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.