On line meeting
Last week I participated in an on line board meeting with my new group. It was great fun and was such an interesting and convenient way to communicate. I can understand why so many younger people enjoy 'chat' sessions. We managed to hold a mock meeting and achieve real goals utilising this on line tool through UTS. Our discussion resulted in suggesting 6 practical guidelines for ICT for staff and students at our school and this all took place from the comfort of my own home!

Week 7
This week the class presented their powerpoint presentaitons and it was interesting to see the different types of lessons that had been implemented, with varying degrees of success. I think most of the KLAs were covered and everybody learnt a lot about the importance of planning and implementing an effective lesson taking into account student ability and time constraints.

I think the most successful lessons were those which enabled the students to learn independently, to use the computer to construct their own learning and build their own knowledge. In order for this type of lesson to work the teacher needs to make both behaviour and work expectations clear so that the students are able to work with minimal interruptions.

Practicum Reflection
During my practicum the only occasions in which the students used the computer facilities was during my lesson and during the lesson of the other student teacher in the class. The class teacher could be considered a technophobe - she does not own or use a computer for personal use and the students' computer knowledge and ability reflects this. Many have computers at home which they play on, but there are many aspects which they have not been exposed to. Their main use of the computers at school seems to be for typing up stories etc. on Word.

These students are in Year 4 and should be learning to incorporate computers into many of their lessons. However, because there are only two computers in the classroom and the lab. is not used regularly, the students are not being provided with these opportunities.

My computer lesson was reasonably successful, and I believe much of its success was due to the novelty factor of using computers for web-based research to enhance an HSIE lesson instead of books. The students were all able to access the same information at the same time in an enjoyable way.

Week 5
The lesson this week was face-to-face and provided an interesting look at webquests. I found that there are sites with hundreds of different types of webquests which will be great to use in the classroom as they cover all the KLAs and all the stages. The webquests are quite detailed - all the hard work has been done - you just have to choose one that is appropriate for KLA and level and follow the directions or adapt to suit. Great!

Week 4
It's been a difficult week for the group e-tivity. Finding a journal article proved to be a time-consuming exercise but I finally located a great one about using computers in the maths classroom. I really liked it as I am one of those people who believe that computers are a great tool in the classroom - but one of only many different methods of teaching/learning. What I liked about this teacher's lesson was that by having 4 different types of acitivites she was catering for different learning styles, giving children an opportunity to learn in the way which suited them best.

Week 3
It's been an interesting week as we had no face to face tutorial and were given an e-tivity to do. Most people have contributed to this but the discussion part isn't going so well. The subject of the week is the use of content free software as mind tools to enhance learning. I think we are all in agreement that there is a place for such software within the classroom although sometimes I think it may make things more time consuming. I learnt how to use kidspiration and still prefer the use of pen and paper for planning a project. It does look nicely presented on kidspiration but took much longer than if I had used a pen!

Week 2
It has been interesting to learn of both the objectivist and constructionist philosphies of teaching. I think that as with many theories, there is something to be said for using a balanced approach by incorporating aspects of each into the way we educate children in all aspects of their learning.

Sometimes children will need knowledge to be transmitted to them through demonstration and lecture before they can begin to construct their own knowledge. They may need to be provided with some sort of basis on which to build their own knowledge, a starting point.

It seems sensible to me that this integrated approach to learning is ideal not only for the ICT classroom, but across all the KLAs.

That's what I think!

After the lesson on Monday my mind was reeling from trying to assimilate all the information provided. I had never heard of a blog before and here I am now adding another comment to mine so I am feeling a bit more confident about my on-line journal. I still have major concerns about my e-portfolio but hopefully that will fall into place over time.

I have completed my reading for the week although I found the Roblyer chapter hard going. I have also written my first entry for my e-portfolio but at present am not sure what form my portfolio is going to take.

Mike and I have partnered up and are going to do our assignment together as we both have a Year 4 class. At present we still have no idea what form our lesson plan is going to take and we will have to make some sort of a decision next week. Mike has had a lot of experience with computers and although I don't think of myself as being too behind the times, there is a lot I still don't know and which I hope to learn over the course of the semester. That's it for this week.

Hi
Hi name is Ruth and I have, in the past, worked with computers as a secretary and have always felt reasonably competent with computers in a general sort of way. However I feel that there are a few challenges ahead of me this semester as I have really only used Office and there are many different aspects of computing that I would like to learn. I have considered majoring in educational computing as I feel it would be a practical subject for an 'older' student to graduate with.

My goals for the subject for the semester are to acquire up-to-date ideas on the use of ICT in the classroom and practical and interesting ways to implement these ideas. The major goal for me will be to pass this subject.