Week 3 Reflection

Engagement Activity 1:

Plus	Minus	Interesting
There are many advantages of using Blogs as a learning tool in the classroom: ·         Being able to give children their own space to post their own interests e.g. articles, videos, photos and games. ·         Other children can give opinions to peers as well as broaden their knowledge through exposure to their friends understanding ·         Teachers can monitor each site to ensure a moderate level of safety. ·         Easy way for teachers to post information to the students so they all get it at the same time. Also reducing printing costs, reducing the class’s footprint on the environment. ·         For distance education students it is a good way for them to communicate with peers that might be a long way away, exposing them to more group work opportunities. ·         Children are interested in using technology as part of their learning therefore enticing them to be engaged in the subject matter.	Some minus’s of using blogs as learning tools in the classroom are: ·      Some children may not be confident enough to use the technologies when comparing their skills with their peers. ·      May not like to post personal information or preferences in a public place. ·      If a teacher is not vigilant in checking sites and monitoring children’s posts and inserts then there is a chance for things like cyber bullying or inappropriate material being found on the pages. ·      It may be overused and irrelevant to subject matter resulting in over stimulation or exhaustion of the novelty making it useless for further tasks. ·      It will take to time to make sure each child knows how to use it effectively and safely, reducing learning time on the subject matter.	Some of the interesting issues or implications of using blogs as a learning tool would be: ·           Are there enough computers or resources for each child to work equally? ·           How will they be set up in a classroom or will they have to allocate special times to go to the computer labs? ·           What limits or restrictions are placed on the children as to what they can post on their or how they use it? ·           What type of subjects can they use it for? ·           What age group would benefit from this learning tool?

Engagement Activity 3:
The use of a wiki to support, facilitate and transform is an inevitable change education is facing. There are many strengths, weaknesses, opportunites and threats to introducing this in a classroom as demonstrated in a SWOT analysis on my wiki space. Click on the link to view this table. 
http://racheldahl.wikispaces.com/SWOT+analysis+on+using+a+Wiki+in+the+classroom

Engagement Activity 5:
Incorporating the use of the World Wide Web or even static websites into our classrooms as learning tools has been used since the introduction of these types of technologies into main stream society however for educational purposes, they have not been exploited enoughnto reveal a deep understanding of their true potenital as a fantastic resource. The best way for me to give insight into each side of the argument, fairly was to brainstorm using a PMI analysis which can be found on my website. Click on the link to view this site:
racheldahlmanaginge-learning.weebly.com

This cartoon I found while searching for other information for my blog, wiki and website, is a realistic representation of how some children would percieve current teaching methods when compared to their current social, economic and technologic learning experiences:

Photo courtesy of Tech - in - Print.