Interactive Whiteboard - Don't Try This At Home!

"Don't try this at home". 

That's usually written alongside something that is dangerous or not recommended to people without the proper tools or training. And this should be written on an interactive whiteboard but replaced with "Don't try this at school". 

Why do you ask?

1. Because it is dangerous

2. Because it is not recommended for people without the proper tools or training. 

You think I'm being dramatic, don't you? 

When the smartboard was first introduced to my grade 6 class, the teacher spent about 20 hours of our class time trying to figure out how it worked. The result? We fell behind, we got distracted and lost interest in what the teacher was saying in and among his confusion. 

When he finally figured it out the danger continued because then we found a fascination with the tool, the rainbow effects, the smiley face sticker pen, the colouring in and being able to write in a line of gold starts. This took all the attention of the class as we spent more time debating which effect the teacher ought to use, marveling at the colours and fighting over whose turn it was to have a go writing than we spent doing Maths, English and Geography combined. 

Therefore I say it is dangerous. 

And not recommended for people without the proper tools or training? Well that is a given that learning how to use a smartboard in school hours in front of a class with distract from your own teaching ability, annoy you and could lead to you trying to use an interactive whiteboard as a electronic whiteboard. Which it isn't.

 An interactive whiteboard is a creature of its own that traditional teachers who have been conditioned to blackboards or whiteboards need the proper education to take full advantage of, or else it might just take advantage of you. 

Smartboards are smart, but you have to be smarter. 

I'm not against the interactive whiteboard in any way. I'm just sick of seeing teachers and lecturers alike stumble their way around them. Learn how to use it and it could be the best new tool to further your educating, not to distract or to take anything away from it. 

Rant over. 

Cheers, Teach!

So the thought of  self-directed, tech-mediated learning has been on my mind for the last few weeks. This thought came to me when watching a video that stated:

Any teacher that can be replaced with a computer, should be. 

My problem with this is that I know teachers like that. I know teachers who just couldn't teach well and I can honestly say that a computer would have done a better job.

However I have so many social and economic arguments against educators being replaced by technology. If there is the resource for a teacher to be employed, they should be. And no, I'm not just fighting for my own future job availability. Here are my arguments:

Students already spend too much time engrossed in a screens that they are surrounded with and this makes them blind to the world around them and we become desensitised to human behaviour and human emotion.

Young people can often hide behind the confidence of a screen and digital world. Although this might empower students temporarily, the confidence they gain could remain only behind a screen and not transfer to their daily face-to-face interactions that will always be necessary as humans.

South Africa struggles with intense unemployment rates and we find technology taking the jobs from humans on a daily basis. To boost employment, GDP and quality of living for South Africans, we can't afford to be taking their jobs away.

In a teacher to child relationship, I feel that the human contact is necessary for one is so influenced by the input and investment educators make in the lives of their learners.

Above are only some of my arguments against online self-directed, tech-mediated learning.

HOWEVER

When distance learning comes into play and the community/individuals cannot afford a good education taught by an actual person or don't have the resources to have a school infrastructure, then I find a need for distance learning can be filled by technology.

One would just have to carefully moderate how it affects the growth of children intellectually, socially and emotionally.

Not ready to say, "Cheers, Teach" yet!

Don't BReckless with Social Media!

Social media is sometimes painted as a dark and scary place. I prefer to see it as a place where all the lights are on, as the world is watching social media. Constantly.  If you don't believe me, watch anyone between the ages of 14-25. Our eyes are constantly glued to a screen and receiving input from there, or as my #PGCEmix lecturer likes to put it, students are constantly "staring at their laps and smiling". 

Instead of letting social media control us, let's master it and control it. 

Therefore, after reading the blogs written by Davis and Provenzano, I have devised ways of mastering technology in my lessons to gets students captivated. 

My Curriculum Studies specializations are Accounting and Mathematical Literacy, 

Accounting

- Use online shopping sites such as Superbalist to track the effect and stages of a transaction. 

- Furthermore use the transaction to work out VAT. 

- Use Social Media blogs and comment sections to add onto other students definition of assets, liabilities and owners equity. 

- For research into company culture, try get a company to reply to your tweet.

- Inspect a companies Facebook profile for information for projects.

Mathematical Literacy

- Use twitter retweets to calculate the effect of exponential growth. 

- Calculate probabilities of Instagram likes with or without #Hashtags. 

- Calculate the pattern and relationship between the amount of #Hastags and retweets. 

- Time the average amount of time it takes to get a instagram like at different times of the day, to calculate how frequent people are visiting social media. 

The possibilities are running wild and my mind is racing. I just thought to myself, I should write these down for future reference... then I remembered I was writing it on a blog so its not going anywhere. 

Woah. Sometimes I sound silly. 

Thank you for this task, it has given me a brilliant idea for my next Glaskas. 

 

Improvisation and Innovation

So now I'm improvising. Cause that's what Digital Pedagogy is - improvisation. When reading that line in the article written by Morris I decided to stop there and spend the rest of this postgraduate certification improvising. Or maybe that's not what he meant.

Morris writes, "Pedagogy has at its core timeliness, mindfulness and improvisation."

I realise now that this doesn't mean I can wing it. But what does it mean. Words that Morris used to describe teaching in a modern sense were "instanaeous", "momentary" and a "vital exchange". When looking at how traditional approaches view teaching, there is no exchange or conversation. it is a one way feed of information from lecturer to pupil.

How does digital pedagogy fit into all of this though? Well, it is the medium of a conversation and interaction. This occurs between different staekholders or role players, all of which can change their roles. Students learn from lecturers, learn from students and learn from the vast resources out there on the world wide web. In this case the learning is  not limited to institutions of learning and expands to include many sources of knowledge and experience.

Morris also wrote how "LMS (Learning Management System) largely erased mindfully aware teaching, and made excuses for unconscionable practice."

LMS was not ready to improvise or "respond to a new environment". Through this improvisation I learnt that experimentation is the beginning of transferring the knowledge in new and innovative ways.

Quite interestingly to me, the article concluded with some thoughts to ponder. The one was this:

"What tools are available for me and my students to PLAY with?" 

The use of play furthermore brings into mind the idea that we need to make learning fun and bring it into all aspects of life. We used to say there was a time for work and a time for play, but why can't they be at the same time?

Stomml wrote how Digital Pedagogy is more "screwing around" than 'systematic study". Does this encourage us to not see the digital universe as a scary realm but one where we can have fun and explore?
I think Yes

Digital Pedagogy

This blogpost is part of our first assignment for Computer Use in PGCE. I will be discussing an article by Fyfe, names Digital Pedagogy Unplugged (2011).

A daunting task, if not disected and deconstructed, is to try understand Digital Pedagogy on your first try. Breaking the concept up - Digital defines how we communicate (not only through electronics, but in the broader sense of the world). Furthermore Pedagogy refers to the methods of teaching knowledge that has been acquired in a way that it is understandable to someone not as knowledgeable about the subject matter.

This is where I start. Full of knowledge and holding a degree but unable to communicate it effectively yet. I do not have the knowledge and experience that teachers I grew up with have. But what do I have? An understanding of the current generation and their dependence and reliance on technology. This is why I am to use technology as a tool, something I have mastered, to assist me in presenting my curriculum.

Fyfe insists that their are both positive and negative aspedcts relating to Digital Pedagogy if not carefully considered. This speaks to the fact that one must not have sufficient knowledge and the ability to swiftly use technology through teaching, but also understand when it is actually necessary.

If one relies on technology to live (to teach), in what world is one living (teaching)?  - Me.

No longer BRekless.

My face the day I passed my BAcc Degree. 

You couldn't take away my smile if you tried. 

Hello New World.

Typing letters may be a new thing for me. 
After 3 years of a bachelor of accounting undergrad, I am programmed to think in terms of numbers and formulas. Psychology, Anthropology and Pedagogy are foreign concepts but ones I am looking forward to exploring. 

Nonetheless, Welcome to my Blog. 

BAcc Yourself, or Back Yourself, aims to provide a platform in which accounting students are exposed to a world of opportunity outside of the Van Der Ster building as well as supporting and comforting those who struggle with many of the same issues I did during the course of my undergrad.