Porker, an intro for a lesson on the heart

I would use this voki to introduce a lesson on the heart. It would be my hook and also help students relate to the upcoming topic more as we would be discussing the different hearts of fish, reptiles and mammals.

Autism and Inclusion

My assignment for supportive learning environments is on Diversity and the form of diversity I have chosen is Autism. This website is great for information and I think even after I have started teaching I will continue to refer back to here. Autism or (ASD) is very common nowadays, with 1 in every 160 kids being diagnosed with some form of Autism. This is extremely scary.

MY WIKI

I have finally worked out how to do a wiki... I was in the wrong spot..I tried Webpaint but it wouldn't work..Now have done it in Wikispaces. Please feel free to check it out. I decided to start one on Biology as that will be one of my KLA's and hopefully I will be able to use it with my students. Wiki's are a multimodal tool that can include written text, pictures, photographs, audio and video or any combination of all these. Students can use these as part of an assignment to gather all information in one place, especially valuable if they need to work as groups. For example if they were studying the Ecosystem. Each student could be given a particular area to research. They can post their information to the WIKI, look at and comment on each others findings, and then work as a group to make the whole project come together for assessment. This would encompass Mode 2 learning by being produced in teams, subject to peer review and student-centred. The teacher could have access to the Wiki to check on progress and offer any hints or good websites. It would also link into Costa's 'Habits of Mind' with persisting, managing impulsivity, and thinking flexibly.
References

Houghton, J. & Sheehan, P. (2000). A primer on the Knowledge Economy. Melbourne: Victoria University
Heath , G.(2001) Teacher Education and the New Knowledge Environment. Fremantle: RMIT University

Engagement Theory and how we can apply this to formulating our lessons

Greg Kearsley & Ben Shneiderman wrote a paper on Engagement Theory. They proposed that "By engaged learning, we mean that all student activities involve active cognitive processes such as creating, problem-solving, reasoning, decision-making, and evaluation. In addition, students are intrinsically motivated to learn due to the meaningful nature of the learning environment and activities.

Engagement theory is based upon the idea of creating successful collaborative teams that work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom. These three components, summarized by Relate-Create-Donate, imply that learning activities:
occur in a group context (i.e., collaborative teams)
are project-based
have an outside (authentic) focus"

The use of a Voki will fulfill some of the components needed especially if students then embed them onto their own Blog. I was even thinking they could have a Biology Blog for our class and upload all assessment items to it utilising our ICT ideas. They would be creating.. Say if we were doing anatomy and dissecting a frog or something similar. They could create a voki of a frog and have it give the introduction. Then research info on what they need to do for the experiment. Also find pictures of the instrumentation they will need and the parts of the body they are exploring. They could then film a student performing the experiment (maybe?) and put that in the Blog and lastly write up their results and findings and post them
References:

Kearsley,G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999) Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Ok Now I get it!!

Jeepers I seem to be one thing after another but anyway... I finally get it.. After reading a few of the others students blogs I now understand what we have to do..I think..
Obviously I am a tad behind in my journalling since some have started after Res school! As you can see I managed to master the VOKI...love them and will definately be working out ways to utilize them in my classwork. I like Tina's idea of using them as an option for students when giving oral reports for those who get stagefright or selfconscious. My daughter, who is 11 has made one for herself too so it is great my children are learning alongside me. I think this will also be a great way of getting students engaged!!! My problem at the moment is that every time I come up with a great idea it is probably more suited to primary age students and I will be in secondary so I need to think a little older.
I came across a great quote in our ICT readings.
"When we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." Wendell Berry

Math teacher very inspriring