PD & SFD

Last Friday I engaged in a full day PD with my mentor. We participated i a PD on Scratch. It was done in school with 6 other teachers. We were taught specific coding of scratch that we were going to be teaching our yr 8 class for their assessment piece they were about to undertake. I found the PD really interesting and we all had a good laugh and a bit of fun in it. Knowing a little bit about the game I interacted with some of the other teachers to help them when they were unsure of what to do. There are a hep of tutorials I can use to refresh and to continue to update what i know on scratch, here is an example.

Monday was a student free day, I attended school and spent the day doing my planning along with my mentor. It was a very quiet day but i think we achieved a lot in terms of planning. I got all of my lessons created and designed and was able to have good conversations with my mentor about my professional experience and returning next year for my final 2 placements. Hopefully this is something that the prac office will let me do as I feel I will benefit from completing a whole term at the school rather than just bits here and there.

Prac reflections so far…

Im taking my mentors full load of classes which consists of 2 yr 7 design classes, 1 yr 8 design class, yr9 roll and access class, yr11ICT&ITS class, yr12ICT&ITS class and yr12 Media. Its not too bad, the seniors are all on assessment so its just a lot of mini lessons and assisting with them. The 9s is for roll call and also for an access class which is a class run twice a week where the students learn about non curriculum things like class rules, respect, work readiness etc. The 7s and 8s I do all the lessons for and yr 8 have today begun assessment. The yr 7 classes are the most challenging but Im up for the challenge, Im finding it really good and I feel like its giving me loads of opportunity to develop my behaviour management and that teacher voice i hear so much about! I had my yr8s compete in a game of kahoot last week which they absolutely loved, the feedback they gave was awesome, followed by a game challenge on Scratch. Hopefully my next week and a bit will be as good as the first half!

Half way there!

Im officially over the half way mark! I have really enjoyed prac so far and I think that with each time I go out on prac I am learning so much more and becoming much more confident in what i am doing. Im still working on behaviour management but as im told its something that I will develop and find what works with what groups. Ive got a few links for strategies, one is here and the other here. Ill keep searching for resources and building on my stash as they are things ill be able to come back and reflect on when things settle down….

I still think prac would be so much easier if it was all done in one long run. I seems like we just get to know our students names and its over!

Prac week 1 – day 4

So I finally got allocated a placement last Friday and began this Monday. I am teaching ICT, ITS, Digital Studies and Media Studies. I pretty much jumped straight into teaching as soon as I could. I was shown where the classes were up to and given free reign to jump in and take over. So far its all going really well! Today I had year 8s and I made and completed a Kahoot! game for them and then gave them a challenge to create a scratch game from an image. The students had a blast and even my mentor had a go at the quiz and commented on how much fun it was! Success! Of course with the good there’s always some bad, I had a few minor behavioural issues that I tried to keep on top of, but as we discussed my techniques will build over time and I will become more confident and comfortable with behaviour management the longer Im teaching. I had year 9s for access and they had to do subject selections which was good helping students understand what subjects were and working out how to complete the online forms. I felt I had an opportunity to further build a rapport with a lot of the students as i spent time with each discussing their options.

Ive been keeping up to date with everyones posts and its great to see others like Jackie and Emma and also really enjoying their prac.

Im off on a PD day with my mentor tomorrow, were doing a computer game design course which should be interesting and hopefully good for my CV! And then in again on Monday for a planning day while the students have a pupil free day. Hopefully tomorrow will end on a good note, which will finish my week 1 on a great end!

Week 10….Still no placement

This week draws EDC3100 materials to a close. For me personally, I have found the subject interesting and found that it has assisted me in developing my ICT skills and expanding on new tools and learning more on existing tools. I am still getting used to diido and feedly, Ive enjoyed using WordPress and I have made links with some other new tools; Verso, Padlet and The Learning Place. The only downside to the subject is the prac placement, the process needs serious improvement. Assignment 3 has a lot of items that require you to get prepared for prac and to set you up to ensure you fulfil those requirements whilst on prac. I do truly believe USQ need to overhaul this system and placements need to be given by a certain time. I, like Esther,  handed in my prac form in February this year and was told yesterday that if there’s no placement on inplace by 3pm Friday then Ill have to wait until they find me one next term and have a delayed start, which I think sounds the same as what they told Ashleigh when she called. I totally know how frustrated Jackie feels, we sem to be in this same position together every placement!

Im still trying to work out what to do if i have a delayed start, with work, family – 3yr old twins, exams, assessments….its just crazy, i wonder if ill get the 5.00pm call on Friday (like last time) to tell me were i got placed….if i get a place that is!

Week 9….Disappointment and Anticipation

As week 9 heads toward a close I am left feeling once again disappointed with not yet having a placement for prac. I totally understand that the prac office may be busy etc etc but I have to honest and say, this is their job. hey have ample experience in doing this, they know how much delay comes about so wouldnt it be best to get into it asap? I hate the thought of not knowing, especially when i have 3yr old twin monsters to organise care for. Unfortunately unlike those lucky people who get free of subsidised childcare, my childcare costs me $1000 per week. So as anyone can imagine the anticipation of knowing my prac is set and the dates are set helps in me ensuring the bookings are set or giving enough time to make changes without charges. But hey who cares right, thats my problem! I also wish the uni would assist everyone equally with scholarship opportunities it seems to me unless your indigenous or in financial hardship theres really nothing there for you. Why do i need to fit into one of these 2 moulds to be worth something to the uni? I read in one of Davids forum posts that it wouldnt be right to withhold everyones prac details for a few that come late, Im sorry but i strongly disagree and I would strongly argue that as teachers we are taught we must be fair and equitable to all students through our subjects, yet we constantly feel let down or that the system is not being equitable and told to suck it up. I, like many other  students without prac placement feel students with placement have an unfair advantage in assignment 3 and preparation for prac. This is unfair and inequitable.

Anyway enough rambling, Im just really disheartened in USQ this week and feel really let down.

I agree 100% with Jackie and that our prac should be like a traineeship, we should have some kind of a wage (or free childcare) and I also think it would work better to have all the prac together in the final year.

Week 8 final thoughts…..

I feel that I have learnt a lot about the issues and strategies available to support safe, responsible and ethical use of ICT in learning and teaching. There are several resources available in assisting such as the bullying no way! resources,the madeline and alannah foundation offer resources also and the safe schools hub are some of the resource pages available.

Unfortunately I havent received my prac placement as yet so I am unable to complete part of the learning activites, but will come back if I get my placement early enough to discuss the policies and processes they have on ICT, and to discuss the ICT requirements in the curriculum as I also dont know what teaching area I will be teaching.

I will also have to address the following two questions at a later date if time permits and if I am given my placement with enough time to prepare.

• What aren’t you ready to do? Why?
• What, if anything, about your planning for Professional Experience has changed as a result of this week’s learning path?

Digital Citizenship – Oh boy!

I feel I start this topic with a good amount of knowledge and understanding and experience of digital citizenship. Having already gone through 1 teenager and now in the midst of 3 teenagers and 3 not all that far away from hitting their teens I feel I am somewhat equipped and experienced in this area. I suppose having gone through these precious years may give those of us a heads up on a lot of what to expects in a high school setting!

What do I know about cyber safety? I know that its so hard to know whats going on all the time. Kids can be horrible to each other and the benefit they get out of using technology is that they become anonymous or faceless to their crime. We need to do our best to educate students as well as our children about digital citizenship, about being safe online about how to use technology safely. People can be anyone or anything they want behind a screen and unfortunately kids are just so naive and will believe whatever they are told.

My experience with cyber safety, well to give a short break down without rambling to much, my 16 yr old daughter and her friends thought it would be fun to join a dating site and began chatting to strange men, with no regard for safety for themselves or their families. They shared webcam – only theirs, and chatted to these men or some time. I am really strong with my kids on being safe online and always checking their sites etc, but because it was through social media sites, I missed it. I finally cottoned on, did a bit of digging and online snooping and found out everything. To say i was totally gutted wouldnt even justify how i began to feel. A lot has happened since this and I am now on top of her and all the kids like the plague.

Technology is fantastic, I love technology, there are so many benefits from using technology but, technology can also ruin lives, it provides an easy medium for people to hide behind and be what they want, to take advantage of others and  to lure into potentially deadly situations. I am very thankful I found things out when I did and that we have worked on building back up trust and safe use of the internet.

As I moved through the week 8 learning path I completed the 2 quizzes, the first quiz, i got 100%, I think a lot of the questions I have encountered earlier in my course and I somewhat recalled most of them. I do remember that cyber bullying is a fast growing problem, but that school yard bullying was still higher. I think with question 1 I read that to be students taking part in the bullying, maybe not so much the actual bully but the others engaging in it, and I do believe that those students dont have a low self esteem. Question 2 was relatively obvious I believe, I think majority of people would or should be aware that it isnt legal. I agree with Kia on question 4 that teaching a student to be assertive would avoid or stop bullying.

The second quiz I also got 100% and to me I felt that quiz was pretty straight forward. I think maybe being very into technology, the internet and computing I probably found things straight forward.

So what have I learnt? Ive learnt that bullying is real, it comes in many forms and from many different people. Ive learnt that cyber safety is a massive issue, teaching kids to be cybersafe is hard work, I dont think they understand how important being safe on the internet is. Ive learnt we need to equip our children and our students with the best knowledge and tools possible to make informed choices when they are engaging with ICTs to be safe, responsible and to use them ethically.

Accomplished Today :)

I have just completed and submitted assignment 2. It was a few days of intense ‘getting it done’ but I got there! I feel so very relieved! Its a good accomplishment for me to submit an assessment piece a day before its due let alone 13 days! So Im having a moment of feeling accomplished, and with such a crappy last couple of weeks, its really good to feel good about something!

On the other side, I totally feel where Jackie‘s coming from with prac, it is really frustrating to not know where we are going and chances are we will find out a day or 2 before just like every other time, and I too submitted my forms earlier this year.

Either way, we will eventually find out, and I am really looking forward to prac again!

I purchased the prac shirts too from the book shop, and I will just share, theyre nice shirts however to anyone wanting to get any just keep in mind for size wise, they fit pretty generic for size but theyre actually quite short in length.

Technology Literacy Goals

Using the Australian Curriculum to find the technology literacy goals for students entering year 10. Level 5 shows what the students expected skills should be and level 6 shows the skills should have acquired by the end of year 10.

The expected skills taken from the Australian Curriculum (2016), are for Level 5 shown here and for Level 6 are shown here.