Reflective Synopsis - Assessment Task 2

Wow...what a course so far! I can honestly say I have never been busier, I can also say I have never learnt so much about different technological tools in such a short space of time. I have also never had so many different accounts set up. I have an account with Flickr, Mahara, Glogster and slideshare, and that's just the ones off the top of my head. Of course we have been introduced to too many ICTs to comment on here, so I will reflect on those that I intend to use regularly in the classroom.

While looking at all the marvelous resources, it is important to remember how they will assist children in their learning journey. Teacher centred and student centred learning has been often spoken about in our online courseware. It is always important to remember that the teacher is there to teach the students, therefore the students should be the central focus. I believe ICTs maintain a high level of student centred learning as it firstly gains the engagement of students and secondly, with most of the resources it would be the student who would be taking the lead in their project. For instance, if I was to give a project to a grade 4 class that required them to create a Glog promoting road safety around schools. They would, assisted my myself, research the issue and collaborate their findings. They would then design a Glog that will clearly promote their message about road safety and donate it to the school, local police and the community.

As I am a creative person with a strong background in theatre (particularly musical theatre), I have a strong belief of the benefits that come out of the arts. Drama and dance help with self esteem and building confidence in young people, they are also easily adapted to be embedded in other subject areas. If I were doing a unit on ancient Egypt, I could create a project where children are to choose a topic or story about ancient Egypt, research it, write a script, film the play, edit and post to YouTube or TeacherTube as a way of donating back to the community. This unit/project combines SOSE, English, Technology and the Arts.

Another resource that I found engaging and would use in a primary classroom are Vokis. As I mentioned in my blog http://miriamsblogonprimaryedu.blogspot.com/2010/04/ict-classroom-tools.html, I would use Vokis as an engagement tool to introduce a topic or theme. I could also program Vokis to answer or ask questions. This would encourage students to ask questions just to hear the technology. It is important that our students are absorbing and retaining the information that we provide them, if it means that teachers have to find alternative ways to present the information, I think it's necessary.

There were so many other wonderful resources to use in the classroom such as PowerPoints, Flickr, Wikipedia, Incompetech etc. If you would like to read about my thoughts on these tools please visit these pages: http://miriamsblogonprimaryedu.blogspot.com/2010/04/wikipedia.html http://miriamsblogonprimaryedu.blogspot.com/2010/04/powerpoint.html http://miriamsblogonprimaryedu.blogspot.com/2010/04/butterfly-life-cycle.html http://miriamsblogonprimaryedu.blogspot.com/2010/04/incompetech.html

In summary, this has been a wonderful learning experience for myself. I look forward to next year when I have a class of my own with whom I can implement these ICTs. As the world wide web keeps changing and growing at a phenomenal rate, there will be plenty of new ICTs available in no time at all. The world we live in has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Children born today live in a world that is full of technology, it seems strange to shy away from teaching these children with the technological devices that they are so familiar with. We must do our best, as educators to teach these children higher order thinking, as they are our country's future.