Making Websites useful in Teaching

After reading Nancy’s blog on using WIX I connected and understood her experience as I myself have used WIX a number of times.  I agree with Nancy how creating a website will be beneficial to a child’s education. 

I too taught myself how to use WIX; it’s a pretty easy website to work with.  I first used this in my first year at Uni and did a very basic website.  I got the pleasure again to use it in this subject and I challenged myself to add and create different tech thing on it.  I created links to other sites, embedded YouTube clips and linked a blog to the one site. 

Working through and playing around on the WIX website I noticed how great this would be to create something similar with a class or with the whole school.  A great way to provide information to parents, or for students to challenge their own ICT skills.  I look forward to playing around more with sites like WIX. 

Love to hear of other sites that are great for creating websites.

 

Tick Tock Tick Tock….

   by  kylesteed 

Looking at creating a unit plan that will use ICT to enhance the learners.  The unit plan will focus on the ‘RAT’ framework – Replacement, Amplification and Transforming. (look at past blog on RAT framework)

The unit plan will be focused on:

YEAR 4 MATHEMATICS

Convert between units of time ACMMG085

Use am and pm notation and solve simple time problems ACMMG086

As I prepare to create the unit plan I need to find some useful resources that I may use or store for later.  Expanding my PCK I came across this site (blog) TEACHER BLOG SPOT, MATH TIPS, NEWS, IDEAS AND REVIEWS.  The blog post that caught my eye was on time, and problems and misconceptions students may have.  If anyone is doing Mathematics for their unit plan or lesson this blog my be of use.

This has got me motivated to search for more resources for my unit plan.

I HOPE IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!

WOW what a month it has been!!!!

I have worked and worked on this website, which informs parents about the use of ICT in HPE that I hope that it is right! I have second guessed myself so many times, but the time has come to publish!

The site informs and persuades parents why ICT enhances students learning in HPE.   Please take a look here and you may find some useful tips on using ICT in HPE.

NOW… I better go catch up on all my other subjects.

Apps for the Classroom

Earlier I wrote a blog on apps that can be used with HPE.  As I am studying Bach of Education (majoring in HPE) I know that I will eventually teach in a classroom, so I wanted to find some apps that I could use in the classroom.

So I went searching…

I found this fantastic website, Teacher Hub.com not only did it give me a run down on what apps were great to use in the classroom but it is  site that I will be able to come back to for resources and ideas.

Here is a list of apps that teachers can use on their own and the classrooms IPad and iPod these are only a few there are plenty out there, would love to hear from some of you on what apps you have found!

• Trello – Project management for group work, the teacher can see what each group is doing.
• Class Dojo – A classroom management for behaviour.  Allows you to reward students, give instant feedback to parents and students
• Reminder 101 – Instant messaging to students, whole class and parents.  The good thing is they cannot access anyone’s phone number!
• Subtext – digital reading moving into the 21^st century with reading.

http://www.teachhub.com/20-amazing-ipad-apps-educators

Are we being Anti-Social??

As I was going through some of my peer’s blogs I came across Brittany Lewis blog ‘Is Technology making us Anti-Social?’

I agree with Brittany that Technology IS making us Anti-Social to some extent.  I can see how we can use technology to enhance our learners but I can also see how it is making people more and more less social in a face to face situation.  With all these social media’s that are around i.e. – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Instagram etc… people are less social in person, yes they are being social through these networks but people now rarely speak to each other in person.  I know myself when I go out for tea with my Husband there has been times that neither of us are speaking to each other and we are both heads down in our phones. Isn’t that sad! But I bet we have all done it!

In saying that I can see how it does make us social as we can connect with more and more people from around the world. I just recently watched a video on FACEBOOK of a lady who was giving birth and was sad that her husband was going to miss it, as he works FIFO. BUT having access to a smart phone allowed them to connect on a video chat for him to be present for the birth of their child! How unreal is that.

So technology is a positive and a negative in our lives!  We just need to embrace it and use it for the right reasons.

Searching YouTube

Following my blog from earlier about using ICT within HPE, I went on a search for more information.  I decided to search YouTube and see if I can get some examples of ICT used in HPE.  I came across Kevin Morrow.  He has a number of YouTube clips using ICT in HPE; I have shared one of his videos here, where he discusses the benefits of integrating ICT into his lesson.

He talks about how he has turned his learning environment into a modern environment with the use of ‘Apple’ products.  Students get the chance to watch training videos to see how professionals participate in sport, using ‘Nike plus for iPods’ for personal and cross country progress, become more organised with the use of apps and computers etc…

Watching this video has showed me that using ICT in HPE allows for peer/collaboration work, challenges the teacher and learner, and also makes the whole experience FUN.

I SMELL A RAT….

Week 3’s learning path had us looking into two different frameworks that work together when planning lessons for the classroom or HPE to incorporate technology.  The two frameworks are RAT (Replacement, Amplification and Transformation) and SLIC (Student Learning, Instructional, and Curriculum.) (Hughes 2006.)

These frameworks had me thinking of different scenarios in the classroom that I could change to use technology to transform the students learning.  I wanted and needed to know more, so I went onto this website where I found a number of different slides from Joan Hughes (2006).

Here is my understanding of the frameworks:

SLIC

STUDETNT LEARNING – What the student does (the activity, motivation, attitude)

INSTRUCTIONAL METHOD – What the teacher does (how the work is delivered, the way the teacher teaches)

CURRICULUM – What you want the students to learn (Against a curriculum – The Australian Curriculum)

RAT

REPLACEMENT – Changing the medium not the outcome (Instead of the blackboard use the IWB)

AMPLIFICATION –  Use of ICT to amplify the value of those practices, but the outcome is still the same

TRANSFORMATION – This is where the teacher and learner change how they may do things with ICT (Writing stories on computers instead of paper)

After going through the frameworks and how they work together I wanted to put some ideas down;

SPELLING WORDS YEAR THREE

Replacement – Use of the IWB instead of dictating the spelling words to the students, where the teacher can highlight on the IWB the different sounds in the spelling words.

Amplification – The teacher shows the class a multimodal through the IWB of the spelling words, with pictures and sounds related to the spelling words. This allows for students who learn through visual and sounds to understand the spelling words.  .

Transformation – where  the teach allows students to learn more about their spelling words through the use of the internet, finding pictures and examples to share with the class to make their own slideshow.

With placement coming up I know I will be looking into these frameworks when planning, to see where I can use ICT to enhance the learners.

RAT Question Guide: Using the Replacement, Amplification, and Transformation Framework in action from Joan E. Hughes, Ph.D.

ADDING SKILLS INTO WARM UP GAMES

From reading Coreena’s Blog about variation in games, it took me back to my first HPE placement.  My mentor was a huge fan of using these games even for year 10 students.  As Coreena said you would be surprised at how much fun that actually have.

Going on from Coreena’s blog I learnt that the games you choose can be altered and changed to suit the age, ability and the skill that you are learning in that lesson.  For example – I was teaching Skipping for the duration of my placement, and each year level the students were focusing on different skills, preps concentrating on keeping feet together toes pointed, and then year 6 were focusing on advance skipping of like cross overs and backwards skipping, but still keeping toes pointed etc.  Anyway so when we did the warm up activity of Ship to shore or rob the nest I would alter the game so student would have to skip with a pretend rope or when they got out of ship to shore to get back into the game they had to skip on the side line 5 times before joining back in.  The whole time the students did this they still had to focus on the skill itself (feet together toes pointed)

As HPE is usually only 30min class or if you’re lucky a 40min the more chances you get to focus on a particular skill the more chances the students have of grasping that skill.  Thank Coreena for reminding me of this, I will definitely be using this on my next placement.

https://sites.google.com/site/1stbalcombeheightscubs/home/games/games-rob-the-nest-1

http://www.ultimatecampresource.com/site/camp-activity/ship-shore.html

Apps For HPE

As I sifted through the different blogs and sites finding different resources that I could use on placement for HPE, I was starting to get a headache as most of them talked about filming the student and getting them to watch themselves and reflect.  I was starting to think that there was nothing else that I could use on placement.

Until I found this website ICT for Educators.  This site gave a great list of different apps teachers can use within their lessons, not just HPE but within in other subjects like science, art, technology etc.  The site gave a great run down on how these apps would be useful within the lesson.  If you are going on a HPE placement or heading towards being a PE teaching you need to go check this site out, you may find an app that can be of use.

Here are a few apps that I have put on my wish list:

• Coach Eye – A way to capture students and to help improve their performance.  This app allows for voiceover, screen annotations and recording. One of the things I liked about this app is it enables you to share the videos with students, parents and other teachers.
• Sprint Timer – this app would be great for sports and swimming carnivals to get that photo finish.  The app takes a photo at the finish and gives the times.
• Slo Pro– not only is this app free but it slows the recording down so you can get a clear look at the students’ progress and skill.
• Cardiograph – is a great way for students to measure their heart rate before and after physical activity.  This would be a great tool for Health lesson.
• Easy Assessment – You can import class lists, gather evidence of students learning and assess using rubrics.

These are only a few that I think would be of use.  I am sure there are many more out there but you have to start somewhere.

http://ictforeducators.com/2013/01/integrating-technology-in-pe.html

 

HPE and ICT

With placement approaching and this placement being a HPE placement I am starting to feel a little concerned and worried about how I will integrate ICT into my lessons.  Without knowing what the students will be learning, what my mentor will allow me to teach and what access they have to ICT, I need to start collecting as many different ICT resources that I may be able to use on a HPE placement.

Starting this progress I started a Google search ICT used in HPE. Well as you can imagine a whole list of sites came up ranging from peoples personal blogs, The Australian Curriculum and webpages like The P.E Geek and Nerdy Phy-Eder.  All these I have now saved in Feedly for future reference. Now it’s time to sift and find the resources and ideas I am looking for.

Going through each one does take time so let me share with you one of the thing I did find;

I read an article from the webpage Nerdy Phy-Eder about how he was lucky enough to purchase a A.R Drone (a flying quadcopter/helicopter that is controlled by your iPad/iPhone, that records footage from a higher ground) I was thinking along the same lines of recording students through their lessons either it be a skill they are learning or a game, and then later get the students to watch and talk about the mistakes they made, or the great play they did, what would work better, or where they were going wrong with the skill they are learning.  An A.R Drone would be amazing if you have access to it on placement, as from what the Nerdy Phy-Eder was saying you can get a better view of the whole class without anyone running in front of the camera or iPad through filming the A.R Drone is up above out site out of mind of the students.  I may not be able to get my hands on the A.R Drone but it has got me thinking that when I do film the students on placement to consider all aspects of where and how I will film to get as little disruption as possible.

Now I am off to sift through all the other resources that are out there, I will keep you posted and share with you what else I come across.

Kate

http://www.nerdyphyseder.com/

https://thepegeek.com/

http://www.acara.edu.au/default.asp