Favourite ICT Workshop, Final Note

I'd have to say... Seminars. Yep. Seminars. I actually found many of the presentations provided great ideas and resources for ICT in the classroom. Even groups who chose to present ICT specific to their discipline, I still heard many clever ideas as well as websites, programs and other software. Some examples include using Skype in LOTE classrooms to communicate with native speakers. While this is a great use of a free program in one specific discipline, I feel inspired to find ways to use this in my own area. I'm from the U.S. and completed my undergraduate degree there and still remain in contact with several professors. Perhaps I could have students read up on what those professors are currently researching and prepare an interview for one of my former professors. It could be great for students to have real contact with a scientist, and Skype would provide the bonus of a scientist from overseas. Another great example was given by a History group, who shared an interactive website allowing a virtual tour of the pyramids. While surely a great resource in the History classroom, this and other virtual-environment type websites could be used in other subjects. Imagine having students perform trigonometry on the pyramids by making measurements in an interactive environment, rather than simple data or photos. What about having students use similar sites, such as Google street view, to collect scientific data and make measurements anywhere in the world? Although I enjoyed the workshops and believe they covered many of the basic uses of ICT in education, for the most part I had previous knowledge and experience with most of the topics, with the exception of 'conditional formatting' in the Excel workshop (which was taught in ALT as well, however) and making webpages. The seminars and my own presentation were the best chance to learn about ICT in education. On a final note, I have read much regarding people's final opinions about ICT in education. I must say I'm a bit perplexed that this is even an argument people we continue to have. ICT surrounds us in our modern world and continues to to absorb into more and more of our lives. You are entitled to teach the way you believe best, and I don't see ICT being forced upon any teacher, aside from basic email and school website protocols. I enjoy trying to keep up with technology and am constantly brainstorming more creative ways to add to my knowledge and experience with ICT and applications for teaching. If you decide this is not for you, that's fine... but I would still argue that you and your students will have a gap growing between you as they continue to grow up in a world infused with technology. That being said, I'm also aware of the idea that true social interaction is essential for learning and agree with this, but am sure that this can live in harmony with ICT. As I dream now of things like an iPad being wirelessly projected in a classroom, which other students could see, edit, and get for themselves, I can hardly imagine what kind of technologies I'll be geeking-out about in the future. So here's to ICT in education, to the fellow educators whom I look forward to creatively collaborating with in the future, and to the many exciting new ideas this generation of teachers brings to the table!

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is a new and interesting science, branching form Chemistry and therefore falls under a curriculum which I'll be teaching! Although I hadn't studied Nanotechnology as an undergraduate, the basic idea is easy to understand. Sometimes also known as surface chemistry, the surfaces of materials play a huge role in how they interact when they come in contact with other materials. This only needs to be an extremely thin layer covering the material, sometimes a Nanometer (1x10^-9m) or one 'layer' of molecules! While there are potential applications for nanotechnology in medicine, electronics, energy production, and many other industries, it is also controversial as its effects, namely long-term effects on the environment are not yet understood. An evolving, controversial topic in science to liven up the curriculum? I'll take it!
However, as far as I know, Nanotechnology falls short in the experiments/demonstration component which is vital for science teaching. ICT to the rescue!

Take the following video for example:



Now isn't that great!
Oh! And where might those scientists gotten the idea from?


Another simple example of using ICT to reinforce learning and pick up the slack where other activities aren't available (Not to contend that using ICT is always a 'backup' to another resource).  The point is the video is interesting, relates to and supplements the topic, and would scaffold lots of educational glory.

Top 10 Uses of Google Docs for Teachers

Hello Everyone,
My colleague Nick 'The Coach' Kemp and myself 'The Doc' created this video explaining the top ten  uses of google docs for teachers for our group presentation of assignment two. We chose the topic: 
"Actual or potential opportunities for enhancing education due to recent developments in Web 2.0 applications, or in 'the cloud' generally." -John Murnane
Enjoy!

The Great Debate by Two Great Minds

What do you get when you cross one of the world's foremost spiritual thinkers with a one of the greatest physicists alive today? The ingredients for a stimulating yet mind-boggling debate about the known and unknown, measurable and unmeasurable, science vs. spirituality (and careful NOT to say religion).
Deepak Chopra and physicist Leonard Mlodinow join Tom Ashbrook from OnPoint radio to talk science and spirit. Try to keep up with this one, folks:

Click here to listen to the podcast

Deepak Chopra and physicist Leonard Mlodinow. (CalTech/AP)

Post-Production, Pre-Viral Internet Video

Hello all,
It was week 3 I believe in which we explored movie production in the ICT workshops. Being an Apple snob, and therefore only associating with other fellow Apple elites, chose to use iMovie since several of us have experience with using the program.
I had originally planned (and still plan) to edit and produce my own version of the following video, but at this point I suppose I'll just post our group's video. All post-production credit goes to colleague and life-coach Luke. His editing skills (and more importantly his punctuality) created the following masterpiece:



The views and opinions in this video do not necessarily reflect any of the personal viewpoints of members involved, and definitely do not intend to insult the real security guard, who was obviously a bit overwhelmed by all the student backlash.

Podcast Partnership

I started listening to podcasts several years ago. I started with radio shows I liked and eventually discovered many podcasts I liked. I find them a great source of knowledge, enjoyable to listen to, and convenient. For some time now, I've wanted to make a podcast. In our biology methods, one of our assessments was a blog post about an issue related to biology teaching to discuss, analyse, and give an informed opinion of. The 'professional voice' type thing. My biology colleague, Mark Danaro, and I worked together to publish a podcast on 'inquiry-based learning' and it's place in the science classroom. We included a discussion of the research for and against, interviews and our perspectives on inquiry learning. We used garage band (on Macs) and uploaded it via our biology blog, posterous.com
Check it out!
It was a lot of fun, some hard work, and I learned a lot. I hope to continue to produce regular podcasts as a science teacher, hopefully with a colleague, that would be targeted at students. We'd talk about science news, relevant issues, our science curriculum, and anything else science! I'm thinking I could even make this part of my assessment scheme. Students would be responsible to choose a topic, research, interview, and draft a layout of a discussion between me and any guests the student organised.
I suppose some students may not want their voice published, which I would respect, but overall I think students will try their best if they know their work will be available online.

El Commento!

Hey Rose!
It's a well-scripted post and a nice looking blog. I like the moon background especially!
But I also agree with what you say here! I think many people who have tried and failed with ICT still perhaps misunderstand how to creatively utilise it in classrooms (which is a challenge of course!).
I used ICT to organise a few inquiry based lessons this semester and it worked out great. I am on board with inquiry learning and think students need the chance to use their scientific and problem solving skills in the science classroom.
I had some ace physics lessons that were set up as challenges to different teams of students. The students responded well to a bit of a competitive atmosphere. Do you have any good inquiry-based to share?
Oh and I also love 'Mythbusters!' has many episodes which can be used to supplement a science lesson. I used one last semester where they try using Thermite to blow a hole in a wall! Do you have any favourites?
I'm hoping to improve learning with ICT and share my knowledge with fellow science teachers... like you!
Well Done!
http://roseictblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/vels.html?showComment=1316507469717#c953940464462623205

ICT & VELS: ICT supports knowledge-building among teams and enables team members to collaborate, inquire, interact and integrate prior knowledge with new understanding.

As a teacher candidate with science methods, ICT has and will contribute to the collaborative atmosphere in the scientific classroom. Student interaction and discussion is simply not just a face-to-face classroom activity anymore. I chose this VELS tatement because I believe that using ICT in science improves student inquiry and interaction.

In my experience, using ICT in education has been tried in a variety of ways, but most of which have had a positive effect on collaborative inquiry-based classrooms. Constructing an interactive, student-centred classroom using ICT has the capacity to reveal some profound learning. Teachers nowadays are provided with an vast array of options in which to set up an online community for their students to collaborate and organise.

There are many reasons to work towards a collaborative, student-centred classroom; one major reason being the real-world application of highly developed communication skills. In the global economy, the use of technology is essential for communication.  “Students apply a range of techniques, equipment and procedures that minimise the cost, effort and time of processing ICT solutions and maximise the accuracy, clarity and completeness of the information saving/manipulating.” (VELS, 2011)

As the trend to move from teacher-centred to student-centred classrooms continues, new ways to challenge and motivate students are required to help scaffold and guide students through inquiry or project-based tasks. Providing students with digital tools to solve problems and work as a team will promote learning as well as social cohesion with an efficient way to record and organise the classroom and help students to connect ideas from lesson to lesson.

Shifting towards an ICT-integrated curriculum is not without it’s challenges. I believe ICT will gradually make a comfortable transition into full use.

As mentioned previously, an overwhelming array of options are available, which can be confusing and difficult for teachers to know which to use. On top of that, new technologies are being created everyday!

The online world also has dangers which students need to be made aware of. This is a challenging assignment for teachers to properly execute, but for teachers who are successful, the rewards are plenty.

“Students use accepted protocols to communicate regularly online with peers, experts, and others, expressing their messages in language appropriate to the selected form of communication, and demonstrating respect for cultural differences.” (VELS)

There are endless possibilities for the use of ICT in collaborative activities, with students themselves offering creative input to using ICT for learning. It is becoming clear that learning through computers rather than around them offers more opportunities for students to go beyond the expected. (Letinen, 2003)

Science, in particular, has advantages when it comes to organising class data from experiments, discussions of results, and other collaborative means in the scientific process. Inquiry-based science has great potential and ICT provides many opportunities to guide and scaffold the scientific process.

In conclusion, ICT enriches student-centred, collaborative and team-oriented classroom activities and helps to manage an atmosphere where students build knowledge by asking the right questions and knowing which tool to use to gain understanding in the world.

References

(2011). "ICT for collaborative teaching and learning." The Education Forum. Retrieved September 14th, 2011, from http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3289.

(2011). Victorian Essential Learning Standards: Information and Communications Technology. Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

Lehtinen, E. (2003). Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: An Approach to Powerful Learning Environments. Powerful learning environments: unraveling basic components and dimensions, European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction.

Security Breach

As I previously blogged, my primary success using ICT in the classroom has been the sharing and collaboration of all class material; agenda, due dates, links to handouts, etc. I feel rather proud actually, that I have been able to engage at least some students and provide them with easy access to everything they need.

One particular class has been particularly "active" with the classroom document. If you've used google docs before, you may know that when multiple users are viewing the same docs, a chat window can be used along with real-time editing. Anyways, I was at first pleased to see the students, which seems to be well-bonded (not to mention they are the streamed class, aka 'taskies'). They were also adding some year 9 type humour, which I liked. It was like a more informal setting, and being that I'd tried to add a bit informal with what I added so that the students may find it more interesting.

Recently, however, I have been faced with a question: Where does one draw the line of formal/informal in the online classroom forum? The students seem to be getting more informal, with a ______ likes _____ message, which I know all to well to be quite the awkward age for these rumours to get posted for the class to see. The term "duty of care" pops into play here...

On one hand, it's not class time, you're happy to see the kids collaborating, engaged, and quite frankly DOING their homework!
On the other hand, I feel that as a teacher, I work very hard to maintain a professional atmosphere in the classroom (or at least I'm trying to) and I have created an online space to help with their learning... why shouldn't the same rules apply?
I pose this question to you, teacher candidates.
Do you have collaborative places online for your students?
Have you been faced with questionable online behaviour?
How do you maintain professionalism in the online world?

Watson's Brain

"Dharmendra Modha of IBM Research – Almaden, in San Jose, California, hopes to build a shoebox-sized supercomputer with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses that consumes just 1 kilowatt of power. That may still sound a lot – a standard PC uses only a few hundred watts – but a supercomputer like IBM's Watsonuses hundreds of kilowatts. By contrast, the ultra-efficient human brain is estimated to have 100 billion neurons and at least 100 trillion synapses but consumes no more than 20 watts."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20810-ibm-unveils-microchip-based-on-the-human-brain.html 

Operation ICT Integration

How is your use of ICT going in your block placement? Are you trying some new uses of ICT to improve student learning??
I'm using the teaching round as a sort of trial period for various types of ICT in class. I have set up public, collaborative documents for each class I'm teaching which includes any handouts from class, an annotated timeline that allows students to see what was done and what is coming up. I also add any videos, links, or other resources directly on the page. I find it helpful for my planning and easing my job of keeping track of student work and keeping students up-to-date when they miss class, etc. At the very least, I will definitely be using ICT for this type of classroom management, having a central data location where students are responsible for keeping up with the class.
I've also been exploring other uses of ICT during the block. Inspired by my fellow teacher candidate, Duncan, I used a website called stixy to organise a computer-based investigation. Students followed the tasks directly on the board itself and posted their findings in their section of the board which I prepared. The students found it easy to find and use and within 25 minutes of investigation, an informative, colourful board with lots of redox chemistry information! Two things about stixy that I need to improve for next time: Somehow, the board wasn't saved. I would love to still have it as a resource, and it should have saved but something failed, possibly the fact that all students and I were guests and not logged in. Also, I would leave a day between their research, allow them to finalise their section as homework and lead the students through a discussion, rather than have students present the very same day. It rushed things and at the end they were getting bored.
I've still been using PowerPoint, but have used google presentation since I can access them online easily.  I'm not sure about this yet, as the google's lacks the full features such as all the animations and formatting options.
Overall, I look forward to providing useful and interesting resources for students online as well as manage all the administrative and assessment responsibilities. I'm always looking and thinking about creative ways to directly improve learning, especially during class time. I would like to use it to make lessons more connected and allow students easy access to what they are expected to do and what will be coming up.

iTeach

Hello friends,
I'm sure many of you have heard of Khan Academy before. If not, it's a free database of thousands of video lessons that include his explanations and a screen-captured video from a digital "whiteboard." Salomon Kahn started off by making the videos for his niece but has now committed full-time to the website.

Anyways, I really liked how he uses such a simple concept, a direct approach using ICT. But, I wondered how someone could utilize that software in their classroom. I would think that if a teacher could get this kind of software onto an iPad and connect wirelessly to the projector, and make a seamless transition, having a fully digital whiteboard at your fingertips but remaining able to move about the room. Students would also be able to collaborate on the document and a digital textbook as a class, as small groups, or just individually.
Those are just a few of my thoughts on how ICT could become more seamlessly integrated and useful.

Learning Without Teachers

I had a look at this Ted Talk which was mentioned in the lecture this morning:


I thought this video was rather inspirational but also touched on an important aspect of ICT in education that hasn't been discussed much in the course so far. As developing teachers, we are constantly thinking of how we can use ICT in our teaching to supplement what we want students to learn. We think of ways to use ICT to help us present an organize lessons. We try different ways to plan and assess and deliver content to students through ICT. We hope to have ICT seamlessly embedded in our lessons, assisting and complementing us as teachers.
But what about the situation when the computer IS the teacher? The video shows an extreme example of impoverished children who don't have access to computers, but it got me thinking of this in a broader sense; When you want to learn something on your own in this day and age, a computer is by far the way you would do it. Personally, I've used computers to learn all sorts of things, from guitar to bike repair. Having the necessary skills to find and use the endless supply of digital information is all it takes to embark on a self-regulated learning adventure.
So what does this have to do with us as teachers? I hope we see this as an opportunity and use it to its fullest advantage. I'm thinking of mini-research tasks which students could at home. I'm thinking collaborative group projects with student-directed goals. I'm thinking of students developing investigation and creativity skills while simultaneously learning subject-specific content.
What do you think? How will you engage students without simply discussing things that are just a google away?

Great Science Podcast

Anyone who:
A) Has a science method
B) Is fascinated by the human brain
C) Likes music
I'm linking in an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Radiolab from WNYC (Public radio, New York).
As a science and music fan, this episode blew me away. It's about a ragtime piano player named Bob Milne who was tested by a neurologist at Penn State University after the way he described how his brain thinks of music. Apparently, he can listen to four symphonies in his head simultaneously. The episode get a bit subjective and dramatic, but if you have 20 minutes to spare on the train sometime, I highly recommend this. It's a great example of how amazing the human brain is and our lack of understanding of how it functions. Enjoy.
Radiolab 7/27: A 4-Track Mind

Cephalopodalicious

Hey, science geeks! Check out this video. It would be great to show students during a unit on adaptation, but would be entertaining any time really.

Action!: Movie Making in Education

I think making movies could be great fun and highly educational if done properly. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of ideas/experiences everyone has related to this. A few thoughts I've had about it so far:

I actually wanted to make a video with some year 11 Biology students last semester, but my mentor started going on about privacy in the digital age, and it became too much trouble to go attempt as a teacher candidate. As an employed teacher, could you see yourself making videos with your classes? I think there is potential but I'm still not sure about the execution.
I also observed a chemistry class last semester where the students were shown a video made by a teacher and several students. It was funny, entertaining, and educational... but looked to be produced in the early '90s at best! Corniness factor was up there, which was enough to get the attention of most students. While I was impressed by the shelf life of the video, I was actually surprised no other teacher since had stepped up and attempted to make a sequel...
What about you? Would you make a video to show students? Would you have students produce a video that you could assess? Class project? Music Video?? Drama???

What if there were a site that would be only for student-produced, educational videos which could be organised by subject and year level, sharing educational videos produced. I think it could be a great resource and encourage some friendly competition between schools. (Maybe it already exists?)

I guess I'll conclude with a few of my own thoughts:
First of all, I'm a Mac snob. I must suggest iMovie as a much cleaner, intuitive, and user-friendly program with some snazzier features than Windows Movie Maker. Hopefully I'm not offending anyone here!
Secondly, if you're looking for some kind of footage for your video and you can only find it on youtube, there are programs available that allow you to download youtube videos. Copyright issues aside, that can open up a lot of possibilities.
Finally, as far as blogging/blog-following goes, check out google reader. Any blog you're subscribed to will be added to one page, where you can quickly see any new posts from blogs you follow. Very handy, especially if you start to get more involved and start following more and more blogs.

Anybody remember school house rock, the original

 educational music videos???

Blogging into the Future of ICT

Hello and Welcome to Erik's SUPERMEGA ICT Blog!

This blog has been set up as required by the ICT in Secondary Education course in the master of teaching program at the University of Melbourne. The goal of this blog is to frame some of the many ways in which technology can be used to improve student learning.

Why, you ask, is this blog SUPERMEGA???
For many, it seems the jury is still out on the benefits of technology and computers in the classroom. Personally, I believe the possibilities are endless, limited only by creativity and determination.
Today, any discussion about ICT inevitably includes the internet. I feel fortunate to have grown-up as the internet exploded and the information age changed our lives forever. Among an exhausting list of adjectives I could use to describe the internet, helpful would rank at the top.
As I now embark on a career in education, my enthusiasm and excitement for the future of technology will surely be incorporated and used to improve my teaching. The possibilities are endless.
And finally, I like to take advantage of corny adjectives whenever possible. I'm very shakespearean in that way...
For these reasons, I decided to include SUPERMEGA.

I'm looking forward to learning, following, and sharing with you the many ways in which ICT can be used to improve students' education! To conclude my first post, I'd like to share one of my favorite educational websites which teachers across all subject areas should be able to use in some way or another:

www.ted.com

It's basically about people with great ideas speaking to a live audiences, but recorded and put online for everyone to enjoy... for free! Kind of like youtube, but without all the videos of cats...