Cybersmart certificate

Cyberbullying

Sanna shares about her experience about cyber bullying which was about using words to harass people in internet. The statistic has showed that cyber bullying is getting common in Australia where

• between 7 per cent and 10 per cent of students from Year 4 to Year 9 have experienced cyberbullying
• cyberbullying rates increase with age—in line with increasing access to technology
• bullying and cyberbullying occurs more during transitional phases
• 10 to 20 per cent of students who are bullied are bullied online at home

The same case is happening in my country. As a teacher, we can help by having a good understanding of how group dynamics, and the way that students remain connected online away from school, both play a part in cyberbullying. We should play a role in encouraging students to stay connected to supportive family and friends online and offline.

Cyber safety and students

In module two, it talks about cyber safety. It makes me realize about the danger while children are connected to the world easily. Besides getting lots of benefits when they are using the internet, in the same time, they are exposed to the danger of exposing their privacy to strangers. Online technologies open many doors and windows into other worlds and viewpoints. The cyber safe gives me some ideas of how to guide them to stay safe and make sound decisions in the connected world in which they live. Vivian has blogged about the cyber smart ideas. However, she has some different opinions.

The bottom is the summary of the module 2. 
Learning aims for this module:

• become aware of the many cybersafety issues that young people face online
• gain effective strategies to help students and school communities to both prevent cybersafety issues and react appropriately should they occur.

Learning outcomes for this module:

• be able to identify students at risk of unsafe behaviours online
• influence student behaviours and attitudes about the use of online technologies
• establish strategies to prevent unsafe online behaviour and use among the student body
• have successful plans to deal with unsafe online behaviours should they occur
• gain insight about how young people use online technologies for socialising or interaction.

What do I know about lesson planning?

David has posted his questions in the forum. I found that I might not be able to answer this question before I visit the school or knowing the children. He felt that we should consider these questions according to our experience and idea.

What do I want the students to learn? How will I know that they have learnt?
What are the school resources and practices around this content? Are there school-based expectations of how it should be taught? What do I think of that practice?
What are the students familiar with? What bores them? What excites them?
What else is going on in the school and the context?
What do I know about the students?
What do I know about the context, the timing, the room, the other resources?
How have other people taught this? Google search.
What does the literature say about this topic? Google scholar search.
What worked? What didn't? Why?
Look into my "teachers resource box" – Diigo, Mendeley, my blog etc.
What are the different components of what the students have to learn? What are some good strategies to help them learn these components?
How much time do I have to develop this plan? How am I feeling? What are my strengths? What don't I know? Do I have time to learn it? What have I done before that's similar?

Before going to do my prac, I visited my placement school and had a talk with my mentor. She allowed me to observe the children and discussed the school curriculum level with me. So, before I really do my plans, I feel great to check out the student's level and the school's priorities. By collecting all the information needed, I have a better ideas of how to incorporate ICT in lessons. I feel that it is very important to find out what kind of learners are the group of students and what are the things would interest them. Beside, interviewing the teachers in the placement will be another good way to find out the students' strength and weakness.



http://nieer.org/resources/policybriefs/2.pdf This link says about the preparation before we go for prac.

Using ICT in performance

I was teaching the students to do a performance for their parents during parents day. I was using video recorder to record them doing their performance. Then, I played back the video and discuss with them the problems during the practice. The children were able to see their mistake and identify some funny movements during the practice. Hence, they tried to improve themselves. I found that it was really a good way to help students to reflect and perform better for the next time.

4th day of prac

Today I had a lesson with the students in teaching them how to do changing in money. I started with changing one ringgit into coins. Then, they had fun with the game about money. Markus told me that it was the best learning in the world by using computer with games. I have created a kid blog for the year 1 students with participation of teachers and parents. The memo will be out by tomorrow and I have shared some blog posts to welcome them. I hope that would help students in learning since it was the first time they have their blog and class group. http://kidblog.org/Rainbowgroup/

3rd day of prac

Today I got the opportunity to carry out a lesson with the students. It was about mother's day topic as mother's day falls on this Sunday. Instead of just sharing information or discussion about how mother's day, I researched video about the animals with their babies for the students. After watching it, we had a discussion about how different kinds of animals loves their babies. The next video was about a mother taking care of her three children from babies to adulthood. Then, we had a sharing session about that. The students was able to to link the scene to their life. We had discussion about how to show care to parents, and even the reason why we should protect some animals from not using real leathers or coats from them.

On the other hand, I had a lesson about 'time' with the children. Since it was just an introduction, I used song and action movie from youtube to attract them to sing along. The students responded well.

2nd day of prac

As requested, I have to teach the students about money. The principal has collected many kinds of boxes and she requested me to have a role play about buying and selling by using those boxes. The first idea that came into my mind was I have taught the students about the value of money before I move on to that stage. So, I used the real money to teach them the value of money. Then, I used ICT to allow students to go to the  tesco web site to research for the actual prices of objects. Then, I allow them to tag the price on the boxes that was providing by the principal.
 

1st day of prac

Today I have started  my practicum in Rainbow school. It was a nice day where I got a chance to meet all the children. In the morning, I were joining their circle time and helping out around. After the circle time, the principal would like me to take the 6 years old children to discuss about time concept. I used the opportunity to see their knowledge about time and find out misconception about time.

Neahel has a pretty good knowledge about time, she was able to explain about the relation between the spinning of earth and day and night.
Kiearra was able to link the time with the daily activities.
Marcus was able to link the clock with the time as well.
Qi Wen has some problem in reading the clock properly.

However, talking to them has made up my mind to prepare a lesson about time for them.

When the school was over, the mentor had a small discussion with me. She wanted me to teach the topic about money as she will be bringing the students for a real shopping in the later part. Furthermore, she requested me to teach about ways to appreciate parents as parents day falls on this month. Here I would link to share a link about the games related to time. http://www.maths-games.org/time-games.html

ICT in helping people to keep important moment.

Deborah has posted a funny video in her blog with the title 'Genius baby taking selfie'. Nowadays, the smart phone and camera allow us to record many important moments in our life. Furthermore, the multiple application allow us to put the photos into timeline, edit words...It is a great help in education to help students to record experiment, record the process in a project. It is a great help when it comes to reflection and evaluation. It help students to recall and allow them to correct themselves. This linkis to a blog which discusses about 'Impact of ICT in our daily life' where I found that is really true and happening to my daily life.

ICT in digital art

My lecturer has discussed about the practicum yesterday. She mentioned that there were cases where students were arranged to handle only art period during practicum. It made me curious about the ICT in art. What can we achieve if we are integrating ICT in art? 

Elaine mentioned it in her blog. She discussed about the certain softwares such as adobe photoshop have done such an amazing job in mixing digital technology with creativity and coming up with beautiful artistic pieces. The web site shares about how ICT in helping students in art. http://www.nsead.org/ict/about/about17.aspx

How can ICT help pupils' learning in art and design?

• by enhancing their ability to explore, develop and present ideas
• by providing a new medium to Investigate and make art and design, craft and design
• by providing a tool to evaluate and develop work
• by providing access to a range of resources to increase pupils knowledge and understanding of art and design and design 

ICT and health

Pheobe is posting a title about ICT and health in her blog. She mentioned about the benefit of ICT in knowing our health condition. I have gone through this kind of cases before where nowadays a lot of application in smart phone is about the check our heart rate or record the distance of walk of a person a day. From the following website, it talks about how the smart phone function in monitoring your health. http://allthingsd.com/20130703/house-call-five-smartphone-accessories-that-help-monitor-your-health/

The AliveCor Heart Monitor is a case that features built-in electrodes for reading and recording single-channel electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements.

Smart Blood Pressure Monitor for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The accessory features a blood pressure cuff that attaches to your iOS device via 30-pin connector.

For those with diabetes, the iBGStar Blood Glucose Monitoring System allows users to check blood glucose levels and manage data right from their mobile device. 

The Scanadu Scout isn’t about diagnosing problems on the spot. Rather, it’s about collecting data over time, so that people can keep track of changes in their health and identify when things are abnormal for them and not based on medical averages.

The BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer can tell you. Blow into this mobile breathalyzer, and it will send your estimated blood alcohol content (BAC) level to your iPhone via Bluetooth, so you know whether it’s safe or not to get behind the wheel. The app can even estimate when your blood alcohol level will return to zero percent.

What age is suitable to buy an Ipad

I have came across a funny title in Kathleen's blog. She wrote a funny discussion in her blog where I found it was interesting but it is something happening in the society nowadays. Here I would like to put in some of my point of view about the pros and cons in using Ipad in the early age.

When I was doing my research, I came across a blog page from a lady who loves Ipad application for kids. http://www.ipad4kids.com/ She has done a lot of sharing about different kinds of games in Ipad.
At the end of my exploration, I came into a conclusion, which is there is no pros and cons using an Ipad or what is the appropriate age of using it, perhaps it depends on how you’re using it. Tablets used like a TV should fall under the same guidelines.

In other words, tablets might not be all bad if they generate “talk time,” rather than replace it. As with anything else, moderation and common sense are key. If a child just sits all day playing on the iPad on her own, then I’m not sure she’s getting the benefits. My argument about the value of these devices is that they can add to parental time, not take away from it.

Special needs students

Reading about the post from a friend Vivian. She posted about ICT in special needs education. It makes me reflect about my journey working with special needs children. Inclusion is concerned with the learning, participation, and equal opportunities for all children, youth, and adultswith a specific focus on the groups vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion from society life. It could apply to any or all of the following: 

-children who need support in learning the language of instruction (second language);

-children with special educational needs, including those considered to have emotional, behavioural, sensory, physical, or mental disabilities;

-gifted and talented pupils

Software programs often come with facilities whereby teachers can set different levels for each pupil.  This is very useful for those with learning difficulties.  Not only does it mean they are using the same program as their peers but it means they can set themselves targets to work towards.  These programs are bright and attractive and make use of multimedia which appeals to those who need stimulus from more than one sense.  They can be used regularly for reinforcement as often as a child needs in order to grasp the concept. A list of software provided by Granada for using with pupils who have special educational needs is provided at
http://c2kschoolbox.granada-learning.com/special_index.html

More webbased resources

I am aware that they are a lot of powerful tools for extending educational possibilities. However, there are too many web based resources to decide from. As a teacher, I have to make sure that I am choosing the proper web sites or resources to make the learning more effective.

Maggie posted on her blog about a great web site http://www.mywebcheck.net/ where WebCHECK is based on a foundation of instructional design and motivation theory. It is easy-to-use, and generates a full evaluation report to share results. This site also features a collection of lesson plans that can be used with WebCHECK to teach information skills. This is a transformative tool that teaches students at any grade the advanced research skills they need to successfully navigate internet resource. I would try this out to see how could it help in my teaching journey.

Marks was out!!!

Yesterday received the marks for my assignment 2. Hard work was paid and the marks was not as satisfied. I was quite doubt about which parts go wrong as the no comments was given and the topic was subjective for us as most are depend on our own imagination and own idea. Furthermore, a web presentation is challenging for me as I was not quite used to presentation by using ICT, however, I had tried my best. I have no time to feel sad about the marks given but to improve myself better in this area. I have honestly requested some students who scored well to share their work so that I will be able to learn and improve myself. Here is the link to a friend's work where she got a pretty good marks. I hope she would not mind I share it here as I feel that it should be something that we should learn from.
http://u1024293messenger.weebly.com/

Preparation for my placement

I have visited my placement school few days ago. I was trying to talk to the principal about her expectation and the school's priorities. She hopes that I could do my planning according to their curriculum hence using ICT tools to help students to learn better. Now, I have to do my planning according to ACARA and select the units that suit student's progress. It is challenging for me and I hope I will be able to learn more in that school.

Working towards my assignment 2 ( assessment)

David has put a questions in study desk.   'How will you measure the success of ICT integration into your teaching?' This helps me to answer my questions in my assignment 2. The importance of assessment is to measure the student's understanding.

I will be using the formative and summative to access their understanding. For formative assessment, I would require the students to use ICT tools to do a short presentation of a given title. The students are going to attach photos, videos or information from their research into their presentation. On the same time, peer feedback is required. By using this time, I will be able to identify other student's understanding as well. Summative assessment is done throughout the lessons by posting some questions related to the topic and observation when the students are carrying the tasks given by the teacher. 

After reading other people's post in the forum,  there is a student using the reflection model in assessing where I found I should share here :
''To measure the successfulness of my integrated ICTs, I would be asking myself and my students the following questions: 

• Was the ICT easy/efficient to use? Did it work as it was supposed to?
• Did the ICT allow you to do something that was otherwise not possible? Did this enhance the learning experience? Was it necessary? Why/why not?
• Was the ICT engaging? Would you want to use it again? Why/why not?
• Was the ICT limiting? Did it prevent you from doing something or learning something important? How? 
• Do you have any recommendations on how the use of this ICT could be improved? How would you like to use it in the future?''

Wrking towards my assignment 2 ( desired result)

After completing the context, now I am moving to the desired result. I feel that the desired result is very important as it help us to set our target of what we are going to achieve. Furthermore, it help us in our reflection as well. If we fail to achieve the goal, we could start reflect about appropriateness of goal for students. Here are the points shared by David, we have to put those points into consideration when we set our desired result so that the lessons will not be too hard for the students to understand or too easy for them.

1. ScopeThis is the box that includes "At the beginning of the unit the students will learn about". It provides an overview of what the students will learn during the unit.
2. Essential questionsThese motivate and guide the sequencing of learning experiences.
   
3. Learning constructs or Learning Objectives These specify the exact curriculum goals that this unit aims to achieve.
   

Working towards my assignment 2 (context)

Looking at the week 4 posts. David is guiding us step by step towards the assignment 2. In this stage, I feel that completing the activities in the forum is really helpful and important in the process completing my assignment. Here, I would like to share the context that I have designed for my assignment.

School:  The school is situated at middle to affluent place in Malaysia, most of the students’ families have stable economic background. The school contains proper facilities or equipment that supports integrating ICT in teaching. It includes computers, laptops, interactive whiteboards (IWB’s), printers, digital and video cameras and USB’s. The school emphasises the effective integration of ICT’s to prepare learners for the globalisation and the school believes in changes in making a better society. 

While doing the context, I must not forget the microsystem that the students are experiencing. A good learning environment should be supported by adults in the child's microsystem.  The microsystem is the system in which an individual encounters the most social interactions. The individual is not simply observing or having things happen to them, but helping to create and construct the experiences they have. Here, I would like to share some reading that I have found.

Link:

 http://voices.yahoo.com/bronfenbrenners-ecological-theory-human-development-7630190.html

3 assignments are better than 2 ???

After comparing the criteria and workload, I really feel that 3 assignments are better than 2 as it would be less stress for the students. Last week, as assignment due date was near, I didn't really read the week 4 readings properly. This week, I was trying to retrieved what I had missed.

In order to meet the priority of my actual context, I would be choosing Year 1 Science in ACARA to do my unit plan. I am now moving forward to an effective planning. Through all these readings, it gathering the information about what I have learned in my previous course. I learned about the way to do my planning, the way to set an assessment and now is the time to combine all the knowledge with ICT integrated in it in order to assist the students to learn better by using ICT tools. Here is the website from Scotland school to give us some idea about how to do a good curriculum planning. http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/thecurriculum/howdoyoubuildyourcurriculum/

Here, I would like to share something that I found is important in our study desk.
Effective planning is achieved when the following three components align:

1. Curriculum - What is taught? Syllabus, school priorities and system priorities.
   
2. Assessment - How is student learning assessed? Making judgements using Standards (criteria) based on student evidence.
   
3. Pedagogy - How do teachers teach? Pedagogy aligned to the type of learning to be done.
   
   
   

Assignment 1

Here is the link to my assignment 1:

IT was a video created according to my teaching context. It explains what kind of ICT tools that I have chosen to use in my context and explain why do I use them in my context. There are 3 points in total. Some supporting theories make me feel that ICT may do so much more than what I knew before. For example, it could assist the special needs students in learning. 

Preparation for my prac ( planning)

Short term planning: By knowing that I have to plan my individual lesson plans.

Medium term planning: In a longer term, I must be prepared to do my medium term planing. Those are units of work (UoW) which could span for anywhere between one week, a term (10 weeks) or a semester (20 weeks). I have to make sure that my lessons linked together by a theme, concept, key issue, cluster of content or context is considered a unit of work.

Long term planning:In terms of school, the long term planning is about planning for the entire year. The work program contains an overview of the entire year and maps out the intended learning across the units of work. A work program is not detailed like a lesson plan or unit of work, but provides a snapshot of the content and topics covered. Work programs for senior syllabuses map out the entire two-year plan of study across Years 11 and 12.

Thanks for David's sharing about the journal from the link http://nicoledodge.edublogs.org/2013/04/23/working-with-c2c/ . It gives me a clearer idea of what to do in my planning. 

Preparation for my practicum

Stepping into week 4, David starts talking about our assignment 2, it makes me think about our practicum. There are some questions which pops into my mind and tried to find out some answers from the web. Here , I would like to share with everyone.
 

Should I plan some work before head for the children?
In short, no. Although it is very tempting when you’re a keen student teacher, it is not really worth your while to do too much lesson preparation in advance. One of the most crucial things about planning is that it suits the children you are teaching – children you haven’t met yet.

Will I be thrown in at the deep end?
Again, probably not. On your first teaching practice it is highly unlikely you will be given completely free rein with a class. Rather, you might simply be observing what goes on, or the teacher might ask you to observe some small groups at first.

Should I prepare anything at all?
It may help you feel better prepared if you have some ideas ready. These could be for quick games, fun activities or interesting exercises that you could use if you are asked to look after the class.

How early should I arrive?
Aim to arrive extra early on your first day of TP. At this point, you won’t be sure how long travelling to the school will take, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. Nothing makes a worse impression than a teacher who arrives late. In the teaching profession it is absolutely vital that you are in school and and ready to start work when your children first arrive.

What should I do when I get to school?
When you arrive, make sure that you report to the main school reception. You will probably be asked to ‘sign in’ and perhaps be given a badge to wear, identifying you as a visitor to the school. You might then be taken up to the staffroom to wait until someone can see you.

Here is a link to some journals relate to this topic
Teacher's journal

The last step to finish my artefact

This week I have been spending time in transferring my data including the context and the reasons about why should we integrate ICT in teaching and what kind of ICT is suitable to be used by children in order to enhance their learning. Along the way, I have been doing a lot of related reading about ICT, reading other people's blog in order to get ideas about how ICT is used in the pre-school context. After hearing from different people, I am eager to try out the effectiveness of using ICT in helping students to understand better. Now I am looking forward to my professional practice so that I will be able to try out what I have learned to the children in my school. Here is the link to a science lesson by using ICT.

Assignment 1- my context

 

      In assignment 1, we have to describe our context. Since it would be difficult to describe exactly how the context is in the video with only 7 minutes in length, I would be happy to put some photos to show how my context look like. The school that I have chosen for my teaching practice is a Montessori school with some modern technology equipments. One of the school's priorities is 'appreciating nature', so the school has a pretty garden with lots of plants. Integrating ICT in teaching ( video camera and camera) could help students in recording the plants growing process where it would make learning more fun. The students could also use the video camera or camera to record some interesting craft or role play process that they would like to share with others. By using the smart board, children get a chance to present their ideas clearer to other people. I feel that ICT would help the students to achieve better if their are used in a proper way or guided properly by the educators.

Exploring software

 

 

   After watching the attractive artifact from the former students, I was quite interested in how they design the artifact. I visited the website www.powtoon.com and I found that there if a variety of attractive software to be used in creating our own animation. As a teacher in the school, we have to always integrate new items in our teaching so that the children will have excitement whenever they attend our class. Besides using microsoft presentation, we could use http://goanimate.com/ , http://www.powtoon.com/ or http://prezi.com/your/ to create attractive video. Those software would make our teaching journey more attractive especially for visual or auditory learners. Thank you.

What should be my next title?

 

   After writing a few blogs, I felt a little doubt of deciding my next title for my blog. So, I decided to look around what others are doing. When I visited our private group, I found something that I missed out along the way- a warm reminder from our lecturer. She gave us tips about how to write about the blog. I think most of the people have the same feeling like I do while deciding for our next blog. Now, I understand why we should blog everyday, the main reason is to record what we have learned and it it a good chance for us to do our reflection. As we blog, we reflect;  as we comment and look through other's blog, we improvise ourselves. Today what I checked around, I found that shafeenaz's blog looks attractive to me, then I decided to make some changes to the layout so that I might be able to attract more people to read my blog. I spent about few hours to explore the 'blogger' as I do not write blog often. I found that this software is quite easy to be handled and it might be appropriate to be used by students who are able to read. I would consider using it for my practicum later. Thank you.

How to do a proper reflection?

     Reflection is a very important process in our learning journey. It help us to correct our own mistakes and give us ideas of how to improve in the future.

      By referring to  Kathleen's post in week 2, she mentioned about reflection too. In her post, She mentioned about the five points which she felt that were important, which include :

1. Description of an experience- It should be an evaluation of the details and part where I feel it is important.   

2. Personal experience- For this point I would like judge an action based on my passed experience and knowledge  

3. Critical analysis.- Here I might need to analyse, argue, evaluate, synthesise and test with other ideas and experiences

4. Taking perspectives into account.-  I would to research and communicate with others to get a better solution.
5.  An outcome of reflection.-  a result where it should give me an idea of how to handle the similar situation in a more proper way.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
   I feel that reflection is very important in helping us to see how good we have done in handling a particular situation. However, a good planning should be able to avoid some problems caused along the process.

Personal Knowledge Management

            As defined by Harold Jarche, principal of Jarche Consulting, personal knowledge management (PKM) is “a set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world and work more effectively.” 
           

            Refer to Alicia post, she has put some points about PKM.  It defines the Personal, Knowledge and Mastery individually.
-Personal – according to one’s abilities, interests & motivation.
-Knowledge – understanding information and experience in order to act upon it.

-Mastery – the journey from apprentice to disciplined sense-maker and sharer of knowledge.

        From my perspective, PKM  is a collection of processes that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve, and share knowledge in his or her daily activities. We have to plan our time well as most of use might be working and studying at the same time. We must not stop learning when we stop schooling. Reading and communicating with others help us to make sense of the world better.