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.