Week 2: day 5

Today the students used Word for Windows to draw 2D shapes during the second half of the Maths lesson. The students showed enthusiasm about this task despite its simplicity.

On another note, the students that are currently overseas on the Asian Experience with the school principal and two other teachers were able to communicate via Skype with the school. There were initial teething problems setting up the connection as the wireless internet still doesn't work and the Apple computer that was set up for the Skype chat was not working. A teacher downloaded Skype onto a different computer using the land connections and after 2 hours was able to set up the connection. This caused a bit of commotion as the students at the school were very excited to see their friends overseas. The connection lasted only a few minutes.

Reflecting about the use of the laptop computers I think that it was being poorly utilised as the task set up for the students did not present any particular benefit or challenge to them . I find that some of the tasks set up to use technology do not promote higher order thinking. I believe that technology should be there to take care of the simple mindless tasks so that more time could be used to analyse, sinthetise or elaborate on a task. Perhaps if the students were asked to tessellate shapes and discover properties about them or to draw 2D nets of a three D shape.

Day 4: ICT for writing

Today the internet was still down. Apparently the Department changed their server for the wireless internet and that means that now every individual netbook has to be amended to be able to access the wireless internet. This caused so much frustration to everyone! To make matters worse, the ICT Coordinator will be going to the Asian Experience Trip (as part of a cultural exchange program) for two weeks. The pressure will now be on the technicians when they come to school next Thursday.

Despite this drawback, the students still used technology today. The teacher set 3 tasks to complete by the end of the 2 hour block:

1. Create three folders (Graduation, Maths, English)
2. Write a piece about "Today I got my new net-book..." and save it in their English folder
3. Write a class list and save it to the Graduation folder

These tasks, although simple, demanded a lot of attention from students as many of them didn't know how or where to save or how to create new folders. This is alarming, as students in Grade 6 should have been shown how to save their work in previous years. This can only be due to a lack of use of technology in the earlier grades. I am finding myself in awe of how little students in Grade 6 know and how much I have overestimated their knowledge.

The level of noise (students chatting) is significantly lower when using computers. Students were focused on their writing and a high level of completion was achieved.

Day 3: Excitement in Grade 6!

Today was such an exciting day for the students as their new net-books arrived. Each student in this class has now their own net-book. Each student was allocated a computer and was given the opportunity to personalise it. That is, they were allowed to use their own backgrounds, cursors, screen-savers, etc. The students were given a "talk" about how to look after them and about the responsibility they now have to make sure that they do the right thing, as nobody else will have access to their computer. The students were very engaged personalising their desktops. Some students did not know how to customise the looks of the desktop, taskbars, screensavers and so on, but most students helped each other. The students were unable to use the internet because the technicians were at the school working on the server and it was down. Some frustration was evident, as now that they had a free hour on the computer students wanted to go on the internet.

The teacher displayed more frustration than the students as she could not check nor send emails (she is in charge of communication at the school).

I focused my observations on the students' reactions today. They were engrossed in making their computer look just as they wanted. Some were frustrated that couldn't access the internet because they couldn't look for photos of their favourite footy player or singer. Some students had no clue what to do and they would come to me or the teacher, but most would ask each other for help. I think this is an important point: students know that their peers can have as much knowledge or more than the teacher in regards to this type of activity on the computers and they resorted to seek assistance from them, whereas when they have a question about a task, maths or spelling they seek assistance from the teacher straight away.

The students were happy to be given this opportunity to personalise their net-books and were working independently or collaborating with each other.

Day two: 16/3/11

Today was a slow day, not much to write about. The students utilised their computers during the Maths session. The whole class does "Mathletics" (a computer program that allows students to practise skills and compete with other students in real time). The session run for 1 hour and the students were focused and engaged. They worked independently and the level of noise in the classroom was very low. Students were practising addition and multiplication.

I am not sure what to think about Mathletics and they way it is utilised in this classroom. I am almost sure that a whole hour of drill practise will not be very engaging for students if the computer was not involved, however I am not sure what is it that engages them. I believe it is the anonymity of it all that they like. I imagine running the same lesson of drill practise and competition within the classroom without the computer and I am sure that the less capable students will disengage and feel embarrassed if they cannot answer fast enough. I think that this technology allows students to practise at their own skill level and in a blanket of anonymity, as they can be playing with someone in another part of the world. In that regard I think Mathletics is a good program to use sometimes in the classroom.

Difficult first day (15/03/11)

This week has been challenging as the data gathering process started. Everything was ready on my part: all the forms were ready and I was excited.


Last week students were given a homework task to produce a weekly time table and enter their class details. The teacher discovered when correcting it that many students did not know how to produce a timetable on the computer. Learning about students' prior knowledge on the use of Word for Windows features, prompted the teacher to instruct her stuedents on how to insert a table in a Word document. This was not stipulated in her weekly planner, but she decided to dedicate an hour to teach her students this skill.



The students in this class share 24 netbooks with the other Grade 6 classes (which will soon change to each student having an individual netbook). The teacher sent the classroom "tech" (a student who is in charge of distributing the netbooks and has been trained to fix minor issues) to distribute the netbooks to the class. This part of the lesson caused a bit of disruption as students were going in and out of the room and the slow loading of the computers delayed the beginning of the lesson. Some students were imapatient at their desks wanting to start. This can be easily avoided by having the computers turned on and loaded before the lesson actually starts to minimise time wasting and anxiety in students. Another issue that this lesson presented was the lack of a projector or an interactive whiteboard for the teacher to demonstrate and model the steps. The teacher had to describe each step, E.g. "go to the tab that reads insert, click on the word table, select..." The problem with this was that a simple step demanded so much explaining that half the students kept raising their hands and asking for help as they were not able to find what they needed.

As I reflect on this particular part of the lesson I know that there is room for improvement. An interactive white-board would have made a big difference. Students could have watched the steps and followed them a lot easier than having to listen to the instructions. However, I noticed that as they were eager and focused on the lesson, the level of engagement was high.

Another important thing I noticed today was that students knowledge of simple things was quite poor and they needed help for things I would not have expected. It was hard between the teacher and myself to attend to everyone. Hands kept going up because students couldn't align the text to the left, couldn't choose the same font for the whole table, didn't know how to undo a step or how to align a title in the centre of the page.

The real issue was when the students finished their table and it was time to print. The printers were not installed in the netbooks therefore the option was to save their work, however the students couldn't save to the network. The only option was to save to their USBs so that the teacher could print them from her laptop. However the teacher couldn't read the students' USBs due to the configuration of the netbooks.

This whole process took about 20 minutes and it developed in frustration. The teacher became more and more irritated as the next student came and her laptop did not read the USB and the students became frustrated as well because they couldn't see the finished product. The teacher couldn't solve the issue, the ICT coordinator was away on camp and the technicians were not at the school on that day.

As I tried to help the teacher and thought about what to do, I realised that printing is not necessary all of the time. The students achieved the goal of learning how to insert a table in a Word document and how to fill it out. The printing frustration can be overcome by creating a class Wiki and displaying the work there.

Preparations

As I prepare myself for the implementation of my research project I found myself thinking and reflecting a lot during the last two weeks about how to define and answer my initial guiding questions. I feel a little overwhelmed about the amount of work required in this process. Although I believed my plan to be thorough I feel that there are so many things that need tweaking. I have already changed a couple of things in my initial plan and after re-reading it many times I believe that I have finally further defined the foci of my research question, which is:

"How can I use ICT daily in my practice to support 21st century skills development and increase students' engagement?" by narrowing skills to the following, which I would like to teach with the aid of technology:

• on-line collaboration, work in teams
• critical thinking, take on complex problems
• oral communication, present
• written communication, write
• learn technology, use technology
• develop citizenship, take on civic and global issues
• learn content, research
• innovation/creativity

I have no doubt that the use of ICT in my teaching practice will enhance my ability to deliver engaging lessons whilst modelling the use of modern tools of communication, complex research, productivity, organisation, on-line collaboration, self-direction, analytical skills, critical thinking, innovation, creativity and global awareness.

The use of technology fosters 21^st century skills primarily because we are using 21^st century tools which students need to be familiar with for life and work.

When I think of a classroom where 21^st century skills are at the centre of the curriculum, I see technology being used by all, I see students writing journals online, researching independently, managing themselves, meeting in groups, planning together. By integrating technology into instruction I will be providing students with a wider range of resources, interactive experiences, and will promote willingness for self directed learning which in turn will transmit into life-long learning.

Of all the preparations I still have a few to organise before next week, primarily some proformas and data gathering tools. Today I looked at the teacher's term and weekly planner and she and I suggested a few ways in which we could integrate technology.

Alejandra