So here I come to the end of my blogging journey for now… I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging my way through My Teaching World, considering notions which I otherwise would not have. Being exposed to the opinions of others in my blogroll has expanded my knowledge and thoughts on how technology can be used in the Primary school classroom.

I was discussing with Krizzia this morning, that we should continue our blogs and record our prac experiences. I believe this is an ideal way to showcase my thoughts on teaching to any prospective employer. Through this assignment, I have discovered the power of blogging and how rewarding it is to share your thoughts and findings with others. I will definitely employ the use of blogs in my classroom as it is a wonderful and inspirational record of the learning journey which can be referred to in days ahead!

I hope you enjoyed my blogging journey!

I came across this TeacherTube video whilst sampling items on Collaborative Learning in Primary Schools. The video is entitled Building Community with Videoconferencing and focuses on how students are able to socialise and ‘build a community’ via videoconferencing. The video also comments on the how students use social networking websites such as Facebook for educational purposes.

I was also surprised to find an article on page 23 of  The Daily Telegraph from Friday 29th February headlined Less Space in Life for TV not long after I found the video. Both samples link well together and have a place in my topic for Assignment Two. I will be commenting on these two artefacts on an edublogs page entitled Social Networking and Building A Community (a full version of the newspaper article and video will be published here). I was very interested in what the video had to say and was pleasently surprised and lucky that I found the connecting newspaper article!

Download Video: Posted by rblanken at TeacherTube.com.

Unfortunately, it has been a while since my last post due to “technical difficulties” (please excuse the cliche) I’ve been having with Edublogs. For some reason the site has not allowed me to edit posts and load my pages among other frustrations. However, I am now back into it and am managing to publish a few thoughts I had noted down on paper. I have found some wonderful articles on my Assignement 2 focus: Collaborative Projects & Cultural Exchange.

The video beneath, found on TeacherTube is an immediate and accurate reflection of my Assignment Two focus on collaboration in primary schools, specifically global collaboration. The video entitled “Building Literacy and Awareness on a Global Level” provides extremely suitable classroom activites on how literature (favourite books) can represent so much of a country’s culture. The aim of this project is to select common texts and share them with children in other countries via video-conferencing.

The project begins by allowing students to select a country they would like to learn more about (this allows the classroom to be student centered). Once selected, the teacher will then collaborate with a teacher in the chosen country, and they will select a common text which is available in both languages. Children will be taught about the culture and practices of the chosen country and be familarised with the book chosen before the video conferencing begins. In the video conference, each teacher reads the chosen book in their native language.

Children develop links with other cultures and learn to appreciate them. I believe an exercise like this should be practised in schools across Australia to benefit our increasingly multicultural society, ensuring a culturally tolerant society! 

Download Video: Posted by marthaha at TeacherTube.com.

Whilst browsing through my blogosphere, I came across an interesting posting of Narelle’s. Her posting, “Global Peers“ featured a video showing 3 steps of success in 21st century classrooms – cooperation, competition and collaboration. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video as it complemented my own thoughts of how vital collaboration is within the classroom. This collaboration may involve their peers locally, or ideally, on an international level.

Thanks Narelle for your inspirational post!

Download Video: Posted by teacherhacks at TeacherTube.com.

After reading Jen’s posting on interactive music websites for kids, I could immediately relate to her comments. Having recently completed Assignment One, my partner and I had done much research  and sampling in the field. Our LAMS task required students to compose a short jingle on road safety through the use of online music composition tools. We came across “MANY” websites as Jen also found. Some interesting ones include New York Philharmonic, Creating Music, Virtual Keyboard and Crank it Up!, just to name a few. However, we found that most of them don’t have an option to export and save the composition - that was the only downfall. We also found that these websites and programs are best suited to mid to upper primary rather than younger students as the programs can get quite complicated. Using these programs in the classroom are definitely complementry to musical theory being taught and I would most certainly incorporate it into my class’ program.

Today, whilst sampling substantial readings to critique, I came across a website with creative project examples for international collaboration. Each of the many examples includes the age level, curriculum area covered, the final product expected, its timeline/schedule, webpage, technology used, a contact, supporting organisation, languages of communication and longevity. Each of these projects comes with a clear description of its application. I’m a real fan of this site, so I thought I’d share it with you. Here is a sample project from the website:

Grandmother and Me
Students from around the world are encouraged to tell everyone the name they call their grandmother, ways they spend time (or did spend time) with their grandmother and why she is very special. The Grandmother and Me project gives students an opportunity to celebrate culture, language and generations with other Kidlink students using the writing process and art. Additionally, students will: participate in their own language (as well as English); record names given to grandmothers around the world; list reasons why grandmothers are special; write a collaborative story about grandmothers; spend time visiting and talking to their grandmothers; share stories, recipes, songs and other interesting information provided by grandmothers; examine, organize, graph, analyze data and draw conclusions from the grandmother entries; use art to express ideas and bridge language barriers.

• Age Level: 6-19 years old
• Curriculum Area: Language arts
• End Product(s) for Students: Webpage
• Timeline/Schedule: Ongoing
• Webpage: http://www.kidlink.org/KIDPROJ/grandmother/
• Level of Technology Used: WWW forums, e-mail
• Contact: Patti Weeg pweeg@beaumont-publishing.com
• Supporting Organization: Kidlink
• Language(s) of communication: Afirkaans, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Icelandic, Japanese, Macedonian, Portuguese, Setswana, Spanish, Tamil, Xhosa
• Longevity: 2000 -

I hope you agree with me too, that this is a fantastic website and a guide for teachers who are interested in international collaboration on the internet!

I was browsing on the internet looking for items which could support Collaborative Projects and Cultural Exchanges within the classroom. I came across a few TeacherTube videos exemplifying these in-class projects. The following video, probably not the best example, but is a part of the “Life Round Here” international collaborative project from a school in USA. This student has chosen to present various foods which they eat in America. Other products I viewed presented American sports and other ways of life. It was quite interesting to watch and I imaged how interesting it would be for a student on the other side of the world!

Download Video: Posted by lnitsche at TeacherTube.com.

Today I was browsing other blogs within my blogosphere and came across Krizzia’s post on the conversation we had with Debbie Evans’ during the week. The conversation took place using Skype, which in itself, was new to me.

Through Debbie’s conversation, we were able to explore the myriad of ways LAMS could be used in the classroom. Many ideas and tips were given on creating a LAMS masterpiece. I particularly liked the idea of useing LAMS as a collaborative project with a mother school overseas, as they also could log onto the same project online.

Debbie also gave brief examples of how LAMS could be used in each KLA. English for instance, where students were navigated to various websites to complete set tasks. I found that quite interesting as I didn’t really think to apply LAMS to English.

Finally, Debbie said that the best LAMS sequences often are ones which are “kept simple” (not too complicated) and ones which cannot be done using pen and paper. Initially I thought if it was worth all the effort to set up a task for students on LAMS as it seemed to take a lot of time and planning. This question was put to Debbie, who in response said, the more practise you have at it, the faster and more natural it will become. This gave me some reassurance.

LAMS seems to have a great place in the primary school classroom and I am looking forward to trialing Assignment One!

After reading Dan’s response to Kim Cofino’s blog, my beliefs in the use of blogs in the classroom have been reinforced. I have always seen blogs as a great way for students to record their thoughts, opinions and doings on a day to day basis.

Not only are they great recording tools, but sharing tools. Students can visit other students’ blogs from schools and countries other than their own. There, they are able to learn the opinions and practices of those in other schools both nationally and internationally.

Blogs allow students to access sources which are otherwise inaccessible or difficult to access – professional blogs for instance. Blogs are an extremely versitile and enjoyable tool which can be used very effectively in a primary school classroom.