Posts Tagged "ICT"
Proud as Punch (Both as a Mum and an Educator)
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The last term has been a busy one. Not only as an educator but as a Mum as well. You see the last term has been dedicated to our Year 6 Exhibition. My beautiful children attend the school where I work and as my daughter is in Year 6 she has been part of the teaching and learning experiences which I have been offering the Year 6 students. Over the course of the term I offered several workshops on Poster Making (digital and manual), time management skills, use of digital peripherals (cameras, video cameras, sound recorders etc) and OneNote.
The journey the students (including my daughter) is an impressive one. Under the umbrella of a topic (Peace and Conflict Resolution) the student select a question or statement they wish to investigate. They then go on to present it using five components (Creative, Interactive, Written, Oral and Action). My daughter choose to investigate whether “Year 6 Students Behave Better than Politicians in Parliament”. When she initially came up with this topic I was a little bit concerned at how it would all come together and how my daughter was going to find her research. Well I really had nothing to worry about. You see she contacted by email as many politicians as she could think of in our local area, state and country. What amazed me was they responded and were willing to be interview by her either over the phone or in person. The final product she produced was amazing she filmed every interview and put them together as a documentary (oral/creative), prepared a speech on her findings (oral), created an essential agreement for the politicians (written/action), prepared a PowerPoint showing the information she had investigated on parliamentary privilege (written), provided a vote (interactive) along with a poster with sayings of both year 6 students and politicians showing good and bad behaviours (interactive/creative).
I was impressed by the many topics that our year 6 students chose. Some were really personal (leaving to go to another school) right through to topics which interested students (conflict in computer games).
It is events like this which showcase student learning which make me proud to be an educator and in this case proud as punch to be a Mum to an extremely intelligent daughter.
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Basic ICT Skills – Doesn't Everyone Have Them?
I had the opportunity yesterday to assist at a PD session on the use of Word, PowerPoint, and Audacity. Things that I’m sure a majority of teachers take advantage of everyday sometimes to the detriment of learning. Now this was a session for those who felt they had a beginner level. I was surprised. I have been spoilt working at a school with a high level of technology. Now I know that not all schools offer the PD that is required to keep up to date with the latest technology but surely at least everyone can use Word and PowerPoint. I was proved wrong yesterday. And was wondering if this was a major mistake of those of us in education – the assumption that everyone can use Word and PowerPoint. Do we ever really teach our staff or students for that matter the correct way to use these tools?
Basic skills such as inserting WordArt, Pictures, Symbols or manipulating these to display the way you want them to. Adding transitions and sounds to slides to make them viewable without the teacher. Just using these basic skills to make nicely displayed worksheets with lots of colour or using PowerPoint to create flashcards.
Perhaps our failure to our students is not making sure that our teachers have the basic ICT skills to create the resources which keep them engaged in learning.
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