Week 4 - Recreating a Story and Chocolate Maths

TASK 1 - Retelling a story using a concept map created by using Inspiration software

After watching an aboriginal animated dream time story we were asked to retell the story using a concept map creating using Inspiration. There were several stories to choose from, I chose a story about two sisters who lost their creation powers after succumbing to the seductive whispers of men. Sound familiar? The link is below.

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

This website also contains teacher notes relating to each story. The retelling of the main parts of the story is a common activity in the worksheets. The recommendation is you give the children a sheet with sentences relating to the story and the children label them in order using numbers. A bit bland, but still a worthwhile activity. Other variations I have seen are to cut the sentences up and place them in order or to create a story board through illustrating the sentences. Using Inspiration is I guess an electronic version of this!

1st attempt
Although the story was retold, it was a little difficult to follow.

  

2nd attempt!!!


Simpler to follow

2nd attempt!!

It occurred to me that some children may also have trouble sequencing their story in a way that is easy to follow. For younger children it would be good to have a model for them to follow or perhaps we do one as a class on the electronic whiteboard before moving to our own examples. Perhaps even start with arranging cut out pictures and sticking them onto card before moving to inspiration.




TASK 2 Chocolate Maths

The idea is to create lessons that centre on chocolate or other real life examples.
• Present packets of MandM to children (can use stars, confetti or other non food items)

• Students to gain knowledge in the areas of chance and data and using graphs to present findings

Ideas for engagement:

• Guess information regarding product, such as weight, look at nutritional panel, guess how many of each colour could be in the pack ect.


Activity:
• Create a graph of the colours of the MandMs

Further activities:


• Draw on real life examples to add depth to the activity

• Students could compare results

• Chance and data - guess the contents of the next packet

• Compare your data with the average on the MandM website

• Draw on MandM website to get ideas

• Link in an excursion to a chocolate factory

Website http://www.m-ms.com.au/about/products/milkchocolate.html

Obviously chocolate is not always an appropriate "real life example" to draw on. Other ideas:


• Survey of cars driving past the school gate

• Children's lunch boxes or pencil cases

• Number of letters in children's names

• Football teams followed

Week 3 - Design Brief and Games, Games and More Games!

Design Brief

Investigate Design Problem Analyse Evaluate

Design Brief

Today we produced a design brief.

Problem: 

• Design a frog that jumps using the materials provided

Resources:

• Picture of Frog,
• Card
• Sticky tape
• Rubber Band

Investigate/Design:

Ideas

• Stick the frog to the card for more weight
• Using card as a springboard
• Use the rubber band as a slingshot and propel the frog

Produce:

• Stuck rubber band to card



The finished product!

• Stuck sticky tape to frog to increase weight of frog
• Use the rubber band as a sling shot

Evaluation

• Frog jumps in a forward motion
• Could have put more sticky tape on the frog to get more weight and therefore the frog would have been propelled further.

This activity is a great way of students experiencing a design process, it will assist children in understanding that there are sometimes more than 1 right answer to a problem and it is a great way for students to share learning's and ideas.

Games Games and More Games

Quiz

I thoroughly enjoyed this website.  It had a large range of games that could be designed and incorporated into many different learning purposes and learning stages.  Obviously a teacher could design the games to assist with learning objective or as a tool to evaluate learning, however i think children would jump at the opportunity to create games that highlight their skills and learning.

Games could be themed or linked to a unit of work such as sustainability or it could just be on the latest Maths topic covered.  I think it would be a great getting to know you activity to build a class quiz or class game at the beginning of the year.  Another great idea would be for an older grade to create a games page for their younger buddy grade.  Games could also be displayed on the School ENews letter.  It would be a great way to show parents what their children have been learning and the quiz or game is something the family could do together.

I created a quiz using quia

http://www.quia.com/quiz/2513130.html 

Word Jumble

a word jumble

http://www.quia.com/jw/386914.html

and a game of hangman

http://www.quia.com/hm/667935.html      

Hangman (stars not hangman so we are PC)

I enjoyed playing my classmates games and I am sure children would enjoy the same experience.  we are often told to subscribe to many different organisations, websites and groups and I often wonder if you get value for your money.  This is one site I would pay to use!

Week 2 - Publisher

Publisher

Week 2 involved me reacquainting my self with Microsoft publisher.  During a different life, long, long ago I used publisher to make brochures for small businesses.  My memory of Publisher back then was that it was not very user friendly and it could be a bit clumsy.  10 years later my opinion has not really changed, but my skills in using publisher certainly have!  I was once quite skilled and I could whip up business cards, stationary, brochures and invitations, today I stumbled through the software and the result is below.  It is a brochure on my home town Maryborough.

Although my experience today was a bit frustrating, I will persevere with this software and I am sure with more practise my skills will come back.  I remember enjoying the process of designing the products and of course the finished product.  i imagine children would enjoy the same experience, especially those in the upper primary years.

Brochure - Maryborough 3465

There are many different templates you can use within this software.  I have noticed that in just about every VELS English level there is a reference to producing text for relevant audiences.  This could be incorporated into an English lesson.  For example, create a brochure on skiing targeted at adults and create another brochure for children.  What would the design differences be?  The language differences??

Web Page

Uses for web pages created by the class or for the class are endless.  Obviously through creating my own  WebQuests I have discovered they are a great way to introduce and expand on a topic.  I would also love for children to create their own web page to display their work, their evaluation of their work and the units of study.  It would be a great reflection tool and would be invaluable come assessment time.

Obviously security and safety is a minefield and the safety of the children should be always be a priority when designing or developing websites or other online activities.   I would almost be inclined to include it in the lesson plans.  Knowledge is power.

E Portfolio 

I will be using Publisher to create my portfolio unless I can find something else I love in the next couple of weeks.  The only issue for me is I don't own a copy of publisher.  The alternatives are Word or PowerPoint.  I think Publisher is far more creative than Word and will give me more space than PowerPoint.

I am very anxious regarding my portfolio.  I am not the worlds most creative person.  My goal is to develop a portfolio which contains:

My teaching pedagogy

• 
  
  CV details
• 
  
  Professional development I have undertaken this year
• 
  
  Lesson Plans
• 
  
  References

My very basic start on this task can be seen below:

My final attempt looked a little like this

Alternative

During my search for a free alternative to Publisher I was recommend this by wiki answers, http://www.scribus.net/ however, my virus protector would not allow me to download it.

Week 1 - Inspiration (Take 2)

Week 1 - Take 2

Welcome to my blog relating to Technologies Across the Curriculum, a Diploma of Education subject at LaTrobe Uni. This is my second attempt at my week 1 blog. Unfortunately I was unable to log into my original blog during our week 2 class for reasons still unknown!!


Inspiration

This was my first time using Inspiration. Overall the software was easy to use and could easily be incorporated into a classroom. If I can use it, then tech savvy children can too. I will find some time to see what else can be created with this software.  I think it will be a program where you uncover new things or ideas each time you use it.  One observation i made on my last prac is that the old saying "learn by doing" is very relevant when it comes to children and ICT.  I observed a several lessons on PowerPoint.  By the second lesson the children were demonstrating functions they had learnt on their own to the teacher.  They were introduced to the software and then they taught themselves through trial and error.



Concept Map

My idea for the concept map was for children to find pictures they associate with the seasons. I started off just using pictures of weather, however as I became more familiar with inspiration I realise they could also include celebrations such as Christmas or their birthday, sports and activities they undertake in each season, the clothes they wear and even the food they like to eat.



I grouped the objects around the word for each season, however another idea would be to have children link images to the seasons using arrows and lines as each image may be identifiable with more than one season.

Obviously I struggled a bit! I stumbled once I began to think of what made a good concept map and then things got even more complicated when I had to use inspiration to create once.



I found this website http://www.internet4classrooms.com/inspiration.htm and it gave me ideas about creating useful concept maps using Inspiration. It also provided a step by step guide for making a concept map using Inspire. An examples from the website:

Mind Map

Likewise my experience creating a mind map was very limited and this was my first experience of using Inspiration to create a mind map.




I found the pictures of the food on Inspiration and I tried to develop a mind map that included words and images. Not the greatest mind map, but I did find the process of developing the mind map simple and would be a great tool to use in a classroom.

To be honest when undertaking the task of developing a mind map I was not sure about what they were and how they could be used. I found a definition of mindmapping at kids.et.au - Encyclopedia, "A mind map or mind map is a picture that represents semantic connections between portions of learned material." (http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/mi/Mind_mapping). I am not a visual learner myself; however I can see the benefits of this technique for those who are.