MobaPhoto, Flickr Activity and Podcasting - Week 4 Managing e-Learning

MobaPhoto
Today I downloaded a new program called MobaPhoto.  Having never heard about it before I was quite nervous to start using it.  I chose a few of my favourite photos and had a play with it.  I resized them and this is how they turned out.  I found it really easy now and I am able to upload these photos onto my blog in order to share it to everyone following my blog.  This would be very useful if I were to have a Teach/Student/Parent blog and uploading photos of students work for their parents to have a look at what exactly is happening in the classroom with their children.  I find that this will  be very useful to me now and in the future.

             My Puppy Steele - 5 Months Old

 Isabella my partners little sister

My partner Michael                          

Flickr

We then used a website called Flickr to look at the different copyright rules for using other peoples photos of their websites.  I found to photos that I liked and I had to show that I got them from this website and from the users names this was very interesting as I was able to find out what I was allowed to take and what I had to do in order to be able to take it.  These are the two photos I chose.

Flickr: L Lemos

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/23948654@N04/5975419427/

Flickr: Obersmith                             

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23948654@N04/5975419427/    

Podcasting

http://www.actsofsilence.com/podcasts/disruptive-platypus-podcast/

Creating a Weebly and Uploading a Video - WEEK 3 - Managing e-Learning

Uploading a Video

I made this video and I uploaded it onto Facebook, Youtube and now onto my Blog.  I had a lot of fun creating this video.  I did find it very hard uploading it onto these different sites and places.  My videos when they were uploaded onto the computer came up as an MP4 file and I had to find the correct converter in order to convert it into an MP3 file and it all seemed to work out quite well once I fixed this problem..  This week we were asked to create a weebly website and a wiki in wikispaces.  I have started creating a weebly that I could use when looking at the Technology strand.  I have focused it on a measuring mass subject and I have really enjoyed creating it.  I will put the link up here once it is done.  

My Puppy Steele at 8 Weeks Old

Here is the link to my video on Youtube: http://youtu.be/yfsiYGEOHtc

Weebly

My Weebly is finally done.  I created it based on a Design Challenge for Technology.  When creating it I found that it was really easy.  I was able to add images and my text.  I also created comment boxes and a poll which could be filled in by the students using this Weebly to scaffold their lesson.  I think that this would really be a useful tool to use in the classroom.  It allows for the students to be interactive and engaged in the lesson.

This is the link to my Weebly:  designchallenge.weebly.com

Creating a Wikispace and Mobile Phones in Classrooms Activity - WEEK 2 Managing e-Learning

I created a Wikispace today based on the scaffolding PMI Chart.  I found it easy to use but I definitely found some limitations apart from the editing problems, for example  failing to save after almost every edit, I also found that trying to link sources and images was hard to get used to.  However once I had that down I found it much easier to do.  I created this Wikispace to use in a classroom to show students why we would use a PMI CHart, when to use them and how to use them.  I was able to input images, links, information about the PMI Charts and add different pages to the Wikispace.

Here is a link to my Wikispace:  http://scaffolding910.wikispaces.com/

This is an activity that we had to do in our Managing e-Learning class, this was our second class.  Today we had to post a reflection about the use of  Mobile Phones in the classroom.  I think that using a wiki is reflective of Constructivism because it is making learning interactive.  This may also be Connectivism and Cognitivism. 

We did the wiki using De Bono Hats as the scaffolding.  The De Bono Hats are simply a method of thinking that allow the students to think in a completely different way about a situation or topic and help them build up the skills and tools that they can apply in almost any classroom activity or assessment.  I really enjoy using the HATS in the classroom because the students always become really excited.  Especially if there are props!  My Group was doing the RED HAT, which is the FEELING/INTUITIVE.  We found we were doing very well and working very well in our group!

While doing the wiki we learnt that when editing one page all at the same time we all ended up loosing our work and this was because we were not refreshing our page before we started editing.  It was very frustrating as we thought we had to do it all again but then we found a way to get some of it back and we all had a laugh over it.  We then decided it was best if each group had their own page to edit on that way we would all be able to work on it without having that chance of loosing our work.  This is most probably what I would end up doing in the classroom at one point and having all the students loose their work would have been terrible so I am happy that I learnt that today instead of one day in my classroom.

TPACK Round Table Activity - WEEK 2 Managing e-Learning

TPACK Round Table ActivityContent: Forces: Inertia

Technology: iMovie or Movie Maker

Pedagogy: Learners are challenged and supported to develop deep level application

I would use this in a Year 10 classroom.  I would have the students in groups of about 3 students in each and then have them setting up and experiment that shows the Force of Inertia (a simple example a slinky) and having a student filming and having someone explaining the experiment through either before or after it is done.

Vygotsky's Theories of Learning Activity - WEEK 1 Managing e-Learning

Today I am at my first e-learning class and am having quite a bit of fun exploring all the different ways I can let other people know what I am doing on my new Blog or how to input the information I have onto a Wiki.
Think this is going to be an exciting course!!

In class we worked on the Vygotsky's Theories of Learning using the PMI Scaffolding, we found many INTERESTINGS and many POSITIVES.  I found that Vygotsky's way of perceiving human nature's way of learning is very much based on the environment they are in and what influences are around them.  I cannot agree with this more.  Especially in this class I have learnt more about what to do and how to do it from the people around me then I could have ever learnt if all this information was written down and I had to spend hours reading it.

Source:  http://fahe11001mackay.wikispaces.com/Vygotsky%27s+theories+of+learning

I was very happy using the PMI chart as I have used it so many times.  I was however surprised to find that it was really hard to find a MINUS on the theories.    This is not to say that there are not any cons to the theories I just was not able to find any that stood out to me as being wrong or bad.  I was very impressed on how our group managed to fill out the chart and am very happy with they information I have gained from using it.  The PMI chart as a scaffolding tool in classrooms is very engaging way for students to look at a situation and allow them to use the facts and information they have in front of them to make a decision on whether what they are looking at is a good thing or a bad things.  Students may do this when looking at situations such as when anaylising texts or observing situations.  I will say that the PMI chart is one of my most used scaffolding tools.