Meet John
Teacher
Profile:
John is a middle school teacher who has been teaching for 14 years. He considers himself as a 'Digital Immigrant' - a person born prior to 1980 who does not have the technological knowledge or skills of the contemporary "Digital Natives", (Prensky, 2001). Last year John's Year 6 class was involved in the trial of the one to one laptop program. John had had little experience with computers over the years except to take students to the school computer lab to allow them to research and type up their assignments. It took a year for John to learn some skills to authentically implement this new tool into his classroom. The following year John was more confident about integrating the technology into his teaching. He continued to build on his knowledge to modify the challenges he set for his students.
John is a middle school teacher who has been teaching for 14 years. He considers himself as a 'Digital Immigrant' - a person born prior to 1980 who does not have the technological knowledge or skills of the contemporary "Digital Natives", (Prensky, 2001). Last year John's Year 6 class was involved in the trial of the one to one laptop program. John had had little experience with computers over the years except to take students to the school computer lab to allow them to research and type up their assignments. It took a year for John to learn some skills to authentically implement this new tool into his classroom. The following year John was more confident about integrating the technology into his teaching. He continued to build on his knowledge to modify the challenges he set for his students.
In the past our Teacher John had often searched the internet to research various topics. Whenever he found a useful site, he would add it to his 'Favourites' list on his computer to use again at a later date. This was a very helpful tool until John needed to access his Favourites list when he was away from home. Frustrated, John looked for a new and improved way to bookmark his sites that would enable him to access them no matter where he was. John discovered a new tool called a Bookmarking site.
Once he had created an account he started creating folders and saved his favourite webpages to them. He discovered that he could choose to keep his hoover private or share it publicly - he could also copy other people's public hoovers as his own pages which inevitably saved him time.
Below is a tutorial about how to create a Hoover with sub-folders of individual topics:
Below is a tutorial about how to create a Hoover with sub-folders of individual topics:
There are a plethora of tools that can help you to improve your presentations or the presentations of your students for assessment. Students require an authentic context for learning. When put in a real-world context Microsoft PowerPoint appears to be one of the most popular Windows based programs for most students to commence learning presentation tools. Other programs such as are Photostory 3 and Animoto are useful for short quick presentations and available to view in the Windows Resources section. These resources are wonderful tools for collaborative and connected learning.
References:
Prensky, M. (2001). "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants," On the Horizon , vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 1-6.
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf