Week Four

It's important read up on some study guides before getting into it. Here's a website full of them:

http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/

In this week's workshop we have been asked to make a sort of story board of our choice, such as a mind map to retell a story from Dust Echoes. I have chosen the Brolga Song. I chose this for this week partly because I enjoy learning about differing animals and partly because I recently went to Healsville Sanctuary and sprayed across the walls and plaques in the Sanctuary are Brolga's stories and other stories associated with similar indigenous mythologies. I really liked the Brolga one and am hoping it's the same.

This is a smaller image of retelling the story as a concept map. It's a great technique to ask students to develop a story with image and literacy. Also, it develops a sense of the flow of a story, the narrative that consists of the main concepts and an ending. It creates a sense of understanding and a deeper sense of the siginificance of mythological aspects in the story.

The second task involved M&M's to develop a spreadsheet of coloursand numbers. We were expected to use Excel for this task. When administering this task it is up to the child to sort out the M&M's in colours and numbers.

Using Excel I typed in the random figures of an imaginary count of M&M's in a pack and then highlighted the colours with then figures. Once this was done I clicked on insert, then chose the appropriate graph, I though a pie chart was fitting!

Week Three

Design a frog is the aim of the game, today we are designing just that, so our Auntie's in Sri Lanka or anywhere can play, in other words it will be on line. Using a design brief, we investigated and designed a mechanism that propelled a template of a frog forward, or in the direction we faced it. The resources were, a rubber-band, cardboard and the frog template.

I believe we were successful, we stabbed a whole through the cardboard and made a little fold at the end. We placed the template on the board, pulled the elastic, to store up energy and let go, the frog jumped. We found that the length of the cardboard that moves had an influence on the distance the frog travels. Mechanically, if the length was long the frog traveled further and with more speed.

Like so:

We also created games on QUIA, here is the link to one of the games created:

http://www.quia.com/jw/386819.html

http://www.quia.com/quiz/2511807.html

The first created game is a selection of words that have been jumbled for the student to figure out. The program, a thirty day free trial from QUIA is fairly easy to use, all you have to do is follow your nose. The next game made, was a quiz about birds of prey. Click and play.

The idea or concept to consider when building these games is that they are higher order thinking, that requires students to collaborate, research together and make inquiries.

At the end of the lesson we were shown a great little idea using card, an example is : o/BA, BSC, MeD, ask students, what does this mean? Three degrees below zero!

All this higher order thinking may require scaffolding however the guidance is useful and will pay off in the end. The games are as engaging as you make them so you can make them fun to keep the children interested.

Week Two Brochure

We put together a brochure via the programme Microsoft Publisher and Paint. We did this quite simply by grabbing images off the internet and writing text that suits on the brochure in Publisher. My brochure entailed a description of Tasmania and what a person may like to do there.

If you have a look at the brochure it's possible to see the detail and potential of what you can do with this program. It was suggest that we could possibly make our ePortfolio in it. I can see that. I found it quick and easy to use, children will be able to pick it up quite easily. If you had a lesson on persuasive writing making a brochure would be great. Give it a go!

Week Two ePortfolio's

Yes, we talked portfolios in the lecture, we were guided through young Gemma's (a girl on a digital video showed to us during a lecture) ePortfolio as an example for the beginning of the capacity of what ePortfolio can do. We saw video images of her talking to the class during a session called News. It was interesting, she managed to ramble on yet still be engaging. The class in the video whom she was talking to, in the foreground, was also clearly interested, this could be noted via the questions they asked, "What colour did your sister get?" referring to some gizmo she was displaying.

I left with a question! Due to the scope of the curriculum is the ePortfolio going to be enough to cover it?

In the workshop we are now speaking about the application process. What to say and what not to say.

One big yes, show the panel things like your ePortfolio.

A big no, don't give out referee details of someone who doesn't like you, especially to the panel.

Another yes, look over and look over and look over your resume, you may think it's complete, but surely enough a comma will be missing or capital letter.

A big no, don't be late, nothing's worse.

A yes, dress appropriately, dress to compliment the school. More progressive schools may not require a suit, or they may, find out.

Do not smoke in your car on the way to the interview, you will stink and cause discomfort for the panel, it will be a negative experience from the word go!

Always have a question and shake hands firmly!