Category Archives: Digital skills

Hey Guys, Welcome to my Vlog?

It’s not an every day occurrence where your lecturer tells you you’re all about to become vloggers, but it’s one that I’ve tried to welcome with open arms!

Margaret Taylor, our lecturer, set up a workshop that allowed us to test substances to see how soluble and insoluble they would be in a small amount of cold water. Our tests may not be the most valid, however we did enjoy taking a record of what we found and could compare across the six solids.

In order to make it more valid in a classroom, we could measure out accurate amounts of water and substances in order to make it a fair test, so that the items were the only variable. We could also do more work from this experiment to find out what the substances were, for example, using information gathered from the internet to compare to our observations.

As you can tell from our final clip in the vlog, this would be a very exciting experiment to do in a classroom as the children would not be sure what the outcomes will be. This will therefore spark their curiosity and allow them to become excited about the topic of Materials and how they react with water.

Professionalism Vs the Online World

  • Discuss what challenges/opportunities you may be faced with when marrying the personal vs the professional presence on social media.

The General Teaching Council of Scotland recommends that teachers put all of their social media outlets on private. I think this is a good idea as students will inevitably try to look up and possibly add their teacher on Facebook. By having all details on private, children or their parents will not be able to find out any further information about the teacher than what they know from school. However, I believe it is a good idea to have a public account as it means they will be able to interact with other teachers/pupils and share ideas or themes that they have been using in their school.

  • How are the challenges/opportunities afforded by social media framed? How will you frame things – positive or deficit viewpoint?

Personally, I have found that the older generation have more of a closed minded view about social media as they assume the worst of what could happen all the time. I believe social media, such as YouTube and Instagram are great and will really help children as they will be growing up surrounded by new types of technology and, as a teacher, being on top of it means that they can be on the same level as the children.