Teachers+Page


 * == Forward Planning == || [[file:Forward Planning Document- Creating an Eco-Friendly Home.doc]] ||
 * == Inspiration Concept Map == || [[file:Our Greenhouse.isf]] ||
 * ** Teachers Planning Documents ** || ** Teacher's Files ** ||

Social constructivism is a style of teaching and learning which encourages children to learn through building upon what they know and linking it to new information which is given through new experiences. Vygotsky is the major theorist who advocates social constructivism and he explains that the Zone of Proximal Development links the gap between what is known and new information that can be known. The application of social constructivism in the class means that the teachers are more facilitators than directors. Students don’t learn from but they learn with the teacher and other students. This is the way that ICT should be used in the classroom as well. Not to use to teach the students but to learn with the students. Our webquest was centred on this theory, using different programs and websites develop and construct the child’s learning from the foundation of their prior knowledge. The major website that structured our lessons was the water save website. For each lesson there is an teaching segment and a game on each of the topics. While the teaching section obviously aims to teach new concepts, they leave gaps for the students to do their own research. Each teaching section is kept to a minimum on time (1-2 minutes) so students have more time to learn with peers, discovering and researching the information for themselves through brainstorming, which always follows the teaching section. Most of this assignment is focused around group work so for a majority of the time, the students are learning through social interaction and piggy-backing ideas. As well as this website, the students use other forms of ICT such as excel, power point and voice recorder. These different forms of ICT allow the students to use the information they have collected and work with it in different ways, creating new experiences. These new experiences will help link the new information to what they already know, which is precisely the social constructivist approach. //Trinity College Dublin // (2006). //ICT’s in education. // Retrieved from [] Project Understanding Our webquest is designed for a year 6 class for term 2. It mainly covers the society and environment learning area although the English, Mathematics and Technology and Enterprise learning areas are integrated throughout the webquest. Their end project is to design and create a model of an eco-friendly house in groups of four, each with their own role. The four roles are research, finance, design and team coordinator. They create this model in the last four weeks of the term as this webquest is run throughout the whole term. In the first six weeks of the term, the students are gathering ideas and learning about how they can reduce their impact on the environment daily as well as through designing an environmentally friendly home. This is done through a constructivist approach to teaching and learning as the students are given an initial prompt by the teacher (the short introduction videos found on the water save website) and then encouraged to brainstorm other ideas. This discussion is facilitated and guided by the teacher at first and then for the rest of the lesson, the students do research and work on their tasks as a group. As they work through the lessons, they will gradually gather more and more ideas as to how they might build an eco-friendly house and the things they need to consider. As a group they will need to organise this information somewhere. Each member of the team will need to consider how the new information they discover (through the introduction videos) will impact on their particular area. All the members will work as a team but each person is responsible for keeping their work up to date with the topics taught each week. At the end of the six weeks and the six topics, the students should have: **- ****Gathered the ideas which will be implemented in their model house and consider factors that affect the house (research). ** **- ****Decided on the location, size, format and detailed design for the model house (designer). ** **- ****Planned a budget for the house design using excel (finance). ** **- ****Gathered ideas and started creating a presentation for the launch of the house (team organiser). ** **The team organiser should also be checking to see if the group is on track. ** **The purpose of this webquest is to increase their awareness of the impact that we humans have on the environment and educate them about ways in which we can minimise the impact we have. The focus is on minimising environmental impact around the home but the class should be encouraged to think outside of that box into other ways of minimising environmental impact. ** Project Management Plan Initial Inspiration Map: Friday 25 March (upload to Teacher’s Page) Project management plan: N/A Forward planning document: Monday 28 March (upload to Teacher’s Page) A paragraph outlining group’s joint understanding of the project: Wednesday 30 March (upload to Teacher’s Page) Justification of three ICT tools in project and how they are integrated into the learning sequence: Thursday 31 March (upload to Teacher’s Page) Mapping: show how the ICT integration project relates to the Learning Area Outcomes: Monday 28 March (upload to Teacher’s Page) Statement articulating how your ICT Integration Project is centred on a social constructivist classroom: Thursday 31 March (upload to Teacher’s Page)
 * Social Constructivism

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 *  **__Justification of ICT Tools __** ||
 *  **Windows Sound Recorder ** || <span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 15pt;">By using Windows Sound Recorder students are able to develop their speaking and listening skills thus integrating with the English learning area. It also caters for those learners who learn better through speaking and discussing concepts as they are able to verbally explain the ideas they come up with in relation to creating an eco-friendly home. ||
 * <span style="display: block; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: page; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-left: center; mso-element-top: 33.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt; text-align: center;"> **<span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 17.5pt;">Microsoft Power point ** || <span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 15pt;">The use of PowerPoint is very wide spread across the curriculum. It is a tool that allows students to create an engaging slideshow, it also works in helping students to clearly clarify their understanding by putting it into different headings as well as allocating images to correspond. This assists students learning by displaying the information in a number of ways to cater for different styles of learning. ||
 * <span style="display: block; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: page; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-left: center; mso-element-top: 33.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt; text-align: center;"> **<span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 17.5pt;">Microsoft Excel ** || <span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 15pt;">Using Microsoft Excel is particularly beneficial in assisting students who learn mathematically to engage in different topics. It also assists students who are visual learners to gain a simple understanding of the significance of water consumption and how it adds up. ||
 * <span style="display: block; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: page; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-left: center; mso-element-top: 33.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt; text-align: center;"> **<span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 17.5pt;">Digital Camera ** || <span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 15pt;">This activity gives students the chance to go out into the real world and actively seek out opportunities for environmental change in their own lives. By using a digital camera they are again directly connected to their own real-life situations that can be adjusted to improve the environment. ||
 * <span style="display: block; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: page; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-left: center; mso-element-top: 33.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt; text-align: center;"> **<span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 17.5pt;">Photo Story ** || <span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 15pt;">The benefit of photo story is that it can be used by students to send a message to others and recognize the different ways that people learn, including, visual, verbal, written etc. The Photo Story is also able to be used to display to other students and encourages students to commit to producing quality work as it is shared with others. ||
 * <span style="display: block; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: margin; mso-element-anchor-vertical: page; mso-element-frame-hspace: 9.0pt; mso-element-left: center; mso-element-top: 33.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt; text-align: center;"> **<span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 17.5pt;">Comic Life ** || <span style="color: #383838; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 15pt;">Comic life is an engaging program that helps students get excited about topics and important messages they wouldn’t usually be so interested in. Particularly it caters for students who are interested in art and creative thinking. The resulting product similar to photo story is a learning recourse in it self and also gives students a change to be passionate about a topic and want to share the importance of the issue with others. ||   ||   ||