Splash ABC

Thank you Shannon for sharing the link to Wendy’s blog about Splash ABC.  ABC Splash “brings you high-quality digital educational content from across the ABC and around the world.  This website offers a new, world-class education experience for Australian students, and is packed with thousands of videos, audio clips, games and interactive tools. All resources are free to watch and play at home and in school and guaranteed to spark discussion and promote curiosity”.

What a wonderful resouce, I have signed up and am just loving all the choices available.

I’ve had enough and I want my share

Hayleys blog “What about me” (no Hayley the music reference was not lost on me) discusses the inequities between the haves and the have nots when it comes to the provision and use of personal and school computers and other technologies and internet access.  This is something we as future teachers need to take into consideration.  I looked further into this topic and found an article from the Texus State University who discussed this and many other topics.  The article discusses the term “Digital Divide”.  This term was created by Jones (2004) who explained the digital divide as “those that have access to technology and those that do not”.  The article further notes that the divide spans across many factors which includes not only the student personally (SES status, ethnicity) but also the school they go to and the amount of resouces available to them and the knowledge of the teachers teaching them.

Sheilds and Behrams 2000 article Children and Computer Technology:Analysis and Recommendations – The Future of Children 10 (2): 4-30. extends upon this stating that “children who have a better SES status are more likely than less advantaged  children to be provided opportunities to learn to use computers effectively as tools in their lives and are more likely to experience an enriched learning environment in the classroom”.

So things we should take from this is don’t expect all students to have prior knowledge of technologies, don’t set homework which can only be done on a computer, don’t paint all students with the same brush, if there is limited access to resources you must plan wisely and if you don’t know what you are doing go and figure it out.

Food for thought …….

I am a visual learner

Thank you Amanda for giving the link to Jenny who is also a visual learner.  Jenny has created an excellent mind map which helps explain assignment 2.  I have been feeling overwhelmed which leads to confusion and have found that I need to break the assignment requirements down into smaller bits to ensure everything gets done and nothing gets missed.

Jenny also provided an image from David which breaks down questions for us to think about .

Ok, its time to get on with it, best of luck to everyone.

Who new that Pandora wasn’t just a bracelet

A little while back my phone packed it in and I was able to get a free upgrade but this means that I lost all my music (sad face).  This I actually did not realise until it was time to go for my daily walk (which I am determined to get back into on a regular basis) and didn’t have any music to listen to. So, long story short my teenager introduced me to Pandora radio.  I had had a flash back to the HPE subject were Alice used Pandora for one of our activities but in all honesty at the time I didn’t know what she was talking about.  Well, how excited am I that I now can choose exactly what I want and even better it can shuffle so I get a good mix of todays top hits, country and the 80’s (I know I sound like an old lady but it make me happy).  You all probably already know about this excellent resource but if you don’t check it out, it is free other than the use of the internet.