My somewhere

In regard to assignment 2, below is 'my somewhere'.

The classroom will consist year 1 students in a primary school. There are 15 students in a classroom. The school is in a purposed built area with a high speed internet connections, wi-fi availability within the whole school.

I have chosen the australian curriculum  and would like to teach Year 1 Science. I will be identifying two learning objectives for my unit plan. One would be on constructing knowledge and the other would be on transforming knowledge which I will find one under Science Inquiry Skills.

The students in the class are students who have wide experience handling digital technologies. As much as they are aware of digital technologies and the internet, they still enjoy outdoor play. They are curious of their surroundings especially outdoors. They would do different kinds of experiments on their own with the things they find outdoors. A guided learning journey may help these students to boost their interest and gain more knowledge.

Backwards design

What is backwards design?
Backwards design is a way of planning a learning journey. It encourages teachers to think of a goal first before creating a learning sequence or a unit plan.

I have experienced creating a plan for a Cultural subject. The topic at that time was "Visit Malaysia". The length of the unit plan was for 24 weeks. I remember planning the learning journey it based on the topic itself. The goal of the topic was to know about Malaysia. However there was no specific goals set when planning the whole unit plan. There was just goals to be achieve by the end of each individual lessons.

Backwards design is beneficial for teachers as it begins with the end in mind. It will help teachers to always have the goals in the front of their mind when planning a learning journey. Compared to the learning journey I planned, I find backwards design uses almost the same amount of time with a more focused goal. It also have a sense of continuity when assessing students at work in the designated period of time. This is also fair evaluating student's performances.

A unit plan created via backwards design are broken down into 3 categories as mentioned in Pamelagovender25's blog post. In the second category, it shows that various assessment methods can be used to assess students which can be fair for students as they have various kinds of capabilities.

I'd like to try to use the backwards design planning for my upcoming professional experience. Hoping to get encouragement from my mentor!

Regards,
Sarah

RAT model

 RAT model confuses me. How do I find replacement but not to replace the ICT used? I understand that it is a model that we can hold on to plan lessons that integrates ICT.

RAT stance for Replacement, Amplification and Transformation.

Replacement does not mean that ICT is used to replace a step of the lesson or to further enhance it. It should lead to the same learning objectives. 

Amplification in this model for lesson plans are the use of  ICT to enhance a learning. It may enable students to further explore their researches via various mediums.

Transformation on the other hand is defined as the usage of ICT that causes students to gain an advanced outcome that is beyond the usual classroom lesson.

Regards,

Sarah

copyright images

It really caught my interest reading about copyright images. Agreeing to Tamdubois, it can be confusing as to whether I am infringing or not when using images of others. So, here I am going to explain about my image.

I look for a picture of a puppy using Google Image. 

I may be wrong but from what I read, I understand that I am permitted to use the images and information on the webpage.

Puppy by Utekhina+Anna

This image is used on this page. I did not violate the copyright. From my understanding, the conditions of use has allowed me to use the image and I have linked the image to the website and the owner of the image. 

This is not the first time I am using an image to share online. I have been using images found on Pinterest to post on my Instagram account. I have also been acknowledging the images in my captions by stating the images are from Pinterest. I think that counts?

I hope I am not wrong this time. 

Copyright?

Copyright in general means a bunch of rights for materials produced. Ideas that is playing in a person's mind is not qualified to have copyright until it is materialized. Ideas should be turned into materials such as texts, recording sounds and films, concept map or images. 

Below are my answers for the questions here.

1. I think the last post on my blog is not copyrighted as the ideas came from me and I acknowledged the websites which my ideas came from. 

2. I myself own the copyright.

3. It is a copyright infringement if another person copy all of the content from my blog post onto their blog without referencing my page.

4. It is not a copyright infringement if I copy all of the content from my blog post into a post on the Study Desk because I own the right for my work.

Regards,

Sarah

The 21st century schools

The title of this article itself triggered me. The article listed 14 things that are obsolete in 21st century schools. Some of the list are such as not having social media accounts for the school, having old computers and not having wireless internet connection for staffs and students.

I agree there are certain points of the article that schools should be labeled as out-of-date. For instance, management of a school should consider to have Wi-Fi for their staffs and students. With Wi-Fi, many work can be done efficiently and students can explore the online world while being monitored by us teachers.
I disagree that 21st century schools should not ban students from bringing their own phones and tablets. I have experienced myself bringing a smart phone to class during college. Although it was not in school but I had during lessons. I have to admit that there are times the things on my phone was so interesting that I focused more on it instead of listening to the teacher teaching.

Are 21st century schools really obsolete when they do not adapt to ICT? My thoughts are, the schools are not necessarily obsolete when they do not adapt to ICT because they may have valid reasons for not doing do. There are various factors that schools need to take account before applying ICT in total. Besides ICT, it is still not obsolete for schools that teaches higher-order thinking skills. The Bloom's Taxonomy valid for all teaching and learning concepts.

I can really relate to this article. It said that students have intention to use their smart phones for research but gets distracted by incoming messages and social media notifications that leads them astray from their initial intention. At the same time, it can be a great tool to advance student's learning.

I know for a fact that schools need to be highly equipped with ICT. Going through this article has made me realize that ICT is unstable (as in forever growing). However I should be aware to grow the usage of ICT for my school even if I take gradual steps. With the advance use of ICT, I would tell myself to flourish as in develop myself professionally in an ongoing process and not just till the next professional development conference (Matchan, 2015).

Regards,
Sarah

Matchan, L. (2015). Schools seek balance for cellphones in class. Retrieved August 9, 2016, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2015/06/15/cellphones-school-teaching-tool-distraction/OzHjXyL7VVIXV1AEkeYTiJ/story.html

Why ICT is different?

Why is ICT different? Different from what? Different from a book, pencil or other technologies? "Other technologies" as in those besides digital technologies?

1. It collects data from all over the world in shorter time.
e.g. online survey

2. Various people of various backgrounds can take part in survey (collection of data)

3. Enable us to carry pages and pages of documents/ books/ pictures in a device
e.g tablets, smartphones

4. Carry bookmarked pages on a web in various device
e.g Diigo

5. Get updates for blog posts
e.g Feedly

6. Share concept maps with strangers
e.g Gliffy

7. save documents/ images in a software and the software included in various devices
e.g Dropbox

8. Learning on our own and get motivation while playing Game Based Learning

Best learning experience I've ever design

I remember very well my best learning experience that I have designed. Since I can define what best means, I would define it as a lesson that includes children's interest and their different abilities. I agree to this post that a good lesson is one that is able to capture the children's attention and the objective is delivered.

The best learning experience I designed was during the Sports theme. We learnt about sports and I included the use of ICT to play some of the games. The lesson provided opportunities for children to play sports using Nintendo'sWii device. The children were explained about the games before they each take a chance to play.
The objective of the lesson is to practice the children’s eye-hand coordination. The lesson involved only the 6 years old children.

Regards,
Sarah