A pox on computers

Well isn’t this magical? I have lost another laptop in the space of 8 months due to age and dodgy software. Goodbye assignments, referencing and resume. Yes my resume.

I cannot complain though, another student friend of mine gave me a spare to work with, and boy, boy, has it been a huge help. One downside though…. No Microsoft Office or word. Just Apache Open Office. All well and good, now I have to learn how to use a new word processing program. No biggy, I just have five assignments and a quiz to get through till the end of semester.

Nah. It turned out okay. I now have two assignments and a quiz to finish and it is all thanks to a friend offering an old, unused computer in a major time of need. Still, learning to use different software, and also referencing styles (I’m using oxford for history) can really make your study life a little easier. Depending on the course and the university :). I do have to admit, I much rather go and learn a new word processing program than have to write a 2000 word assignment in print.

So yes, a pox on computers, but at the same time, they really do make life just that little bit easier for studying purposes. Till next time.

Matt

A handy little piece of software

Hey everyone. I have a useful little software device that could come in handy for future EDX 3280 students. As some may know, Vokis are no longer supported by Mahara, so in desperation I went searching the web and found this little sucker. Meet Audacity.

This program is basically voice recording software that I used to record my voice for the eportfolio. Downside to it? Yeah, you cannot add video and then upload it to You Tube. But, I found a neat little site called Vocaroo. You can upload your recording to it and then it provides you with the url for you to hyperlink with any pictures that you may use in the eportfolio assignment. It will take you to the sight to hear the clip, but I have only really just started playing around with it.

Thanks guys

Matt

I’m over technology

Week 11 and I’m behind again. I am going to refer back to an earlier post regarding the ability to function without it. No. No I cannot. Last Saturday my old smart phone I was using while I saved for getting my current one repaired got ran over after I forgot to pick it up off the back of my car at the drive in movie.
Now I have no phone no navigation. At least I can now get other repaired now.
So why am I behind? Simple. My laptop has decided to spaz out and not display the screen, hence why I am using my tablet, which is not overly good at blogging. I have a major assignment due on Monday that requires software like Voki (an animated avatar for delivering instructions), but my tablet is incompatable with most of this. But, I am grateful that it can allow me to do the written component which I aim to do over the next 3 days.
Mobile ICTs are now so intwined in my daily life that I am reevaluating my stance on being able to get along without it. I am but not very well. I have a friends wedding and went to her partner’s bucks night on Wednesday. Boy, oh boy was that trouble. No phone, I had to rely upon memory, maps and public phones just to meet up with everyone. So now you know why I say that I am over technology.
Till the next blog
Matt

Answering hairy questions… Teaching Equivalent of Fencing

So. You are on your first week of professional experience, and the teacher has thrown you to the wolves. No I’m not saying your a cow (bison) but the feeling is mutual in a weird way. So your trying to teach the class and there is that one student that looks and acts like this to you in your freaked out little mind…

 Oh and your teacher says just before, you will be fine with the attitude of this guy…

But as far as your concerned, he or she may as well have this guy’s attitude… 

Your teaching year 5…. hang on I’m supposed to be doing year 3 …. What the F@#$??? Panic mode kicks in and you just know that you are going to be eaten alive. My dear friend TheInterpreter had a great sectionvin her post I can’t breath! which goes “I just know that it is not a year level  that I am passionate about. I work better with other year levels I know that so I am very worried. I will however do my best to develop the skills for the year I have been placed in but I am freaking out. This placement is so far away from my major that I don’t understand what to do. My sister is a teacher in this year level so the first thing I am going to do is cry to her and beg her for help.” Yep… been there. Anyway off topic.

We often get asked the tricky questions that catch you off guard and you look like a stunned mullet. Spelling was a shocker for this. One of my other uni friends had a pocket dictionary with them, so every time they were asked how to spell a word it was like this for about 30 minutes. Backwards and forwards. Thrust, parry and finally touché. Hopefully on your side… not theirs.

 My point is that you should always keep your guard up, because you are the new person on their patch, and they will try and press the boundaries. Yes those questions can come from left field, but as long as you are confident, you have the curriculum behind you and your guard is up, those hairy questions will be fairly harmless.

Good luck on experience

Matt

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA), n.d. Rapier Lesson [JPG]. retrieved May 5 2016: http://www.thearma.org/photos/Rapiers/RapierLesson.JPG

HODGSON C. (2014) , Chris Lilly’ Jonah From Tonga [image] retrieved April 20 2016 from https://www.google.com.au/search?q=jonah+from+tonga+puck+you+miss+line&espv=2&biw=1600&bih=755&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj37erIlJ3MAhVX52MKHdcSDUEQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=f2W20FgFzqVeFM%3A

RenaissanceReaper, (2013), Vault Boy. [blog] retrieved April 20 2016: http://playstationallstars.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:RenaissanceReaper/Fake_Vault_Boy

Scheiwe, M. (2016) Deathclaw, personal computer screenshot.

Smith D. n.d . Wolves in Yellowstone circling buffalo [photograph] retrieved May 5 2016: http://www.lovethesepics.com/2012/03/whos-afraid-of-the-big-bad-beautiful-wolf-56-pics/

Looking forward

After reading the rest of this week’s learning path (as I have work tomorrow), I have looked back on my first blog for this particular activity and I do believe that I have learnt a lot. Looking through the scary stories really got me thinking just that bit more about how I go about teaching with ICT integration. I could maybe educate my students about cyber-safety as I type in URLs or explain what the coloured padlock means when typing in a web addresses.

I also understand that there are a number of support structures out there for improving digital citizenship safety. with this knowledge I do believe that I can implement this into my pedagogical practices and also in to my own professional development. There is now the focus that I will be able to implement effective ICTs into my practice but in a safe and secure manner that protects both myself and my students.

Regarding what I am not ready to do. I am not ready to implement a large amount of ICTs into my current practice, as I am not 100% able to access a large number of the more enriching methods due to low income and also a lack of registration. This will not stop me as I continue to move on with my future career. As I go, I will gain more access and also greater ability to implement ICTs in order transform my pedagogy and enrich the learning of my students.

Planning for professional experience… I believe that I will try and plan lessons the minute I am home  from school in order to give myself time to find the appropriate resources and ICT activities for my particular subjects. Having read through this week’s learning path, I now have a wider understanding of what is actually out there and that there are ways that I can find and use different materials, as a digital citizen, that will protect me and my students as we go down the path of learning.

Cheers all and good luck on professional experience.

Matt

Digital Citizenship

Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and emails. These are some of the social media that we use to communicate with one another over the internet. A definition of digital citizenship is that it is the norms of appropriate, responsible behaviour with regard to technology use and consists of 9 elements:

1. Digital Access:   full electronic participation in society.
2. Digital Commerce:   electronic buying and selling of goods.
3. Digital Communication:   electronic exchange of information.
4. Digital Literacy:   process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology.
5. Digital Etiquette:   electronic standards of conduct or procedure.
6. Digital Law:   electronic responsibility for actions and deeds
7. Digital Rights & Responsibilities:   those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world.
8. Digital Health & Wellness:   physical and psychological well-being in a digital technology world.
9. Digital Security (self-protection):   electronic precautions to guarantee safety (Ribble 2016).  To go more in depth follow this link

This means that we are all digital citizens.

In my personal life, my use of digital citizenship is fairly straight forward. I only communicate with people and organisations that I know personally or that are well known. I also try and avoid the keyboard warrior acts to save insulting or bullying others. Again with friends and organisations, I keep all of my settings to either private or visible to friends and do not provide personal details (bank details, licence numbers ect.) to others outside of the respective organisations that have rights to them (banks, government ect).

This post requires a quiz on bullying. I am afraid that I only got one question out of four right. Question one was “Students who often take part in bullying others usually have problems with low self-esteem”. I was under the misconception that this was true. No it is not as, according to the quiz answer, it is rather the opposite. The third was  “Cyberbullying is now the most common form of bullying that occurs in secondary schools“. Another classic don’t listen to the media situation. Again I had the misconception that cyberbullying was now the most common form of bullying, however, it appears that offline bullying or physical bullying is still the most common, but cyber-bullying may be more prevalent in the future.

Question four  “The most effective approach to putting a stop to a bullying situation is to provide an opportunity for the student who is being bullied to learn and practise specific social skills such as being assertive“. Boy oh boy did I screw this one up, considering I am studying classroom behaviour management and managing challenging behaviours. I made the mistake of saying that teaching the bullied student new social skills would assist them… Well I forgot to deal with the bullying, thus making the bullied student feel as if it was their fault they were being bullied.

The next quiz was on cyber-safety. I got the total score of 25, however, I looked at it from and adult’s perspective. Looking back, I tried to look at the questions through a primary age student’s eyes. Many of the questions could be tricky for a student as there are some misconceptions that could be involved, like allowing parents to use your account and also having a friend help you to login. These, I believe, could confuse a student unless the appropriate skills are taught.

As an adult I believe that I am fairly up to date with cyber-safety and digital citizenship, as I frequently change my passwords to my accounts and consult my bank if they believe a change in my details is necessary in order to protect any information that I may. This being said, I also believe that we as educators and parents need to provide the appropriate skills in order to help our children/students to be the next generation of cyber-safe digital citizens.

Ribble, M. (2016). Nine Elements, Digital Citizenship retrieved May 5 2016: http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

 

My Two Biggest Challenges and Fears on PE

Back again. Week 9 of the learning path asked us to name two of the biggest challenges and fears for PE. Well here they are.

1. The first was losing three weeks of work as kristensmith1 and Lee have had the trouble with, leaving my wife to mainly pay rent while I swiftly drain my own account on both fuel and rent. The second challenge as skyeclarkson pointed out was trying to keep on top of assessments at the same time.
2. My biggest fear was most likely the idea that I would not be able to deliver the ICT content expected by the course. My second was that I would fail as a result of this content.

I am now going to focus on the challenges in a little more depth. As it is, my wife and I are expecting a child in the next three months. So, if I were to be on PE this year or next year (5 weeks) in my current financial state, I could not do it due to the simple lack of money. Not only does it limit my ability to keep a roof over our heads, but it also limits what resources I could by for lessons I am creating and more importantly the fuel to travel to and from the school. There is a document that addresses the fact that there are higher education students that are at a disadvantage when it comes to financing themselves while studying. The document is called Revisiting disadvantage in higher education. The downside is that it focuses more on younger people from low socioeconomical areas and Indigenous Australians, however I find that these points are relative to most university students.

My other point that I share with skyeclarkson, is that of keeping on top of assessments during PE. With this course, the learning path and the blogs are simple enough to keep up with while on professional experience, however, I have some graduate friends who have had to complete assignments during their placement an have said that it was nothing short of torture. I have yet to have this, but I do develop high levels of stress. To cope with this, there are a couple of university based websites that explain stress in more detail. These are Campus mind works from the university of Michigan and Mind Tools by Mind Tools Ltd.

Till next time good luck

Matt

 

A Useful Little Online Tool

So everyone I am back once again.

I know that some of you may be on prac and I wish you all best, but I have stumbled over this useful little piece of software for us all to share. if you are like me you will have had to scan in a document or resume and it is only an image doc that cannot be edited right? WRONG! I had to try and edit a typo on a character reference but it was an image, but I found this program called convert-jpg-to-pdf.net . This program is completely free and does not require downloading. You just choose your margin, page size, orientation and image size. Then you upload the image and hit convert to pdf.

This takes a couple of seconds (depending on the size of the document) and then you can download the end result as the pdf. This software is so simple to use that you could use it on professional experience or even for assignments. So I hope that you will give it a go later on. Once again good luck to those of you on prac and I will catch up in the next blog.

Matt

Family and University

G’day all, I’m back.

I found an interesting post by naehunt1983 titled Family Life. She was saying that she was struggling with finding the balance between family and university, which is something that I am starting to find harder and harder, especially since work for myself has been very limited. In my previous post Parents while Studying,  I mentioned that there are alternative forms of doing degrees, however there is the need for a balance. My wife and I have had many discussions regarding me and university and our child. In the same post I mentioned, I made the point that I was grateful that I was not doing prac this year with a newborn.

This was due to that fact that I would be home late trying to have ready for the following day and gaining less sleep than normal on prac with the child waking every couple of hours. Now that I have found that I will be doing far less subjects, I will be able to look after the baby during night time feeds, due to the fact that I will be up late anyway writing assignments. The hardest part will be finding the balance so that I can actually sleep. I hope that naehunt1983 will find a strong balance so that she is able to be with her family, but also do well in her degree. I too understand what it is like so be positive and keep going.

Till the next post, keep on rocking

Matt

The second assignment

Hey all.

Assignment 2 huh? I have already done this particular assignment last year and did okay. However I have learnt a lot more since the last time and I am hoping that this time round the result will have a better outcome. Like Karen in her post Drowning in ICT, I also feel as if I will not have enough ICTs for the required unit. Even though we are not expected to teach it, I cannot help but take into consideration, the thoughts of, “is this relevant?” and “what if the school does not have enough or any ICT equipment?”

This being said, I do understand that these thought are probably normal and that I may be over-thinking this unit plan. So to all of those who may have this thought, just remember that this unit plan does not have to be taught on professional experience and write it as though the school where you may hypothetically implementing it could have all the technology that you would need :).

Keep on rocking till next time.

Matt