PowerPoint

I am familiar with PowerPoint having used it for previous assignmnets. Through the use of pictures, written text,tables, graphs and voice recording various learning styles are catered for. Visual learners will take in the pictures and print where auditory learners will engage with the spoken element.

I find Power Point to be a little bit more technical than PhotoStory and is better used with children who have had more computer experience. Power Point has many uses two ways that I would have student use is firstly as a tool that can be used to add to a verbal presentation secondly as a way students can display their knowledge on a project.

Podcast

Until today I had never looked at a podcast. I download a few relevant podcasts and listened to them. Finding the most relevant podcasts to suit your lesson could be time consuming but well worth the effort as I think that this format would be engaging to students if selected carefully. Also podcasts allow you to have access to specialists in a variety of areas. Once again reenforcing the idea that the teacher is not the expert in all areas they can learn with the student.

The children I work with are disadvantaged as they have limited access to ICT's. Very few children would have access to any form of ICT. The school has interactivewhite boards in all rooms and a computer lab but due to renevations there is very limited access to this at the moment.

SlideShare

SlideShare enables the user to upload presentaions as well as view presentations prepared by others. I am familiar with power point as I have used it for assignments in the past. In the past I have used power points recording ability to add narrative. As I am not sure how to narrate and turn it into mp3 I will post this as is as I learn how to finish this off.

Fish

View more presentations from troygill.

Reference:
http://www.slideshare.net/

Incompetech

Incompetech is a library of royalty free music. I found the site some what difficult to navigate. This was not helped by the fact that it kept freezing and I had to end that program. The musicI listened to I would describe as very alternative and artsie. This music could be used in the classroom for a variety of experiences including background music for photostory or power point also for music to use in dance/drama.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is written by anyone contributing to articles. Anyone can add to or edit articles. It allows the user to search for relevant articles in a variety of ways including topics and subject areas. The words in blue when clicked provide information on that specific word.

The theme for this term for the year 4/5 class is sea animals. Children could use Wikipedia at school to begin research on a variety of sea animals. It provides opportunity for every child to gain knowledge through the use of text as well as photos and diagrams. The language used in Wikipedia may overwhelm the ESL students but this could be a well scaffolded experience. Children search for preselected articles such as fish, dolphin, stingray and whale. The use of an assistant teacher to translate and the teacher explicitly teaching key concepts would benefit all students. Unfortunately the majority of students would not have access to a computer at home.

Reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Picnik

Picnik was an easy to use program that allowed me to upload and tweak photos. It allowed me to resize and crop the photo. I also changed the colour. I can see that using picnik and Flickr I could upload class photos for children to view and edit instead of using the schools limited storage
capacity.
Reference:
http://www.picnik.com/

Google Earth

I have used Google Earth to a limited extent to look up places of interest. Today I took the time to explore the functions. I was happily engaged checking out places of interest, reading reviews and trying out a variety of options.

I have observed children looking up Yuendumu on Google Earth but have never looked at the tecnology as a teaching tool. I can see that it could be a source of photos that could be used by children of all ages. From Transition children working together on a interactive whiteboard to senior secondary doing independant project work and utilising the features of the resourse.