Shadowing reflections

[Dianne Davies]

Share an ICT tool you could use in your classroom that you have observed while shadowing

[Maxine Andrews]

Hi Di,
I shadowed a Year 6 class at Swan Hill Central Primary School during their "Numeracy" with another teacher from Swan Hill College. I found the experience valuable from many aspects and saw the use of the netbooks for one part of their session.
Firstly it was fun to see a class in operation with a very competent teacher, who made us feel welcome and made her students feel comfortable to have us in the classroom. The netbooks were being used to access "google sketch" to complete a drawing design for a house and land package, as one of the teachers was designing their home and he had developed a worksheet around this theme. One of the best things about this, according to their teacher, was the way the kids helped each other when one of them found a way to do something that had not been known before. That sharing aspect to learning is certainly part of the technology age, from a teacher's perspective as well.
Their teacher only used the netbooks if they were the best tool or equipment for the task, so if writing in their book was more efficient or doing a worksheet simpler to get across the message, then this was done, rather than using the technology just because it was there.
The teacher had not known everything about the programs the students have used but has gone ahead anyway and used the programs and had the students make some discoveries as well. The philosophy being to learn as you go and the students collectively have more time to spend working out the way a program works and they usually do and they let others know too.
Excel has been used for graphing and statistics, Powerpoint,etc for presentations and google to research.
Some issues of use were encountered and dealt with as they arose but she said it was useful to have a couple of PC's in the classroom for kids whose computer was not able to be used for one reason or another. Passwords had had to be cleared a couple of times, most of the kids learnt to keep the batteries charged and their were consequences developed for various misuse issues.
Having parents come in with their child to collect the netbook and getting them to read and sign a formal document in regard to its use was very valuable in her opinion and secondary schools should think about doing this too at the start of the year.
All in all the shadowing was both enjoyable and useful. What more could a teacher ask for??
Maxine Andrews

[Dianne Davies]

Hi Maxine, glad you found the experience a positive one and saw things you could use in any classroom. Keep using the netbook ning as a port of reference as there are often good things found in here and the discussion between teachers is terrific. Thank-you for your input
Di

[Sarah Sutton]

It was great watching Joe using the smart board and speaker setup to lead the students in a song analysis. They all had their laptops and were using the 'comment' function in Word to make notes on what they thought the lyrics meant. It wasn't overly high tech or light years ahead of what I can do now, but it was really good to watch the students each adding their comments wherever they thought fit.
It's a great function I haven't used before, but my first thought was being able to use it to help students break down questions they have to answer, not just in Year 7 but higher up as well. I think it'll be good as they will be able to work at their own pace with the notes and comments I add. I'll definately be using those ideas with Year 7 and Year 9 next year.

[Dianne Davies]

Hi Sarah, its great to hear that you had the opportunity to find an ICT tool that can be used across different KLA's and different year levels. As you have said "it wasn't overly high tech". Thats a great point, as many of the capabilities that can be used on computers dont require a lot of technical ability just a bit of creativity. Keep sharing your thoughts and ideas here on the ning as you will also find lots of others doing the same.
Thank-you for your reflections
Di

[Julie Rovere]

Hi Everyone,
The tool that I learned about while shadowing was a website called VisuWords (www.visuwords.com). This site is an online visual dictionary which allows you to type in a words and it gives you, not only meanings, but also gives you associated meanings and concepts. It is very eyecatching and uses coloured links to demonstrate the concepts. I imagine we could use this for finding synonyms, use it as a tool when doing grammatical tasks. I don't think I can even begin to imagine the uses yet but it will be fun exploring with the students. The language and definitions are at times quite sophisticated so it may be used at higher levels as well.

On a more practical note I think we have to be very aware of the limited memory for saving on the netbooks. This has been as issue in the class I shadowed. We need consider the number of images, movies etc. that are stored on the machines and how we are to manage this.

Thank you to the class and teacher that I visited. It was a very calm and inviting classroom and the students were happy to share their ideas and progress with me. Great to see kids very focussed and interested in writing.
Julie R

[Dianne Davies]

Hi Julie, I agree visuwords is a great tool that requires limited technical skills. Lots of good uses. On another note I think we are still inclined to store things close to home either on our own netbooks/notebooks or school servers etc. I think we need to be encouraging kids to store and share their work to a wider global audience and leave themselves open to feedback in order for them to continue to grow and learn. Many sites such as screencast, flickr etc. allow users to store freely while many provide shared spaces to encourage the sharing of ideas and resources. I dont think kids are afraid to do this....but I think we as teachers need to model it......worth a thought.
Thanks for your reflective response.
Di