I have now submitted my website onto the reviewing system and due to a glitch in the system which didn't remove my name from the list once I had been reviewed, I have ended up being reviewed more than 10 times. This is really good for me as I get a great range of feedback, however this is not very good for others, as a lot of people are not getting reviews done.
For this review we had to choose which bracket of the marking rubric we think each section of the task was earned by the quality of the instructions and blog of the person we reviewed. From there we also had to write some constructive feedback about the things we thought were good and things that could be improved.
The brackets and some of the criteria that needed to be assessed (One of the review that I received).
My Received Reviews
Most of the feedback I have received is very positive and encouraging, in one review in particular I was happy to read that they were unable to find anything that I could improve on. This made me feel really good about my work and I felt that my learning has come along way in such a short time to be able to accomplish this task and to receive such great feedback. Considering that before the start of this semester I had never considered making a website or a blog, I think I have done quite well.
The feedback I received on one review.
While I did receive many good reviews not all were as great as the one above, I was told that some of my writing seemed unprofessional and that I should work on the quality of some of this, in particularly on my Social Learner Page I was told to be more precise and give more details also while using more professional sounding words such as 'simple' instead of 'easy'. Many people believed that by using a word like 'easy' that it seemed like I was unwilling to try more difficult things but by using 'simple' it stated that there was just less difficulty to the task.
Other people suggested that I should add more colour and pictures to my page as it looked pretty boring being just some text on a page. Others thought that I needed to make my blog more organised as they thought it was a bit chaotic and that I should try and organise it better and use the likes of headings to make it look nicer and easier to follow. Also by adding more hyper-links to blog posts, the readers would be able to get a better understanding of the points I was trying to convey. I have tried to follow most of the advice I was given and started to improve my site and my blog. If I manage to get even better marks because of these reviews, then I think it is a very beneficial tool. As well as being great practice for future teachers to practice marking, it allows us as students to improve our skills using these technologies. We may think that the work we have done is good, however when it comes to someone actually having to use the technology, it can prove that their are many flaws that we have not realised. By discussing our work with others it can only help us to improve what we do.
The Review that I did
The review that I did of a fellow student was based on a video script to join and contribute to food site Foodily. I was required to contribute to the other student's site by choosing a list of recipes that could be used for a bake sale and share them with the other persons profile. Her instructions were set out really well and provided plenty of information. Her blog was written very well but seemed to lack some of the aspects we were required to blog about, aspects like talking about how the work they have done has been discussed with others and describing how her learning is beneficial to her future career as a teacher. Other than these couple of features everything she did was extremely good and set out very professionally and was a pleasure to review.
The feedback that I gave to another student.
Finishing the task and moving on
Now I just need to polish off some of the finer details of this task and then I will need to submit it prior to 9:00am on the 21/4/2014. I think that I have done very well on this task and I hope my confidence is reflected in the mark that I receive. Task two is coming to a close, I hope that Task three will be as successful and that any troubles I may face will be easy to overcome.
I have just finished creating my how to instructions for task two. I made it in power point and uploaded it to my website in PDF format. It details how to access and contribute to my social space on Gogobot, a site made for travellers to connect and provide recommendations to each other. I had some issues using power point in particularly with adding links and putting arrows into the document. I had to Google these problems and I easily found solutions by doing so. I managed to find an answer to how to link things on a section on the Microsoft Office page, and after searching around I realised I could save the power point in PDF format. I was quite happy with how my How to instruction turned out, I believe they are really easy to follow and provide all the necessary detail to contribute how I wanted the reader to do so.
I planned to use Jing to use for my screen shots as in our lectures we were told this would be a good tool. I downloaded it and tried it out and like it, however when I opened my power point document to create my instructions I discovered that power point had a built in screen capture software which allowed you to simply select a part of a screen and it automatically transferred that into your current slide. This feature was extremely helpful for the creation of my instructions as I had to use it at least once on most slides. This software made the job so much simpler and I am happy to have discovered it.
I now need to submit my website to be peer reviewed and will have to review another students as well. I have tried my best to follow what the marking rubric says we need to do to get good marks, so hopefully other students and tutors will be able to see my efforts and think it is worth a good mark. It will also be good however to see what other students think I can improve on before I have to submit my final copy next week.
I look forward to continuing with the other tasks in this unit and I hope I can continue to learn many new things over the rest of this semester and the rest of my course.
In week seven we looked at collaboration and cooperation. We learnt about what makes a successful team and what makes a team fail; this was in preparation for our group task for task three. The lecture was in 3 main sections: Drivers of team performance, what makes a team fail or succeed and, stages of group development.
There are 3 main drivers of team performance and they are Knowledge or Thinking, Behaviours or Doing and, Attitude or Feelings. Thinking can be described as knowing what it is you have to do, where you can find information it can also be helpful to have examples to drive this process. As a team you need to know what the task involves and how to do it. Behaviours focuses on the ability of the group to carry out the task, this can involve things like is their a leader to guide the process and to handle issues and if the team is working well together and getting the task done. Attitudes is to do with if you have a vision for the task, what it is you want to accomplish and if you trust the other members of the group to do what they need to do for the benefit of the team. If all these factors are managed well are the team has a good relationship, then team performance will be of high standards.
A team may fail when one or all of its members does not do what is required of them and reduces their efforts and contributions to the group. Many reasons that a person may limit their efforts are:
• Presence of someone with expertise
• Presentation of compelling argument
• Lack of confidence in ability to contribute
• Unimportant or meaningless decision
• Pressures to conform toteamdecisions
• Dysfunctional decision making climate
Most of these reasons can be summed up by the fact that the person doesn't feel needed or wanted in a team or feels like the team environment is unappealing to the member. To make a team work, all members need to have their voice heard and their ideas considered, make decisions as a group and make sure the environment is friendly, engaging and open to all members.
In order for a team to work their needs to be planning of jobs and timelines for each task to be completed by, these schedules need to be stuck to and support needs to be given to all team members. You need to go over you work and the other members work and make sure the final product is up to the standards that the team desires. Team members must know what is required of them and need to make sure they are capable of doing what is assigned to them, if they are struggling then they need to let other members know well before the set completion time arrives. If all these things are followed and the team is happy with one another then the team will be able to work well and complete the task to a high quality.
The stages of group development can be classified into 4 groups - Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing.
In the forming stage the group is just trying to get to know and get a feel for each other, group members will try and avoid conflict and are wanting to be accepted by other group members.
Storming is when tensions in the group may arise as people are putting out their ideas and are debating with other members about the validity of their plans and perspectives of the task. It is important in this stage to be accepting or the other members ideas and to be tolerant of your group members.
In Norming the group members know what needs to be accomplished both individually and as a whole, members need to be aware of what other members are doing and provide feedback to other members as well as focusing on their set tasks.
Performing is when team members are confident and are working interdependently and not requiring large group supervision, the group will have a set way of handling issues at this stage and smooth, effective running and completion of the task should be well on its way.
The How to Lecture
In our how to lecture we were shown how to perform our peer reviews for task 2. We were told that we would be put into small groups and that we could review as many as we like but only the last one will be marked. The first ones could be used as practice before your final one is marked. I thought in theory this was a good idea, but |I had the question in mind, what happens if one of the earlier reviews was done better? I guess the tutors don't have time to go through and check every review as it would take weeks if everyone reviewed more than 2 people. I guess if you think that you did better on an earlier one then you could just redo that one over again. However I'm sure that generally most people will improve each time. This review is great practice for when we become teachers, the skills we learn here of how to review and analyse work against marking rubrics is very beneficial to work in classrooms in the future with our own students.
we also looked at the start of task 3 and asked questions about what would make this task be completed successfully.
Our lecture on collaboration will be very helpful for this task as it shows us what we should do as a team and how we can overcome problems if they arise.
In our sixth week we began to look at the roll of a teacher in the 21st century. We began the lecture by looking at a part of speech made by Rupert Murdoch to the Foundation of Excellence in Education Summit on October 14, 2011 in San Francisco, California:
"We need to tear down an education system designed for the 19th century – and replace it with one that’s suited for the 21st...You don’t get change by plugging in computers to schools designed for the industrial age. You get it by deploying technology that re-writes the rules of the game by centering learning around the learner."
He is saying that the old system isn't going to be of much benefit to modern day students and if you are to get the most out of the students then schools and teachers must be willing to move with the times and to teach with tools that will help children to learn. Even though this may seem pretty obvious I agree with the point he is trying to make, you must cater to your students' needs and ways of learning to the course you provide, by making the education system as applicable to as many people as possible then great educational benefit will come to the future generations.
After this we looked at many ways that teachers in the past have tried to cater to use new technologies and teaching styles to help students learn. Most of these weren't of much benefit as they didn't engage with the learner, one example of this is what was called a 'teaching machine'. These machines showed a problem which the student would have to answer and then the answer would be revealed to the student. This seemed like a good thing at the time but it only taught students how to answer the problems, most of the students didn't understand the principles behind what they were learning or the benefit to real world use. If students don't understand the importance of what they are learning then most of the time it is pointless that they are even learning it.
We looked at the idea that learners will learn better by using higher order thinking skills such as creating and evaluating than lower order thinking skills such as remembering. By immersing students into topics where they can spend a lot of time focussed on that subject, rather than having periods where they jump from subject to subject, they will become more engaged with the topic and have a much greater ability to understand what is being taught. It was discussed that the teacher has 3 main roles which are to cause greater achievement , cause greater interest and to cause greater confidence. It is important to not focus on just one of these though but you must incorporate all 3 things in order to be effective. As a teacher we need to focus on creating a good learning environment, this can be done with technology but we will need to ask ourselves some questions first:
• What does the student do?
• Who uses the technology?
• How long does it take?
• Is there collaboration?
• Is there a polished product?
• Is there a showcase or forum for the product?
If the student is the one using the technology and are getting involved, working alongside other students and creating a product that they can be proud of and display, then this will be the best way to help children learn.
Children will be able to create an understanding of the knowledge if there is authentic learning guided by cognitive tools and being undertaken is a participatory environment.
From Lecture Six
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B47FoXFf0TRzdGhGcktJOFRGcUE/edit
How to Lecture
In our how to lecture this week we looked at ways to present our how to instructions for task two. We were shown different resources for making both screen casts and screen shots. One such technology was called Jing, which is helpful for both screen casts and screen shots. It is easily downloaded and accessible easily on your screen once downloaded, it allows for video or images to be captured instantly which you are able to then use.
The Workshop
In our Workshop this week we continued on with task two. We were searching for technologies we could use. I had previously decided that I was going to base my site on a holiday to England. I began by searching social networks for travel on Google and came across a blog post from Budget Travel in it which suggested many possibilities that I could check out. These recommended sites included the likes of TripIt, Dopplr (Which no longer exists), and TripLine. I had a look at the sites that were still active and made accounts for them, I explored them and tried to play around and learn what the sites had to offer.
I found that TripLine was difficult to use and I could not understand how to use it, so I decided that this site wasn't going to be good for me to use. When I used TripIt, the features that it had looked promising for the task as I could add details for accommodation and flights and other travel related information, however it was quite difficult to allow people to have access to you details and add input, thus not making it very good for this task.
I researched TripIt in detail with a classmate, as we were both doing something travel related I let him know about the site while I was researching it, together we checked the capabilities of the social nature of the site. We discovered that to allow people to have access then email confirmation had to be given. I decided that this feature would be difficult and annoying for the person who is going to follow my instructions to do what I ask of them. I decided that this site wasn't going to be good for me and later in the week found the site I ended up using - Gogobot.
Gogobot profiles were simple to create and anyone is able to find you and provide you with detail about the location you plan to travel to. From what I have managed to discover about the site, it seems that it is limited to providing recommendations to fellow travellers, I decided however that the social nature and capabilities of this site were excellent so I ended up using this site.
My Gogobot Profile - http://www.gogobot.com/user/jarrod-trigg
Overall Thoughts
This week was beneficial for me as I discovered new tools I had never heard of before and started using them, this has broadened my horizons and I may be able to use the tools in one of my classrooms in the future. As for the lecture information, this was interesting information to learn and it really made me think about the importance of the role the teacher plays in the education of a child. If you do something wrong as a teacher and a student is not able to learn adequately then that child may lose chances in life that they may otherwise have. In understanding this, it makes me realise that teaching is probably one of the most important careers in the world and you want to make sure that you are up for the challenge when undertaking this course.
Week four was study break so we had no lectures or workshops that week. However I was at home trying to put the finishing touches on my website, getting ready for it to be submitted on the Monday of week 5. Thankfully I had it finished and submitted on time and could put my attention and focus fully on my classes in week five.
The Lecture
In our week five lecture we went into further detail about Authentic tasks. The ways that the education system has changed were discussed and what elements make a task authentic and what doesn't. We also had a look at some examples of inappropriate activities for classrooms. A basic idea of authentic learning is that the task matters most. Students will learn to a better degree if they are involved in their learning process, as against being passive and just taking in information and writing answers to questions. Educational research has shown that efficient learning ideas have changed from a instructivist, transmission of knowledge and knowledge reproduction to a constructivist, active construction of knowledge, where students construct knowledge themselves. This form of learning is accomplished by engaging in complex, relevant tasks that explore a subject in depth. Tasks need to be more collaborative with a teacher acting more as a coach than as an expert so students can direct their own learning. Assessment should be based on the task and less of a standardised testing format. Tasks should be less academic and more engaging.
We later looked at different tasks and we discussed if each task would be classified as an authentic task, tasks that were straightforward and in which information was given to students or students just had to solve problems were not authentic tasks. If a task looks at a subject from multiple angles, puts you in someone else's shoes, gives you an in depth look at a subject or uses multiple aspects to complete a task then it is probably authentic. Some examples of such tasks are digital stories, adapting plays to suit different cultures, and studying the lives of soldiers who fought in wars. All these things can be looked at from multiple perspectives and are in depth tasks, students can be highly engaged with it and will learn more than from standard information transmission.
How To Lecture
In our how to lecture this week we discussed how to go about task two. We discussed questions about what will make task two be accomplished successfully. We looked at examples of possible contexts we could use for task two and we were guided through the possible resources we could use.
In the Workshop
In our workshop this week we were put in groups to discuss and decide on the context we will use for task two. Some people in my group had an idea for what their context wanted to be but didn't know how to present it. Together as a group we gave ideas to each other and supported each other by giving feedback to their ideas. In the end we all had a path we were going to go down and from their we carried on with our task.
Week five went well, I learnt a lot (as stated above) and managed to make a good start on task two by deciding on my context.
I finished and submitted task one a couple of weeks ago, yesterday we got our results back and I managed to score 8.5/10 for it. I was pretty happy with this result, as I have previously stated I had never used any sort of technology like this before, so to get a high distinction was pretty awesome.
Since the submission of the first task I have been working on my next task. This task is more detailed and worth 25% of my mark for the unit. I must create a social context in which the use of social media would be helpful in creating an event, find a social media tool that has the capacity to do what I want it to do for my event, and then create a set of multimedia instructions for a fellow student to follow in which they have to sign up to my site and contribute to it what I wish them to. All this needs to also be attached to my main website so it can be accessed easily. I must also follow another students instructions do what they want me to do and then review their set of instruction in return. The last component of this task is to keep blogging, I must do at least 4 new blog posts.
I am feeling more confident about this task than I was at the beginning of the first task. I now have an good understanding of how to use my website and do things I had never done before, like converting files to PDF format and finding images that aren't copyright protected and linking images how I want. I've decided that I'm going to base my task on a trip to London, England. I will be getting my reviewer to pretend that they are my friends and have them leave me recommendation for hotels, restaurants and activities in one easily accessible place that I can refer to, which I could then plan a full itinerary from. My social media site is called Gogobot. This site is specifically for travelling and allows you to have your own profile in which people are able to provide recommendation based on places they have visited. I found this was a good site to use as it was easy to navigate, others people could easily access your profile and it had all the features that I was looking for.
My Gogobot Account
My thoughts on the task
I think this task was created in order for us to extend our experiences with technology, introducing us to new formats and to enable us to be able to research materials that are available and make decisions about the validity of the tool to the appropriateness of it for the our task. The requirement for our how to instructions to be created using multimedia is beneficial to us as it gives us exposure to multiple ways of presenting information, ways which we will be likely to use in our future classrooms. Instead of saying just write a list of instructions, making us include other things such as audio, images or video for example gives us a greater feeling for the possibilities and usefulness of technology.
The blog is beneficial for both our writing skills and and ability to analyse and reflect on our work. These skills are of utmost importance as a teacher and our skills in these areas should be of superior quality. The blog allows us to develop our thought processes and write down how we feel and think, look at positives and negatives and to showcase our learning experiences.
The peer review of another students work that we have to do is an important feature, if not the most important one of this whole assignment. It is an introduction for us as teachers to analyse the work of others and allow us to justify why we think the work they have done deserves a particular grade. This is one of the skills we will need to be highly developed by the time we enter a classroom; so for the unit coordinators to include this component in our assessment is very beneficial to our education.
I hope I can do well on this task and that if I encounter any hurdles I will easily be able to overcome them. I hope I can expand my knowledge of technological tools and my experiences will help me to become a better teacher in the future.
The topic this week was Digital Citizenship. We started off by talking about digital footprints, how you look and present yourself online and how you can use 'Personal Branding' to make your self look a particular way online. We were told that if you wanted to present yourself well online then you should appear in the first 3 spots of Google when you search your name. I tried to find myself and found that only my old unused Myspace profile was the only thing from me on the whole first page of Google. This really surprised me as I have not touched that account in years, yet it appears on the first page, however none of my other profiles which I use on a daily basis show up. I also tried searching the title of my webpage and my blog and I have not been able to discover them through a Google search. From a privacy point of view this is a good thing, however in the case that I wanted to be found for self promotional reasons this would be a bad thing and I would have to try and make myself more discoverable.
Jan said that to make ourselves known and in order to prevent misrepresentation of our selves we should buy domain names, every possible combination. I thought this was a little unnecessary and over the top, even if you are someone who is in the public view often. Even so I still went and had a look at the website that was given to us to check the availability of my name on social media profiles - http://namechk.com/ we were shown many other ways of making ourselves known as well such as About.me and a few different blogging sites.
From there we started to talk about online safety. We were shown a website we could go to for information about how to stay safe online - StaySmartOnline.gov.au, as this is a Government website it probably has quite a bit of useful information, however I have not had a thorough look at it as of yet. We were given advice such as making any profiles private and to update security settings, and to never put personal information on to the Internet.
After we discussed safety, we moved onto cyberbullying, what it looks like and how you might be able to recognise it in another person/student. We were given a list of ways that might help to recognise if someone is being cyber-bullied:
• changesin personality
• appearing more lonely or distressed
• less interaction with students at school
• possiblepeerrejection
• declinein school work
• excessive sleepiness or lack of focus
• higher levels of absenteeism
• increased negativeself-perception
• a decline in physical health
• suicidalthoughts—this should be reported toadministration and parents/carers immediately
Not only was how to identify cyber bullying discussed, but also the reasons behind it. In this section what really surprised me was what is known as self-cyberbullying, where messages and cruel remarks are sent to the person by themselves. The reason for this could vary from seeking attention to trying to get help without having the actually ask. Even so the fact that this happens really shocked me and it was something I never thought I would see, however as a future teacher it will just be one more thing I must look out for in order to help my students.
We then moved on to our How to Lecture, this time we were talking about copyright, I discovered that even pictures you find on the web are protected under copyright laws. I had always just thought that you could just take a picture from anywhere and it did not really matter. We were given a task where we had to identify if we were allowed to use a particular image based on the information given on the site. I struggled with this task but discovered some general information that will really help me in the future - such as if its creative commons it okay to use if you attribute where it was found, if it is in the public domain you can use it and if their is no information given do not use it. From here with this new information I had to go about changing my webpage as all my images would have been copyright infringements. I used a site to help me identify pictures I could use and changed to them to ones that don't break copyright laws.
