Flickr and Picnik

I have decided to upload the before and after photo so that anyone having a look at it can see the great job picnik does of enhancing phots. I found these sites so much fun! I was surprised at how easy it was to change, enhance, correct, chop, re-colour photo's etc
Flickr and picnik are amazing, kids would have a ball on these sites! As far as learning tools, I think that incorporating this technology into a lesson plan would be beneficial to all students.
Students could use photographs to keep an online diary of their learning journey, they could document their family history or just have a lot of fun changing the way they look in their photo.
Again the possibilities are endless.

wow lets catch up!

I can't believe how much is involved in E-Learning! I am having fun learning all this new technology but I am so frustrated by it at the same time! I am having trouble uploading my power point presentation or creating a link. I am sure that when I figure out how it works, I will be very confident, but at present I feel very frustrated!!! I can envisage my future students being frustrated if they were asked to preform a task...and I as their learning manager were not fully up-to date with the technology I am using...failing to keep them engaged! When using technology it would be imperative to be comprehensive with the technology used. Technology is already in our class rooms, as most private school students have a laptop. Public school students are yet to receive theirs(surprise, surprise) We do have a couple of classes at the public school I work at that have laptops but I feel that the technology is wasted. We have projectors in every class room, but our school could not afford the cables to connect teachers to the projectors and therefore they are useless. The few interactive whiteboards that our school has are extremely under used due to the lack of technology elsewhere in the school. I feel that this transition period that we are facing will eventually catch up to technology, but unfortunately it will be at the expense of our current students. Some of the current teachers are aware of the importance of technology in the classroom, but others are so unaware of the changes in society , let alone technology that they are oblivious to the fact that their students require more interaction with technology.Lets face it kids today are technology savvy. To become learning managers of the 21st century we will need to acquire the skills and attributes to engage our students. These skills and attributes will definitely involve being technology savvy! There are so many applications suited to involving students in engaging learning experiences, that as a learning managers we would be spoilt for choice! Video, voki, power point, u tube, skype,web cams,pod casts, facebook, i chat the applications are endless!!! Children of tomorrow will be workplace ready and futures oriented, with high order thinking skills. We as learning managers will help them achieve the desired learning outcomes using up-to date information and technology!
To engage my students with what I have learned recently I feel that the possibilities are endless. I would hope to engage my students in choosing what they are interested in and modeling a learning experience around what excites them. I know that not all students would be enthusiastic about the same things, but encouraging them to have a go may spark interest that drives them towards a positive learning outcome. Keeping in mind that not all students learn in the same manner. Being student centered is not a hard task! I feel that if you listen to your learners and take time to get to know them, you would find it easier to accommodate their learning needs and abilities, producing positive learning outcomes for all.
cheers
Trish

week 5

Power point will be a useful tool that will easily enable students to work collaboratively on projects that are meaningful outside of the classroom. In order to support students in their learning journey we need to provide learning experiences that enhance and support student's social development and participation. Student's need to feel that they have contributed in a meaningful way to the learning process to obtain positive learning outcomes and a sense of personal achievement.
As a student, I felt that I had achieved a great deal by the time I finished creating my power point presentation. The presentation was fun and easy to create, I found the most challenging thing was to come up with an idea. Putting music to the power point was a little challenging, as I had difficulty finding the right process to make the music play across all of the slides. Once I had found this feature it was relatively simple to achieve. I feel that my digital immigrant status restricts me on occasion, although it was certainly engaging. (I just hope I can upload it for you all to watch)
Cheers Trish

more on week 4

Hi All,
I hope you are all having fun! I have sent avatars to all my friends they are great stuff. I have learned a lot this week and in reflection I feel that as learning managers of the 21st century we are faced with a lot of controversy. Technology is a wonderful thing, I'm all for technology in our schools, but what about the kids that don't have access to this resource? How do they get the opportunity to interact with fellow students and their teachers to achieve viable learning outcomes? In the state school where I work, computer labs are so hard to book. Students get very little access to computers at school, it becomes quite frustrating for teachers and students alike. The students rarely get time to finish their work, and those who have no access to a home computer are disadvantaged in regards to completing the task. How do we keep these students engaged if they don't have access to the right equipment?
You would be quite amazed at the amount of students that do not have home computers.
Blogs, wiki's Avatars and Mahara are all fantastic learning tools,in an ideal world it would be great to help students on-line if they needed it, the students would learn to interact and help each other, creating learning outcomes as well as team building and learning to network. In today's knowledge based economy I feel it's important to help students become futures oriented and gain a higher level of thinking. Again I ask how do we keep these students engaged, if they don't have acess to the right equipment?

Just a little thought to ponder

Cheers
Trish

My Avatar

week 4

Hi All,
I have had a look around the mahara site and I am amazed. Do we need anything else? That site is incredible. It's like a one stop site. It was very easy to use and extremely versatile. Anyway more on this later.I have only just begun to discover this wonderful technology and thought I would share my enthusiasm.
Cheers
Trish

week3

Hi Everyone,
OMG! I can't believe how little I know about technology. This week has been both exciting and frustrating as I have muddled my way through blogging, RSS and wiki. I feel so inspired I want to tell everyone how great this technology is! I feel that integrating these tools into the classroom would encourage all students to be engaged. I found all three tools easy to set up, use and navigate. Wiki would be an excellent tool to implement the "engagement theory""engagement theory is based upon the idea of creating collaborative teams that work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom"(Greg Kearsley & Ben Shneiderman) The use of "relate, create, donate" enables students to work with others from differing backgrounds allowing a greater understanding of socio-economic diversity. Imagine giving students a task where they needed to gather information from various ICT's and discuss how this information relates to their learning journey's both individually and as a group. The wiki can be used as the main discussion board to help all students to understand the task and relate to their fellow classmates. They could then blog their individual summaries and use a RSS to keep track of and comment on blogs of their classmates. You would have to ensure that there was enough time for students to do this in class time to allow for socio-economic factors(not every student has a computer at home) The information they need to find should be mapped out so as students can easily find the correct information ie:where to find u-tube presentations etc... they can of course ask other students and map their own findings on wiki.
Cheers
Trish

G.Kearsley, B.Shcneiderman Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning Version:4/5/99