Today we explored the benefits of how we can use the outdoors in order to explore our environment and how we can plan other lessons relating to the surroundings that we have. According to curriculum for excellence “all children and young people are participating in a range of progressive and creative outdoor learning experiences which are clearly part of the curriculum”. It also states that working outside can allow children to transfer skills that they have already acquired in the classroom, in different contexts that they are not used to. It can also help with class topic lessons such as science, as they could explore their local environments and write down what they find, and as a smaller group, present what you find with others and compare your results. It also encourages more practical lessons as according to a parent council member “They understand what they’re doing a lot more – it’s all very well looking at books and speaking about things but if they’re outside doing it”. It also allows you to explore the environment and use objects such as leaves to reinforce basic counting, for example: counting the number of petals on a flower, the number of trees on a river bank. We used apps such as photo booth and pic collage in order to take photos of what our surroundings were and effects such as mirror, in order to show symmetry. Also, pic collage allowed us to create a mini group of pictures and allowed for us to explain what it was that we had seen and taken photos of. These apps can be used effectively in lessons as you can get the children to take photos and then get them to label the different objects and animals that the discover, or even use it in maths by getting them to write how many of a type of animal or object they encountered.
Tag: Further Learning
How I plan to further my learning and what methods I can use to do so to increase my knowledge of the topic
Digital technologies week 7/3/17
Today we continued to use mobile devices in the classroom and how it can be implemented into a literacy or a maths lesson. We began to explore the many different features of the Nintendo DSi and how the apps on the console can be used to effectively contribute towards an overall lesson. For example Pictochat can be used to discuss questions with other members in a classroom and can even be used to answer questions as part of a game. It can also be sued as a way of making sure that children have understood what they are being taught and it also allows them to be able to explore software and use what they learn to present solutions to problems they come across, as well as being able to organise and manage informaiton that they gather to apply them to different scenarios they are presented with (TCH-0-03a/1-03a). It also can provide a more effective and fun way to allow for them to develop their communication skills as well as other areas of their knowledge, as they can work together in group chats to discuss the answers. They can also be reused from class to class as they can be applied to many different subjects and many different age groups. For example, apps such as pictochat can be used to get a group of pupils to answer questions in a chatroom and discuss their answers and why they think there one is correct, and then reveal the answer. The only problem with this is that the teacher may have to potentially monitor the activity to make sure that they don’t go off from the set task and become distracted by something else.
digital technologies week 20/2/17
Today we continued on developing our animation on internet safety and how important it is to emphasise the importance of being safer online, especially in an age when it is becoming more and more relevant as time goes on. In 2015 the education secretary Nicky Morgan commented that “we must do everything we can to help children stay safe online – at school and at home.” Online Safer awareness day is a huge factor in this as it helps to raise awareness in how we can help pupils to understand the many different forms of harm can appear on the internet and what we must do in order to prevent such harm from affecting their future. Our animation was targeted towards this and under the cfe, TCH (1-008a), this area allows us to develop our own knowledge and safe use of conduct when interacting and sharing experiences, ideologies and information with other individuals on certain platforms. It also allows for us to try help spread the message that being safer on the internet, in a more creative and imaginative way rather than just talking about it out-loud off of a piece of paper for an hour. It will also help to keep the attention of the pupils that you are trying to teach. Seeing what other people had created as well was really refreshing as it allowed me to see how we managed to take the same concept and yet come up with so many different and creative results for the outcomes, as each one had their own personal touch on the matter.
Digital technologies week 7/2/17
Today we finished off the work from last week and discussed how this could be used effectively in a lesson. It really helped me to understand how i can use this program to allow pupils to develop not only a sense of learning of a particular subject such as maths or English, but also it allows them to develop a basic understanding of coding and the skills that can come with it. For example in TCH-0-09a the outcome is for the pupils to be able to develop a sense of problem solving skills through playing an electronic game. In the second half of the lesson, we began to discuss how we would teach internet safety to pupils in a primary school. This is an area which i feel has become much more important since i left primary school as more and more kids are beginning to activate and create their own social media accounts at a much younger age and being safe online is a crucial aspect for someone that age. We currently live in an age where technology is thriving and being safer on the internet has never been more crucial. As a result we began to research further into how to teach children from a young age how to be safer on the internet and next week, we are beginning to tie in animation with this topic as it is an effective way to help get across these important points.
Maths week beginning 23/1/17
Today we started to learn about the ways in which we could teach algebra in the classroom, and I must admit, this was an area that had surprised me at first as I had not expected this to come up until at least secondary school as it had for me. However, the methods we were being taught gave me a fresh insight into how maths has developed in primary schools since i left it 8 years ago and how it continues to branch out at a younger age, showing the progress made. In the workshop, we also did symmetry which I must admit was never a strong point of my own when I was growing up and is an area that I still struggle with to some extent today. However I plan to go away and research the topic so I can have a better understanding of what it is that I will be going out and teaching, as it remains a key area in the curriculum today.
Digital technologies week beginning 23/1/17
Today we began to see how the use of basic programming through the use of bee bot allows for us to not only teach basic areas in the curriculum for excellence for technology, but also allows for us to combine it with other important areas of the curriculum such as maths and literacy so that the learning process is not only being taught in two separate areas, but also in a fun and interactive way that has children working with another to be creative. I hope to continue to plan on how to use bee bot and other basic programming areas in order to make my lessons more fun and interactive but also get across the important teaching points at the same time. This is shown in TCH-0-09a as it says that in the learning outcomes pupils should be able developing problem-solving strategies and navigation skills as they learn to play with the programmable toys that they are being provided. Also, toys have a very large influence in young children growing up, and according to Bethany Koby “It shapes and moulds some of the most important early years of people’s lives through education, play and new experiences…toys should be able to prepare and empower kids, they should help to shape their futures”. Although it must be said that we must not take away from the importance that other toys have in a kids life (such as a toy mobile phone) as these can help build social skills from an early age.
Society and Lifestyles week one 9/1/17
Today was started our new module which is all about how society and lifestyles and how we view its impact. This allowed me to reflect upon how we view religion in society and how it can be viewed as both as a good thing and a negative thing, as it depends on how it affects us in our everyday lives. I felt that i could research the theorists views further as I was not as clear upon their aspect of the lecture as i was on the other areas of it. I will continue to read further into the theories and try and interpret them to gain a better understanding of what it is that I am being asked.
Digital technologies Week one 9/1/17
We began the new module Digital Technologies earlier today, and started off by asking what did the term really represent. This allowed me to reflect upon the many different forms that we use not only around a classroom when teaching, but in everyday aspects of life and how we take most of them for granted. In the first half of the lesson we began to establish the reflective glow blogs which I feel are an effective way to allow us to communicate how we feel about the progress we are making as we continue to work through the weeks. It is also important to comment on the fact that literacy is not all about deciphering the lines and scribbles that we can make on a page, but rather about the social acts of meaning, where meanings and practices vary extremely depending on the circumstances in which they take place (Barton and Hamilton 1998, Local literacies: reading and writing in one community). In the second half of the lesson we moved on to practicing using the active inspire. This was a good way for me to think about how it was used when i was in primary school’s not only as a child, but as a volunteer and on my own placement, and how I can use this to plan for future lessons that I will be participating in. It also allows us to think about how we can move away from older ideologies and focus more upon the idea that technology can be used as a different form of teaching the same lesson, rather than it being a visual aid for a child’s learning.
