a wonderful website

http://www.ictineducation.org/
This website is a wonderful one about ICT in education. I want to share it with everyone.

End of this semester

This week is my last teaching week in the first semester. Finally, I am finishing my first semester; I did learn a lot about this unit and my future. I will summarize what I have learnt from each assignment in this blog.

From assignment 1a, I learnt how to create my own website and blog. It is new to me, because I did not know that I can have my website by my own one day.

Through doing assignment 1b, I learnt how to use technology to help me organized a party or event. I used tast.com.au to help me design a menu for my 20^th birthday. I did have a very good time on my 20^th birthday. In addition, peer review is a part of this assignment. Through giving others suggestions, I recognized my problems on my event design. The girl who reviewed my work gave me a lot useful suggestions. Before this unit, I had never take part in a peer review, it is a fantastic experience.

Assignment 2 named researcher, it requires us to use 5 resources to explore technologies related to my work at university. I choose “authentic leaning” as my topic, and used books, journal articles, refereed conference paper, websites and YouTube as my resources. I learnt how to use Google Scholar, Endnotes, and learnt the concept of refereed conference paper.

Teamwork is the core task in assignment 3. We are grouped in 4 students, and my team mates are Naomi, Samantha and Jasmine. They are very nice and we cooperated very well to finish our team work about fairytales. Each of us designed a Wiki page about our own topics, and made a power point for presentation together. It was a great experience to work in a nice team. Not only I learnt how to use interactive whiteboard resources, but also I learnt more about how to communicate with others.

Through this semester, I really learnt a lot on being a university student, as well as being a teacher in the future. I realized, to be a good teacher, only patient, knowledge and love is not enough. Having the ability to use technology efficiently is very important in modern society. I am on my way to become a qualified teacher, thanks to Daniel’s help through this unit; thanks to lecturers’ great lectures; thanks to EDN113.

Teamwork

Teamwork can be very efficient, because it is not only to plus the ideas which come from each person, but also come up new ideas which being created by the crush of different ideas. On the other hand, it can be a disaster if the team member can not cooperate together very well.

Today, I would like to say our team work on assignment 3 about fairytales. Our group names J.A.N.S., itself does not mean anything; it is a combination of our first name Jasmine, Abby, Naomi and Samantha. In our team work, each of us get a topic about fairytales and mean to design ourselves’ Wiki page. In the presentation part, we decided to let Naomi does the audio part. She is very nice, and did a lot of works for our group. Although each of us did ourselves’ part of power point, Naomi still has to combine them together and do audio record. So I want to show my appreciate to Naomi here.

Our team cooperates very well; each of us did a separate task and also did many works together. I did some group works before, but I have to say this is the best group I have ever had. Thanks to my group mates!

Through doing group work, we get the knowledge of using technology to get resources for teaching, and learnt how to communicate efficiently with each others. It is a fantastic experience for me, I will consider to organise many group works to my students to let them learn stuff from themselves.

A interesting interactive whiteboard resource--Learning Federation

Different from the other blogs, this time I am going to introduce a useful and interesting interactive resource—Learning Federation.

At the start, our tutor introduced it to us, but I do not know how to become a member of it. After Daniel’s explanation, I got it, and now I cannot wait to share with you. The following is the steps to become a member of Learning Federation:

1.     Go to Murdoch website homepage.

2.     Click “our school” and go into school of education and click “more”.

3.     Click “Facilities and Learning Resources”—“Curriculum Resource Center”—“The Learning Federation”—“Learning Federation Student Access”.

4.     Click the “Registration URL” on this page.

5.     Put into your details then confirm it on your email.

6.     Now, it is time to log in Learning Federation!

About assignment 3

Our assignment three is to work in group to create an authentic learning environment for teachers and students. After discussed, we decided to aim at Grade 4's students. Our topic is about fairy stories. I like fairy stories since I was a child until now. Every night I will listen to a story before I sleep. In fact it is not only because I like fairy stories, but also to store some materials for my further career which is to be a teacher. In brief, I am quite happy with our topic. 

We decided to create 5 pages on Wiki Space, a home page, and each of us has our own page. There are four sections of this assignment: introduction to fairy story, example of fairy story, analysis fairy story and write a fairy story. I am in charge of the last part of our assign which is how to write a fairy story. I am very excited about my part, because I tried many times to write a fairy story by myself, now it is time to show my process. I will use five different types of technology to help me create an authentic learning page. I am looking forward to my work, what about you?

What I learnt from assignment 2—researcher

Finally I finished my assignment two. I choose authentic learning as my topic to do my research. Through doing assignment 2, I learnt what is authentic learning, how to create an authentic learning environment for students and the importance of authentic learning. At the same time, I realized that there are so many tools and documents that I can use for my study. Suddenly, it reminds me the Newton’s words:”Stand on great men’s shoulder.” I do not know whether it is exactly the same sentence, but it is the same meaning.

Anyway, I am very happy about the design of assignment 2. Through doing it, students can learn a lot by themselves. It also inspired me that designing assignments for students is also a kind of art, we need to pay attention on it.

Online Unit

I have been so lazy to write something on my blog about my Technology unit. In this week, our lectures and tutorials were doing online. In the other word, we do not need to go to campus to study. This is so fresh for me, and it is the first time I feel like an external student.

I have to say, it is a great experience, and also inspired me that I can study as well as keep on working in the future. I forgot who said that, life is a process of study, you can not stop. In China, we also have many proverbs which are talking about continuous study.

To be a teacher in the future, I learnt that there are many ways of teaching. Through the computer and internet, we do not need to teach in the classroom. However, teach in classroom is still necessary. Technology can help teachers teach better, but it can not replace traditional way of teaching. In the future, my students will be from 4-12 years old. In my opinion, if we only use technology to teach them, they will slack on study, because they are too young to manage their life properly.

To conclude, studying online is a great experience, it gave me many ideas about myself and my career life.