Great Experience

On my professional experience so far I have had the chance to observe a number of different teachers in their practice and it has been a fantastic opportunity, to which I am very grateful!

Although when you go on professional experience you are placed with one mentor to observe and work with, I have found that there are some great benefits in observing a number of different classes. There are so many different operators who all have great ways of approaching their teaching and classroom/behaviour management.

There is no one concrete way towards approaching these things so I feel very strongly about getting a wide berth of experiences in terms of observing experts do this in their environment. It’s a great way to take a look at how you approach teaching and develop strategies to better your skills.

I’m looking forward to next week!

Overhead Projectors? ..really..?

I can safely say that I did not expect schools to still have overhead projectors sitting around! I got quite a shock when I walked into a class and an overhead projector was being used to deliver a lesson. I guess I just thought that with most classrooms having built in digital projectors that the good ol’ overheads would become obsolete?

Having said that, I can definitely see the appeal of the OP, they are simple, easy to use, and don’t ever really malfunction. But the limitations are something which will always turn me towards utilizing the digital projectors. They are an invaluable resource in the classroom. But maybe the question here is, has there been enough PD in how to utilize the digital projector’s to their upmost potential? All interesting thoughts..

This post was inspired by one of my fellow uni students who also had the pleasure of seeing an overhead projector at her school.

https://daniellecrocker1.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/overhead-projector/

A look into the future of Secondary School English

This is great!

Those were the words that kept running through my mind as I sat in on my first observation of a Senior English class in the first week of my professional experience placement. The students were working in groups and each given a factor (social, religious, racial) in which to gather some information about in relation to the context and submit it into an online area (blog) the teacher had set up for the class to use. The classroom laptops were handed out and were about 3 laptops to a group of about 5 or 6 students. However, there were one or two laptops which were not working and so one group only had 2 laptops to do their research on.

Now from my experience of when I was in high school doing this sort of task in class my thoughts were that not much work was going to get done as they didn’t have enough students researching.

As I came back around to see what each group was doing, I saw 3 students in that group with their phones out. So of course my reaction was to walk over to tell them off. But then as I got closer, I noticed what was on the screens of the 3 students phones, journal articles! The students saw that they couldn’t use the classroom resources to complete their research to contribute to the task, so to make sure they were pulling their weight in the group, they retrieved credible and useful articles of research on the context their group was given by using their phones.

Now many people might say ‘big deal I do that all the time’, but for me it was just a moment where I realized how education is heading in terms of all kinds of technology being a useful resource in the classroom.

It was a great thing to experience and I will not soon forget it.

Sibelius! What a Tool!

Well I am impressed! I knew Sibelius was a good program for composers but I am blown away by how efficient it is! I highly recommend if ever wanting to delve into composition that you head to Avids site and download the free 30 day trial for Sibelius, you’ll be hooked!

I used this program briefly on my last prac but never really delved into quite how much detail it has. I have been using it to compose sheet music lately and keep finding out new and improved ways of speeding up the process. The hotkey design and easy to access instrumentation and transposing aspect is top notch!

Musicians! Teachers! Go here now!

http://www.sibelius.com/home/index_flash.html

Pile it on top!

This little post is in response to one of my fellow students Stefania who has wrote a little blog about being up to her ears in work. I feel you Stef, I feel you. It can get pretty hectic to keep up with everything, and I know I have been really all over the place with my timing of blog posts and for that I do apologize, but there are some nights where I have the time to quickly throw a few up and other nights where I just can’t get there.

But the positive in all this stress is that it teaches us to continue to better our time management skills which is something that has really taken a battering for me over my past few years at uni, but I know I am better for it.

We just keep soldiering on!

https://sandriolo.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/im-backkkkkk/

Planning to integrate ICTs

So I’ve come to the interesting conclusion that when I create lesson plans it fairly easy to throw great ICTs into the lesson to help engage my students in the learning.. BUT when it becomes the question of “Create an ICT rich lesson”.. gee it makes me think, or is the word panic.. no lets run with think.

I love creating new ways of engaging my students using ICTs and I feel as though this comes to me naturally, but I gotta say when I am put to the question of planning a lesson with ICTs being the focus, it can be a little daunting to make sure I have created enough originality.

I guess I’ll see how my views on this change over the weeks to come!