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.