“Generational Transfer”

Soma Church is launching soon! Check out our new website:

http://www.somachurch.org.au/

Soma is a community of Jesus-loving-people who’ve been transformed by understanding him, and we’d love you to join us. Our aim is to be faithful to Jesus, welcoming to everyone, and comfortable for people who wouldn’t normally go to church.

true spirituality • true church • truly different

I’ve been in the core planning team most of this year and I’m really excited and so pumped to see it coming into fruition. Audrey (the pastor’s wife) and I, alongside another new member (a uni student in childcare) are going to meet up fortnightly to discuss and plan the Soma Kid’s – the children’s program we will be soon providing at the community centre. I’m looking forward to engaging and interacting with children and their parents from this area of Sydney which is rapidly growing in population due to the expanding Macquarie business district.

http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php?terms=sunset&page=1&edit=yes&com=no#

Its an end of an era..
The official end of my e-Learning classes.

As a sun sets, it bids farewell to the day where so many events took place.
It was a day where I got to see, hear, feel and experience..
An active day, a productive day!

Best of all, it was a highly rewarding time
where taking risks led to great adventures and important lessons in learning new skills.

And as a sun sets and disappears for a little while,
so too will this journey come to a temporary stand-still..

But a new day is approaching soon,
and although at first I was afraid of not knowing what the day would hold,
this time will be different…

This time, I will be excited to see the sun rise
As it will be a new opportunity to further this path of learning.

As seen on Teacher Tube:

my-first-project

This semester in my e-Learning course has been quite a steep learning curve for me!
It seems to me that technology can be extremely rewarding and mind-opening, yet on the flip-side, it is also often extremely time consuming, confusing and can lead to technical glitches which can be intensely frustrating. This digital story only eventuated after I:

*lost the entire script in the process of opening an old Microsoft Word 03 document in a Microsoft Word 07 and thus had to rewrite it from memory! (The script was the hardest part – I had writer’s block for 2 weeks as I wanted to create a story that would really reflect my experiences and my personality).

*crashed a couple of computers trying to scan images at uni. In the end I had to give up and install a scanner at home! It took me all night and I was up till 4am scanning and editing photos…

*spent all day on iMovie and Garage Band then  didn’t save my movie properly and lost all my hard work! =( I only had time to redo it over the weekend so I trotted off to UTS in the city where I could work all night on the Mac computers there. iMovie was blocked (!!) and Garage Band was so slow it would cut off in the middle of my recordings.  It took me 5 solid hours to just do all my sound.

There is a lot more I could complain about but I’ll stop here and tell you in some bizarre way, despite everything that went wrong, I can look back in hindsight now and say all that risk-taking was definitely worth it. Although I felt like I lost every file I made once and had to create it again, my positive side of me tells me it actually helped me build up more skills in digital story-telling. I am so overjoyed at what I’ve created and can’t wait to make another digital story in the near future. As I’m currently on prac, I really wanted to also be able to design something I could show the class to get to know me better. I hope I have the opportunity to teach my students some of the skills I have learnt as well.

I had so many purposes for making this- I have dedicated it to Judy Harris from Green Point Christian College for all her encouragement, leadership, support and friendship. Unfortunately the text at the end of the movie is too small to read. In it I also thanked Matthew Kearney for teaching me so many new skills this semester and to all my lecturers and the students I study with at UTS Kuring-gai in Education…for sharing this wonderful and exciting journey with me.

http://www.newsroom.uts.edu.au/news/detail.cfm?ItemId=10752

Click here for UTS Newsroom story: “Switched On”

This is my second attempt at a podcast. I thought I’d give it another go as I’m having so much fun on GarageBand and also because its a great way to apply multi-sensory practices to make my own learning more lively and enjoyable! I only wish I had put on a different ‘voice’ for when ‘Miss Kwon’ puts forward her opinion as it is a bit confusing that my newsreader voice is the same as the public’s opinion voice..lol

Hope you enjoy it!

uts-podcast

This video has provoked a lot of memories for me. I don’t feel as fearful as I did prior to taking up this e-Learning course, but I can still closely identify with the thoughts of the voice-over. It also echoes the thought of a teacher I befriended during my practicum last year:

“I received your other email with your blog attached thingy. Typical late 40 year old, I was too scared to write something. Someone else might read what I write!! UGGGHHH!!! I might write something stupid. Anyway, take note. Modern technology is not as efficiently nor confidently used by us older folk. ( i must speak only for myself, of course).”

This is very much like some of the ideas voiced in the clip:

-What if I make a mistake?

-I’m afraid of exposure..

-I feel vulnerable..

-You mean people are going to read my writing?

-What if people think I’m stupid?

-Don’t tell anyone but I am afraid.

I was actually scared myself of sharing the thoughts of that particular teacher as I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be if she was to visit my blog again. But hey, I’m being a ‘risk-taker’ to some degree!

Matt Kearney encouraged our class from the very beginning of our course to be risk-takers as future teachers in a primary school context. He made a very thought-provoking posting on his blog under the title of Risk-taking which is where I sourced this Youtube video from. It reminds me of how we all felt on our first day in this class – the majority of us had little exposure to ICT in the classroom. We felt limited with our lack of skills in computers to have real access to the endless opportunities technology offers as a creative source of teaching.

Immersing ourselves with programs such as Garageband, Inspiration, iMovie, Scratch, Comic Life, Webquests, Wikis, LAMS tasks and numerous other programs has allowed us to explore new and exciting pathways. Our insight, the skills and knowledge we have acquired will equip us with more confidence to boldly approach new technologies in the future.

http://www.mcps.ws/enrolment/default.php

The time has come once more for me to step into the classroom.

This time I will have a Year 3 class, just a suburb away from where I live which is very ideal and convenient! Apparently the cartoon above represents students from the school where I’ll be teaching. I don’t know why but it reminds me of the Rugrats…!!

I’m feeling a lot more confident than I did previously and can’t wait to actually apply some of the skills I have learnt through this e-Learning class. I feel as though I’ve had a glimpse into radical new teaching ideas which I know will benefit me in my future teaching practices. Its as though I’ve been able to peer down a pathway into the future and even been able to tread a few steps into a new direction.

I am expecting a phone call from my cooperating teacher tomorrow. I am so excited and eager to learn what type of content is being covered in her class at this present stage, what unit the students are working through and how I may use some of the new programs and ideas in e-Learning to enhance my ideas. What a fantastic opportunity to channel creativity!

Wish me luck! =D

(n.b. Due to technical problems on Edublogs connecting to Teachertube, the video may not work. In this case, click on the bunny to be linked to the Teachertube website where you can be entertained by this cute claymation created by a class in the USA).

Matt Kearney, our lecturer for e-Learning gave a presentation on digitial storytelling recently, demonstrating on practical uses of it in the classroom. One of the videos he played in class was a simple, yet very cute and effective claymation piece. As I’ve always enjoyed animation, I searched claymation on both Youtube and Teachertube to explore this topic in more detail.

I learnt that claymation materials ranged from clay, plasticine to even blu-tac! Some well-known claymation figures are Wallace and Grommit, Gumby and Pingu. Stop motion claymation is actually just a series of photograph stills linked together with a sense of precision to give the illusion of movement. The more precise, the more realistic the movement and actions.

Children can create their own claymation movies as seen in this Teachertube video. I think it is a splendid idea that is engaging and a lot of fun! It is not to be underestimated either, with the potential for children to acquire many new skills in technical skills. It is also a highly multi-sensory and thus could be very appealing to all children with its kinesthetic, visual and audial approach to learning. How fantastic to live in a digital world where there are just so many endless possibilities in the classroom!

I found just the thing for those who are clueless with the unfamiliar topic of wikis.
Watch this Wikis in Plain English YouTube video: (its really quite amusing!)

Wikis are effective tools (as this video clearly demonstrates!) Lee Lefever – the person behind this highly engaging presentation has done an amazing job at explaining what wikis are using a simple illustration of four children who are going on a camp. Rather than sending emails back and forth, and potentially creating a messy, disorganised situation with a lack of cohesion, wikis can alternatively offer user-friendly webpages that can be edited and updated with minimal fuss. Wiki users and access, contribute and modify content.

If you think of how Wikipedia works, its really quite a simple concept!

Click here for link to Techwatch video:
CosN’s 12th Annual K-12 School Networking Conference held in San Francisco, March 2007.

At CosN’s Annual School Networking Conference, 2007, a panel of Ed-tech experts debated on whether interactive whiteboards (now installed in some 30% US schools), are truly worth the investment.The topic: Does the device truly revolutionise instruction?

Doug Brown, Head of Learning Technologies Department of Education, UK was among those on the affirmative side. He claimed that overall research showed that the pace of lessons, student motivation, engagement and teacher preparation were all improving as a direct result of introducing interactive whiteboards in the classroom. Almost half of all of Britain’s schools have installed these devices and teachers have found them to be user-friendly but not all were using them to their full potential. Brown believes, “There are appalling teachings in Britain too and ultimately this is not actually about the technology itself – its about the teachings.”

Findings show that it all comes down to the teachings – it ultimately depends on the teachers and the teaching methodologies. When interactive whiteboards are used creatively and appropriately, they can be transformative and revolutionalised instruction can make a stand as a result.

Bailey Mitchell – Chief Technology and Information Officer Forsyth County School District, Georgia, was also on the affirmative side. In the state of Georgia, 5.4 million was invested for the installation of interactive whiteboards into every instrutctional space. Mitchell’s initial disinterest and inattention towards this technology was challenged when he was dragged out by a specialist to witness, first-hand, students in a classroom with these interactive boards. Mitchell was immediately amazed. He’d never seen student engagement like this with any other technology they’d ever deployed and very clearly saw the evidence presented before him.

Bob Moore, Executive Director of Information Technology in Blue Valley School District, Kansas was not convinced in the effectiveness of these devices after looking at research. He questioned the value proposition as it was somewhat inconclusive. Mitchell says the interactive whiteboards do offer a good value because the educators who utilise them are highly creative and have an ability to create materials that can be used for collaborative work and can be shared with others.

Mitchell had a teacher whisper to him that since the introduction of whiteboards in her class, she wasn’t using the textbook as much. The reality was, as she could harvest the information from Net Tracker and create her own flipcharts, her teachings had become more engaging and exciting to the students than textbook lessons, whilst still covering the same material.

2.2 million dollars is spent a year on textbooks in Mitchell’s district. Although in comparision, 5.4 million dollars is spent on whiteboards, its returns are seen in having less long-term reliance on traditional materials. Virtual manipulatives can now be a part of a learning suite that interacts and is a part of the software program. This suggests a strong change from traditional to virtual manipulatives. According to Mitchell, he could not over-emphasise just how much students of today demand interactivity.

Moore argues the most outstanding teachers when given the most incredible technologies won’t always do as we expect them to. He highlights the danger here, is looking at a particular tool as a transformative agent. In his mind, technological tools aren’t transformative agents. Rather, changes in the way we think and practices aided by technological tools are transformative agents.

The bottom line:
There is no one right answer – it depends on each districts’ goals.

http://www.oup.com.au/content/general.asp?ContentID=1093

Although a set text for my English Education subjects, Literacy: Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature by Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. (2006), highlights how through the internet, traditional forms of sending messages through paper and ink have become revolutionalised through the technological advances in the last 10 years. Messages can be sent around the world now in seconds. Children are provided with an almost inexhaustible supply of information through new media of audio, print, software, print publications as well as CD-ROM formats.

Furthermore, writing on the internet has made changes to communication. Email focuses on words and thus formatting is secondary. For brevity, emoticons are used to convey emotions (e.g. =o is shock) and asterisks can be used to *emphasis* instead of inverted commas. SOMETIMES WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR CAP LOCKS ON YOU ALSO APPEAR TO BE *SHOUTING* !! There is also many net acronyms which also commonly used in SMS texting through mobile technology such as LOL (laugh out loud) C U L8R (see you later).

Who knows how technology will shape literacy in another 10, 20 or 30 years time? No one may know what the future may hold but a sure certainty lies in knowing the speed of these new emerging technologies making an impact on a global scale is fast-paced and it is the vital role of the teacher to try and understand the world children live in today and teach them life skills for this present time, rather than simply passing our knowledge down from a different generation.