The First Week!

There I was, sitting in the Loneragen Building Lecture Theatre; In my first lecture of my Primary Education Degree, not knowing what to expect. The theatre started getting fuller and fuller, most of the seats had been filled. Next our Unit Co-ordinator Jenni Parker and our Lecturer Jan Herrington walk in and begin setting up for the lecture. The noise of the other students fills the room, I look around to try and see what types of people will be on this journey with me. When ready to start, the noise drops instantly, eyes staring to the front of the room. As Jan and Jenni begin to speak, my nerves begin to lift. I begin to realise that these people are quite friendly and they seem very passionate about the topic. I start listening to what they have to say and from that point on... my journey had begun.

This first lecture was an introduction to the unit, Jan began by showing us the differences in classrooms from the 1920's to the modern day. We learnt that class numbers had dropped and I was especially shocked to learn that in the '20's desks were fixed to the floor. I thought back to my time in primary school and and remembered that moving desks around was a common feature of my classroom depending on the activity.

Classes 1920's (Left) & 2000's (Right) - From Lecture One Slides

After these brief differences, it was into the unit outline. We were shown how to navigate the Learning Management System (LMS) and were introduced to our tasks for the course. At this point I had already read the Unit Information and had a pretty good idea about this information. When I had first read the task outlines I was put off by what the tasks were asking us to do (see previous post), and upon attending this lecture my fears grew. It was stated that we wont be taught how to use these technologies, but that we would be given tools and we would have to figure out how to use them ourselves. Later in the lecture, comments from previous students' were shown such as the following from 'Chloe' from the 2013 unit:

"At the beginning of the semester, this unit was definitely one of my least favourites. I was not confident about using technology for my assignments and I did not think that I would do very well in EDN113 because of this. As I worked through each assignment, my initial impression of this unit began changing and I quickly saw how this unit was particularly relevant for teachers."

Upon reading these my thoughts began to change, I saw that many people had been in the same position I was currently in and had managed to accomplish the tasks that I was about to undertake. Seeing that it could be done I felt better and I thought that the Co-ordinators would not give us a task that we were designed to fail. With this new insight I began to feel confident and intrigued about what I was going to be able to put together.

We were then shown through more information about the assessment and the LMS system and what sort of effort would be required of us in the unit. We were then shown some possible technologies from the Technology Toolbox that would be helpful for us during out tasks - sites such as Blogger, Weebly, Google. However it was emphasised to us that we should not use Facebook for any purpose in this unit as it is not a good site to use for such activities. After some more general housekeeping information we were informed that we were going to need a Google Account to access certain documents in this unit and in the How To Lecture which followed we were guided through how to do this as well as signing up to the EDN113 Google Drive Folder.

All in all, I think it was a good introduction to this unit and a good start to my journey into becoming a Primary School teacher.