Sunday, March 28, 2010
No child left behind
Get a Voki now!
Former President G Bush in 2002 signed into Law, the No Child Left Behind Bill. Congressional leaders, and education academics widely praised this as a flash card of the problems facing education in western society. Ensuring accountability, access to resources, quality teachers and teaching were the four key attributes. Check it out, consider your thoughts and I'll offer some of my thinking alittle later on.
Nigel
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Does/Should/Would examination effect teaching style
Hey,
I was completing activity 4.1 for ICT Design, reviewing my own education experiences when it got me thinking. I was taught in very traditional teaching styles predominantly through primary school. This progressed as as we got older to more Student Centered Learning at Secondary school. I think this related to staff familiarity with the cohort (but could also be the a timeframe thing, primary the mid nineties and secondary the 2000's). In my experiences both helped me with my education, and I've many happy if not great memories from the varying classroom environments created by my teachers.
But what really stood out was that when "crunch time" examinations would be imminent. Teachers would drastically change their teaching style to Chalk & Talk. From my experience this would cause systemic disruption to the class as it was like arriving on a different planet. Students who would not struggle with the examination anyway could easily adjust, those who struggled, would struggle more and those who couldn't handle the change would rebel, fail and disrupt.
So I have heaps of questions; does/should/would examinations effect teaching strategy? is this a good/bad thing? and if so does this mean ultimately we're teaching to the exam? and does this represent that when the chips are down we go back to the traditional teaching methods for guaranty?
I was completing activity 4.1 for ICT Design, reviewing my own education experiences when it got me thinking. I was taught in very traditional teaching styles predominantly through primary school. This progressed as as we got older to more Student Centered Learning at Secondary school. I think this related to staff familiarity with the cohort (but could also be the a timeframe thing, primary the mid nineties and secondary the 2000's). In my experiences both helped me with my education, and I've many happy if not great memories from the varying classroom environments created by my teachers.
But what really stood out was that when "crunch time" examinations would be imminent. Teachers would drastically change their teaching style to Chalk & Talk. From my experience this would cause systemic disruption to the class as it was like arriving on a different planet. Students who would not struggle with the examination anyway could easily adjust, those who struggled, would struggle more and those who couldn't handle the change would rebel, fail and disrupt.
So I have heaps of questions; does/should/would examinations effect teaching strategy? is this a good/bad thing? and if so does this mean ultimately we're teaching to the exam? and does this represent that when the chips are down we go back to the traditional teaching methods for guaranty?
An Avatar in Education
Hi All,
Hope you've enjoyed meeting tony the first of what I imagine will be many avatars used in my blog in coming weeks. The ability to integrate such an amazing technology in both a practical and stimulating visual sense blows me away.
Imagine a class on french history, with Napoleon or a an American politics class with George W & Hillary Clinton.
Cheers
Nigel
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Cross Matching - A world of choice, a web of distrust
So it's week three of this exercise in education, learning and life balance.
I shall confess I've been scared, and it has influenced the lack of blog posts so far. But alas have no doubt I shall go back and update with information from previous weeks in the near future.
I've found it very hard as an only recently finished student to re-engage not only with the course content but with the concept of study, reading and committing to understanding. I think this was exasperated by my lack of knowledge in the field and the non-existence of a natural sense of ability. We need to feel capable to build confidence which creates an internal environment fostering learning.
......................................................................................................................................................................
On to the topic as listed. ICT for learning design encourages students to experience the use of enumerate web based programs which afford the opportunity to express and design learning opportunities and experiences. This is exciting, and I've never recognised the extent to which these programs (some of which I've heard of but most of which I've never considered using) create platforms which can easily be integrated into learning formats.
The issue I face is making decisions as to what would be most appropriate, and in recognising the number of choices, trying to integrate these on a multi platform level.
Some programs such as Blogger, Google Reader etc seem to work effectively individually, but how to integrate you tube, or a twitter into this things and to merge them together to create multi platforms seems quiet complex. This is something I'll be seeking to discuss with my lecturer and will let you know about further.
So in a dot point. Some many ways to do things, so many programs. At times feel very stretched to use them all, yet at the same time struggle to cross-link use them.
Regards
I shall confess I've been scared, and it has influenced the lack of blog posts so far. But alas have no doubt I shall go back and update with information from previous weeks in the near future.
I've found it very hard as an only recently finished student to re-engage not only with the course content but with the concept of study, reading and committing to understanding. I think this was exasperated by my lack of knowledge in the field and the non-existence of a natural sense of ability. We need to feel capable to build confidence which creates an internal environment fostering learning.
......................................................................................................................................................................
On to the topic as listed. ICT for learning design encourages students to experience the use of enumerate web based programs which afford the opportunity to express and design learning opportunities and experiences. This is exciting, and I've never recognised the extent to which these programs (some of which I've heard of but most of which I've never considered using) create platforms which can easily be integrated into learning formats.
The issue I face is making decisions as to what would be most appropriate, and in recognising the number of choices, trying to integrate these on a multi platform level.
Some programs such as Blogger, Google Reader etc seem to work effectively individually, but how to integrate you tube, or a twitter into this things and to merge them together to create multi platforms seems quiet complex. This is something I'll be seeking to discuss with my lecturer and will let you know about further.
So in a dot point. Some many ways to do things, so many programs. At times feel very stretched to use them all, yet at the same time struggle to cross-link use them.
Regards
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