This unit has encouraged me to understand technology and all it has to offer and what different ways I can use technology in the classroom with my students. I hope to take everything I have learnt from this unit into the classroom setting with me. Although some innovations I may not use in the Early Childhood classroom, like Twitter and Second Life, these are technologies that I myself hope to continue using in order to expand my network of educators and my knowledge on effective teaching strategies. A innovative technology that I hope to use in my teaching career is SmartBoards, not only do I think they have great educational value but they motivate me and they always have new SmartBoard resources available for teachers to use in the classroom to teach specific concepts in an interactive way.

Having the opportunity to explore Second Life (my selected innovation), allowed me to see how advanced technology actually is. I now understand how much and how many technology programs there are and how they are linked to education. All the innovations that we learnt about in this unit have offered a great range of teaching ideas and ways children can learn in a variety of different ways.

“How can we share new knowledge and resources about one innovation to bridge the digital divide between those who ‘know’ and those who ‘don’t know’?”. In regards to this question, I believe it all comes down to research, experience with the innovation, advice, and expert training. As I found out, we can only truly understand technology and all it has to offer through our own exploration and experience and training from experts or more experienced individuals. In doing this, people will become more understanding of certain innovations and how they work. If people do not understand technology programs, learning and use of these programs simply becomes ineffective and a waste of time. It is more important to educate yourself and others on the innovation before effective use can take place. Therefore, in order to fill the gap that is causing this digital divide, people must talk to experts or attend presentations (like what this unit has offered us), explore and experience the program for themselves and research the innovated technology (e.g. Wiki Pages).

I can honestly say, at the beginning of this semester I barely knew anything about the innovations that we covered in class. Looking back now, I can just picture and visually see how much I have learnt over the weeks. The learning has been enormous and the experience has been engaging and motivating. I like how this unit gave us, as students, the opportunity to take on board an innovation and learn about it for ourselves and then teach it to our peers. This made the unit more meaningful and allowed us to be the teachers and educate everyone else on how our innovation could be used in the classroom.

I hope my knowledge on these innovations continues to develop to help assist me for use in the classroom.

Thanks to Lina, Sue Waters and everyone one in ‘Using Computers in the Classroom’ for making this unit and the learning within it such a great experience and so much fun!

On the 23rd of October, Christina and Louise gave a presentation about Electronic Whiteboards or Smart Boards as they are also known. I found this presentation very beneficial to my own learning, as it further developed my understanding of how Whiteboards actually work and can be used effectively in the classroom. These Whiteboards, developed by Smart Technologies act as an interactive touch screen that is connected to a projector screen. This technology encourages teachers to interactively educate and communicate with their students and present a range of new and different ideas through the wide range of SmartBoard resources that are offered by a range of people and companies.

Using SmartBoards in the classroom allows teachers to make their lessons student directed and encourages students to buld their own knowledge from a range of different SmartBoard programs. This presentation on SmartBoards in our University classroom greatly motivated and engaged me…imagine its potential for younger minds! Young children will be amazed by this technology as it will encourage them to take control of their own learning and participate in something that is fun to do.

I believe SmartBoards is a technology that should be implemented in all classrooms today, however due to cost I understand that this is only a vision and not what can happen in the real world. I hope in the future, I will get the opportunity to use a SmartBoard in the schools I teach, because I believe it is such a valuable program which children can learn and gain so much knowledge from. I consider SmartBoards to provide a different way for children to learn new and interesting things.

With SmartBoards and hands on classroom activities, children can learn in a range of different contexts and situations, allowing their abilities to develop to great lengths.

I like how this technology is portable, giving teachers the option to use clickers with a variety of students in different situations. The technology is very easy to implement in the classroom (besides the costly expense) and I believe it will engage and motivate students to ‘want to learn’. I really hope to learn more about this innovation in the future, as I consider it to be a valuable educational resource and hopefully one day I will get the option to use this in my classroom.

From what I have heard so far about Google groups, I think they can be very beneficial. Google Groups is an innovation where people come together and communicate with one another on different topics.

I am studying Early Childhood Education, and I most definitely wouldn’t use Google groups with the younger students, however it may be an option with year three’s.  I believe it would be a good idea also to use Google Groups with the parents of the children I am teaching. I believe using this innovation with parents will encourage open communication and give parents an insight into their child’s learning progress and learning experiences they are encountering in the classroom. It allows parents to feel included and a part of their child’s developmental process. One downfall however would be if some of the parents don’t have access to the internet. Also a Google group takes away the face-to-face contact and communication between parents and teachers…although this may not always be a bad thing!

I also think that Google groups is good to use with teachers, as it will encourage a supportive network in which teachers can ask questions and receive answers from different perspectives.

I also found Google Documents very interesting to learn about, as I did not know much about them at all. Google Docs is a free program offered by Google and allows its users to collaborate and create online documents, including the ability to create and design presentations, word processing docs and spreadsheets. I believe Google docs can be used by teachers, parents, and students as they can work together on projects and edit documents at any time. This innovation, I consider can be put to great use in the classroom, as it can encourage children to collaborate on projects, share ideas and create and edit a document whenever they like.   

In the class presentation, we were shown some pictures that were taken off people via the satellite camera…this kinda threw me off a little, to know that everyday people going about there own business were on Google Earth. Some of these pictures may be viewed by complete randoms and may at times be inappropriate! If you are showing places to children on Google Earth in a classroom situation, do you really want them to unexpectedly come across an inappropriate picture? Click this link, and you will know what I am talking about.

Even though, Google Earth may be seen to invade privacy, the likelihood of someone seeing a picture of you in quite low and I do understand that inappropriate pictures are rare, because the program automatically updates every 5 minutes. I think you just have to take precautions when using Google Earth with children. Although you have to take precautions with any program you use with children anyway.

In order for someone to see you on Google Earth, they would actually have to know where you are in that point in time and go to that specific location. That is; maybe you call up your friend and say I’m standing outside my house right now…look up my address on Google Earth and see if you can see me! How weird, scary, cool and interesting is that!

Although with Google Earth there is the matter of privacy, I believe it is a very educational resource that can greatly enhance students learning. It can especially teach them about the geographical aspects of their country, state or city and encourage them to learn more about particular places and landmarks that are important. Using Google Earth, students are able to experience and view the satellite imagery of many buildings and houses, and students are also given the chance to explore the galaxies (Google Sky), which I found out about in the presentation today. I consider Google Earth to have great educational purposes, as it will teach children about the world in which we live and will familiarise them with their own surroundings.

Google Earth is a program that I have experimented with before, however the class presentation today enabled me to learn more and has encouraged me to continue to use the program for myself, and that I will do! Google Earth is something that I may attempt to use in my teaching career as I think it is a great way to show children to real thing…not photographs, postcards, or drawings…but the actual object, landmark or building shown to the children at its present time.

I believe Second Life is good for teachers in that it can allow us to expand our own creativity and knowledge on particular places in the world and it can also encourage us to interact with other educators from within the virtual world. In regards to Teen Second Life and using this with students, I believe it can be somewhat educational if it is applied in the correct manner and for a sole purpose. Using Second Life with Upper Primary or High School students can encourage them to play, explore, use their imaginations and create and design projects. Within this virtual world, students are able to build and construct new things, visit educational places, such as; theatres, where they can role play, spaceship museums, and university campuses. Students will be given an opportunity to see the places and buildings that they do not have the chance to see in real life. An example of a teacher (Dean Groom) using Second Life with his class can be viewed here. 

I Personally wouldn’t use Second Life with my class, because I am studying Early Childhood Education, and these children are way too young to understand how the program works, and it is simply not age appropriate. I also think that if you do use the Second Life program with your students, safety and privacy may be difficult to control and monitor. I do suggest however, if you are willing to use Second Life with your students that close monitoring must be made, because sometimes inappropriate comments can be made from other users that can not be helped. Parents must be informed also if their child is creating an account. If any one has any suggestions on how they would monitor or control the students while using Second Life, that would great! That means, how would you make sure the students are staying on tasks, not diverting off the topic in this virtual world, and not talking to people they do not know???

My Learning Progress:

Beginning: In the Beginning of researching the wonderful world of Virtuality, I was excited and very interested, because I enjoy stimulation games such as, The Sims. Another reason for this interest, was that I knew it would be a great topic to learn about, seeing as though I knew absolutely nothing already!

During: As I began to gain knowledge and understanding of the program, I was unsure of how it would be educational for students, and I found a lot of difficulty in actually running and exploring the program.

After: By the end of the exploration and the class presentation, I found more purpose for the program and began to identify ways it could be used for teaching and learning in the classroom. I also recognised negatives and positives of the program. I am now more confident in using this program and although I would not use it in my future teaching, I will still continue to use it myself and try and become a more efficient user of Second Life. I also hope I will be able to identify more educational aspects of Second Life in order to help other teachers that wish to use the program with students in Upper Primary and High School.

In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone who came and listened to our presentation. I hope you found it educational and beneficial.

For more information on Second Life, its purpose in education and opinions from other people, Refer to:

1. Jo Kay and Sean Fitzgerald’s Wiki Page, Second Life in Education – EXCELLENT RESOURCE!!!

2. Sue Waters Webpage, Do you use Second Life or other Virtual worlds with your students?

3. Quest Atlantis – A Virtual world designed for 9-15 year olds.

4. Blogs – Lina, Louise, Rachel, Matt, Jess. C, Christina, Kate

5. The Cool Cat Teacher Blog – How Second Life can be used by the visual impaired

Sue - I’m still building up my network and learning about Second Life. Can you ask your networks if they can share their thoughts on Second Life with students?

Twitter is a free social network micro blogging program, that allows users to send instant messgages and updates (tweets) to the people in their network. Twitter also allows users to write an update using up to 140 characters only. Using twitter, you can also send direct messages to a person.

I believe twitter is a great way to communicate with people and get responses to questions faster than email. This will be a great resource for me to use for feedback and recommendations on teaching effectively in the classroom. Twitter also encourages quick responses and answers that come from a range of different perspectives. If you want to know the answer quick…Twitter is ideal.

I really think that I will continue to use Twitter, because it is very efficient and it helps me get my questions answered quickly.

As part of my assessment for the unit Using Computers in the Classroom I am required to create a blog of my personal opinions and feelings on the different innovations of technology.  This blog will include my personal reflections and how useful I think the innovations will be for me while teaching in the classroom. 

I think blogs are a good way for people to express their ideas and feelings to other people through the media. Blogs create a personal connection between the writer and the viewer. This is my very first blog and I hope that it will give viewers an insight into new ideas, as I believe blogs are a great way to express personal opinions to the wider community and the world.