Creating a Wiki

As part of our ongoing assessment for EDED20491, we needed to create a Wiki. This was an entirely new concept to me. I have seen Wikipedia, but had no idea what a Wiki was, or that you could create one yourself. I was quite overwhelmed and feeling lost, however once I experimented and looked at the examples, I was able to see tha this could be a useful tool for group project work. Engagement theory provises that learners are engaged when when work is based on collaboration, project work and providing authentic focus (Kearsley & Schneiderman). Once I thought about how I could provide a real world focus, I was able to relate this to an interest that I already had and I found I was able to start creating the Wiki site. I am a member of a book club, and I have created my Wiki site to be a place where we can have online discussions and reviews. This will allow us to keep in contact and provide an open forum for dialogue. In the classroom, I can see that a Wiki would be very useful for students to provide them with a site for collaboration on project work, school activities, creating online textbooks, etc. They could discuss their work and provide images, audio and/or links to further information.

Reference:

Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning.
Greg Kearsley and Ben Schneiderman.

http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.html

Dimensions of Learning Textbook

Finally! My wait for the Dimensions of Learning textbook (aka the holy grail of GDLT) is over, I have received my copy of the text. Hooray!! I have never been so excited to have a textbook, or so daunted by the thought of trying to catch up on the last few weeks of neglected study in the next week. To be honest, I had considered deferring my study for the semester. It does make me pause and think that if I could consider giving up because of a lack of a book, how does a lack of resources impact on a child?

The kids are asleep - back to burning the candle at both ends.

Voki

Get a Voki now!



Above is my Voki. While this is a simple introduction, I can see that a Voki has potential to be used by teachers as an aid to attract attention when introducing a topic. They also have the opportunity to engage with different types of learners as it provides both visual and auditory input, instead of just reading the text. They are also a fun way to interest students, particularly the cartoons and animals.

Bullying

Bullying in schools & what to do with about it - Dr Ken Rigby

I just found a good website - Dr Rigby has a lot of information and links for further reading.

Some magic bullets for education | The Australian

I've just read the following article by Noel Pearson in The Australian newspaper - Some magic bullets for education The Australian which I felt I had to share. Surely this can't be right? The inequity in education standards set for indigenous students is apalling. I am only speaking from my own limited understanding of the situation and the problems with resources and educational delivery to indigenous students, but setting a benchmark for educational professionals that only half of their students need to meet the national standards for literacy and numeracy at the completion of their primary schooling is discouraging to both the teacher and the students. To me this would promote complacency and is a disservice to these children.

Any thoughts?

New Beginnings

Everything old is new again. I completed my Bachelor of Arts in Townsville in 2000 and moved to Melbourne in 2007. Now, here I am back in Qld and back at university. I am currently studying the Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching (GDLT) through CQUniversity Australia. It's all very familiar but it's still overwhelming settling into a new life as a student again for the first time in ten years.

My first impressions of the GDLT program are very good. The flexibility is amazing and gratefully appreciated with balancing work and family life. I can't believe our placement is only 2 weeks away! That is a blessing and a curse - I feel so unprepared, but I'm excited to learn.

Another first is blogging! I thought I was fairly confident with computers, but online journals, blogs etc. are all new to me. ICT is not my forte - luckily, I can only get better!