Rationale

Over the last couple of weeks I have created an account with about 10 different sites. In the beginning of this assignment I thought okay I’m not that long out of school how much more can there really be? A lot I discovered, there is a whole new world out there I didn’t even know about. As students are digital natives, we as teachers need to try and be one-step ahead to keep the students engaged in school, which means leaving our comfort zones and joining the students on the technological roller coaster. As Prensky (2005) states “if you cannot engage young people in education you will enrage them”.


Throughout this assignment I have discovered some amazing tools that I will be using in my classroom they are:

Really Simple Syndicate –
When students are working in-group activities, they have the opportunity to add their peers blog addresses and keep in contact therefore provide new ideas for the activity. To ensure the students privacy and safety the learning manager is able to access the RSS and monitor the progress.
Avatars –
In school this can be used to engage the students in a lesson or unit of work. The learning manager is also able to teach the students how to use the tool giving them the ability to introduce this tool into their own work.
PowerPoint –
Can be published on to SlideShare after being presented in the classroom therefore students are able to access it again in their own time.
Picnik –
The students could put together photos taken on an excursion and they then have to customise them in picnik showing their ability to manipulate photos using different editing tools.
Quizzes –
Learning mangers are able to set quizzes for the students to complete for homework. An advantage to the learning manager is that the quizzes can be over and over, and can be changed accordingly.
Google Earth –
This can be used in a range of studies such and maths with time differences and geography. It can also be used for investigating the ocean floor

As there is such a big workload when creating these databases, mediafire is a great way to store them once they have been implemented to use with again and again. By storing them on Mediafire you are able to take them with you to different schools and make any appropriate changes if necessary and depending on the key learning area.

The first of the engagement theory is the relate stage which means it emphasises team efforts and morale that involve communication, thinking and working interdependently, planning and management and using social skills.

Creating is the second part of the framework, this has been designed to make learning a creative and purposeful activity. An example of this in the classroom could be students following a webquest which for the evaluation stage the students need to present their findings to an authority figure.

The final stage of the framework is known as the donating stage. This stresses the value of making a useful and adequate contribution to the students learning. Referring again to the webquest students are given a real life problem to solve, when solution has been made the outcome is one that could be used to solve the problem. (Kearsley & Shneiderma,1999)


I personally feel that technology plays an important part in students learning and should be taught in all schools, however this is just not possible. The majority of State Schools that students attend do not have adequate technological facilities to give their students the advantages that Private Schools have. For learning Managers to be able to implement and teach these new web based tools, sufficient training needs to be provided to ensure that students and teachers are both adequately educated.

One of the major obstacles schools need to overcome when implementing these tools is the security on school computers. Yes it is there to protect students from predators and explicit content, however with these security measures in place it also puts restrictions on these educational tools.

Throughout my elearning journey I have learnt some amazing internet based tools. I feel that they are an amazing way to get the students engaged in the classroom, giving them the opportunity to power up when they come to school rather than power down. Throughout my teaching I am hoping to be able to implement these tools to my students with the help of appropriate and adequate resources.

Reference List
R. Kayne, 2009 what is a Computer Avatar? http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-computer-avatar.htm

Kearsley, B & Shneiderman, B, Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning http://home.sprynet.com/%7Egkearsley/engage.htm