Reflection

I have never had such a relationship before with my computer. I go to bed with it every night and wake up to it ever morning. Who needs a partner anymore when you can spend so much time with your computer. Seriously though although I have reached my frustration levels many times during the experience.

I have enjoyed this learning journey. The use of a blog to record this journey has been rewarding. I look back over what I have done and feel I have accomplished so much in a relative short time.

I will use and share what I have learnt. I have already used one of my new found skills. I used Flicker as a slide show for children to use as stimulus while making clay insects. During this time children would stop and watch the screen making comments and conversations with peers on what they were seeing. One child yelled at me “Troy blue nama (ant)”. They were able to make connections with the images and their world. This experience was an “active learning experience” the input they are hearing and using language such as body parts, six legs, antenna. They are feeling the clay and seeing the photographs. The process involves making an insect and communicating with peers. The output is the final product should display some of the elements of an insect such as three body parts or six legs.

I used Voki as a whole class experience where children were chosen to work on the Interactive White Board (IWB) to create an avatar. Children sat eyes glued to the IWB. They assisted each other to create sentences which were typed by myself. Further lessons will have the children attempting to type and/or record their sentence.

I am planning on using VoiceThread to have the students record the stories of Elders this would be the ultimate direct meaningful experience. Family is so important to these students and so are their stories. For them to be able to capture this in a way that is not hinged on the ability to use and understand English makes the task even more meaningful.

During this assignment I visited the sites of many of my peer’s blogs. I posted comments on a few after discovering that I had to download Mozilla Firefox to be able to comment on peers blogs.


Reference:
Adams Centre for Teaching Excellence, (2000), viewed 23rd of August 2009, from http://www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/howdoes.htm