this program i can use when teaching as i will be able to enhance the childrens learning and make the classes fun through creating a story or lesson out of photos.

Interactive WhiteBoard Presentation

 interactive white board mind map

 class spreadsheet

i had never heard of webquests before and was very interested. i learnt that webquests can be anything from web pages, images, interactive games or videos and using these to educate children. however the use if webquests, especially in primary education, as webquests do not teach the children how to search or look for information, the information is given to them. if searching is part of a learning outcome then a webquest us not the best way.

when making a webquest it is important to pose or ask questions that the children can not mjust regurgitate the answer. children need to read the information, think about the information and answer the question in their own words.

 this information was interesting and will be useful when going out into the work force as a teacher.

I found this site had a lot of text, the question and and lesson for the children was clear but their was alot of text for the children to read. some children become ‘bogged’ down with a lot of words and would not read all of the instructions. sometimes minimal wording is easy to navigate through. this webquest is not interactive, again text is the main learning technique used in the activity. however this webquest does allow the children to read the information provided and then reword what  they have read in their own words to answer the main question of the webquest. the background is very interesting and catches the read or students eye. however there was very few, if any graphics. graphics are important especially for children. the blue and red text may be hard for the children to do, it does stand out against the brown kangaroos background , however some children in the class may been visually impaired and so making it hard for children to read and interpret. therefore they will not gain anything from this lesson. this webquest is also interesting to the students as it is related to them and their lives as they are Australian and it helps them to understand what this means. they can understand what this means even if they or their family came from a different culture or country. i gave this webquest 32/50

webquest- tortise and the hare - http://www.ictpd.net/bj/waitsc/ourwork/group2/index.htm

this webquest is very interactive. there is many graphics, which grabs the childrens attention and allows the children to see what the author and is talking about. the question that the children need to answer, this enables to the children to have the question in the back of their mind while working through the webquest from the beginning. there is minimal text which allows the childrent to easy navigate around the webquest and answer the appropriate question and fill out the worksheets provided by the author. the webquest is about the tortise and the hare which is a well known childrens story, however the author takes into account the fact that not all children may know this story and so provides a link to a website containing this story. this is useful as if the children do not know the story they are unable to complete the webquest. the author also provided links to websites containing information about hares and tortises allowing the children to become aware with the real animal. this site is easy to understand for the children and they will enjoy using this site. i gave this site 33/50.

i found this exercise useful, as some search engines after using the AND more detailed and relevant information about my search. i was surprised as one site that provided personal comments from readers and some reviews were negitive, i quite enjoyed this film while clearly others didnt not. i now believe that a movie review should be left up to the individual!!!!

here are my results The Other Boleyn Sister Movie Review revised

My score was 33. I discovered that my computing abilities are just general. i can do basic word processing and internet processing. my typing is reasonably quick. i am competent at saving my documents, both in my documents and having multiple files. i can work with several documents at a type one.

As i got to the end of my quiz my score began lower as i have had little if any experience with these aspects of computing.

I wish to continue my  computer learning in this course and become more confident using computers. i want to be confident using my computer knowledge with the children in my classroom.

Here are the results of my Competency Quiz