Jack Ryan ECL310 Reflections

Student I.D: 213360349

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ECL Week 8 Reflection

There are endless search engines that are always giving us new and innovative ways to receive and explore information. One resource I have found particularly useful throughout my studies is Pinterest. This website allows the user to explore different topics or hashtags. They can click on links, and if they like something they can then ‘pin’ it to their own page, allowing the user to constantly collect information, which can then be used as a resource in itself. When searching #picturebooks on Pinterest a huge library of results appeared. A large portion were pictures of front covers of storybooks, which can be useful. But amongst this was also a spread of useful tasks in the classroom, such as how to contort storybooks to create discussion, and a list of good beginner books for early years learners.

Although it is something that we need to use in moderation, I think using hashtags can be a useful resource in the classroom. It is no secret that students are more engaged when less ‘traditional’ educational tools are used to learn new things. I think that students asked to go online and find information using a hashtag would be much more mentally engaged than a student who is asked to find an answer in a book.

As teachers we need to moderate how dependant students are of technology in the classroom, and I do think that traditional learning methods still need to be implemented. But as the world evolves and is clearly heading toward a more technologically dependant society, we are helping students prepare for the future.

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ECL Week 7 Reflection

When searching the hash tag #picturebooks on Tumblr, there was a huge amount of resources I had never had the pleasure of previously exploring. The number of posts referring to old picturebooks, books that are about to be released, and artwork and storylines of books that are in the midst of being created is endless. One new release storybook I found quite interesting was the upcoming book Cloud Country (Becker & Klocek, 2016). This storybook follows Gale (the protagonist) who lives in the clouds and creates shapes. The beautiful artwork revolves around everything being made up from clouds, and this would be a great storybook to explore creative concept in foundation level classrooms.

Accompanied by the numerous posts, was the quantity of pages dedicated to storybooks. One of the pages in particular that I plan to use as a resource was Wordless Picturebooks. This Tumblr page is designed to explore the learning richness behind wordless picturebooks, and the page owner often posts useful links to other sites that explore different concepts on how to use them in the classroom. One way to use this in the classroom is via sequencing (Nancy, 2012). Divide the story into beginning, middle, and end. The students are grouped to each section and have to order the pages sequentially. The groups then come together and the book gets put together to see if it flows correctly. This type of activity promotes imagination, collaboration and cooperation, and is very engaging for middle years learners.

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References

Nancy, 2012, Using Wordless Picturebooks, Teaching Our Elementary Students, accessed on 03/10/16, < http://teachingmyfriends.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/using-wordless-picture-books.html >

Becker, B & Klocek N, 2016, Cloud Country, Disney Press.

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ECL Week 6 Reflection

< http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/2307474/noongar-language >

Learn Some of the Noongar Language

This video provides good opportunity for a hands-on front-loading lesson. In the video the people explore the different plant life, berries, bark etc. and learn the native language for each plant. In a classroom setting, the teacher could bring the plants into the classroom where the students get the chance to see and touch each plant as they learn the native names.

Students could then explore the book Australian Plants as Aboriginal Tools (Clarke, 2012) that correlates directly with the chosen video, as it shows each plant and how the Indigenous people used it. Although not designed as a children’s book, the students can still extract the appropriate information from the book.

This could then be transferred into a mini lesson where students’ share/ write a short story and include each of the native plants that were explored. They can discuss what specific plants were used for, and create scenarios where they too could use them.

  References

Clarke, P 2012, Australian Plants as Aboriginal Tools, Aboriginal Australians, Rosenberg Publishing, Kenthurst, NSW.

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ECL Week 5 Reflection

Wordle Sentence

“It was a cold night; I was transparent from lack of food and had no strength. The silence was deafening, and I looked around the hollow place I used to call home.”

 Re-writing Sentence

As the world moved on, it shut its ears.

 Front-loading Activity

Another good frontloading activity is think- pair- share. This requires students to explore an idea, image, text etc. and derive meaning from it. They then find a partner and explore each others views. The class is then able to come together and brainstorm different perceptions and viewpoints of the topic.

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ECL310 Week 4 Reflection

Working with foundation students for the first time was a really educative experience for me, as a future educator. Whilst on professional experience I was doing constant reflection of my own school experience and how different it is today. There are similarities, such as the Thrass Picturechart, which is a great resource, but also a huge difference in technology. a majority of the group work is done on a Smartboard, and a lot of other work is done on iPads and computers.

The literacy program at the foundation level was run in smaller groups. Students were put into ability-based groups, and set on a rotation of both hardcopy and online task. The rotation setup (pictured below) allowed all groups to work and challenge their ability, with teachers (including myself) being able to work with groups.

The Reading Eggs was an especially interesting activity, and one that I had not seen before. This online numeracy program is basically a virtual display. It constantly updates each student’s progress, and also has a customizable avatar portion for their enjoyment. The program consists of a range of games and music, which are all rewards based. All the students are very excited when it is their turn in the rotation to access Reading Eggs. The ‘golden egg’ rewards motivate the student to continue progressing through the games to gain more ‘rewards’, and learn as they go.

I thought this content was amazing and something that I wish I had access to at that age. The online portion of the curriculum is becoming bigger each year, and if it results in the students being more and more engaged I think it is a great way to teach content.

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ECL310 Week 3 Reflection

As a university student, I am constantly reading and constantly taking meaning from the information I see. The main types of text I have read this week have been several university readings.

Although more interestingly this prompt got me thinking about other types of meaning making I use from different types of text in my everyday life. A big of my life outside of university, is golf. I am an avid golfer and although I have only been playing for 2 years I am constantly looking to improve. I realized that when on the golf course I am using what is called a ‘yardage book’ (pictured below). This text is a list of certain distances from areas on the golf course, and I realized that I have been using these, and taking meaning from this information to help me play my next golf shot.

Alongside most 20-something year olds I do spend quite a bit of time doing reading on Facebook, as well as several surf/skate blogs, such as monsterchildren.com and stabmag.com.

Since beginning university, I have done a lot more reading, which cut into my personal reading. But some of the texts I used to read were a wide range of novels, by writers such as Wilbur Smith, Stephen King, and a range of autobiographies.

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References

Scottish Golf Museum, Yardage Books, < http://www.scottishgolfmuseum.co.uk/yardage%20books.html >

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ECL310 Week 2 Reflection

Making predictions is an important part of being a good, comprehensive reader. There are several strategies that can be put in place when reading a text, to work on predicting skills, before even beginning the text. Strategies involve discussing the expectations of the text as a class, based on the cover and title, alongside exploring the imagery on the cover to predict the content (Winch et al., 2014 pg. 93). In the text Are You Seeing Me by Darren Groth, a range of inferential evidence is given on the cover of the text.

Whilst on professional placement at the beginning of the 2016, I was fortunate to be included in the unit planning process at foundation level. My mentor and the other junior staff introduced me to Pinterest, which is a great resource for teachers. This website allows teachers to share worksheets, resources and ideas with their peers, and discuss what is successful/ can improve.

For an idea for a good, engaging prediction activity I explored this website and found an engaging worksheet to help students visibly categorise their ideas and justifications.

The three columns (pictured below) allows each student to clearly see their predictions, and visibly writing their reasoning behind their prediction is a good way to constantly improve their inferential knowledge.

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References

Arentz, W 2014, Mentor Text For Predicting, Read With Me ABC, < http://readwithmeabc.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/mentor-text-for-predicting.html >

Winch, G et al. 2014, Reading, Writing, and Children’s Literature, 5th Edition, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria.

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ECL310 Week One Reflection

For our first reflection we were asked to reminisce about our reading experiences. This made me think about what I liked to read when I was an early years learner, as well as how I picked the things I read.

The memory I kept returning to was my ‘journal’. 

When I was in grade 2 and 3, my father joined the Victorian Police Force, but for the first 12 months of his career he was placed in Portland, approximately one hour from home; which meant he was able to come home on the weekend. My parents came up with the idea for my little brother and myself, where each day after dinner we would sit down and write in our journals, in the format of a letter to our dad. We would write about what we did each day as well as what we enjoyed, and sometimes include drawings. When dad came home on the weekend, we would sit down and read our stories out to him.

This is where I developed an early passion for reading, which allowed my parents to introduce me to great authors such as Roald Dahl and Morris Gleitzman, whose books I still enjoy reading today.