Lesson Planning

Lesson planning takes practice, and for those who have done very little, if any, what worries you the most about the process? Those of you who have done some lesson planning, what advice can you give to others?

I definitely fall into the category of having done little lesson planning. What worries me most about the process..... hmmmmm let me think - well just about everything! Lets see here is a list of the things that I could think of.

- Detail - how much detail to put in, you cant practically write a script for each lesson you do but as a new teacher I would love to be able to take a complete script in with me as a security blanket.
- Length, OMG the lesson is only half way through and we have finished my lesson already!!!!
- Complexity - nobody will understand what you are a talking about and you end up needing massive amounts of scaffolding to implement the plan. Alternately, you start going through what you are going to cover through the lesson and get told by the students that they covered everying two years ago.
- Visibilty - is this document going to end up being seen by everyone including the principal as an example of the planning that you do?
 - Subject matter - is this thing even going to be relevant to the students and the curriculum.
- Adoption by students - are the activities planned going to work with this group of students.
- Time - am I going to have time to write out lesson plans for all of the lessons that I have to do?
- Relevance - is there any point to writing out this document - every time I do a lesson I never even have time to refer to my lesson plan.

Does anyone else have any interesting ones ? If so leave them as a comment below.

Hardware in School

In my school most of the hardware that I have experienced has been laptops, smartboards, lego mindstorm robots, video cameras and tablets (also a few phones I guess but these are minimally used).

All of this hardware has been there for more than 12 months so there is nothing really new to report on the NEW hardware side of things. One teacher did try to introduce a Scribe digi pen but I don't really think it took off with any of the other teachers.

In hindsight it is sort of surprising that there is no new hardware to report for the last 12 months. I guess this is a sign that we are starting to enter a phase where digital computing is becoming more mature and we are see more refinements rather than new products being introduced.

Collaboration

Blog posting for Sing et al. (2011)

The first two chapters of Sing et al deal with collaboration between students and the learning process. The first chapter spends some time looking at coop operative learning vs collaborative learning and spelling out the differences between the two.  First I didn’t really think it was necessary to draw a distinction between the two, however later in the paragraph sing etal (2011) goes on to describe how cooperative learning is a stepping stone to collaborative learning. Further more they give tips on how to encourage student to transition from cooperative students to collaborative students. Sing et al observe that cooperative students need to have more structure and goal based learning than collaborative students. This means that as students get used to cooperation  teachers should gradually remove structure and allow students to take greater ownership of projects.

Chapter one also explicitly links social-cultural theory (Vygostski) and collaborative learning and briefly describes Vygotsky’s conclusions that effective learning is a social endeavor. They also talk about the Zone of Proximal Development  (ZPD) and how group work means that students with different strengths working together can benefit each other.

Chapter 2 is pretty much summed up by its title “Affordances of ICT and the Support for Collaborative Learning” this refers to the fact that there are many aspects of ICT that help the collaborative approach to learning.

My thoughts,

For my KLA (ICT) collaboration is a large part of the curriculum and also resonates positivity with me in how I feel an effective learning environment should look. I also thought it was interesting to note that it is important for a teacher to realise that students my need to progress gradually from cooperative learning to collaborative learning  - this has given something for me to think about that hasn’t been presented in other subjects that I have done.

Module 4 - Cox Voogt

In this paper Cox (2012) raises many interesting points.

Cox notes that many teachers feel threatened by technology and feel that it is a disruptive force in the classroom. This does seem true to me although I think that this attitude is changing. I think that school wide attitudes are important in this respect. If teachers generally in the school have a positive attitude to technology then this encourages the less enthusiastic Voogt (2011) confirms this view on page 4.

On page 6 Cox (2012) goes on to say that the first priority of teachers is to order and control in the classroom. This rings less true for what I observe at my school surprisingly, when I walk into a classroom nowadays it seems much more chaotic to me than when I went to school. Students move around the classrooms and talk a lot more due to group work and efforts by teachers to make learning more student focused.

Page 13 - I liked the observations by Cox (2012) about studies into IT in education and how the studies can give misleading results, esp examples like only one computer per classroom and 95% of teachers delivering an IT curriculum only using a word processor - the devil is in the details and often questionnaires miss the details!!

I liked the Voogt (2011) plan for implementing ICT in a school;

Infrastructure development
Teacher professional development
Support
Articulation of ICT in the curriculum
Continuous development and research.




















Cox, M.J. (2012), Formal to informal learning with IT: research challenges and issues for e-learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2012.00483.x

Voogt J., Knezek G., Cox M.J., Knezek D.&ten Brummelhuis A. (2011) Under which conditions does ICT have a positive effect on teaching and learning? Acall to action. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 15 November 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00453.x.




Voogt J., Knezek G., Cox M.J., Knezek D.&ten Brummelhuis A. (2011) Under which conditions does ICT have a positive effect on teaching and learning? Acall to action. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 15 November 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00453.x.

Digital Natives

Are you what is known as a digital native or immigrant? Or do you subvert the stereotype?


This is an interesting topic.

I myself had no exposure to computers or technology until I was 12 (I am 48 now), however right from the moment I gained access to computers I have felt like a native. I don't know why I get on with computers so well - I just knew that they were for me right from the beginning.

I have been working with computers for 30 years more or less continuously and never tire of them. I don't believe that I have any technological accent, perhaps I am like a child that came to a new country at the start of high school and just managed to start early enough on the new language that I didn't retain any accent with my new language. I am not so sure that this is true however, I think that even if I didn't get exposed to technology until my 20's.

I guess, according to the writings I subvert the stereo type since I was not exposed to any technology at a young age (as there was none to be had). My belief however is that the concept of digital native and how you qualify for this grouping is seriously flawed. I don't believe that there are many fundamental differences between those that have been exposed to technology at an early age and those that weren't. The  supposed "digital natives" as defined by Pensky of today, while generally (though not universally) are more  confident that they can use technology and computers do not necessarily have much in the way of technical capabilities when trying to operate them.

I expect when I become a teacher that I will indeed love technology more than some of my students (keeping in mind that I will be teaching ICT). I hope that I can pass on some of my passions for technology to the students.

It is also interesting to note that the Pensky article was written in 2001. This is a long time ago in technological progress terms. Since then there has been a huge shift in skills and technological expectations mainly due to the internet and the "always connected" mindset. I believe that  the "internet natives" are in some ways more identifiable than digital natives.

Digital Literacy

Digital Literacy

It is an awareness, confidence and ability to operate general technology that is used in everyday life. This includes computers, tablets, mobile phones, internet browsers, common software such as word processors, simple spreadsheets.

I believe it is relevant because it is a life skill that is a commonplace requirement and schools are about preparing students for their future lives outside of school.

The Waldorf "Non" technology school

I can't agree with a school being anti technolgy for a number of reasons;

• in an Australian context ICT is embedded in most curricula.
• there are many useful learning tools that technology can bring to the classroom.
• schools have an obligation to teach students skills that are relevant to the world today and to the world in which they will emerge as adults - this without a doubt includes technological know how.

Having said that, I don't think it is the end of the world that they don't have technology, a resourceful teacher  will help overcome these shortfalls, in much the same way that a classroom without a whiteboard can still function, perhaps it will not be the most efficient but it does not stop the learning process.