The groups I had previously spoken about in my first blog had now been changed so none of the absent members were no longer in my group. This was positive as we could engage in a whole group discussion and work well together. However it had a negative effect due to the fact we were starting from scratch and had to think of new ideas for a topic for the wiki and movie and had less time to think about our bear character. Because of this we had to meet up in outside the workshop to organise our resources for this aspect of our group work. I already feel that this group works better because we were all present and active in the communication. Since the input we have e-mailed to organise our bear story and met up to take pictures.
We were told about communities of practice and explored our own understanding of this by word association. I was interested in what Sharon had told us about Belbin's theory of roles.
We each had to decide and discuss with a partner which role we feel we take. I feel that I fall under the people/feelings category especially the team worker and resource/investigator roles. I think I have parts of each role as different situations may bring on different reactions and a good teacher must take on board each aspect to teach different children.
In our group I feel there must be somebody who falls under the Doing/Acting role as there needs to be an active facilitator to motivate the group properly. Sharon commented that when directing ICT in schools and making links with others she needed to take this role as she wanted to keep the connections working.
It is apparent Sharon has done this in the organisation of the module as well as in schools as she has set up links with student teachers in other countries to share our bears with.
We were introduced to voices of the world which is a useful tool to connect children from different countries and cultures. We looked at the song 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' sung in different languages. This links to our modern languages collaboration and is a good way of teaching language without being rigid. On the wiki page for voices of the world there is a mention of eTwinning. As I had never heard of this concept before, I explored the link and found that it is a way of making connections with teacher throughout Europe! This is an excellent idea as it is an easy way of finding like minded professionals. Also I had no idea where Sharon found schools/universities to connect with before now!
We were shown the SlideShare program to enable us to show PowerPoints over the internet. To test the program out I made a tester slideshow;
Slideshare ppt
View more presentations from mandy9251.
Another tool we were shown was One True Media for making montages using pictures and music. I tested this out with a picture of me and the introduction to my favourite song!!
We also learned about Mixbook for making virtual books. I think this would be very helpful in a nursery and throughout the school and it's very interactive during story time as pupils could turn the pages. I intended to test out the program like I did with SlideShare and One True Media but the website would not respond!
We used a voting website called Poll4.com to decide as a class whether we would use one bear per class or per group. I liked this website as it let you answer any question using a code. This could be used for homework as well as voting as long as pupils remembered to put their name alongside the answer!
Taking into account the comments on my previous blogs from Collette and Sharon, I labelled my blogs and checked the spellings before publishing. I wrote instructions for adding Vokis to a blog which was very difficult because of the aspect of adding pictures but I figured out through trial and error how to crop save and upload into a post.
Another tool we were shown was One True Media for making montages using pictures and music. I tested this out with a picture of me and the introduction to my favourite song!!
We also learned about Mixbook for making virtual books. I think this would be very helpful in a nursery and throughout the school and it's very interactive during story time as pupils could turn the pages. I intended to test out the program like I did with SlideShare and One True Media but the website would not respond!
We used a voting website called Poll4.com to decide as a class whether we would use one bear per class or per group. I liked this website as it let you answer any question using a code. This could be used for homework as well as voting as long as pupils remembered to put their name alongside the answer!
Taking into account the comments on my previous blogs from Collette and Sharon, I labelled my blogs and checked the spellings before publishing. I wrote instructions for adding Vokis to a blog which was very difficult because of the aspect of adding pictures but I figured out through trial and error how to crop save and upload into a post.
Looks like you are learning a lot of technical skills through trial and error - Well done.
ReplyDeleteTips for next time:
1. You mention Belbin's community theory so I advise you reference the book. This will get you into to referencing correctly by placing the name, year and page beside the table and at the end of the post you can put the full reference.
2. You mention eTwining and me - why not link to my blog and eTwinning site.