into the depths of literature..

Thanks flickr user..

Having read aandf’s blog posting, Mobile phones put to good use, I was a little concerned about mobiles becoming a useful tool in classrooms.
Many of my friends have the new iPhones and I cannot deny that they are great and it is so useful to have the internet in your pocket. But really, do students need any more reason to sit on their phones all day?
I think having mobile phones in the classroom will become much more of a distraction than an effective learning tool, unless you can somehow block students msging each other during class time and how anyone would do that is beyond me..

As an added thought, the radiation that mobile phones emit is shocking and having read many articles about it, I would not be encouraging any students of mine to maximise their time spent on the small hand-held devices. Maybe they are great now, but the future health problems could override any immediate benefits in my mind. I don’t think I would like to be teaching in a room buzzing with radiation, and I don’t think exposing primary school students to such learning techniques is a great idea; after all, they will have their mobile strapped to their ear in years to come, why make them start any earlier??

How I plan to keep my technological knowledge up-to-date:

• I have chosen to do the block IT class next semester at uni, to enhance my e-learning knowledge
• Practice and explore the skills I have learnt during this subject with my prac classes
• Watching podcasts and online tutorials about e-learning technologies
• Talking to prac teachers about their use of technology in the classroom
• E-newsletters: Edna (Australia), Tapped in (US), TALE (NSW)
• Discipline-based programs: PETA (English), S.T.A (Science)
• Joining blog and wiki-based communities
• web: teacher blogs, Delicious, LAMS community
• asking students
• friends
• literature – informal: podcasts, TeacherTube and formal: magazines, journals, texts

Check out my comic that I made to show this….

In class yesterday, Nikki and Alana did a presentation about blogging and its use in the classroom.
If you want to read their thoughts, click on the Nikkolada link to your left…
Once again, new and innovative uses of blogging were brought to my attention.
These included:
posting thoughts of each days activites
posting handouts and assignments
mentoring programs between older and primary school students
asking students to comment on current events and different subject areas

Thaaaanks flickr user…

I really like the idea of posting homework and assignment on the net, as it will help the environment and ensure students know whats going on (I know how easy it is to lose important sheets and handouts!!).
As well, linking students to and asking them to comment on current events will broaden their world view and help them shape their own values and attitudes.

I thought Nikki’s and Alana’s presentation was really informative and helpful, and I aim to use some of these blogging strategies in my own classroom one day.

So, through this e-learning subject I have come to use a whole range of e-learning technologies that would have otherwise gone unnoticed by myself. For my final essay, I need to include a mind map so have used bubbl.us….I even know how to embed it now!! Check it out below…

Check out my first podcast: 7 things you didn’t know about me.

It’s up on my page – A little introduction to moi! Click on it to go listen.

I just read Wherefore art though, telecollaboration? by Judi Harris. This article talks about the different ways technology can be used in the classroom, and why teachers are so inclined to steer away from collaborative uses.

Thanks to this flickr…

The article uses several interesting statistics to set the scene. For example, 84% of US teachers surveyed a year ago agree that students having Internet access can improve the quality of education and yet only 33% said that the use of online resources is well integrated into learning and teaching in the classroom (NetDay, March 2001; CNN, March 2001). As well, 87% of teachers surveyed said they feel comfortable using the Internet. So, why then, does the Internet not get used more for our student’s learning benefit?

From this article, I gathered that collaboration with students outside of your own classroom over an extended period of time was the most benefitial to students, but also the most time and energy exhausting for the teacher. This is probably the reason why students are stuck learning in their own contexts, and not talking to students around the world. In my opinion, it sounds like teachers are getting a bit lazy and choosing the easiest path of teaching, rather than the most effective. This article talks about collaboration over the Internet as involving higher level thinking and interaction than normal information collection and analysis, and that makes me wonder why we are not encouraging the use of collaboration even more??

In my opinion, the Internet holds endless possibilities for effective and beneficial teaching and learning, but it needs to be used in the most appropriate ways. Using technology just for the sake of it will hold little educational value for students and is a waste of a valuable resource.