WEEK FOUR

Today's lecture was about educational soundness in the digital age and covered a number of ways in which the digital revolution has provided clever opportunities for learning within our schools. It is important that we take this on board. With the ability for technology to change and advance so rapidly we need to ensure that our students are kept up to date, in order to ensure that they are not left behind.

Today's workshop focused on indigenous culture and the re-telling of stories. Greg introduced us to the Dust Echoes website, which can be found at the following website http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/. This is an interactive website that explores indigenous culture in a way that makes it fun and interesting. The website has a collection of twelve Aboriginal dreamtime stories which have been composed into short animated movies aimed at providing people with an understanding of indigenous culture.

These animated movies could form the foundation of a number of different lesson plans and activities (e.g. concept maps, creative writing, re-telling, various art activities, history etc.) aimed at giving students a more well rounded understanding of indigenous life and culture.

Using the Dust Echos website, we were then required to watch one of the dreamtime animated movies. Once we had watched the animated movie we were required to use our knowledge of the software Inspiration 8.0 (a program that we were introduced to in week one) to make a concept map. The purpose of this concept map was to summarise and highlight the key aspects of the animated movie that we had watched.

The animated movie that I selected was titled 'Brolga'. Please find above a picture of my concept map. The concept of re-telling a story can be enhanced by utilising a program such as Inspiration 8.0. Personally, I believe students would enjoy the opportunity to be creative and summarise the story using both writing and pictures whilst making use of the computers. I also thought the idea of utilising screen caps from the animated movie and using them within the concept map was a great idea.

Overall I found this to be an extremely worthwhile activity and I would definitely consider using it within my own classroom.

The second activity that we had to undertake in our workshop required us to count and sort the number and colours of a packet of M & M's (Thanks to Lindy for supplying the packet of M & M's!).

As you can see by both the data table and the graph, our packet contained more blue M & M's then any other colour.

There are so many different ways to utilise a program such as Microsoft Excel. I know personally that I always loved having the opportunity to create different types of graphs on Microsoft Excel whilst I was a school.

I have also had the opportunity to have students use Microsoft Excel whilst out on placement. In my case, students surveyed the nationalities of students at their school, in order to determine the diversity of culture within their school. Students were required to collect and collate data before tabling and graphing the results.

Here is a handy link on the various types of graphs that students can work with on Microsoft Excel http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/available-chart-types-HA010342187.aspx. You may want to consider the different ways students may be able to display their information prior to planning a lesson using Microsoft Excel.

Well that's about all for week four!