In our first lecture we were introduced to ICT in the education era of the 21st century. As pre-service teachers, we were informed by Greg of the importance of ensuring that we encourage our student's to use technology including computers, cameras and a plethora of other devices on a daily basis within schools. Use of such technology may develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills of our students an may entice student motivation, attitude, interest in learning new skills. Most importantly this assists in preparing our student's for the workforce and later life (Powell, 2010).
I strongly believe that the evolving use of technology within primary school classroom's provides endless opportunities and growth for all student's and teacher's. when students make use of various forms of technology they take on an active role rather than a passive role whereby the information is not transmitted through the teacher, textbook or etc. Through the use of technology students are actively thinking about a range of information, making choices, gaining knowledge and skills, making and defining goals, making decisions about various design layouts and being able to self-eveluate their progress within using various forms of technology. This allows the teacher to freely rotate around the room as he/she observes what the students are taking part in, having one on one interactions with the students about their work progress and discussing various tools and programs that students can use within their work. Furthermore, technology tools and programs are updated very frequently and as our current students grow and enter the work force environment, technology would have changed but due to the exposure to various forms of technology out current and future students would have acquired endless knowledge and gained sufficient skills on how to use technology (Archived Information, 2010).
During our first workshop Greg assisted each and every student through taking us through the steps to set up a blog account. We were given approximately ten minutes to familiarise ourselves with the various functions on Blogger, which allowed each student to develop and enhance new ICT skills. We were encouraged during our workshops to type up notes within our blogs which would allow us to write weekly reflections on what we had learnt during the ICT workshops.
As a class Greg introduced us to a wonderful program called ‘Inspiration 8’, which allows student's to use various applications to create concept and mind maps. This program allows for student creativity and for the brainstorming of ideas and to complete class projects. Greg demonstrated how to use this program to our class by constructing a mind map called healthy foods and from the initial idea arrows branched off with labels of fruit and vegetables. Greg then showed us how to upload pictures to go under the correct heading, label them appropriately, enlarge or decrease the size of the picture and to use the name of the fruit or vegetable as a link to a web page which talks about that food item in much more depth.
We were given approximately an hour and a half to familiarise ourselves with Inspiration 8. Initially I found it quite difficult to use the program, however with the more time I spent using it and exploring new tools, my confidence, familiarity and use of the program improved significantly.
During the session I worked with my partner and we both supported each other as we embarked on a new journey through Inspiration. I assisted my partner in altering background colour and the thickness of arrows, whilst she assisted me and taught me how to cut and paste our concept maps from inspiration into our weekly blog posts. Helping each other made both our learning experiences more positive and interesting and it was beneficial in having someone reinforce my ideas and support me with areas that I had little previous exposure to.
I created two concept maps with Inspiration. The first covered various Zoo animals and a brief description of each animal. I used the names of each animal and attached a link to a web page that provides an in depth description about the physical and characteristic features of that animal. My second concept map was based about various forms of transportation including cars, water travel, air travel, trains and trams. This concept map allows students to further develop their knowledge of different vehicles that they may come into contact with and utilise in their daily lives, including driving to work or travelling on an aeroplane to travel interstate or overseas.
The two concept maps that I created within inspiration are as follows:
References:
Archived Information. (2010). Effects of technology on classrooms and students, Retrieved 30th July 2010 from, http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/effectsstudents.html
Inspiration Software Inc. (2010). Inspiration 8, Retrieved 30th July 2010 from, http://www.inspiration.com/Freetrial
Powell, G. (2010). Learning Technologies (ICT) and Twenty First Century Education, Week One lecture notes, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
