Personal Learning Space

Listening to Allanah King talk about her class using technology was inspirational! Her class is using most of the various programs that we looked at as a class in our elective week which is fantastic for year 4/5 children.

Allanah King’s uses MAC computers in her classroom for reading, writing and maths help in the mornings and at other times uses them to blog. Allanah King started by investigating different ways of blogging before she introduced it to her class. All children at Appleny Public School have a blog account and are expected to contribute  to each others postings.

The children at Applyby have contact with other schools around the world. One being in Wales and the other in New York which is an incredible learning experience for all the children involved. The children according to Allanah King get excited when they see how many people are watching their blogs globally.

Allanah King’s students started podcasting the happenings of learning in the classroom, she said she is more concerned about what they say/write rather than the grammar. In her classroom she has 3 monitors per week, 1 person for the technical side of things and 2 people to do the talking. She uses the program GarageBand which we used in class which is so simple to use, and easy to get good at!

Her class also has skype conversations with the students in Wales and New York and the most recent program is Flickr. Allanah King lets the sudents borrow the class camera so that they can then post them on the internet.

The important thing is that everone has a go. There are challenges along the way, however the rewards are GREAT!!!  

Download Video: Posted by AllanahK at TeacherTube.com.

I am tinking about chossing the topic of smartboards for my Task 2 assignment. I know very little about them and hve had no contact with them so far. I am keen to find out more about them and understand why teachers would choose to use one.

I have begun doing a small amount of research about them and have come to a realisation that SMART boards are used to combine the simplicity of the whiteboard with the power of a computer to engage students around the world. The SMART board has a touch sensitive display that connects to the computer and projector to show the computer image.

 The SMART board is very exciting as you can control the computer applications directly from the display,write notes in digital ink and save the work to the computer!!!

 According to websites I have looked up it is very easy to use, which makes it even better!

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 Michelle and I worked today on our LAMS sequence. We were adding final touches and making sure the presentation was interesting and exciting for our stage 2 students. We had to record another podcast for the LAMS sequence on the topic of bullying. I love the GarageBand program. It is just so easy to use and so effective. I believe kids will really enjoy using the program also. It is such a fun and interactive way to engage students in technology. GarageBand has also been so useful in our LAMS sequence and has made it much more interesting. The kids are able to listen to real life situations about bullying and can be so empathtic to these made up characters in our LAMS sequence!

sarah-bullying.mp3

I found Emma’s podcast very interesting. I feel that she really captured her passion of skiing and her love of being at the snow. The music she put behind her piece was very emotive and she cleverly put a picture in of a snow flake. I really enjoyed listening to it!

Blogwalker has used podcasts to reach the visually impaired which I think is a fantastic way for these children to learn!!!

I used GarageBand again to include in my LAMS assignment. We are going to have questions to follow the passage about ‘Graham the Bully’. I found it very easy to use, and it took a very short amount of time. Due the fact that it needed to be a boy’s voice I changed the voice to a male and it actually sounds quite good! Have a listen and let me know what you think!graham.mp3

Emma developed a very effective iMovie on deep, meaningful learning!

Today we made an iMovie based around the idea of deep meaningful learning. To begin with we were asked to find 2 pictures from google images that metaphorically represented our thoughts and ideas about learning. My partner, Michelle and I decided to create our iMovie together. We used the infinity sign to represent that learning is an ongoing journey that never stops and a road to represent that learning can begin on one path but can end up taking many different turns and twists.

I found this new iMovie program much easier to use than the old version and I feel that children will also gain an understanding of the program and become quite efficient in using it. I feel that the program is a great program to use in the classroom to enable children to think creatively.

It was a matter of putting still pictures in the correct order, recording our voices and also recording ourselves in front of the camera. Putting music and special effects is also an option that Michelle and I did not get time to do as it was only a 30 second iMovie.

I find being able to send the final copy of the iMovie such an exciting thing for kids as it will produce a culture of the children being very excited to show of their work to their family and friends.

Meaningful Learning