week 3 workshop : Cyber bullying and QUIA

This weeks lecture brought to my attention a very important issue, which is now widespread in schools, cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is not some insignificant problem experienced by a few. Cyber bullying is widespread and while students are aware of it, they are unconcerned with the consequences. What surprised me the most was the extent of the various digital abuse present (emails, chat rooms, discussion groups, instant messaging, video and web pages). I believe it is important that we as teachers educate students on the risks involved with online communities just as a normal community.


We need to teach students to behave responsibly and act safely online not just for themselves but others. I definitely agree with Greg about the need to run sessions with children about safety online, by introducing them to educational websites like cyber smart(http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/). Websites like cybersmart provide activities, resource and practicle advice to help young kids; teens and parents enjoy the online world safely. At the same time it provides training and resources for schools and educators in battling cyber bullying. In the lecture, we were also able to view a real life experience of a student who was a victim of cyber bullying as a result of divulging personal information to her friend. As teachers we should always be mindful to educate our students of the need to protect their privacy and that of others.

This week’s workshop activity looked at investigating a design to make a frog jump using all the materials given. It was engaging and in a classroom situation you would get the kids to demonstrate how they got their frogs to jump. This activity also introduces children to a certain procedural work where they need to investigate, design, produce and evaluate. When we shared in the classroom, how each team got their frog to jump, we discovered about 8ways of making the frog to jump. When you fold the card board it extends the energy which is what you can try to get children to think about. Children in the classroom would then design a poster explaining all the stages they went through in order to get the making of the jumping frog. This particular exercise could be very much like a science unit. By getting children to apply the ID/P/AE process, which stands for investigate, design, produce, analyse and evaluate, as teacher we are encouraging a higher level of thinking in our students. This is a great way to share ideas and teach students analytical and problem solving skills.

I found this workshop to be quite enjoyable as we had a chance to work in groups and share ideas. I can easily see how this can be applied in my own classroom where I can get young students to actively work together. The work shop also introduced us the QUIA games website www.quia.com/web which allow students to create their own games and quizzes and WebPages. It also allows students to share the activities with anyone they want. Students can go home and get their parents to try their activities. This program was very engaging and easy to use. I have attached two samples of the quiz activities which I created using the Qui program, one is the hangman and the second one is jumbled words (enjoy).

http://www.quia.com/jw/388948.html  jumbled words
http://www.quia.com/hm/671344.html hangman

WEEK 2 – e-Portfolio and Creating a Brochure

WEEK 2 – e-Portfolio and Creating a Brochure

This week we looked at building a brochure using Ms Publisher. The lecture was quite engaging and visual.  The creation of presentation materials for publication is made much simpler through the use of MS Publisher. This program can be used effectively in classrooms, as it can allow you to create flyers, booklets, pamphlets (which we produced in the workshop), posters and variety other publication materials.  For example students   can use it to do a procedural text for how does a torch work. In English we can apply the brochure format and get students to do one about them at the beginning of the year.    Ms Publisher has a library of preformatted backdrops that anyone can use. One example would be what I used as the template for my e-Portfolio. This program is a lot of fun and provides user with more freedom for editing, transferring and placement of objects within a single document. It is however important to keep in the back of our mind that we must utilise and manage time effectively with this program. For example we need to be specific about what we want from children and only provide them with certain websites they can work from.

This week we also learned how to create an e-Portfolio, which wasn’t that complex in setting up, but was time consuming when trying to make visually appealing.  The lecturer put into context the benefits of an e-Portfolio and how it might be the final factor into impressing a panel when been shortlisted.  While setting up the visual side of things wasn’t complex deciding what to put into your e-portfolio could make all the difference.  I find the idea of having a portfolio for each child very helpful because it provides parents and teachers with an overview of each child’s learning and progress.

WEEK 1 Introduction to Inspiration & the Development of a BLOG

   Graphic  design  organiser have been used in primary schools to help students rather than the traditional copy from a book.  Today we looked at   one of those graphic organisers "Inspiration" software  and developed a concept map.    The whole idea  was to help children to learn how to learn to link concepts.  We had   time to play around  and learn how to use the system. This will also be important to apply in the classroom to allow children  to have a play time and learn how to use inspiration.

   For me  this was a system I needed some time to get to use.  Inspiration  allows children to develop a concept map and thus  learn to create  a mind map.  It can be very versatile  with  the various  graphics. For example, under every  graph  there is  a text  blog  where children can write  material into this.  It is better in this case to type into the note function  rather than the comment  getting bigger  and bigger.  What  this is trying to do is not only get children  be stimulated by the  environment  but learn to make  connections  between  the story and  for example what the moral issues of the story are. You could do this in an English class for example where students learn to recognise relationship between characters and objects.  An aspect of this program is called transfer . It places  everything  a child  made  into one document.  It lists all the typing you put into it. This way kids can take their work away.  This program is good for family history, life cycles etc. we can set tasks for children about  famous structures  and they will need to find out more about them. In prep for example they might be able to  bring pictures in  of themselves  and do a family tree.   

   Running a mind  map allows you to put in a central idea  and  will link various ideas into the branches and discuss them.  It allows you to arrange work around a  central key point and encourage new ways of thinking. At this stage I am unclear of what is expected of me in this subject and I am  a bit anxious as a mature age student.  However, I did find inspiration and mind mapping to be engaging programs and can see myself applying it in my future classroom. I found adding hyperlinks and using the note functions very useful  as it allowed information to  be organised easily