Technology Teaching Tidbits

When teaching in a fully digital classroom it is important to maintain focus on tasks. When screens come into play it is hard to manage everyone and keep them all on task, however, advances in technology now allow for teachers to see what students are doing on their computer screens. From your desk you can see what is on every student's screen and are able to maintain some focus. No longer can you visually see a student on task instead you need to check. This become a problem because current classrooms are not set out for the quality of digital technology that is available. In a standard classroom the power sources are based around the edge of the classroom because of this students move away from desks and spent large amounts of time leaning against walls around the edge of the room. Other reasons for spending time sitting on the floor was to collaborate and work in a space that allowed for free discussion and communication. Lets look at is visually. This is a classroom I have ...

When teaching within Mathematics it becomes easy to use the traditional approach of teacher lead lessons. These normally result with a small group working with the teacher while the remaining students complete bookwork, worksheets or engaging is some form of Mathematics game. There is a taboo when it comes to teaching Mathematics using a strong technological base. Most areas of the curriculum use a range of written work and device based work, however, with the exception of using Mathletics or Manga High as 'fun' activity time or a homework task there is no integrated technologies. Bee-bots allow for the use of technology to teach within Position and Orientation. The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) has two Achievement Objectives for Position and Orientation (Level One): Give and follow instructions for movement that involve distance, directions, and half or quarter turns. Describe their position relative to a person or object. Bee-bots are small bee...

A recent experience I had was with www.banqer.co a behaviour management programme that gives each student a virtual bank account and allows for discovery within financial literacy. During my training I experienced 1.5 years of Mathematics lectures, however, not once was I given the opportunity to learn about how to teach and use financial literacy within the classroom. Financial literacy is defined as: The ability to understand how money works in the world. How someone manages to earn or make money, invest money and use money to support or help others.  This particular understanding is vital for success within the world yet it is often a lacking part of the school curriculum as there is limited tools to assist in teaching this. Banqer allows for teaching in relation to earning money, tax, interest and use of money within a microcosm of the economy of the real world. After introducing Banqer into a class I was working with I had the opportunity to talk to one of creators of Banq...

Week One TECP317 - Digital Citizenship Thinking back to when I was in Primary School the way technology was used was extremely different. I realised this when talking to a class on a previous placement. I returned to visit my students and they had some questions for me, one question was about if I used computers in class like they did. I found myself describing the large computer screens and hard drives that accompanied them, between that and the limitation of only two computers per class it was easy to see the shock and interest in the student's eyes. When I used computers in school they were a privilege and used mainly for publishing written work or playing on http://www.coolmath-games.com. Digital tools in todays classroom are used in a more engaging and fluid way. The Educational Gazette (2014) discuss how digital tools supported students and allowed for hope as students and teachers looked forward and used the tools to process and make meaning of their experiences during...

During a unit of creative writing I was participating in a team meeting when I remembered reading about Mystery Skype. Mystery Skype allows students to Skype other classes around the world and they try to figure out where the other class is. Attached to the information about Mystery Skype was information about the authors available to Skype who give advice, answer questions or share advice. I read about this program and suddenly realised the opportunity there was within social media to connection with authors of student's favourite books. As a trial I created myself a twitter and chose an author that wrote within the writing type that the class was working on at the time (R. L. Stein) and sent out a tweet with the hopes of a response. The school day ended and with it came the weekend, around 1am my laptop dinged and with it was a response from the author less than 24 hours after I first sent the message. This solo tweet became my students creating questions for an author of their...

While on placement early 2015 I came across a unique writing unit. I was working in a class of 25 students who all had their own devices and lacked engagement in traditional writing styles. This particular unit allowed for collaborative writing between small groups of students and from the first lesson there was a marked increase in engagement with students asking to continue working on writing during lunchtime. The structure of the unit relies on students writing stories with a set of specific criteria that covers tense, character, perspective, and story structure. The pieces of writing are more engaging as the final result is all of the pieces of writing put together to create a online, interactive create your own adventure story. Unit Plan For Lesson Example of the final outcome Slides about CYOA writing using Google