Onmywaytechnologyteaching's Blog

NSW Institute of Teachers

onmywaytechnologyteaching — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:13:01 +0000

Finishing up our lectures we looked a little at the NSW Institute of Teachers, who will be the organisation who we have to go to to become accredited as teachers. Our Education units at uni have been aligned with the Elementsthat are required of Graduate Teachers in NSW under the Professional Teaching Standards developed by the the NSW Institute of Teachers. We have begun to develop an ‘professional evidence’ blog that we can use in our accreditation process. The idea is that we fill it with our uni work and practicum experiences while we are still studying so that gathering the evidence we need will be easier. The standards were developed to bring the profession of teaching into line with other mainstream professions (eg. law and medicine) and to set a standard for good teaching so that our students benefit from consistently good teachers.

Click here to view my Professional Evidence blog.

Website of the NSW Institue of Teachers
http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/

The Professional Teaching Standards pdf document;
http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/IgnitionSuite/uploads/docs/Professional%20Teaching%20Standards.pdf

Standards for Graduate Teachers (like myself);
http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/IgnitionSuite/uploads/docs/PTS%20-%20Graduate%20Teacher%20Bro%20Final.pdf

Information on the Accreditation process;
http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/Acc_Accreditation-at-Professional-Competence.html

Click here to return to my Professional Evidence Blog Element 6.1.8, and here to return to Element 6.1.2.

Week 3 Lecture/Workshop

onmywaytechnologyteaching — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:09:09 +0000

We attended an excursion to IKEA for our week 3 lecture and used it as an opportunity to look at different aspects of the syllabus in action and as a means to collecting some resources to use in our workshop activity.

Des had these aims for our excursion:

- to collect resources using ICT

- examine sources of ICT learning material

- to develop an excursion project for either the Stage 4 Technology (Mandatory) syllabus or the Information and Software Technology Syllabus.

… so after attending and taking photographs of a range of items in IKEA (mean while scaring the IKEA store people for our potential copy write infringements because of a miscommunication between Des and the store, and learning what to guard against as a teacher) and noting their use of ICT in store (we particularly liked the “Design Your own Kitchen” program that uses software to create your kitchen plan and then fill it with IKEA products) we headed back to class to have a go at developing a student project that would make the most of our excursion experience.

See the final results; click here.

During our third week prac we also signed up to WordPress to get a blog to use as our e-portfolio, this blog in fact.

Link to Atomic Learning website: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/uk/wordpress

Week 2 Workshop

onmywaytechnologyteaching — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:02:17 +0000

During our week 2 tutorial we focused on a Design Challenge similar to one we could work through with our students. The aim was to see how the Core content of the IST year 7-10 syllabus could be woven into projects with the Options content. Our project focused on the core items Design, Produce and Evaluate and Data Handling, and the option content Digital Media.

Again we used iWeb to complete the tutorial exercise.

Click here to view our design challenge solution; … sorry still coming

Week 2 Lecture

onmywaytechnologyteaching — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:56:51 +0000

Our week 2 lecture was all about the syllabus! It has been really good to start looking at the syllabus with Des and with Arna (our lecturer for EDST447 Technology Curriculum and Teaching 1) because we are beginning to get a better idea of what teaching will be like. Spending the last two years mainly learning content (being a student) we are making the transition to learning what to do with that content (being the teacher).

We learnt that “the syllabus is a subset of a key learning area” (Matejka, 3.3.09), and that our secondary Technology and Applied Studies KLA comes from the Science and Technology KLA for primary.

We discovered that despite sometimes wishing we could decide what we taught our students rather than being told, having an overarching and predetermined “mandatory guide” (Matejka, 3.3.09) for our subjects was not always a bad thing! It is designed so that that every school covers the same content in the same subject, it is endorsed by the Board of Studies (because it is written by teaching professionals) and is intended to “create a comprehensive purpose and understanding of the subjects” (Matejka, 3.3.09).

Matejka, D. (2009). Syllabuses for technology education. Lecture delivered at the Australian Catholic Universtity on the 3.3.09 for EDST441.

Week 2 Workshop

onmywaytechnologyteaching — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:44:44 +0000

During the week 1 prac we reviewed the Mac operating system, and some of its functions (including the possibility of running Windows on a Mac just like an application, WOW!). I run Windows at home so it was good to go over some basics and become more familiar, especially if it does turn out that I end up teaching on Macs in the future.

Link to Atomic Learning website: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/uk/osx_tiger_orientation

We also looked at the program iWeb; a website authoring program that is part of the Mac suite and works using a database. It is so simple to use – impressive and appealing web sites can be created with ease – I can see it being a great tool to use as a teacher preparing for classes and as an activity for students.

Link to Atomic Learning website: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/uk/iweb

We didn’t get to cover creating PowerPoint presentations during class, but I have included the link below, it is a great resource to have access to.

Link to Atomic Learning website: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/uk/ppoint_2004_intro

(NB: I haven’t linked the samples of my work up yet … need to complete them still. I will edit the post later.)

Week 1 Lecture

onmywaytechnologyteaching — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:22:21 +0000

I found our first lecture for EDST441 really interesting and helpful as it kind of reminded me what I am meant to be doing here at uni … which is getting ready to teach. At a very basic level, when I am employed as a teacher I need to be delivering content in line with the syllabus to my students. However, it is much more than that. As a teacher, Des reminded us, we are investing in our student’s futures, and what they do with their futures will have an impact on the future of our nation, and our world.

Technology also has a lot to do with the future, people who want to live, work and communicate in the future will need to be able to use technology. If you want to excel in the future … technology will probably be at the very least, helpful, if not integral to that success.

I found the video Digital Learners by B. Nesbitt really helpful as a tool for opening my eyes to needing to my role as a teacher who uses and communicates with technology in the classroom, for the benefit of my students and their learning.