Rene’s thoughts…

It has been 13 weeks of ICT, and i must say that i really enjoyed the workshop. I have learnt many new things that i hope to use when i am teaching. I re-did my personal competency test to see how much i have improved. Check it out, you might be surprised. Personal Competency Test. I have scored mainly in the 4’s which is surprising because i only really scored 1’s & 2’s in the first quiz. Mark has taught me many things which have been valuable. I feel that my strengths now are inspiration, powerpoint, photostory etc. My weaknesses that i have to work on is definately excel. It is a simple program to use but i have trouble remembering all the formulas. I will definately have to do another course in that before i go on and teach in schools. Over all i really enjoyed this workshop. We actually did items in this workshop that are relevant to schools and teaching. It was definately not a waste of time like others workshops i had to attend.

This week in ICT i worked on my photostory. I did not get it finished, so i saved the wrong copy and took it home! I went to open up the program on my computer but my computer failed so i had to go and work another house to finish it. There  is an additional name on my photostory presentation, this is the person that helped me with opening the program; he also gave me some advice on the presentation and how to  make it better. It is finished now and im really happy with it. Some of the music may not match but i dont mind i still think it looks good.

Week 12 in ICT was dedicated to Photo Story 3. Mark showed us the basics of the program. It is a simple program that looks very easy to use. Im looking forward to making my story. It is based on my favourite places i visited in America. I think i will complete this task at home on Sunday so that if there is any changes i can fix them up on Wednesday which will be the last lesson of ICT. I’ve had a lot of fun in this course, i have learnt quite a few techniques that i think will help me in my career as a teacher.

This week in ICT there was no real new information handed out. We had extended time to hand in our inspiration mind maps so most people in the tutorial were working on that. I had already finished mine but i experienced some issues in uploading the mind map to the blog. I had to ask for help and it took about 3 or 4 times to finally get the mind map loaded properly onto the blog. It is finished now so im very happy.

Inspiration is an a great program that allows children and adults to create anything from diagrams to documents. It is very simple to use and in some ways very similar to microsoft word. Pictures can be used for headings and there is a range for magnificant colours to be used. I am quite enjoying doing portfolio item 6 it allows for my creativity to be shown.

This week in ICT we were finishing off the our excel spreadsheets. I found it very interesting with all the formulas that were applied to the spread sheet to do every calculation needed for a gradebook. This weeks portfolio item is a mind map of our choice on any topic. I have chosen to do interactive white boards – or smart boards. Im really looking forward to using inspiration. I have download the free trial on my macbook. It is very interesting to use because of how simple and easy to follow. I hope that my mind map is colourful and interesting.

Over the last two weeks, i have been exploring the simple but complex program of Microsoft Excel. This program is simple to the viewer on first meeting, but there is alot more to it than meets the eye. For this weeks portfolio item we had to contruct a grade book with simple and complex functions. I worked with a partner which made it easier. The spread sheet is pretty complex now, it has about 4 different functions. Our tutor said that if we can work out a specific function such as giving grades A, B, C, D, E & F we would be receiving a 4. Aimee and i tried working it out. We did not succeed. Overall though we are both very happy with the spread sheet, it is much more complex than either one of could have imagined.

This weeks study guide and portfolio item was based on using Microsoft Publisher. Microsoft Publisher is very unfamiliar to me. I don’t remember ever using it in any of my schooling or work life. Having said that, i must say how easy it was to use. Being very familiar with Microsoft Word, Publisher was not much different. It had the same tools as Word and i was able to navigate my way around the program just as well as using any Word document.The study guide was very simple, it was just a basic users guide to using Microsoft Publisher. I didn’t use it for my portfolio item, it just stated how to open and use the program.My Portfolio Item 4, i loved doing. It was a little expression of me. I had trouble loading the document onto the blog, it would not allow publisher to load, so i had to save it as a jpeg file, which saved fine. I created it with a black background, which i think really emphasised my pictures and comments.  I really enjoyed doing this weeks portfolio item.  

Week 4’s study guide was all about word processing. It was nothing new to me, as i have been using all kinds of word processing programs for years, with school and work. The study guide was very useful though in reiterating all the different functions that exist in Microsoft word.  I do want to express my concerns with the portfolio item 2 task. I completed the task with all the requirements, all the columns, and explanation at the end and everything else. I used word 2004. When i loaded it onto the blog it opened fine on my lap top and home cpu. I decided to check this at work to make sure everything was correct and that it would open correctly but every computer i checked on it would change the format. I spoke to my boss who told me that this was most likely because all the computers at work bar one are windows 97′. The one computer that did open up correctly had windows 2002. So that was a concern of mine.Study guide 5 as well as the lesson in week 5 was all about web quests. I had no idea how complicated  web quests were. They incorporate so many different components so that the students are involved and use their skills to complete the web quest. A web-quest is essentially an inquiry based activity that uses skills for evaluating and controlling different situations. This is called problem based learning. There are different sections to web quests – introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion and teachers page.  A successful web-quest involves the students to not only seek out information but uses their skills to evaluate and plan structured answers and outcomes for the task at hand. A poor web-quest just gives information to the students and then gets them to answer basic questions and simple tasks that defeat the purpose of really getting the students to use high order thinking.

Well, its a bit confusing to say that our study guides and our tutorials aren’t in line with each other, so it may get a bit confusing, i got a head of myself last week and wrote about week 3’s study guide in last weeks posting. I spoke to my tutor and he advised me this is fine. Week 4 & week 5 study guides will get covered in next weeks postings, because we are kinda skipping week 4 study guide in tut because we all should know about word processing, so i will be writing about that in the next blog after i have done the portfolio task.Anyway, in addition to last weeks post about the study guides, some extra stuff i learnt in my tut this week was more in depth about web terminologies – such as URL’s and hyperlinks. It is interesting how simple we think the internet and the web is, but it really isn’t. Everything i wanted to say i wrote in last weeks blog. So Mr Lee, please take everything i wrote in last weeks blog into account for this weeks blog.