Rene’s thoughts…

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.

I researched interactive whiteboards. It was an interesting topic to do, i thoroughly enjoyed doing the mind-map. Inspiration is an easy, user friendly program. This is mind-map, im quite proud of it. 

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.

Over two weeks we had to construct an excel spread sheet. It was a grade book and it must incorporate simple and complex functions. Aimee White and myself worked on this grade book together. Here it is: Grade Book Spread Sheet

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.  

Here is my Autobiography check it out!!!!!!!!!!!!

Results of Portfolio Item 3

Evaluation: I found this web-quest to be very unique, informative & geared to kindergarten, year 1 level. I gave the web-quest 45 out of 50 because of its many great attributes. Overall visual appearance was exciting, fun and cute, it engaged with its audience. Navigation around the web-quest was simple and easy and did not waste time. The mechanical aspect was perfect, all the links to the resource and work sheets were established, and the grammar was correct. The introduction posed a question to the students, and related to their interests and prior knowledge of animals. The students had a self evaluation sheet on that they had to fill out, which got them to critique themselves, the level of the task was suited to the age of the students, it gave resources, and required them to use some higher order thinking skills, but the downfall is that there were only one resource for each animal, it could have maybe used some more. The clarity of process was explicit and allowed for the students to follow the steps. The task required the students to choose the animal they would rather be. The activities got the students to do this. The criteria was a great, in many aspects because it outlined what was expected, but then also made the students self evaluate.