Final submittion of assignment

So, as the semester comes to an end and I finally submitted my last assignment what will I take away from this whole semester experience.  Firstly, the subject course has been very informative in the area of ICTs.  I have engaged with ICTs that I would not normally engage with, such as, Twitter; Blogs; Prezi (Assignment 1). 

The amount of workload associated with the subject course is high …. especially the number of blogs needed to be blogged and the requirements for each blog is for me a challenge as I am a quite, reserved individual.  I have enjoyed reading other students’ blogs and have found them very informative especially when sharing the different ICTs tools that they have come across.  Some of these ICTs I have tried to engage with while I was on my Practicum and some I have placed them into my Personal Learning Network.

Within this subject course there has been alot of terminology to learn and engage with…. TPACK; PLN; TIP; Clem; SAMR and many more. Sometimes working through the many models it was in my opinion learning a new language.  But here I am at the other end of the tunnel looking back at everything that we all have endured as students of this subject course.  We can all hold our heads up high and say with pride, Yes we have completed EDC3100 and have kept our sanity.

 

ICTs in the Classroom and Professional Experience

Thank you to a fellow blogger who discussed ICTs in the Classroom and Professional Experience

I too agree that it is wonderful to have all these written documents providing overviews of the range of digital resources available to teachers and schools, but unfortunately if the schools do not have the ICT framework, software or tools planning for ICTs is wasted.

Planning for lessons incorporating ICTs while on Professional Experience was stressful as the school I was stationed at unfortunately did not have access to ICTs as other schools. The staff and students of the school were wonderful but unfortunately, ICTs was not one of the strengths of that school.  Digital cameras are ICTs,but you are limited in your options based on this particular ICT.

I ventured out with my own laptop computer and iPad to engage students with ICTs but unfortunately the school’s internet system failed.

My professional experience at the school was enjoyable the pressure of incorporating ICTs into my lesson planning was not.

When will it end????

As I was reading a fellow blogger’s blog Is it over yet?

I cannot but agree with her.  The semester has been a long one and very much full on with EDC 3100. The workload has been heavy and some weeks overwhelming but in fairness to the study I have enjoyed it in other ways.  The amount of knowledge that I have been exposed to in this subject has inspired me to venture out and experience new ICT.  I was not interested at the beginning of the course to venture out and do blogging but here I am creating blogs weekly.

I have enjoyed reading my fellow bloggers’ blog and have learnt heaps from them. Once I have completed my studies and venture out with my own class will I suggest to the children to complete their reflection by blogging? I can share with them my experience in blogging and hopefully will influence some of them to try it out.

Will I continue blogging once the semester is over? This I cannot answer as yet as there are still assignments and exams before I can sit back and reflective completely on the semester.

Connect.ed

Conect.ed Certificate    As part of our learning path in EDC3100 we were required to engage in an online learning course about Cybersmart education.  The website Connect.ed is a self-paced online Cybersmart education program offering preservice teachers the knowledge and resources that we can use to educate children about staying safe online.

Learning activities included 4 modules which consisted of simulations that were based on students’ experience in social network sites.  Video interviews with experts on Cybersmart ensured that we were able to increase our knowledge based on expertise.

Connect.ed website is an excellent online learning service which will educate and engage children and young adults on the matter of being Cybersmart.  I believe that children as young as 10 should be educated in being Cybersmart as social media is such a large part of the younger generation today.

Upon completion of the four modules you are issue a certificate which is great for any educator to include in his/her portfolio.

The World Wide Web is becoming the major communication channel with today’s and future children I highly recommend this website.

 

Catching Up

As I am trying to catch up with all the blogs my fellow bloggers have posted during my absence from this course due to my Professional Experience of three weeks I came across a fellow blogger blog about Bouncy Balls. 

Thanks to fellow blogger Mrs D’s Weblog   Wow! What a great ICT to engage students’ attention.  I wished I had this ICT on my Professional Experience this time as I had a multi-age class of years 1 and 2 students and they would have definitely would have loved it.  I will no doubt will keep it in my TPACK to use for my next Professional Experience which hopefully will be with Year 6 students.

Behaviour management in the classroom is an area that I believe I will always struggle with.  Besides giving out stickers, raffle tickets and counting to 5 there is always room to learn different kinds of behaviour management.  Bouncy Balls is behaviour management plus ICTbut the problem will be, I believe, is getting the students to engage on the task and not keep looking at the balls bouncing around.

Re-blogging again

So with Professional Experience finished I can now continue with my studies.  The three weeks taken up with Professional Experience consumed me totally. I can so relate to a fellow blogger  The Weblog of Kathleen McCallum. It was an amazing three weeks of teaching children and being responsible for their learning.  But unfortunately the wonderful experience of teaching has come to an end and there is sadness in saying goodbye to those wonderful children that I appreciated in the three weeks.

Professional experience was very meaningful and I have significantly developed my skills in teaching.  Having experienced living in a classroom I now realise what a wonderful job teaching is. FurthermoreI have learned that teaching is such a demanding job that I now wonder how teachers keep their sanity.

 

Practical Experience Stage 1

Second day at Prac and taught my first lesson to the class. Behaviour was a problem as the children just do not know how to stay quiet and listen to the teacher. One student stayed the whole time on the carpet and refused to do any work. The class is a multi-age

year 1 and 2 and there are 23 students.

Plus I need to do my lesson in front of another prac. student from a different university.  Nerve  wrecking….   I finally finished my lesson but haven’t got any feedback from my mentor as yet.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will get some feedback from my mentor.

Bring on day three…..

Blogging my Mentor

Reading a blog from a fellow student I read how other students have goggled their mentor.  I, like Amber, 

did not think of googling my mentor.  This lead me to think about my digital footprint… do I have one? Hence, I googled myself and to my surprise a digital footprint appeared relating to the University of Southern Queensland.   

Should I google my mentor. would this be an infringement on the person’s privacy, but the internet is such a public domain.  I asked my teenage boys if they have ever googled any of their friends or teachers.  Their responds were that they often do such an activity.  So the question lies with me, should I google my mentor or not and has she googled me??? 

Multi-age classroom

As an online student that is 50 kms out of Springwood Campus I needed to organize my own Professional Experience for EDC 3100.

I approached several schools for my Professional experience period but unfortunately they could not accommodate.  Luckily, for me I will be doing my Professional Experience at a small primary school that has approximately 200 students.  The class is a multi-age year 1 and 2.

I have not experienced teaching a class such as this before but am looking forward to the experience.  No doubt I will need to work smarter and harder to prepare lessons plans that will cater for both year levels.

Fun times ahead!!!!

Yesterday, I spend a whole day in my mentor’s classroom to get to know the children.  It was a ‘fun’ day and my mentor is eager for me to start as soon as possible.  She is that eager that yesterday she asked me to teach the class for 60 minutes on how to write a ‘retell’ on the story that I had read to the students beforehand.

It was very exciting for me but not what I was expecting to do when I only wanted to observe the children in the classroom environment.  My mentor was very happy with my lesson and the children are all eagerly waiting for me to return to their classroom on Monday.  Fun times ahead!!!!