Too drab to learn?

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A couple of times this week, the learning environment has been brought to my attention.  Firstly Matthew has blogged about it in this post. Matthew pointed me to this article by Denise Ryan about the design of learning spaces. Here, the schools that are being praised for their design incorporate "easily altered spaces, with hands-on and outdoor areas integrated into the learning spaces". My guess is they also look good.


During my Research in Learning class on Tuesday this same issue was raised after a speech on the topic, a few class members commented on how uninspiring our classroom was.  It did feel that way.  Sitting in a drab environment, desks in rows, that are too close together, with insufficient air flow is not conducive to knowledge acquisition.

Where we learn greatly influences how well we learn

Sitting here typing this from the sunroom of my house, overlooking a view that most would envy, I can only agree that our surroundings influence the way we work.  Sitting with nature in full view, sun shining in and the deep blue sea on the horizon, I am happy, I feel good and I am inspired.  


Bring on the knowledge!


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Here's the scoop(ville)...

In class today we learnt about the Web, not just any web but Web 2.0. I am old enough to have experienced Web 1.0 and will no doubt live long enough to see many future versions. What are Web 2.0, Web 1.0 and while we are at it Web 3.0? This was asked of us today, thankfully, even though I may not have known it, I have been an active participant for a number of years. 

So Web 2.0 tools are what we will be using with our future students, today's students are more than likely already using these tools and I can see from today's class that I will be a facilitator and I am very much looking forward to it - this is fun. Overwhelming but fun!

Below is a video that we watched today.
WARNING: This video will make you crave ice cream :)

World Wide Web no longer...

Read/Write Web is the way of the future apparently. Every week articles are uploaded for us to read as a part of the blogging process, and this week I managed to read all of them.

Firstly, Brian Lamb spiked my interest on the first page of his rather long and somewhat overwhelming article. We have been discussing the 'interactiveness' of technology and the idea of technology as partner in class and I referred to it in this post - anyway I am getting away from my point, Sir Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World Wide Web stated "I wanted the Web to be what I call an interactive space where everybody can edit. And I started saying ‘interactive,’ and then I read in the media that the Web was great because it was ‘interactive,’ meaning you could click. This was not what I meant by interactivity." This challenges my way of thinking about the web and no doubt will become more relevant to me as my education continues.

Will Richardson's article was a much kinder read, he defined for me what wikis are and how we might go about using them in our own education and when we are educators. Stand out points in this article are the idea of "consumers of Web content need to be editors as well as readers" and how our audience may change the way we write and the fact that something I write can go from being for my teachers eyes only to being published.

All from the comfort of my living room.

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2 Ps in a PODcast

I am not new to the world of blogs, I have listened to a fair few podcasts and vodcasts in my time but I have never starred in my own.  Well this week in class we were required to create a podcast. This may sound simple enough and quite frankly it was.  We played around in Garage Band in the Mac Lab, we found cool tunes to use with our own words, we had written scripts, practised them, we even recorded them. (Not so great in a room of 30 other people all trying to record their own tracks!) I then came home and did it all again in Aviary (PC user not a Mac in sight) just so I could hear only my voice.


For our podcast we could choose from a few different prompts - being the movie lover I am I went with the one about 3 inspirational movies for preservice teachers.  Yay - I got to watch movies for my homework!! 


Anyway what is all this leading to you may ask? Well, my very first podcast!  3 Movies is the title - catchy I know! So here it is for your enjoyment.


3 Movies



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How can IT be meaningful?

After reading Belinda's insightful post about Jonassen's meaningful learning article it made me wonder how can we, as teachers, incorporate IT into our classrooms without it just being a gimmick?  I really like the idea of using technology in the classroom, however as with everything else in life, how do we make it count? Sure my kids love using the computer but does it make them learn and if it does, is it meaningful, does it make them THINK? Jonassen talks about technology-as-partner and children learning with technology and not from technology - this is our challenge and no doubt it will be an ongoing one.  


So far in this subject there have been many questions raised and many challenges set.  I keep asking myself questions and hope that over this semester I will find at least some of the answers.  If I use Jonassen's Characteristics of Meaningful Learning model as my guide I may just make it - remember active, intentional, constructive, authentic and cooperative.  


Will your learning be meaningful?

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Don't hesitate, accelerate!

This catchy title is from a video created by Amelia Caldwell that I discovered while reading Matthew's blog. One of our tasks for Professional Experience 3 is to respond on our blog to readings, classes and other people's blogs. I must admit that I didn't get very far into Matthew's blog before I watched this video and it got me thinking, how am I to keep up, let alone accelerate, my learning in this field of technology? It seems that if you have a passion for it then you know about the latest and greatest.  I mean, my 12 year old son just seems to know stuff - how does he? Where does he learn it? How can I learn it at the same pace?


This may be an issue for many teachers and student teachers - children seem to learn this stuff by osmosis yet for me it doesn't come so easily.  Friends of mine may argue with me and think that I am quite technologically advanced (for someone my age) but I really need to accelerate if I am ever going to catch up with my own children and my future students.



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These are a few of my favourite things...

Every blog needs to reference The Sound of Music at some point, so I am getting in early!  Many of my favourite things are other peoples blogs, I have been a blog hopper for about 5 years now and have discovered so many talented people from hopping from one blog to another.


In class this week my eyes were opened to a new way to save or bookmark my favourite websites.  I had no idea there was a site I could join that would keep all my fave's in one place, that would allow me to access them from anywhere and share them with others- fantastic news!! If only I had known this last August before I had my two laptops and external hard drive backup stolen!  One of the most frustrating things was losing all the bookmarks I had accumulated over the past 4 years.  I still have not found them all - it is a BIG web after all.

So Delicious here I come with my favourites in hand ready to streamline my blogging world yet again.

New technology, new thinking

Having grown up in an era where the technology we used in school was limited to a calculator, I am constantly amazed by the technology that my children are using as part of their everyday school life. I have recently read the article  Computer as Paintbrush: Technology, Play, and the Creative Society by Mitchel Resnick.  One aspect of the article that resonated with me was the finding that children become most engaged with new technologies when they work from a place of personal interest. This is evidenced in many parts of life and not limited to children, education or technology.  From my own experience if a child  is interested in a topic, the learning and discovery will naturally flow and when this can happen in the world of technology then you are on to a winner.

The challenge for teachers is to engage children in areas where perhaps their interests do not lie or where they lack confidence.  As demonstrated in the article, the use of technology in conjunction with low-tech supplies can lead to outstanding results not only for the student but the teacher and school as well.

The article also comments on the tendency to lump all technology into the one category - one with little student control and interaction.  This has been shown to be incorrect but some may always feel this way.  This type of thinking is not limited to technology, as witnessed in my practicum last year, students' creativity can equally be stifled when using crayons and paper.

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About me...

Hi and welcome to my blog, probably the most used first sentence in the blogoshpere. Oh well.

So a bit about me.  Married to Pete for way too long (just kidding), have two awesome sons age 9 and 12,an annoyingly cute dog called Rosie and a fish whose name no one can remember!  I have just started my 2nd year studying Primary Education.  Had an absolute blast in first year, met some fantabulous people and managed to get through all the subjects.  And hanging out with these fab people brings my age way down too - well in my mind anyway.

Interestingly I have just read my good friend Miss Coulson's blog and she has summed up pretty brilliantly how I feel about technology. I think I am pretty good - but really I know very little. Or I know how to do a few things well and that makes me seem less of a technophobe.  I wonder how many made up words one should put in a blog post!

Signing off for now.
Jane :)