jess’s uni space

this is a brief and very simplified piece of writing about myself. i have also displayed a couple of photos of myself and important people in my life. these photos are also relevant to the information in the autobiography.

during my study week, i ensured that all my weekly posts were up too date as well as my portfolio items. i also ensured that all me readings were up to date and that i understood everything in the readings.

i also completed my portfolio item number four. i found it difficulty to decide what information to put into my autobiography. i found some photos that were relevant to the information that i had talked about. this portfolio item was very useful as i believe i will be able to use this function when i am teaching.

today i spent most of the lesson finalising my portfolio item which was the webquest anaylsis. i learnt new skils while doing this which included adding the hyperlink into my blog, and marking someone else work to this level in which i have never had any experience so far.

we also went through the next portfolio item which was to make a document in word about us and our history, using the publisher software.

 i found that both of these portfolios are useful as i will be able to use them in my future career as a teacher as the webquest i can use to help my students learn about a particular topic in a fun and different way. i can also use publisher to get them to make a document in publisher, either as an information or as an english task (biography). overall this was a very useful lesson and i feel i benefited greatly from it!

Today i finalised my portfolio item 2, as i had not added enough information in the portfolio. i finished my portfolio item and then we discussed the next portfolio item which is due next week.

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.

webquest 2 - what it means to be Australian - http://www.beenleigss.qld.edu.au/webquest/actualquest/actualquest.htm

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 chose to do my web search on the Movie The Other Boleyn Sister, after just having seen the movie i am interested as to what people thought of the film, as well as if they liked the film as much as myself.

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

Today we went through how to write a blog and what the difference between saving and publishing it is.  We also went through how to navigaye around our site, as well as adding an attachment by pressing upload and finding the file and adding a title.

I also learnt that i need to add these widgets  (search, categories, links and meta) onto my page through the presentation file.

i also learnt how to add someone elses  link onto my page through the blogroll option. i also learnt how to put my blogs into a category.

 i also learnt some helpful web searching techinques, that will be useful when doing my own uni assignments,  researching for information when i am teaching, and helping the children my class research their own assessments. hopefully they will take this information into their secondary years of their education.

i was reading the study guide from week one and found it interesting to read about how ICT was introduced into schools and why it was interested. ICT is technology that can be used when gathering , accessing, presenting or communicating information. i also found it useful to know that while ICT can mean things other than computers such as digital cameras, video camers and computers, ED113 will be limited to computers only.

i also learnt in workshop 3 that the internet means a series of interconnected networks. to find your IT address use this time: DNS (Domain Name System) where every computer has  a name and a number and this program will be able to find the name for the user.

First, i would just like to say HI!! and welcome to my blog site. I am very excited about creating my blog. 

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