Being Creative

I’m not one for embracing creativity; I would normally avoid it at all costs. But I did enjoy this task; it involved three people including myself creating a text message that described the function of the human heart. Thanks to iPhone screen shot it looked really good!

Vygotsky; Zone of Proximal Development

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was devised by Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist. The ZPD refers to the area between what a child can learn on their own and what they cannot do. In this area the child can complete a task with the help of someone else i.e. teacher, parent, classmate. In order to maximise the amount of learning children should always be taught in the ZPD in order to challenge them and keep them interested. If a child is given a task to complete that allows them to stay inside their ‘comfort zone’ they will become bored and loose interest in the task whereas if you teach them beyond the ZPD they will struggle, become frustrated and again loose interest in the task. If children are always taught beyond the ZPD it may affect their confidence and may affect their performance in the classroom.

Therefore ZPD is highly important in the cognitive development of children.    

Piaget; Object permenance

One of the most highly influential theories in Cognitive development proposed by Piaget was the theory of object permanence.

This refers the ability of the child to understand that an object still exists even though the object can no longer be seen or heard. For example, if a toy is on the floor and a blanket is place over the toy so the child is unable to see it the child will assume the object no longer exists or when playing peek-a-boo the child will be amused as they believe that the person keeps disappearing and reappearing. When either object (toy or person) is out of sight the child will not look for them behind the persons hands or under the blanket as they don’t understand that the object is still there it’s just hidden.

Piaget; Conservation

Piaget was one of the leading Constructivist theorist in Cognitive Development, his theory's are some of the most influential in his field. One of his most famous theories is the Conservation. The context of Conservation happens in the Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development. Piaget noted that children in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information, and are unable to take the point of
view of other people, which he termed egocentrism.

This can be seen in this YouTube video on conservation.

The iPad. Technology at it's best?

As this topic is based on technology I thought I’d do some research into the most revolutionary product in education today, the iPad. Should we be using them in schools? Is there any need for them to be used in substitution of books? Or should we keep up with the advancement in technology and embrace the use of them in education?

You can’t help but wonder if it’s too much instantly available information. Are we relying more on the use of iPads and other similar products instead of just learning and remembering information. Now that we can find out the atomic weight of copper or the opening lines of a Shakespearean play and the touch of a button, are we really learning?

Apple products are great, I don’t think I could live without my iPhone now, but do they make us lazy? They have spell check and auto correct on text messages, so we don’t even have to try when sending a quick text, and the auto correct will correct the misspelled word instantly so you won’t even realise you’ve made a spelling mistake. So are Apple products really useful when it comes to education?

However iPads are becoming more and more common in the classroom today. Children as young as five are using iPads in some schools. With thousands of educational apps and books available to download directly onto the iPad and textbook updates instantly downloaded there’s no wonder so many choose to use it.

I found this clip on YouTube showing the uses of the iPad in all levels of education, it shows all the great uses of the iPad.

Voki in the Classroom

 

 

 Voki is an application that allows students to express themselves through an avatar. They create their very own avatar which is completely unique to them and they can customise to look like themselves or take the identity of an object. Voki is used in many ways; one of the most useful ways of the use of Voki I have found is in the use of Oral Tests. The student is able to use their avatar in the oral test to avoid any pressure or embarrassment of oral test in front of a classroom; it can allow the student to perfect their oral test in order to achieve higher marks.

Here’s a video I found on YouTube of the use of Voki in an oral test, and the opinions of students who have actually used the programme. 

 

Glogster in the Classroom

Glogster is a social network that allows users to create free interactive posters, or glogs. It is being used more and more in classrooms as an interactive tool to engage learners and allow them to create colourful and informative posters which is unique to them. It requires you to sign up you get to choose from 3 packages a free package, a $2.49 per month package or an $8.25 per month package. It’s easy to use once you get used to the functions and formats. After doing some research on the use of glogster in classrooms I found this short video clip on YouTube of the use of glogster in a class of 7/8 year olds in Hosmer School in Watertown.

Pros and Cons of Web 2: Twitter

Twitter is one of the largest social and media networking sites. It was founded in March 2006; it has over 500 million registered uses and generates around 340 million tweets a day. It has numerous uses and I have taken a few screen shots to demonstrate these uses. This is the iPhone version of the App, it’s much more convenient and user friendly than the website. Millions of tweets are at your fingertips with this App.

This is what the news/tweet feed looks like. When you ‘Follow’ a person, there tweets are posted here for their ‘Followers’ to view. As you can see you can follow almost anyone on twitter, from President Barack Obama to the fashion magazine ‘Vogue’ and musician Tinchy Stryder.

‘Tweets’ are 140 character posts; the user can tweet about anything they like and include other twitter profiles for example if someone was to mention my profile in a tweet they would start it with ‘@HayleyPope_.....’, they can also contain pictures that can be uploaded straight from your iPhone by pressing the camera shape button along the bottom, you can also tell people where you are in a post by pressing the arrow button and your location will be picked up by the GPS function on the iPhone and it can also include ‘hash tags’. Hash tags are like ‘labels’ on this blog. The hash tag is this symbol # in front of a word or phrase; they allow you to view any posts that relate to the hash tag.

When a hash tag is used in lots of tweets by different people they become ‘Trends’. This is what the list of trends looks like. Obviously they change throughout the day as more and more people tweet about different things. Trends allow you to see who else is talking about the topic, for example if I clicked on the #snowmemories trend I would be able to see who is talking about it and what they said about it.

You can also see what everyone is talking about by typing in a word or phrase into the search button. For example as it is a snow day I typed in ‘Snow’ and it takes you straight to a tweet from BBC news about the snow disruption which instantly takes you through to the information at the touch of a button.

This is the profile of Swansea Metropolitan University. Here you can see any updates, upcoming events or any information to do with the University.

This is a great example of how convenient the use of twitter is. Due to the snow, a tweet was produced to inform followers of the uni that it would be closed today. As you can see 14 people have ‘retweeted’ this tweet which passes the message on to even more people.

However with all these great useful features there are some downfalls with the social network. For example it has been known as a gateway for cyber bullying, with users receiving abusive messages and abusive tweets using hash tags so the tweets are made public so everyone using twitter can see the tweet, resulting in humiliation for the victim. However it should be noted that twitter allows users to make their profiles private so they can control who can see their information and tweets, also any abusive messages/tweets can be reported and can result in the bully being blocked from using the social network.

Get organised for 99p!

Being a uni student, organisation is a key attribute. As easy as it is to scribble notes down in a diary, I've spent a fortune on them and never used one for more than two weeks. But surprise surprise, Apple has made an App to do it for me! Its called ‘Classes’ and costs around 99p. I'm constantly on my phone so it’s a fantastic idea to keep on top of all my readings, homework and exams.

Here's a few screen shots of the App. This is what the home screen looks like, it’s the ‘week view’ of my timetable, all the lectures are colour coded to make it easier to read (you choose the colour when putting in the timetable info).

This is what the ‘day view’ of the App looks like, as you can see the lectures name, room number and lecture title are all there as well as the time they start and finish. During the lecture it also tells you how long is left. As you can see there are two little notification bubbles across the bottom menu on the ‘Homework’ and ‘Exam’ button. These notification bubbles also show on the main screen of the phone until they are completed.

This is what the ‘Homework’ section looks like. Again there colour coded, they include the homework title and due date. Once you’ve completed the home work you just click the little circle and it takes the notification bubble off the main screen and homework button so you know you’ve completed it.

The ‘Exam’ section looks similar to the ‘Homework’ section, colour coded and lecture names. But it also shows you the time and date of the exam along with the finishing time. It really is a great App and well worth the 99p. Fab bargain for students!

World Education Blog: Why I'm following it

The world education blog is a blog which I’ve chosen to follow on my blog page. This is a great blog which gives readers an insight into education around the world. The aim of the blog is to raise fundamental questions of ‘Education for All’ and to become a discussion forum for everyone interested in promoting the right to quality learning. It has loads of different links to similar blogs and relating websites. It’s very informative and it is continually updated in order to keep information relevant. It has a great feature that allows you to select an author so you can see all the posts of your preferred author. The blog allows you to email subscribe which sends any new posts or comments on any posts you’ve commented on. As well as any new information from relating websites. http://efareport.wordpress.com/

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson talks about the structure of schools and how that structure destroys the creativity of children. He uses a very powerful statement ‘how is it possible to educate a whole generation if we are unaware of what the future will consist of’. The listener can’t help but ponder over the fact that we are educating pupils for the soul purpose of gaining future employment but as Sir Robinson states we are unaware of any future circumstances so in that case, our education curriculum isn’t as effective as we once thought.

He talks about schools becoming more inclusive and more aware of individual talents. All children are creative in different ways; some are musically talented whilst others are very gifted in mathematics. No child should be treated the same. They need the opportunity to develop and establish their own unique talents.

He also goes on to talk about ‘academic inflation’. This is referring to the devaluation of qualifications and how employers and universities are demanding the highest qualifications available. For example, students like me in Swansea Met Education Studies have experienced this type of academic inflation. Prior to our enrolment and attendance at Swansea Met the entry requirements to our continuing qualification (PGCE) where significantly lower than the requirements we are expected to possess. These entry requirements are expected to rise again in the near future.      

Sir Robinson’s points are very thought provoking and they are very relevant for education today. However his points can be quite contradictory as he believes that creativity should be considered as important as mathematics and linguistics and should play a much bigger part in the curriculum, but he doesn’t address those who don’t have the creative skill sets required for art, music or acting. Some children who are more comfortable doing maths or history shouldn’t be forced into creative subjects based on the judgements that other children do better in creative subjects.                                         

 

If Sir Robinson believes that children who have creative strengths should be given more opportunities to develop their strengths then so should children with academic strengths.