cold convo

Here is another application that I love. Google Earth allows you to roam around the globe and not just see green land and blue water with clouds over Perth showing a chance of heavy showers late in the afternoon that should clear up by Saturday. Through Google Earth students can pinpoint a location and zoom right in to the city, town, villiage or even just a land mark. They can travel the world from their computer!

Google Earth would be excellent for education in the Mathematics and SOSE learning areas as you can give the students a more visual and interactive way to learn about geography, mapping and co-ordinates. It is also good for sharing information with students; I think everyone has been in a class where some lucky so-and-so has gone on an overseas trip with their family and come back to tell everyone about it. Now this student can show everyone where they’ve been and make it a little more interesting.

After saying all this I feel like having a look again because I’ve just learnt that you can see some things in 3D which is pretty cool. I wonder if I can find that scarf I lost…

Why is it that all the fun stuff is coming to classrooms NOW and not when I was in school? If my iPod was seen at any of my schools it would have been quickly confiscated and I wouldn’t have seen it (or heard it) until the end of the week. Now they are talking about bringing them into the classroom!!! How is this fair! Facebook in the class, Smartboards, iPods, podcasts, online videos… the list goes on. I suppose in all fairness a lot of these weren’t really in existence when I was a student but I certainly know my iPod was because I had it take off me enough times.

Unfortunately I am now older and a tiny bit wiser and I have come to sort of understand why my teachers disallowed them. You can say how educationally valuable they are until the cows come home (using them for podcasts etc) but kids are kids, their iPods will get used when they are not supposed to, and in non educational ways such as just listening to music (like they were made for). More importantly, they are not cheap at all so some families won’t be able to afford them and, without a doubt, there will be kids that have their iPods stolen or it goes missing somewhere. So my overall opinion is that, while they are good fun and have some educational value, they are a luxury that is not necessary and may actually cause more trouble then it is worth.

Podcasts have never been an interest of mine as I struggle to listen to anything that doesn’t have video accompanying it but while it’s not my cup of tea I won’t write off the educational value of them. Having just done a presentation on Podcasts I can see that they can give a student new avenues to learn and create. Orange Grove Primary School uses podcasts all the time and the students are the creators of each podcast, it is used almost as a school newsletter, informing the school community on what is going on in the school. This improves their research skills as well as their social skills (especially those involving public speaking). 

I believe that the teacher could also use podcasts as another resource like books, the internet and documentaries. A teacher could even set the homework via podcast and give all the necessary information so the students can’t come back and say “but I didn’t hear you say that” or “I wasn’t here that day”, the podcast will always be posted on the net so they have no excuse!

When creating a podcast I believe the best program to use is GarageBand, it’s fun, easy and has all the little sound effects and music to make your podcast sound like it came out of Fox Studios. But then again, Mac always do everything well, except for my wireless card that keeps dropping out and making these blogs very tedious to post!!

I have to say, I LOVE the Smartboard. It is flashy, interactive, fun and you can use it just like any computer screen (only it’s a touch-screen as well). I find this great fun and I can definitely see the educational value it possesses; come on! think about it, what child do you know that wouldn’t want to give this a try. The software that comes with the Smartboard are very educational and interesting but the fact that they are animated and interactive makes it exciting and engaging for students.

All my gushing aside, the big negative for Smartboards is their price. Whilst I think that every class should have one, not every class will be able to afford it at around $2000 each. However, if we can convince our ever so generous government so subsidise…

This technology is brilliant and i very much hope to have one in my class!

Social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook and Bebo are all the rage at the moment and for some good reasons; it allows people to socialise with other people no matter how far away they are and they can share information and news with all their friends in one go. I personally like Facebook and I regularly check mine but i cannot see any educational value in them what so ever.

In the presentation given on these social networking sites, we made our own groups that could be accessed by our students when we become teachers. This is a good idea but I wouldn’t use it in class and I probably wouldn’t set one up myself as there is just too many things that could go wrong such as someone posting an inappropriate comment on my facebook and I only find out after every one of my students has found out. I just don’t think it is that necessary or conducive to the learning environment.

I recently saw a presentation on Google Docs, something I had heard of but never seen, and I was left feeling like I wasn’t missing out on anything. The girls gave an excellent presentation and they showed of the features of Google Docs brilliantly but in doing so they also showed where Google Docs was lacking. They made their whole presentation using the application and they seemed to have a lot of trouble with it, such as it freezing etc. 

That aside, I like the idea of being able to create a document or presentation online and have others easily contribute. I think this would be great when doing group work or even pen pal stuff as able to be accessed anywhere where there is a computer and an internet connection. Another positive is that Google Docs is still in its developmental phase so any problems that exist at the moment could be worked out before it is finished. I think it is a great concept.

Online video sites like YouTube and Google Videos are very popular amongst young people today as it lets us check out music videos, funny parts of movies or tv shows that we want to see again and even funny clips like the beached whale video (I’m beached as bro!). However, in my opinion, these hold more entertainment value then educational value and i wouldn’t really think of using them in my own class.

Just recently I was completing a SOSE assignment and I needed to find some sort of documentary or clip about ancient Chinese Culture online to add to my presentation. The first place I checked was YouTube (a new use for me as i usually spend all my YouTube time watching Scrubs episodes) and I was suprised with the amount of helpful and interesting videos I found relating to the topic I was studying. This opened up my mind to the educational value of online videos. 

The revelations continued, however, after witnessing Simon and Mathieu’s presentation on online videos and their segment on Teachers.tv. A site dedicated to educational videos like this, I believe, is a valuable resource and can give students and teachers entertaining and valuable learning experiences. I mean, honestly, what would you rather do? Read a text book or watch a video? … I thought so…

I like the idea of using online videos in the class but with sites like YouTube there still needs to be constant teacher supervision as the majority of the  contents on them are non-educational and would most likely be irrelevant to what you are trying to teach.

Hey there!

My name’s Christie and I’m an 2nd year education student at Curtin University writing my first ever blog.

This blog is to be a reflection whilst I complete my computing assignment but if I feel like having a grumble I will.

First off, my assignment is to give a 45 minute presentation on Podcasts, something I have very limited knowledge on. It’s a little worrying but from what I’ve seen they look like they’ll be pretty darn handy in the class. I’m now trying to learn to create one myself. If anyone knows of any innovative Podcast ideas please let me know, i want to know these things inside and out!

I am enjoying seeing how teaching is becoming more advanced in their use of technology. Teachers need to keep up to date with the technology used by their students as it can make lessons more engaging and relevent. It also helps to prepare they students for life outside of school in the what ever field they choose to move into.

Anyway, that is all I have time for today. I’ll post again when i have something to blather about