Finally completed my mind map and my ‘somewhere’

I finally got around to completing my mind map! I have also inserted the screen shot in case it doesn’t work! After looking at what others had done and reading about their mixed feelings and different programs they used to, I decided to stick with the basic template that David gave us to use and I found it pretty straight forward. Lucky for me, a couple of years ago I did an assignment on iPad in the early childhood field where I contrasted the for and against use of ICT, so that helped to guide me on what information to put into it. Also thank you to Christina for sharing your thoughts on your somewhere and your concept map, it was an entertaining read!

During some quick research, I found this interesting blog that links social media and Bronfenbrenner’s Microsystem theory together, which made perfect sense.

Now onto my ‘somewhere’

I am relating this to my 10 day professional experience from last semester.

1. Context: Year one, mixed gender, catholic school, year one.
2. Available ICT: Apple Mac computers
3. Curriculum and learning objectives: Australian Mathematics, students need to complete count-on activities in the mathletics program, and logging in and out

Never had I seen how time consuming it could be to have 29 five to six year old students trying to login with their unique mathletics information. I attended two lessons that took place in the library where the Apple computers were kept. This is how my year one mentor conducted the ICT elements of her lessons using maths.

The first lesson consisted of students needing assistance with using their logging in details. It was only me and the teacher with about 20 of them unsure of how to connect to the mathletics program. It took just over half of the lesson time for both of us to log in every single student- keeping in mind all the students had their details right next to them. It deemed quite challenging for these year ones to type their details into each box and had to un-click on the tick on the save details box. By the time everyone got in, it was almost time to go back to class. The teacher told me that sometimes it is just her that takes the students to use the computers and it can be quite stressful.

In the following week, the teacher explained that because of the complications from the week before with their login details, she was going to have the students just practice logging in and out the whole lesson. I really thought this was a marvelous idea. The teacher demonstrated on the projector where the students needed to go once they had logged in. This seemed a slightly more productive and successful lesson, however I could tell that this was one part of the job that this teacher didn’t particularly enjoy- which was having the children all use computers individually.

Peta Harding