Concept Maps

Bubbl.us is a creative way to create concept maps for class or other reasons. In my personal experience I found it hard to create a concept map of colours. I used red, blue and yellow (the primary colours) and tried to add connections in where the colours create new ones when mixed. I found that I had trouble connecting bubbles together. This was my result:

Picture was created in: http://www.bubbl.us/




www.wordle.net/

alone animals applied attempts becoming behaviourism classical cognitive conditioned constraints dominated educational effrontery eventually experimentation follow gagne generalised happens implies learning mainly operant organism particularly pavlov people presented produce programmes psychology purposes real realm relaxes relevant reservations response russia salivation single skill skinner slips stimulus substantial substrate unconditioned unintended whatever

created at TagCrowd.com

Wordle and tag crowd are an effective way to summarise points of a paragraph. These ICT's can be a positive ICT to use in the way that you can summarise a paragraph or whole article within a minute and less by just coping and pasting into the box on the site. The negative site to these ICT's is that it is in a way a cheat's way of summarising a paragraph and when using these tools students are not summarising themselves, the computer is. Students need to be able to know how to summarise for they will not always have access to computers. In conclusion, though these ICT's are an easy to use and quick to use.

Ethics and Safety in the Web/ Theories and frameworks

There are many ethical and safety issues when using the web. Everyone has to abide by safety regulations on the internet. Copy right regulations as well as child safety regulations. I have found that copy right regulation is one of the hardest regulations to abide by. This regulation is hard to abide by because a lot of people do not know that it exists. Or to what extension that copy right laws expand on the internet. Child safety laws are easier to abide by. They are easier to abide by for the reason that there are simple ways to abide by them. Firstly always stay truthful to who you are. The second I find when working with young children and the internet is to find secure sights for the children to work on. The learning place has a code that sorts activities into different categories, one such category is a child safe category. Another way to ensure child safety is to ensure that online activities are authorised by the Queensland education government, or by the principle of your school.

Weebly.com

Weebly.com is a website maker where students can access this site and make their own website. Students can choose their own background and the knowledge that they put in it (as long as they reference), but it is a way for students to own their own space where they can use the site for whatever purpose they wish.

Blogs

Strenghts
Blogs can be used to record student's ideas, thoughts and feelings. Blogs can be used in class as learning journals or for students to talk about particular topics.

Weaknesses
Blogs have a limited range of uses. However, many students could access the same account with the same username and password. Blogs are an effective tool when used for reflecting on others work.

Opportunities
I believe that teachers should take the opportunity to have their students use blogs as a learning journal. Blogs could increase the student's technology capabilities, reflecting practices and overall journaling skills.

Threats
Not all students will have access to the internet all the time and so time will have to be given to these students for them to be able to access the site.

My learning about Blogs
Participating in this course for the second time has allowed me a great chance of interacting with many different ICT's that could possibly be used within the classroom. I personally find that blogs are an effective way for students to share their ideas about topics.

Google Maps

'Google maps' is an effective tool for schools for children can map their own school trips or other relevant activities in or out of class.

Plus
Students are able to map out trips, find a friend's house or their school and be able to get directions from one place to another including time it takes and distance travelled.
Minus
The map doesn't include every little part of the world.
Interesting
I used 'Google maps' to find my way from Bundaberg to Canberra on a trip this year. It was very useful in the way that I was able to tell how long it would take me to get there, which roads I could take and where other towns were so that I was able to fuel up.
Theory
Google Maps can be used by students for individual or group work. Cognitive theory would apply if the student was using 'Google maps' by themselves. Social Constructivism theory would apply if students were working together in groups.


View Larger Map

References:

Map is from http://maps.google.com.au/

The Learning Place/ LMS/ RSS

The learning place is engaging way for students to interact with different online learning objects or activities. The online learning place houses a range of activity or learning objects, these are suited to the different key learning areas. Although the online learning place is a useful tool for accessing activities for different learning areas easily, the online learning place itself is hard to access for those who are not teachers or in an actual school. Therefore I suggest that it is a useful tool for those that have access to school computers but not for parents, children or pre-service teachers that are not in a school.

Learning Management Systems
Learning Management Systems are those that are used for administration purposes (mainly in schools) such as blackboard, Moodle and Intelladon (which is used in some high schools). The LMS is a resourceful tool for teachers and students alike to share information about subjects or courses or assignments in my case. Every LMS is different to the rest. For instance, Moodle is significantly different to blackboard in the way that blackboard was organised by importance of overall subject i.e. Announcements, course information (course profile), study materials (study guide and topics), web links, resources etc. Moodle is organised as topics with generalised headings such as course profile and study guide on a side panel. LMS's are successful tools to help with student's online learning. When our university changed its LMS from blackboard to Moodle, I found it hard to adapt to and use the new LMS. Even today I still have trouble using Moodle as it is a vastly different LMS from blackboard.

RSS
I have not fully mastered the use of the RSS Feeder. Though I do believe I understand it a bit more this year. I found that the RSS Feeder is a kind of updates list for blogs and wiki's (kind of like the updates on facebook or myspace). Now that I have made the connection, it seems like a useful and relevant tool for teachers to use while seeing what updates their students have made. As well, students are able to see what their peers have updated. In conclusion, the RSS Feeder is an exceptional tool for teacher and student use.

Wiki's

Wiki's are different to blogs, in the way that many people can access one Wiki site to edit it and add to it. I myself am not very confident with using Wiki's. The reason for this is that when participating in an activity in class everyone was editing the same page at the same time. When the page was saved those that saved first were overwritten by those who saved after. Though it is less likely to happen if students were in smaller groups and editing different pages it still has a chance of happening to students. The positive side to wiki's is that you are able to undo changes that have been made. All in all, I believe that Wiki's are not the best way for students to complete their assignments. This is because the students are able to delete others work without permission and those who do not have access to the internet all the time and so are at a disadvantage.