Course Reflection

And now is the time for reflection. I must say that I have found this course on the whole extremely enlightening and motivating. Enlightening from the fact that I have encountered so much new knowledge and learnt so much about the world of web 2.0. Motivating from the fact that I am now keen to try my new skills out in the classroom and more fully engage with my students on a level that they can understand better.

I remember learning a lot about Blooms taxonomy at university and it has been present and relevant in all of my teaching throughout my career. It is the goal of every teacher to empower the students to work for themselves and fully evaluate what they are learning. Blooms Taxonomy is a useful tool as task planner, ensuring that web 2.0 skills are incorporated. As a Mathematics teacher, there is always the criticism that it is all 'chalk and talk', so it is the objective to get away from this stereotype. By doing this, the students will more fully understand the subject and will be better prepared to use the skills created in the classroom outside the classroom in everyday life.

The elearning you tube clip cemented the ideas regarding elearning as a practice and using it in a classroom as a whole ideology. I do feel however that the role of the teacher will not be diminished through the introduction of all the technology in the classroom. It will just require teachers to become and continue to be better capable of adjusting lessons to suit their students needs. Students will always need guidance and mentors, something which teacher will be the best able to provide now and further in the future.

Comment on Jay Meyers blog
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module 10

The last module is here, and to quote the Grateful Dead, "What a long, strange, journey it has been."
Wiki's it would appear are collaborative websites which can be used for groups for create and learn together. It set me thinking on where I could use a wiki in my mathematics classroom. Maybe as a revision tool for my year 12 class, they could be given a different area of the course to summarise and provide revision on. It could also be even more targeted, such as focusing on one area such as Circle Geometry. Mmm, maybe I'll do this with my year 11 extension class over the summer holidays.

Nings are meeting points for like minded individuals to ask questions and receive information about a particular topic they are interested in. Quite good from a mathematics point of view, although I'm not sure just how immediate and accurate responses may be to questions asked.

Thank you fans, I'll leave it to Mr Morrison to say the rest!!!

Module 9

Module 9 has a variety of different types of applications to explore. The first one, scootle, is an excellent application and someting which I have already used a few times in the classroom. Its been particularly good this year as I've been using a smart board and it has provided a few different pieces of material to use in various lessons.

The second activity on expoloring social networking sites is something I'm reasonablly familiar with. I've been using facebook for a while now and use it to put messages out to wider school based communities about various happenings, such as 1st V basketball messages to old boys. Twitter is similar, though less powerful, with giving updates. I'm not the biggest fan of second life, I've had a look at it a few times and knowing that I have an addictive personality, I've decided to steer clear of that whole area as I may become alittle too into it.

Module 8

Getting towards the end now. Module 8 involved setting up a Google reader account and to my pleasant surprise, this was something I could really use and enjoy.
Being able to recognise sites with RSS feeds and adding them to my reader page will save me a large amount of time each day. I really like that the reader function tells me when my favourite blogs have been updated, although I'm thinking I may have to be a little restrained when adding feeds to my reader. Don't want to be overwhelmed with info do I?
This is a really useful tool for both my professional and personal life.

Module 7

Another week, another blog. This module I was looking at online communities and using Delicious to share resources. This looks like a great site to use with other teachers, particularly within a faculty and subject setting, as a pool of online resources could be established. Sharing ideas and resources amongst each other is vitally important, particularly in this rapidly changing educational environment.

I guess one problem I encountered was that I was unable to install the toolbar for Delicious in my workplace, due to the access controls, limiting the strengths of the program. Still, if you can put up with having to go to the site every time, thats only a minimal problem. It was interesting to investigate the program as a tagging/bookmarking tool and with further exposure to this program from a number of people due to the web2.0 course, the online resources can only help but grow.

I then had a look at a number of other web2.0 bloggers sites and was very impressed by what I saw. Terrific use of all of the tools at hand and it's ispired me to continue putting the effort in to my own blogs. Some of my personal fav's are;

http://paulatpats.blogspot.com/ : humourous and hard hitting

http://jessicaursino.blogspot.com/ : insightful comments

http://beemsterslider.blogspot.com/ : cool graphics

Comment on another blog:

http://gillysweb2blog.blogspot.com/2010/03/module-1.html#comment-form

Module 6

A mind mapping tool, hmmm, very sceptical at first, but after I've gotten into it, it seems quite interesting and useful. I know that from various forms of research that male boys respond well to this type of visual stimulus and I know that from my own education, some of these types of mind maps were very effective for study and learning.

Unfortunately, do to security reasons at school, I was unable to export the mind map I made on Web2.0, to this blog. This is probably one major drawback I can see with using all of these different types of software, getting access to the full versions of them at school.

Next up was Glogster. I quite enjoyed using this program, with all of its nifty tools to produce glogs. I can't see why the blogger blogging program can't incorporate this into their blogging. I guess this will come in the future. I created a glog based on tesselations, something which I would use in Mathematics with my classes.

Paul O'Shea in his blog offered some good ideas for glogster, such using it for poster presentations. Maybe I could use this when teaching Geometry as a way to summarise learning outcomes for the boys.

Comment on Paul O'sheas post: Good use of Bubblr.us and agree with your comments on Glogs. Would be good if they could combine it with our current blogging program and put it all into one

Module 5: Digital Storytelling

Incorporating pod and vod casting in the classroom opens up a world of educational opportunities for the students and is providing a great opportunity for teachers to differentiate the curriculum for their students. Keeping the lessons relevant and maintaining students interests in the subject area is important and through the use of these tools, this is acheivable.

I've used youtube a number of times in the mathematics classroom. It's always good to give the students a different perspective on the topics being taught. Some of the areas I've used it in are introducing Calculus to senior students and showing students the uses of probability in the real world. It's also good sometimes to finish the lesson off with a fun little clip relating to the topic you have been investigating that day. Something like the following clip would be great for peaking the students interest in probability.

Module 4: Using Flickr

Term 2 has begun and the time is here to get back into Web 2.0. This module looked at the use of the Flickr program to upload, edit and display various photos.

There seems to be an endless amount of these photo editing and displaying software programs in the world, with each different photography company using a different one, all basically performing the same function. This didn't seem too different for flickr, which performs most of the same functions. It is good however that it is a web based program and allows easy sharing of the digital images.

Interesting to learn that the photo's I uploaded weren't copyrighted and I am also growing more concerned about my digital footprint, which maybe a concern in the future as I accumulate more and more digital data about myself. What this data is being used for is a concern.

Still, I've included a photo I took in Barcelona on this blog post. Building up the footprint.

Module 3

Module 3 has introduced the new world of Google doc's to me. I've heard about this software before but never used it. As with all things new, it was a little intimidating at first to use, but there were no real issues in uploading a spread sheet about the final standings of the schools basketball teams, see link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkbRsQNC5pfzdFVneVN6MEtLU216a2I3ZG1OQTE3cFE&hl=en

I found this software extremely powerful and would be fantastic for group work in the classroom, allowing a number of students to work on a single project a one time. Providing different types of revision options for students is another area this could be used in, particularly over a holiday or study break.

All in all, a very powerful tool for use in the classroom.

Module 2

Module 2 in the web 2.0 course has really opened my eyes about how to use blog's. I guess I am really just getting to know how to use the various pieces of software to do with blogging. I can really see how this could be a real advantage in communicating with different students in a medium which they are familiar with.

I also like to think I could be more like Jay Meyer and incorporate outside interests in starting a blog on a subject I'm interested in, ie, St George.

The first post on my blog was always going to be a poor effort, it's friday afternoon after all. Hopefully, the future of my blog is going to be alot more exciting, I may have to think of more topics to comment on and provide words of wisdom