I’m really looking forward to placement even though I don’t have anywhere yet. I don’t know if it’s just because I need the break from work or because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is my sixth year of study, I did my Cert III in Children Services followed by my Diploma and then on to my Bachelor. My husband is getting very sick of me studying. I have had some positive feedback from Jacqueline http://jacquelinehowlett.wordpress.com who has had the same experience as me with finding out late which school she went to and http://jayneally.wordpress.com who wish me luck finding out and passed on information about if your outside the 50km radius then you find your own school. Good to know!
I tried looking at David’s recommendation of trello, https://trello.com/but it wouldn’t let me log on could be because I was trying to log on from work sometimes it blocks me from certain websites. Will try again from home.
Uncategorized
Panic
Well I’m a little stressed after getting an email from Professional Development Office, ten days after I sent the first email. It says if by the week before I start placement and I still haven’t heard from them I should ring them. Argh how am I to make contact with my mentor in a week when I work full time. Feeling very stressed, is there anyone else who doesn’t have placement yet? Has this happened to anyone else? What happens if they can’t find a place, do we start looking? I imagine it would be hard to find 200 plus students a placement spot for three weeks. Hope to hear something early next week.
Placement
Well I’m really starting to panic now after reading Mr Clancy’s blog http://mrclancyblog.wordpress.com and I think Elizabeth’s blog http://phoenixedublog.wordpress.com about prac placement. Glad to hear Mr Clancy knows his school, my Inplace keeps coming up staff allocated and that’s it. I agree with phoenixedublog as I would like to make contact with my mentor as well and I sent an email last week asking about placement and didn’t hear anything back. Fingers and toes crossed.
I have been reading through this weeks books and had a panic after reading through the first one but after seeing the break down from David and time line I feel much better. I think my first instinct is to panic with this course, something I haven’t done with others.
Found an article all about getting the most out of Prac placement http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/11/how-to-make-the-most-work-placement-university
Ramblings
I’m loving everyone’s blogs this long weekend. Replying to Mr Clancy’s blog http://mrclancyblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/my-assignment-secret/. I’m a slacker as well, I leave everything to the last couple of weeks, panic get very little sleep because assignments are all I can think about and am just plain cranky until it’s handed in. I write everything down that’s in my head leave it for a couple of days then go back and have a look and start shaping. You’re very way more organised and disciplined than me to do 300 words a day.
Had a laugh at Carleigh’s blog http://carleeblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/social-media-and-my-dad/ about technology and her dad, I can so relate to her describing her dad and his tablet it sounded very much like my mum and the stylus, my mum is obsessed with hers.
Wow just had a technology tantrum when I thought I had lost this blog when the internet shut down. Very frustrating!
Link to why ICT in education http://edutechdebate.org/ict-in-schools/the-question-is-not-whether-but-how-ict-can-be-useful-in-education/
Hoping we find out soon where we are going for prac
Random Sites
Just found a Queensland Art Teachers Association Annual State Conference At CHAC in July for interested teachers.
Article about a school in Adelaide and how they are scrapping year levels and be replaced with groupings related to academic progress rather than age. If students drop to a D mark they are transferred into specialist support team until work improves. This is the link http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/fremontelizabeth-city-high-school-scraps-year-levels-in-overhaul/news-story/2a17b9c1eff9dd90bffd73717b2cf636
Very interesting article with trying to keep students in school who a challenged by academic success.
Free resources for Maths from math space https://mathspace.co/blog/Free-Student-Access/
Like Carleigh http://carleeblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/searching-for-ideas/ I too have come across Teachers Pay Teachers but haven’t really looked at it much but went back and had another look on Carleighs recommendation. They have some great packs and ideas.
PCK
Another link to Pedagogical content knowledge
A preamble from the authors of the study the link below provides insight into the in-the-moment teaching decisions made during reading instruction in the primary grades. Eight exemplary teachers of reading drew upon pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge to make these in-the-moment decisions. Findings indicate the focus of teachers’ in-the-moment decisions varied depending on the instructional context. Teaching decisions made during whole-group lessons tended to focus on motivation, engagement, and comprehension. In contrast, small-group lessons and individual conferences allowed for more individualized and student-specific teaching decisions by emphasizing problem-solving strategies, assessment, and word study. Small-group instruction emerged as a particularly significant context for in-the-moment teaching decisions as it allowed for more frequent in-the-moment teaching decisions than whole-group instruction or individual conferences.
http://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=109926825&S=R&D=eue&EbscoContent=dGJyMNLr40Sep7c4v%2BbwOLCmr06eqK9Srq64Sa%2BWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMOzpr0%2Bxrq5PuePfgeyx43zx
I have been reading older posts of https://summerlniethe.wordpress.com/ and I can relate to her frustrations with her ICT skills at times. I think at some stage we have all wanted to throw our computers out the window.
Prac
After reading Sophie Lofthouse’s blog I googled Khan Academy and found another internet website with planning tools and a links to the Khan Academy and other helpful websites.
Click to access planning-tools.pdf
Through Sophie’s site htttp://crankymisslofthouse.wordpress.com I linked to another students page https://summerlniethe.wordpress.com/ and saw in her blog a Book creator app- Book Creator app for iPad which is a free app for creating books. This will be fantastic in my Assignment two plan it would complement the ICT component.
I’m getting a bit concerned about the prac and the amount of students saying they know where they are going. When do we find out? As it is less than a month now until we start.
I found another site about technology and teachers called What is TPACK http://www.ttf.edu.au/what-is-tpack/what-is-tpack.html. The following information is from the website which is developed by Dr Matthew J. Koehler, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at the College of Education, Michigan State University. The website provides content from one of the two theorists who developed the TPACK model. Its talks about how teachers can bring their knowledge of subject matter with profound understanding of what is good for learning. The combination has been described as Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and is more than the simple addition of two parts. The fusion is what enabled expert 20th century teachers to transform subject content and represent it in ways that made it accessible to individual learners in their specific contexts.
In the 21st century, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is providing us with new ways to access and process knowledge in every field. ICT is also transforming pedagogy by providing new ways to engage learners.
The people I follow haven’t really been posting a lot lately and I kind of miss reading about them all. Sophie Lofthouse posted recently https://crankymisslofthouse.wordpress.com/ about backward design plans which I experienced last semester in my course.
Learning Plan ideas
http://mrnussbaum.com/grade-3/
http://www.education.com/activity/third-grade/
http://www.ezschool.com/Grade3/English/
Wow there are lots of ideas for learning experiences on all subject matter. I find one I like and then look at another page and change my mind, its hard trying to choose. I particularly like the Mr Nussbaum interactive story units and animated bibliographies, its very colourful which I find appealing and easy to navigate around the web page. After looking at his Interactive stories I thought that would be a great idea for the class to present an interactive story for the Prep students.
Does anyone know of any sites that do this?
It would be great if the children could be presented with a scenario and they could choose which way the story develops. It would be lots of work and a creative way for the students to write a story.
Back into the Swing
Getting back into the swing of this module and blogging again! Thanks Sophie https://crankymisslofthouse.wordpress.com for the reminder and the PCK information from you blog. I found an interesting article about the banning of technology in schools. http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/the-reality-is-that-technology-is-doing-more-harm-than-good-in-our-schools-says-education-chief-20160330-gnu370.html?&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=social&eid=socialn%3Afac-14omn0012-optim-nnn%3Apaid-25062014-social_traffic-all-postprom-nnn-smh-o&campaign_code=nocode&promote_channel=social_facebook
An international paper was released saying that technology doesn’t improve student outcomes and a educational chief Andreas Schleicher thinks technology is doing more harm that good and we should be reducing students reliance on technology.
It’s an interesting read from some schools’ going back to what they call traditional teaching and relying less on technology as some educators believe schools are becoming too commercial.
Maybe they need to find a balance between the two like David suggests.
wilsonj2016 