Update on Questions...

Katie and I have continued to work together and add bits and pieces to our plan. It was I, this time who needed a large piece of paper... During our phone conversation I scribbled down ideas for our questions before going away to work on them further. I must say, I love large pieces of paper at the moment.

We intend to use ‘Survey Monkey’ to ask our questions. I have access to this at my school but am yet to use it, because I study at home and I am told it is quite easy to use, I will opt for free option, this means we will only be able to ask 10 questions, but in my opinion less is more...

A few words make a difference...

We have changed our BIG question... It was ‘What resources are needed for teachers to teach ICT effectively? And is now ‘What professional development is needed for teachers to teach ICT effectively?

After talking, Katie and I both agreed that evaluating professional development before resources would be a better approach for this project. This way we could look at what works well for staff and ways they learn best first. As we are coming to the end of our school ICT cluster project, it is evident that staff need to feel confident and happy when learning before trying to use tools that they have limited understanding of or how to use them effectively.

I am excited about our NEW big question!!!

Update on Project...

I have made contact hehe.... Katie and I both live in Auckland and have spoken by phone to discuss the planning of our project. From this discussion we went over what we had done and where to next.... We highlighted questions that needed work and planned to work on these by Tuesday (today) so Katie could shape them into one on her day off.
I feel very lucky that our work situations are similar and we have the same ideas in mind. We intend to talk again tomorrow to check that we are happy with what we have produced.... Will update you all then.

Feel free to check out our page and see how we are progressing...

Planning Evaluation Report - Needs Analysis

Thank you Katie and Alex for organising our new partners for this project, as we are both teachers, I think our choice to complete a Needs Analysis project will work well.

The school I work at is currently part of an ICT cluster. This year our focus has been on implementing elearning tools in the classroom. As a teacher, I must agree with Katie, I find that we are often shown too many applications (some with minimal relevance to my age and class level) with little time to implement these before we are shown the next. To use less application’s that are specific to each level would be wonderful! Thank you Katie for providing us with a starting point and our big question:
What resources need to be put into place for teachers to teach ICT effectively?

Katie has a great idea of using a large sheet of paper, it’s easier to see all your ideas laid out in front of you, I will endeavour to do the same and catch up to her.

After reading Katie’s blog I will email her so we can marry up ideas and have a look at the education guidelines. Fingers crossed I’m on the right track.

Evaluation and Quality

I was looking through sites on evaluation of elearning and came across this cartoon which I found interesting. The link below provides you with top tips for starting an elearning project!

Image from: http://ignatiawebs.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-top-ten-tips-for-getting-started.html

How do I define evaluation?

I relate this a lot to my work, assessment and evaluation go hand in hand. For me, you assess the learner and evaluate the unit of work. So the assessment is identifying what the student/s has learned and to what level. Evaluation for me is not only evaluating the ‘end product’ but revisiting and referring back to tasks throughout the learning process and identifying ‘what is working well’ (highlighting these), ‘what needs work’ (listing suggestions and possible solutions) and deciding ‘where to next’. This is a very simple explanation but gives you a basic idea.


What sort of evaluation am I familiar with?
As a teacher, I am familiar with summative and formative evaluation. We use it a lot throughout the year.

Why Evaluation is important
Evaluation is important in my work place to:
• maintain and sustain high expectations
• ensure learning is student centred, meets all students learning styles, needs and abilities
• ensure collaboration takes place, working together to plan, share resources and have a common consensus on what is being learned and its benefits to provide for students
• Evaluation can also be a way to identify how well students are using what they have learned and applying it to different situations.