): I have completed alittle further research into this activity of using Twitter in Universities. Even though I am training to be a primary school teacher I have found this to be extremely interesting. I'm not sure at this stage that I see a need for it - or even a benefit for it in a Primary school but I could see some interesting applications for it at Senior High School and definitely at University Level. As a Distance Education student who is unable to make it to any lectures due to my personal circumstances I feel I sometimes miss opportunities that internal students receive each week. Last week I had the opportunity to head to Uni for the internal lectures on 3 of my 4 classes. I found these hugely beneficial on many levels - not only did I get the opportunity to spend time talking with fellow students face to face but I had the opportunities to have indepth discussions with my lecturers. This is something you don't get to do as an external student. Being able to hook up to the session and be part of the discussion would be great - I could take 1 hour off work and link in at exactly the correct time without leaving my work place and loosing valuable work time. It might not be quite the same as the face to face debates I have with the lecturer but it has to be the next best thing!
Have a look at this post about Twitter in the Classroom and tell me what you think and how it can impact the learning opportunities of all who use it.

Pedagogy - Love it!

I love this word! I see pedagogy as the science of teaching - the framework to how we teach children. It encompasses the how and why we teach as well as the relationship we have with children to motivate them to learn. I think that without a solid understanding of teaching strategies than our pedagogical framework will be limited and possibly unsuccessful for the students we manage.

I particularly enjoyed reading chapter 1 of "Effective Teaching Strategies"(Roy Killen, 2003, Ligare Book Press). It was well constructed with an easy to digest framework of skills needed to help motivate our students. I hope to be a teacher that uses more of the learner centred approach as apposed to the teacher centred approach. I know the teacher centred approach has its place in our society but I think for most students they will be highly motivated by a much stronger emphasis on learning from investigation - both individually and in a group setting.

Information Overload !!!!!

What an enormous week it has been! Late nights, early mornings and more and more readings! Saying that, I will admit although some of the concepts have been fuzzy for me I am feeling more confident each day that the information is starting to make sense and I am able to actually use it more successfully. I am very excited about putting it all together and having a full grasp of how it 'works'. I'm so pleased that ICT and Pedegogy are on the same 'wave length' this week - I think it has really helped me to consolidate the information about the DoL. Can't wait to see how various schools in our city put it all into practice.

Thanks to everyone for their support and guidance this last week - your assistance has not gone unappreciated.

About Me

I'm a student undertaking the Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching (GDLT), Primary at the Central Queensland University. I'm very excited about the prospect of teaching in 2011 and look forward to the challenges ahead of me.