The imagery of Pods

Imagery can be a powerful tool. It can elicit emotions, generate ideas, tell a story.

However imagery can also be a powerful distraction. if an image isn't use correctly then the minds of students can wander.

I've seen an adolescent attempt to give lessons, and his interpretation to the advice of 'keeping the kids interested' was to include 'cool' pictures of cars in his slides, because this kept their attention on the slides, instead of wandering

He genuinely didn't understand that the photos were taking away their attention from the lesson.




This is a photo of an odd plant along the Kokoda Trail. Due to it not being very common, for the high school context it could be an example of how different plans have developed to meet their different needs.

PODCASTS:

unfortunately mypodcast.com is no longer accepting new members. However I have used podcasts before.

As a flex(read: external) student for some of my subjects, these can be very helpful in my own learning. When I don't have time to watch a lecture, or I want to revise a lecture I've already seen, the audio can be downloaded as well, and this lets me listen to the lecture on my mp3 player.

As a future learning manager the importance of pod casts has the potential to be tenfold of this. To be able to record extra notes to go with a lesson, and allow the students access to this either if they wish, or as part of their required course homework, to refer to them professionals podcasts to which they could then refer to, to give the students an opportunity to record their own, something they can reflect on, to... well, I believe my point has quite possibly been made.

There are a lot of ways to which a podcast could be useful, and a lot of advantages to them, provided they are used responsibly.

The Point of Power

PowerPoint. you'd be hard pressed to find someone that doesn't know what you're referring to when you mention it. However add the word 'interactive' in front of it, and people will think you're talking about something entirely different.

PowerPoint in today's age comes with a stigma, and seemingly false representation of it's capabilities. If someone tells you they will be doing a PowerPoint presentation in today's world the image of endless words, charts and a droning speech instantly come to mind.

However PowerPoint is often used in the classroom, quite commonly a uni lecture will be accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation. However because it isn't made a point of, and because it's (normally) used effectively, it can become a tool, not a hindrance.

The concept of making moving images in PowerPoint is not a new one to me, in fact in grade 10 we were given a task to make a powerpoint that incorporated a movie. Most people made a powerpoint about some sort of video, and embedded the video into a slide, however there were a group of us that decided, 'heck.. lets just make a movie ourselves'. so we did.

The concept of making a moving image through PowerPoint however, I did not know about. Knowing that such a basic thing as a moving image can hold such great potential in the world of technology, this is a piece of information I'm glad to now hold.

oint. Is it just me or is "interactivity" all the rage now? Years ago if teachers were told they should make activities to be interactive, a common response could simply have been 'why?'. But then it started to become more and more popular, and now it's becoming harder and harder to find anything that isn't interactive. Which I think is great!

Interactive Powerpoint.

Is it just me or is "interactivity" all the rage now? Years ago if teachers were told they should make activities to be interactive, a common response could simply have been 'why?'. But then it started to become more and more popular, and now it's becoming harder and harder to find anything that isn't interactive.

Which I think is great!

This task in particular is a great help to my own personal teaching experience. It's going to take me a long time to make it to the standard I would like to make it, and will most likely require updates as time goes on, but I'm attempting to create an interactive PowerPoint I can use long into the future. (The topic is biology: adaptation in plants. specifically 'form meets function' the idea will be to design a tree based on function. so the students will go through the PowerPoint, selecting a function, this will choose the form. preferably each option will result in an actual tree example)

Weebles and wobbles.

whoa! it's a site!

A website designed by a learning manager and accessible by the students could be a great tool in a classroom environment.

It could be used to organise their learning, with links to things they should be referencing, to how they should be referencing.

Links to things they should be reading, or viewing, or making.

Most of all, links organised in a way so the students know when they should be looking at these things.

A website could be used as a term, or even year planner, made easily accessible to the students when they are at home.

In a classroom environment items for viewing in class could be added, to avoid relying on an outside website with possibly unreliable links.

A website doesn't have to be a distraction to the students, not when it could be a positive pedagogic tool!

You know... unless it's FaceBook.

Wiki Wiki Wah?

My first Wiki

When using a blog, the work is yours. Only you can edit it, only you can change it. People may comment on your work, but they cannot change it.

This all changes when you start using a wiki though. Suddenly it can be changed by outsiders. This is when the concept of 'your work' ends, and the reality of 'our work' can begin.

As a learning manager that knows that when I am in a classroom, with ever changing technology around me, some of my students will be more of a digital native then myself. As such however, this means it is easy for those students to create a wiki, to collaborate easily on their work. This will also allow me to see how they've been collaborating, what they've been up to and how they work together.

From a personal point of view, in regards to how useful a wiki can be, just recently a friend of mine, who is normally fairly hopeless when it comes to organising things, has organised a surprise party for this girlfriend. He did this by creating a wiki, sending out an initial invitation to look at the wiki, add your ideas and availabilities, and allow everyone input as to how they could best surprise her.

The planning of the party ended up being a great success!

As for the implementation of that planning... well, I'm still yet to see that.

Bigger than 5.

There are quite a few reasons I think the big 6 approach appeals to me, but the largest is naturally my personal experience.

When I was in high school I recall feeling a lot of information overload, and I got through that by two main techniques:

1: organise what I needed to learn, follow it through logically and work through my tasks

2: (the most used technique, I'll admit) to put my head in the sand and generally ignore the workload. which naturally meant a lot of catching up was in order.

As a future learning manager I feel this would be a great thing to incorporate into my classrooms. To have the students consciously working through and ticking off these skills as they work through them, until they become a habit to the students.

The Concept of Maps

I'm not usually one to use concepts maps. Which is odd, I love organising things, when I clean my room I become stuck when at the end, everything is organised into draws, shelves and wardrobes, but I am always left with an assortment of misc. items that belong to no group.

(and I will use this as my reason for normally employing a 'floordrobe' method with my room. as this is normally what happens within a week of cleaning my room anyway.)

But I digress, I genuinely seemed to enjoy working with this website (bubble.us), largely because I find it easy to work with, especially be able to simply press tab/enter to create another bubble (I personally don't really like using the mouse for general computer use, so keyboard shortcuts are a 'win' in my opinion).

This is something I know a lot of students would be able to use effectively, and I genuinely believe that during my free time, I will use this site to print out something that can help organise my uni time for me. But I also recognise that between now and that time, my opinion of how useful it is could change. Not how useful it is in general, just to me, personally.

As I hinted towards earlier, I love organising things, my problem is sticking to that organisation. I'm working on it though.

(although I'm still slightly distracted by upper case letters appearing more bold then lower case in the editing page...)

intelligence multiplied.

Now, as some of you may have noticed, I've put the same sort of information twice.

I found it interesting that the results would be different, but still similar. In my last post I mentioned points of view a couple of times. This is because I believe everything is essentially relative to your point of view. A single question can mean two entirely different things to two people, it can even mean different things to the same person, depending on their mood.

The same questions, worded differently, could result in the same answer, or not. depending on how you view the question. Take for example the 'visual' aspects of these charts, the first tells me this is my weakest point, but to the second it is one of my strongest.

There would have been a time I would look at that difference and think, 'this proves that these charts mean nothing', but now my point of view has changed.

Now I think, 'well, that's correct. because there are times that I can visually remember the tiniest of things for years, and there are times that I can't'.

I recognise now that not only to people think differently to each other, but the individual also thinks differently to them self. We generally approach questions in more then one way, and this is a good thing! It is something learning managers should be encouraging throughout school, so that the students encourage it within themselves.

This tells me that one technique that has successfully engaged a student, may not work the next day on the same student. But this doesn't mean it won't now engage their neighbour, who yesterday ignored it.

It is impossible to keep up with the ever changing moods, opinions and points of views that our students will have, but it is possible to have them understand that even if they don't see the answer now, they can adjust their view, approach the problem from a different angle and learn from the experience.

(Also, I was rather happy with the 'logic' results being similar, but of course I'm too modest to point that out)