ICT

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Placement Blog Post

            This placement project could very well prove to be of value for IDC. Though the production of this particular teacher’s website does not appear to be successful, the project as a whole could have been very useful for this course. Had our teacher’s website been finished and used (and it still may be!), we could see the difference in her courses with and without the site. For example, if she does choose to complete the building of the website, we can see if it improves the quality of work in the students, or the organization of the lessons.

            Unfortunately, I could not call this placement a success. My partner and I thought that we were going to set up a website and add all of the components that the teacher wants on it. The difficulties appeared when we found out that really she simply wanted us to set up the site for her so that she could add all of the components herself. This could have worked out quite well (seeing as she is the one with all of her course outlines and calendar dates), however when I refer to her website presently, the links are all still empty.

            Because the placement ended so soon after it started, I didn’t really have a chance to decide whether I enjoyed the experience or not. I think that had the teacher given us her materials, it would have been fun to be able to design the theme and layout of the site and add all of the dates into the calendar and so on.

            This project could be improved for future IDC classes; however I think that each placement really counts on the teacher’s participation. Maybe if the teacher’s and student’s goals are established during the first interview, the rest of the process can go smoothly.   

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Blog Post #7

            Us as humans think that we are great at performing multiple tasks all at the same time. Sure we can watch television while simultaneously folding laundry, or have a conversation with our parents while doing the dishes with our headphones in all at the same time. No problem, right? Wrong. Though it appears to us that our brains are focusing on more than one thing at once, it really isn’t. Research has shown that we are not able to technically focus on more than one task at a time, rather that our brains are able to switch from task to task at an impressive rate. Let’s take the example that John Hamilton used in his article of a diner cook. The chef needs to remember an abundance of orders, while cooking a whole bunch of different things (not to mention remembering how to cook each thing). It may appear to the chef (or to anyone watching the chef) that they are professional chefs as well as professional multitaskers. In reality, what’s going on in the brain of the cook is not “eggs, bacon, toast and sausages” but rather “eggs” “bacon” “toast” “now sausages” as separate tasks.

            We live in a time and place where everything moves as quickly as possible. We are brought up in an environment where we are taught to be impatient: do everything as quickly as possible and don’t waste time with anything. This is why I think people are so often giving a portion of their attention to one task, and a portion to another at the same time. It has become the norm to overshoot our workload on a daily basis and end up finding ourselves attempting to finish reading over that applicant’s resume while trying not to get our fingers caught in the paper shredder on those off seconds that are not being devoted to shredding the papers.

            Personally, I think that I have been able to avoid the impatience of the world as much as I can, and that is not the main reason why I multitask. And I do multitask. My attention span is not exactly where I would prefer it to be. On a regular day I am not great at focusing on anything for more than a couple of minutes without getting antsy. I multitask because the variety actually helps to keep me on track. This is not a foolproof plan by any means, but when I get bored doing all of those math questions I will often allow myself a few seconds to check my phone or something like that to give my brain a small break.   

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Blog Post #6

          This seminar was actually very interesting for me to do. I really enjoy the performing arts and I have always done well on class speeches ever since I have begun doing them in school. Actually preparing a class and educating people on something that I have prepared was surprisingly similar to memorizing a script and performing to an audience, just with more audience interactions. I don’t think that the experience was really able to change my perception of teaching or education simply because I really didn’t know what to expect of it, therefore there wasn’t any perception to be changed.

          I honestly did not anticipate the lack of student participation when it came to answering questions. When there was an activity (i.e. the “how secure is my password” activity), quite a few students jumped to participate. However when one of us asked a question (for example “what would you do if you saw someone being bullied or you yourself was being bullied?”) there was not one hand. I thought that there would be at least one brave person who was willing to answer a question and after that more people would follow, but to my surprise that was not the case.

          Taking this experience, if I were to deliver this presentation again I think that I would come up with more activities (or any sort of alternatives) rather than just questions to get the students engaged and involved. It is important that the whole presentation is not simply us talking at the class for an hour, as very few people have that attention span (I could use myself as a prime example). That is what it seemed to come to for a large part of the presentation, however, solely because nobody volunteered to answer questions and we had to think of alternative ways to answer them (i.e. answering them ourselves, which ultimately leads to talking at the class for more time than anticipated).

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Blog Post #5

I actually found a lot of information in the procrastination lesson to be very relatable and interesting. One of the pieces that I, personally, have not given much thought to, but agree with fully is that the longer away a deadline is, the more it will be pushed to be done at the last minute. Most deadlines are given for a reason, and though some pieces of work are supposed to take weeks to complete, if the deadline is given very far in advance I am definitely guilty of missing the importance and reasoning for that far-off deadline. 

I consider myself an impulsive person, as well as a very active procrastinator, but I have never connected one thing to the next. When I think of impulsive people, I think of someone who just does crazy things without giving any thought to it. I guess that not doing things without giving any thought to it is the same thing. I am very easily distracted by anything except my work (which, connecting to the presentation, often occurs when the work is not enjoyable or valuable to me).

The lesson on learning also had a lot of useful information. Though much of it is relatively straight-forward, much of the information in that slideshow are bits that people don’t often seem to give thought to. For example as much as someone’s teaching skills may be very good, I don’t think that people really consider ways to get their audience to retain the information thrown at them. I fully agree that people remember emotions and stories.  

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Blog Promt 2.5

My placement has unquestionably been very low usage. In the beginning, I thought that it would actually be a relatively time consuming process as we were asked to create a website from the start, and there were a lot of different components to be added. Our placement wanted everything for all three of her courses on the website (calendars, test and course outlines, gizmos, homework updates etc.). In the end, the teacher simply wanted us to show her how to use Weebly so she could create the website on her own. Because of this, our placement started and finished in two meetings and one class.

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Blog Prompt #2

Technology Operations and Concepts:

I am able to organize folders on a desktop by creating them and appropriately naming them. I am then able to manage files within the folders I have created.

Aside from those basic skills, the rest of my fundamental skills (according to the website) are not so much present. I’m not so good at publishing any form of work online (I sometimes even have trouble uploading photos to Facebook). I often find myself confused when trying to edit something online but I can usually figure it out on my own. As far as digital tools go, I can generally figure them out on a very basic level but that is as far as it goes for me.

  Research and Information Fluency:

I can often do research on the computer; however my primary method of online information retention is Google. Besides Google I’m never really sure where to search. Once I have found the information I am looking for, I’m also not the best at knowing which pieces of information are valid and which aren’t; so I usually just search many different sites to see if it all has the same information. Once I do have all of my information, I am able to properly cite where I retrieved the information from and put any of it into my own words if necessary.

  Critical Thinking and Problem Solving:

I like using mind maps to organise my ideas for certain projects, though I have never used mind mapping software on a computer. I have participated in online forums for a few different classes to submit work and group edit papers. As I do not often use technology for many things, I have not really had the opportunity to select “appropriate” technologies for various purposes. I have played some online games but not extensively, so I do not have very much experience with that.

  Communication and Collaboration:

I have used online forums with my peers to discuss, explain, hypothesize and synthesize work and solutions to class problems. I can usually figure out where to find simple things such as calendars on websites, but I often need help to navigate and learn how to submit work.

  Digital Citizenship:

I do understand the importance of intellectual property not only in a digital environment, but in every other environment as well. I exercise this by properly citing every piece of information that I use, and making sure to use only intellectual property (be it music, photos, ideas…) that I am allowed to use. On any social networking sites, I am always sure to only connect with people who I know personally.

  Creativity and Innovation:

I have had some experience using a few different forms of creative technology, such as photo and video editing, but only as far as grade 10 media arts and grade 11 film classes go. I have never really uploaded many creations before.

  I Most Need to Work On:

I need to work on research and information fluency the most. When I need to do online research, I often find myself guessing at what sort of sites I should and should not be using. I would like to learn how to know where to look and what to look for when doing research online. 

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Blog prompt #1

So far my favorite project that I have done in high school was my grade eleven film project. Each student thought up an idea for a short film, and then we were arranged into groups to put our ideas together and actually create the film from there. We made the film from start to finish, pre-production to post. This project definitely helped to develop many twenty-first century skills for me: Digital literacy: During the filming process we used a few different cameras for different purposes. I learned how to use and operate these different video cameras. After all of the filming was finished, each of the group members had to edit the film in their own way. By doing this I learned how to cut and edit a film from beginning to end credits on an Apple computer. Teamwork and communication: A great deal of teamwork was needed to successfully complete this project. Making a film generally only works out if the people working on it are able to communicate and act as a team. Collaboration: The writing of the script for the films was all about collaboration. Everybody had their own script until we came together and meshed our ideas to create one script and storyline that included bits of each person’s idea. Problem Solving: There are many, many roadblocks on the way to creating a film. From the very beginning when ideas are being changed and suggestions are being made people disagree and problems must be solved. Once the script is written there is the equipment. Maybe this is the wrong thing to say in this course, but I have come to learn that one can never rely on technology. Whether it’s that a memory card has been lost, a camera is broken or simply being used by another group there are always more and more problems to run into. I found that working on the film project was a very good method to develop problem solving skills.