Personal Learning Space

As an educator in primary schools it is so important to share resources, not compete with other teachers and support one another with technology in the efforts to put the children’s learning needs first. Using technology is really about utilizing new and improved resources to make improvements on different areas of our lives and the children’s lives that we teach.

James Hollis states that this is happning right now, he likes to call it ‘Sharing Technology’. Sharing technology with others allows teachers and students to access resources that have never before been available! For example we can quickly and esily access teachertube, wikipedia, google etc.

We as teachers can now share our thoughts, expertise, techniques, experiences, software programs, ideas, reflections, websites, hopes, visions etc. We can do this because technology makes it so easy for us.

It is just incredible where tehnology is taking us!!!

Source: www.six.somerset.gov.uk/…/Suite%20scene2.jpg

I feel that learning with ICT offers students a world of opportunity: global communiction with peers and an engagement i rich, relevant tasks based on real situations.  It is important as it requires students to develop and apply critical literacy skills.

Students learning definately has to always be at the centre and I feel that ICT is a way in which student learning is enhanced! ICT skills, however, are best developed when used in the broader learning context. I found that having to complete a rationale for our LAMS assignement to be of good value as it made me think about why and when we would use ICT in the classroom. It is important to use ICT only when it is appropriate and will support the students learning!!

last week in our elective week, we had an online lecture using skype with Debbie Evans. Debbie Evans is an expert in the LAMS program working at the ICT centre at MAcquarie University. Debbie was able to chat with us about LAMS and the benefits of using it within the classroom. She believed that it gae children the opportunity to be designers. Her advice to us was

a) to keep our sequences simple and rich

b) to include a few gates so that classroom discussion or activities could take place and

c) to use LAMS across all KLA’s, not just Maths and Science.

This conversation with Debbie helped to clear up any confusions in my mind about using LAMS.  I felt like our topic of Bullying was going to be appropriate and hopefully will be beneficial to individual students and school communities.

It is an interesting concept using blogs in the classroom. I feel that it is a good thing to do, particuarly if students are able to communicate with others around the world. I feel that it is a place where children can express their ideas and findings. It gives students the opportunity to provide feedback via the web. It is a fun, educational task that children can have fun with at any time of the day, whether they are at home or school. Blogging creates an atmosphere of student keen and interested in sharing and expressing ideas.

Blogs cn be used to employ good spelling habits, grammar skills and a evelop a love for writing from a small age. It is an innovative concept that has benefits when used with primary children.

Blogs can help children:

a) take responsibility for daily posts,

b) increase communication between friends, family and relatives (particuarly those far away), 

c) have exposure to new, innovative technologies is important for children to become familiar with,

d) improve writing, editing and spelling and typing skills.

Today is our first lesson of ‘Current Issues and Applications in Educational Computing’. We did a mind map of why it is useful to use the internet in the classroom. I worked with a partner as his computer wasn’t working and this is what we came up with: