Outcomes

In the beginning of the task i  found the social learner aspect of the task to be most difficult to understand. I felt some information and instructions on how to complete the task were extremely vague and as it was only early in the semester i was hesitant to ask questions and admit confusion. After lectures 28/02 and 06/03 the task became much easier to follow and understand, after this point i felt a lot more confident in the construction of my social resource. 

Whilst composing my instruction and researching my social spaces i discussed many of my options with other students in the class so as to ensure i was on the right path and to assess whether others would find my chosen resource easily accessible. 

In conclusion i feel that through Task one i have been able to expand my knowledge on the use of technologies not only for use in the classroom but for day to day use also. I feel i am more confident in my use of technology than when i first started in the unit and will be able to better use technologies for other assignments. Documenting what i have learnt through my blog has also given opportunity to see ideas and knowledge produced in writing and there for reflect on it as it has expanded. 

Technologies

After now having completed my web page and the research of m three technologies i was able to assess the usefulness of each three technologies in relation to how i would use each resource. I chose to asses the usefulness of Google form, Survey monkey and kwiksurveys as part of my social learner. My intended use for my social resource was to establish the preferred catering choices in the event of a party. Using facebook i would invite guests to the event and upon RSVP, if RSVP'd yes would then be requested to follow the directions to the polling page where guests would be allowed one vote and also the ability to view current statistics.

Google form is an extension onto google drive which allows online users to share, create and customise any form of document including surveys which is was my intended use. User do not need to sign up to the resource, and are provided with a wide range of templates and document types. Although the resource provides a wide range of selection it appears more difficult to navigate in creating the survey where as in survey generators such as kwiksurvys and survey monkey these are more effective and quick in publishing.

Survey monkey unlike google forms requires users to sign up to a username and password in order to use their website. Basic sign up allows users to use basic tools and for more advanced tools users must purchase their tools. As survey monkey is only a basic user provider for free use this limits what users can create and publish. Guests whom also wanted to vote would also have to create an account on survey monkey causing this to be some what inconvenient for guest use also.

Ultimately i chose to use kwiksurvey for my social resource. kwiksurvy is a free social resource that allows users to publish, create and customise three different forms of data; polls, surveys and quizzes. I chose to use the polls application of kwiksurveys, as this was easily accessible and also easy to create. Kwiksurveys provided a link directly to the poll published and those whom voted did not need to sign up for an account unlike with Survey monkey. Guest were provided also with the opportunity to view post voting the current statistics where as with both Google form and Survey monkey this option was not provided.

Social Resource

Part two of this task requires us to research three social resources, in relation to a specific event and use one of these three resources to assist in solving any problems we may encounter with in the event. Once we have first investigated three social resources to assist in our event, we must then choose one of these three social resources and demonstrate how this resource will assist us. This will be done through printed instructions, screen shots and also a PDF pasted onto the social resource page of your website  to be documented to a partner who will attempt to follow these instructions and carry out the actions provided.

I have chosen to base my social resource task on the event of a party, this party will provide food and drinks to all guests but to carry out the party as the host I would like to first know the preferred food my guests would like to be served. Through the research of three social resources I will create invitations using a Facebook event which will include s link to a surveying page,  that will request all guests to tick either attending or not and if attending to also choose which food they would prefer to be served, out of three options.

I will research two online tools to create invitations to be sent in the mail, an event/website in which a survey could be added to and guests whom click attend will survey as to what food they would prefer and upon completing this survey will be shown statistics of the most popular choice at that point.

Website progress

Since the beginning of the semester I have made large amounts of progress in the development of my website and my blog from when I first published them. Since day one I have already noticed a better understanding for the use of technology and development of blogs and websites. At this point I have been able to develop all three required pages of my website and add information to two of these three. On my website I have learnt how to add hyperlinks to my posts so as to transfer to a new page with more information on my topic, add photos to pages, of myself or images from university.

At this point I have found unit EDN113 to be very useful in my development in technology as prior to the class I had little to no knowledge of the number of the things I could do online and the tools I could use to incorporate into teaching later on.

I am yet to add my information in relation to my social learner to my website but am in the process of investigating three social resources at this point in time and hope to have added information in relation to my social resource by tomorrow afternoon.

Paper Blogs.

On the 28/02 we partook in a task of which could be used with in the class room to promote technology. As the students we were asked to create a paper blog. Each student was asked to write on a piece of paper a blog recount of our first two weeks at university, assessing it in blog terms.

We then used coloured pieces of card to display our blogs as if they were online. Using this card our hand written blogs were glued to the piece of paper and using coloured card and other decorative tools such as coloured pens, coloured paper and more. The aim of this task being that we use creative materials to represent a technological application.

As a class we were then asked to walk around the workshop room and read one or two other peoples blogs and to then using a sticky note, post a comment onto their blog in the same form as you would use online. This gave students the opportunity to get an idea of how others may have been posting online and also gains an idea of how many others will have been feeling similar to themselves a out the first couple weeks at university.

Through this task we had identified an activity that not only we had enjoyed but with correct equipment younger children with in the class room would also enjoy and could do for s number of hours or over a number of lessons through out a term. Not only would this task be useful for creativity task but also to educate children on What a blog is, Why it is used, Who may use it, language used in a blog and maybe even to raise early awareness of cyber bullying.

21st century learning

On the 06/03, our lecture explored the ides of "21st century learning and technology".  This idea explored how we could redevelop class rooms and Australians design to learning so as to stimulate the minds of young children in today's society. A number of schools around Australia have adapted new ways of teaching so as to in some ways experiment how children learn in regards to these teaching methods and their learning environment.  Immersion learning proposes that we create classes without periods, that instead we have fixed blocks of time dedicated to a specific subject such as one week to maths the following English and so on continuing through the pattern. As well as this was a quote by Steve Jobs at an apple convention where he states "tear down education designed for the 19th century to replace it for an education of the 21st century". Such discussion is useful so as to develop a better understanding for the need to include and use technology in the class room so as to engage with students and create the new generation of learners.

An example of a 21st century school is http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/funky-school/story-e6frg8h6-1226130668112#. This is a school in Australia's North West, Sydney where class rooms are not made up of your common 20 to 30 but up to numbers of 120. Students are not expected to sit down and sit facing the front of the class room where technically there is no front as there are no more than three walls. This is an example of a 21st century school where a learning environment has been developed to suit today's 21st century our technology and our children. This link is useful to us as university students as it represents an example of different teaching environments and causes us to consider the kind environment we would like to teach in and how we would form our own teaching environment to best benefit our students and best stimulate their learning.

Task 1: Creating my website

As part of task one, I have began to create my website and at this point have been able to include a brief bio of myself, an image and to also create my social learner and contact page. At this stage I am finding it difficult to create my page but am taking the process slowly so as to ensure I am creating my page correctly or at least trying to make as little mistakes as possible. I found week twos classes to be extremely useful as after week two I felt  I had a better understanding for aspects of task 1 that I before found confusing as we were given the opportunity to discuss the definitions of both a blog and a website there for breaking the task down to form better knowledge of what is expected from the student.