Week 1

Incorporating ICT within the classroom

Today we were introduced to the possibilities of learning technologies and the endless educational opportunities they present to students of the twenty-first century. Greg Powell made evident that learning is a continual process and technology is heavily involved in that process. It was also explained that technology is altering our brains, developing higher order thinking and problem solving skills, increasing student interest in learning, catering for all skill levels and creating interesting and exciting learning environments.

Our first task in the workshop today is to create and edit a blog to reflect on each workshop. This task alone is a fantastic reflection tool which can be incorporated into the classroom used as weekly reflection blogs during literacy blocks/rotations. It allows students to build upon their personal learning through reflection as well as their skills in ICT for communicating. Secondly, we were introduced to the Inspiration 8IE Software, where we were taught how to develop a concept map and a mind map.

Attempt at developing a concept map:

I found this experience quite confronting at first, but managed to gain confidence the more time I spent experimenting with various effects and features of the Inspiration 8IE program. Across to the left is my first attempt at creating a concept map where I decided to create a concept map about wild animals aimed towards a junior level, specifically Prep.

The Prep VELS learning focus for Science outlines for them to explore the world around them, including non-living and living things. It also states that they describe what they observe with both scientific and non-scientific language. For exmaple, short, tall, furry, soft, long, big, small.

Once I had selected the topic of wild animals, I was able to create sub-headings using familiar pictures and titles. I found the editing and layout very time consuming, yet I enjoyed this process. Hopefully, I will become more familiar with this technology and create challenging tasks for students to attempt.

Attempt at developing a mind map:

I found creating a mind map slightly challenging at first, but I did enjoy creating the end product by adding pictures and colour to increase the appeal for users. Once again, I chose the broad topic of 'animals' as I found it easier to create several aspects relating to the topic.

It is aimed towards the learning focus of Science Level 3, where students begin to understand how different parts of an animal work and change to aid in theit survival and how to classify them.

I created the central idea and added as many branches as I thought appropriate. I then editing the graphics and colour to enhance the display. I can see the opportunity to challenge students with specific topics to expand their general thinking and knowledge. It is a good opportunity to show students a broad spectrum of a topic, the relationships between the topics as well as groupings of particular topics.

Thoughts on the Inspiration 8IE Software...
Overall, after being introduced to the Inspiration 8IE Software I can imagine the usefulness of using this within a classroom setting. There any many interactive tasks which can be created to encourage students to further their learning both creatively and build on their ICT skills. I honestly found it time consuming and frustrating during my first attempt, yet slowly, but surely improving with each attempt. I certainly hope to utilise this program within my teaching and take advantage of it's usefulness in the modern day classroom.

A similar program I have found is called Edraw Mind Map. This program is free to download from the internet and can be used to create mind maps, sketch maps and flow charts for brainstorming, problem solving, and decision making processes. I particularly like it as it is very friendly to the eye and offers many different display variations to present your data in. Below is an example of a basic mind map I created using the software on my laptop: