During weeks 11 and 12 I learnt about photostory and what you can explore on this application. For me I found it very engaging and interesting to use as I have never used photostory before. In a classroom I would use this application for presenting and showing students work to teachers and parents of my class as well as the students, to communicate their achievement. Now I know how to use this application I will use it for personal and education uses. However other than the uses above I would not know how else to use this program although I will find other ways and reason to use it. As it is fun and engaging for student. Students could use this application to communicate a presentation or show their news for the week if they wish.
How will your learning this unit assist you in your future career as a teacher?
This unit was a variable experience for me. As a teacher we need to use various ways of educating and engaging students. This course enabled me to understand all the different aspects of technology which I can use in order to engage and educate them. Through the presentation skills and learning about ways to inform them and develop students knowledge. It is through engagement in learning where I believe students learn to most and not only surface learning but most importantly deep learning. Through what I have learnt in this course I would use this in educating children and my students in all areas of learning as I have found it very valuable especially power point and photo story.
In contrast to the first personal competency test, the second taken in week 13 of this course improved dramatically. Overall there was a dramatic improvement towards all aspects of the test. Similar to the first test taken I once again scored highly in the areas relating to basic computer use, file management and email. Unlike the last test taken, and due to this cause I scored much higher as I am more competent in the areas of multi media projects and presentation as well as constuctivist learning.
Although I scored high in mant areas there are certainly aspects in which I need to work on and these include graphics and photos and desktop publishing. These are my weaknesses and the areas in which I still need to work on.
Presentation Graphics and programs are used in many situations. In a school environment these presentation programs can be used effectively to communicate ideas and concepts to students in your class in an engaging and in lighting manner. Programs including powerpoint and kids pix are used in many situations and circumstances in a educational environment as a way of visually representing information rather than oral. In today’s society teachers need to recognise that many students are actually visual learners.
To teachers PowerPoint can be used in various ways including communication with a large group of people for example lectures, programming and classroom handouts can also be used by the teachers. In addition these presentation programs can be used by students as well. The examples include students presentations, communicate news, groups debates and so much more.
As a teacher there are various ways that I can use PowerPoint in my classroom. I would encourage my students to also use these presentation programs and graphics.
This week we learnt about the uses of numerous visual communication skills that can be used in the classroom. Although the main focus was on inspiration, which is a major visual communication tool that organises and composes interactive mind maps of various types. Through inspiration students in a primary level or using kidspiration are able to visualise certain concepts in ways that other visual communication skills are not able to.
“It works as a kind of visual outline for almost any purpose, including planning stories or even story boarding for video productions … The key is the ease and flexibility with which [concepts] are created and then linked together” (Lockard & Abrams, 2004).
As an educator in a school I could use inspiration in my lessons to create a simulating and colourful display to communicate information in a basic beginning way to a concept. For example in mathematics inspiration can be used to demonstrate different ways of completing one problem.
In our classes these past 2 weeks we have been focusing on using spreadsheets and how it can be incorporated into teaching strategies and practices. These spreadsheets are an excellent way in managing, manipulating and analyzing data, especially the student’s grades and accomplishments. I learnt that teachers can use spreadsheets for examples excel for numerous situations including class lists, grading, seating charts and so forth. As for students they are able to use spreadsheets for assessments, graphing, reports using formulas. In a classroom when I am teaching I would certainly use spreadsheet.
