After another busy week at school, I was relieved to discover that part of this week’s learning will go over some of the expectations of the google educator’s exam next week. Having not sat an exam or assessment for a few years, and being a bit of a perfectionist, the thought that I will be entering into an assessment with a very real chance of failure – is daunting! I am very much looking forward to seeing the sorts of questions to expect.
However, our main focus today is around the whole idea of technology and how it may impact our lives in the future. I enjoyed watching the clip of the Jetsons. I watched this when I was young – must’ve been during the 70’s – and I often think back to the video phones they had in their house, and the hovering cars. It makes me reflect on how quickly technology is changing our lives so that what was once fictional, is already well embedded in our daily lives. I am often reminded that the first time I watched someone ‘reading’ facebook, I noticed some videos that began moving as the ‘reader’ scrolled to it and was reminded of the newspapers in ‘Harry Potter’ with moving videos in place of photos. This was before any of the movies came out so I only had my imagination to picture what these looked like and this was exactly what I had imagined.
I guess it was a reminder during Dorothy’s presentation about poverty and low socio-economic areas, like the area my college is in, that the reason some of our students who have been absent for long stretches this year, is because they’ve been out working or babysitting younger siblings. It’s great to think of how technology, if everyone has access to it, can be the great leveler. It’s a reminder to make sure as many students as possible are able to access devices and have wifi wherever possible. This empowers them to learn and have the same opportunity as anyone else.
Today also had me reflecting on when I was a Dean and dealing with a year 10 student who just wouldn’t get off his gaming during class for long enough to engage at all. His mother had come in and we were trying very hard to find a way to get him to feel there was a purpose in engaging with the material in lessons. I asked him what he thought he might like to do when he left school. He replied ‘Gaming’, an answer his mother and I thought was beyond hilarious – although obviously we didn’t actually laugh. He continued, “People will pay to watch me play games!” Look who had the last laugh – if he was any good that would actually be a possibility now.
The last part of today’s sessions was to have a bit of a play around to learn some basics of coding. I was a little disappointed that the session I had been keen to have a go at wasn’t available, I’m guessing the presenter wasn’t available today, and then I couldn’t find where to join another group. It really does show that sometimes the instructions have to be extremely basic and clear. Of course when I looked back later it was completely obvious!! Anyway, I ended up going back into Vicki’s one, where I discovered everyone was already involved in naming parts of a Waka in ‘Scratch’. I decided at that point I would just work through some tutorials and see what I could learn. Currently, my animated poem has the poem read by me (I learned how to do this during Vicki’s instructions to the rest of the group) and have been trying to work out how to link the movement of my ‘sprite’s’ to an action on the keyboard. I’ll update my animation later as currently it isn’t working how I planned.
All in all – heaps of learning!! … and now back to checking reports.