Interviews and ePortfolios

Today we talked about going for interviews at Primary schools once we come to the end of our DipEd. This made me feel excited, but also made everything we have been learning for the past 4 weeks suddenly become ‘real’. Greg was very helpful in telling us what to expect in an interview, and I’m so grateful for his own personal reflections on not only being interviewed but also being the interviewer, as I feel this information will be invaluable once I start applying for teaching jobs. I was also introduced to Microsoft Publisher in this week’s workshop, where we began to work on our ePortfolios.

The process of creating my own ePortfolio makes me slightly nervous, although it is up to our own individual ideas about what we want to include, and what program we use, I still don’t feel that I have had enough experience to state my teaching philosophy, as I’m not even 100% sure what it is yet! However, I think the ePortfolio is a great idea, and when we were shown a sample one (of a student) in our lecture, I thought it was such a fantastic way to show their progress, and get the students point of view on their own work. I would imagine that this would also make it easier when it comes to writing reports, as the student’s progression through the year is all there in the ePortfolio.

Today in workshop we also played with making our own brochures in Microsoft Publisher. What a great idea for the children in class to use this program to present information they have researched in a different and exciting way. My brochure was on Ireland, and I really enjoyed experimenting with this program, although if I had more time it probably would have looked much more professional! I thoroughly enjoyed todays topics discussed in the workshop! :)

An Introduction to technology in the classroom

Today was our first workshop on using technology in the classroom. I really enjoyed this workshop; Greg (our lecturer/tutor) gave some great points on how 21st Century learners are far more knowledgeable on the use of technology than we might have thought them to be. They have been brought up with technology being a huge part of their lives, and as such will be a major contributor to their learning.

There are certain ideas about using different aspects of technology in the classroom which I had not thought of before, such as having podcasts, which is used by University students every day, but I never thought about it in a Primary Education setting. We were introduced to a program called Inspiration, where we made mind maps and a creative page about ourselves.

I thought the Inspiration program was incredible, I had never heard of it before, and I think in the classroom it would be a very effective tool in consolidating the children’s knowledge of a subject in a creative and individual way. The program promotes children to think critically about a subject, whether it is through making a mind map, or creating their own pages with images, photos and text. I myself ran out of time to do an in depth mind map, so the one shown here is quite simple.

At the end of the first workshop I was really inspired to incorporate technology into my pedagogy, why limit children’s learning to concrete materials when there is so much to be gained by using various aspects and programs in all areas of technology. The one thing I came away with was that the possibilities are endless!