Earlier this year I was awarded the John Lake Medal for my Masters in Education study and research in at Curtin University Thanks especially to my inspiring lecturers and patient family and encouraging friends who really added to the journey and experience!
The re-connection to the classroom and increased hours at work has resulted in very little post activity here, however, on the social media Twitter site I have been enjoying learning some new ways to access many articles and discussions around education, ICT (information and communication technologies) and e-learning. Widening my networks and interest in education and helping me to reconnect to my much neglected blog.
I have rekindled my interest in cooperative learning theory and strategies and applied through my school and was selected to participate in the quality CMS (classroom management & instructional strategies) professional development (PD) in WA.
My classroom has a Smartboard and very little working ICT (two computers) there is a mini lab and a tower of power (mobile laptop stand) and I am slowly using what I can and incorporating into the assessment and learning tasks for the students. However, I do feel the access is still tricky with the shared areas and equipment. The mini lab is just designed out of view and only holds 12 students so it is really hard to monitor while the 20 other students are in the classroom using the mobile laptops or working on other tasks. I wish the school allowed students to use their phones as bring your own device (BYOD) policies and practices seem to be gaining traction in many educational settings.
I have let a few kids use phones when we are doing dictionary and thesaurus based spelling and word derivation research - as they love looking up word sites etc. The students can usually find and access the sites more effectively and efficiently time wise form their phones.
Much damage is taken out on the ICT computer mini lab and laptops as there is little ownership over the school equipment. another reason that careful and explicit uses for student owned smart phones at school would work well...sigh just too early for now.
we have made some changes to the ownership of the computers in the mini lab and the laptops recently and hopefully we will see a change to the issues we are currently experiencing at school.
I remain at the early stages of operating the smartboard and working out what it can do! The students are a great help - most of the time!
If any readers have any links or tips for ICT and Smartboards it is much appreciated - send it to me!
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