Week 4

Week 4..... not much on moodle for this week but I did find some interesting reads while looking for information on completely different topics.... more on that later though.

Mahara.... and my e.portfolio

Something I am definitely going to have to explore further soon, especially with our next assignment using it. I can see that it can be a valuable tool for showcasing what I can do, once some time is spent on it I could definitely use it instead of hard copy pieces of work. It appears to have unlimited potential some of which I hope to be able to tap into for this next task.

Vokis!

Voki's are easy to use, simple talking faces which capture your interests quickly. After being prompted to by moodle I joined up for a voki account here. I had a decent play around looking at all of the possible options in regards to your talking person/creature, the backgrounds, voice accents, as well as little tweaks that are possible even to the point of changing the size of the mouth you use. There is sometimes a bit of difficulty with how they talk if using the type and talk function. If you record your own sound files and upload them then that problem is solved.

Get a Voki now!

My voki is unable to correctly say voki, however for more commonly used words she pronounces them clearly enough for directions to be given using this voki. In a classroom this could be used to give directions for activities on computers. It could guide the children to be able to act independently on tasks with minimal adult direction, such as matching games if the child isn't at a stage of reading which allows them to be able to read the written instructions, the voki can be made up by the teachers and then replayed over and over by the children if they do not understand the instructions the first time around.

Other Research.....

This week while researching effective teaching for Learning Management 1, I came across quite a few hits on google which basically linked what I was searching for (effective teaching) and ICT's, as being two very closely linked topics. Which is true according to a few articles including one from ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research) on March 9, 2010 and another from a site called Faculty Focus, where a teacher experimented with his class getting them to use twitter as a way of discussing the topics which he had addressed during the week, it took some trial and error time but it was found that the way to get the most out of the students was to use small groups, have them discuss a reading and post about it and then as a class read about their reflections.

I think that this is a great way to correlate students findings, perhaps more suited to a wiki page, but it had all students involved which I think is fantastic, some students don't want to get up in front of their peers and present, this is an alternative way for their findings to be heard.

Just this weeks thoughts!!