Reflective Synopsis

Hello fellow bloggers!!

Well here I am posting what is my final entry for my blog for managing e learning. I am going to be as honest as I can so hear goes...
When I started this course I felt overwelled by the idea of having to be able to know and understand these technologies (wikis, blogs, mahara, flickr etc) having only used facebook, myspace and MSN. When I first began my learning journey by attending all the managing e learning tutes and experimenting with the new technology. When I first set up the blog; with help from my lecturer I noticed that there were manay similarities to myspace; with myspace I can leave blogs and comment other peoples myspaces and customise the layout and background and it also has instant messaging (IM) blogs are pretty much the same minus the IM. The blog was easy enough for me to understand with the simple instructions on blogger.com however I had assistance from Chloe with the background and layout; I googled blog backgrounds and searched through a wide range of styles before selecting one and downloading its code then adding it to my blog. During the tutes I was given a chance to continue experiement with the managing e learning website, blogger and mahara; I felt I got a lot of infomation about using the new technologies from the lecture with the course coordinator Scot Aldred; I felt much more confident using the technolgy after Scot took us through both blogs and marahra step-by-step and teaching us how to upload images and youtube clips and how blogs and marahra can be used in the education system.

It was not for a while until I posted my very first entry onto my blog (I had customised the layout and background and filled in my personal details at this point) this first entry to was get me started and to explain how I was feeling knowing I was about to start a journey into these new technologies. I remember feeling very overwellmed with a large amount of activties to complete on the managing e learning website and the fact that I felt like I was the only one who was lacking confidence with this task. However once reading other peer's blog posts, watching videos and commenting and recieving comments I felt much better about myself and this journey knowing I wasnt alone.

A while after posting my first entry to my blog I began to turn away from the technology as I found it extremly time consuming and felt the need to complete assignments from other subjects. My second posting was on the active learning theory by Kearsley and Shneiderman. They taught me what I found to be a great way of going about group projects.

Relate phase: communication, planning, management and social skills is what is learnt from this skills that require profieciency in the workforce. So I thought to myself If we as learning managers want our students to leave high school to be workplace ready why are we giving students less group project work and more independent work becuase we see group work as 'cheating'?.
Create phase: problem solving, taking control and responsibilty of their learning, making it interesting for themselves, a chance to create something original
Donate phase: The project has an outside customer (Not just the teacher); parents, campus group, school, organisation, charity etc

This made me think about my positive experiences with large group projects and it makes me want to promote group projects in my classroom.

The next posting I enjoyed was learning about Dales cone and learning pyramid. Surprising that; according to Dales cone and learning pyramid that we learn less by reading and listening to lectures and learn more by doing things and practicing them and teaching them to others; so why to we continue to teach using reading and listening; yes we still need to those skills to be able to read and listen but if we implement more kinaesthetic activities our learners will retain more knowledge and most likely enjoy it more too!

Another interesting post was about multiple intelligence; interesting that IQ testing is very limited and that there are eight different areas of abilties

  • Body Kinasethetic (Body smart)
  • Visual/spatual (Picture smart)
  • Interpersonal (People smart)
  • Intrapersonal (Myself smart)
  • Logical - mathematical (Number smart)
  • Musical (Music Smart)
  • Naturalist (Nature Smart)
  • Verbal Lingustic (Word Smart)

Some of these abilties I can see clearly taught in our essential learnings but some are emphased more than others. For instance I think I would have more interpersonal and intrapersonal learning experiences.

Next, is Mazlows Heirachy of Needs which I had limited knowledge of. Back in high school III was taught that the basic needs for human survival was food, water and sheter; but Mazlow states that humans also need love and support (from family and friends) and safety and security (from the dangers in the big world) when I was reading this I instantly remembered the news article I had recently read in the courier mail about a learning centre set up at Toolooa State High where students could practice the skills of life in the real world skills such as real estate, finances, baby care, personal and heath care etc, made me wish I had something like that when I went to school because isnt that what we want for out learners? to be able to survive out in the big wide world; I still live at home and the thought of leaving home soon to live my own life is kind of scary.

Another interesting reading was the Prensky reading and this theory on digitial native Vs digital immagrants. I believe the digital age began at the turn of the millienum after year 2000 the world has been bombarded with new technologies. Now I was 11 at this time so does this mean I am an digital native or immagrant becuase I see myself of having a pretty good understanding of our commonly used technology and how they work but when I gradute in the next 18mths there will be new technologies available to me so its a big responsibiltiy as a learning manager to know this technoloy and use it in the classroom becuase most of our learners we teach in the classroom are classed as digital natives.

Also on this long but interesting journey I have broaderned by knowledge and understandings of internet saftey (protecting our children on the net) and the huge range of technologies available to the web that would enhance learning experiences. I have learnt more about wikis and how they can help a group of learners work together (thanks to the video "Wikis in plain english"!) and how blogs can be used share ideas and assist other users. As a future learning manager I will make it a goal to use these newly learnt technologies in my classroom as a way of engaging learners and talking the 'digital native langugage' in order to create authentic and meaningful real life learning experiences; create ideas and sharing them with fellow learning managers and hopefully gaining teaching ideas as well.

While I am still typing I would like to thank everyone who read my blog and asissted me with my journey, the comments made by my fellow classmates made me feel more confident about my ideas that I hope to bring to the classroom in the future and they gave me some things to think about (Chloe's Mind Shift Video - very good!) so I finish my learning journey using blogs and begin a new journey through mahara.

Thank you!!

References

AUTC. (2003). The Learning Design Construct. Retrieved August 19, 2009, from http://learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/project/learn_design.htm

Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A Framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved August 17, 2009 from http://www.home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Kunc, N. : Axis Consultation and Training Ltd. (1992). The Need to Belong: Rediscovering Maslow's Heirachy of Needs. Retrieved August 18, 2009, from http://www.normemma.com/armaslow.htm

Nichols, K. (2007). What is Learning? Current knowledge and theories. In Smith, R., Lynch, D. E., & Knight, B. A. (eds). Learning Management: Transitioning teachers for national and internation change. (pp. 21-29). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved August 18, 2009, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20%20part1.pdf

Web 2.0 Technologies

Hey guys!!





Since beginning this course I would have to say I had a pretty good knowledge of different technologies available however didnt really understand their full potential to create authentic learning experiences for learners. I am on social websites such as facebook and myspace on the daily baisis; use the interent to get the daily news and to research for uni assignments and teaching resources.





Web 2.0 technologies allow anyone to interact via the web. There are many resources on the internet where learners are able to contibute their knowledge and ideas and recieve feedback from others users. Resources include blogs, wikis, youtube/teachertube and flickr.





Wikis
Wikis are websites that can be viewed by anyone who has access to the internet. Users can easily add, remove, edit and change content on the wiki site. Wiki are easier for a group of web users to organise information on the same subject area without having to send emails to and from each person whcih is not good for co-ordinating and organsing a group's imput. Using a wiki is simple; there are only three controls you need to know



  • Edit: Users click on this and a edit toolbar will appear allowing the user to make changes to the site.

  • Save: Users click on this after making adjustments to the site; the information then becomes a webpage for everyone to see.

  • Link: Allows users to create a new page


The largest wiki is Wikipedia; the world largest online encycolpedia. Wikis could be used in a learning context by having learners create a wiki; they can add their knowledge and understandings which can be recognised by other online users; this would be a much more authentic and meaningful approach to learning experience than creating a poster just to hang in the classroom for only the teacher, parents and peers to see where as on the wiki; learners' contributions are easily available to anyone with web access.

Create your own wiki! www.wikispaces.com or www.wetpaint.com



Blogs
Blogs is short for web log which are publicly accessible online journals. Users are able write entries on their personal blog about their feelings, values and beliefs like a diary, then read other blogs and comment on them. Blogs can become a discusion through comments so news/information is interactive.Blogs are a great way to contribute information and gain information and motivation from other blog users. Blogs can be used as a creative writing space for learners.

Create your own blog!! www.blogger.com

Youtube/teacher tube
Youtube/teacher tube allows teachers and learners to create their own videos and upload onto the website for other web users to view and comment. You tube makes it easy for teachers and learners to search for educational videos; unfortantly they are blocked in public schools and education departments.

Visit youtube!! www.youtube.com

Flickr
Flickr allows users to upload pictures to share with public or select few friends. Users can organise photos according to different themes and topics. Users can add tags which makes it easier to search for images. Flickr also provides print options for users.

Visit Flickr www.flickr.com

ICT Learning Design

Hey All

Learning designs are simply methods of designing student learning experiences. The learning design can be considered the framework that supports the student learning experiences.




Key elements of learning design:


  • Learning tasks: What the students will do; this involves problems, investigations, projects etc

  • Learning resouces: The resources that can be used to assist students with the learning task; this involves books, articles, journals, case studies, web sites etc

  • Learning support: Involves instructions, procedures and announcements.


In the above diagram the triangles represent the resources for each activity; the squares indicate activities and the circles represent the the learning support. Intended learning outcomes must also be identified when designing learning experiences.

Embedding Indigenous Persepectives

Hey Guys

As we already know our learners come form many different backgrounds and have differerent values and beliefs. Our indigenous learners have different perspectives to the dominant european culture in Australia as they have a strong connection to the land and its natural habitats. Many indigenous learners come from rual communities and therefore dont find some learning experiences in our european dominant education system meanigful and real life.

After reading Ernie Grants 'my land, my tracks'; it gave a good framwork for creating effective learning experiences based on the three elements outlined in the reading:

  • Land
  • Language
  • Culture

These elements can be contexutalised in terms of time, place and relationships. Grant also goes on to say that we can look at each of these elements in terms of

  • Pre contact (impact from european settlers)
  • Contact
  • Post Contact
  • Contemporary issues

It is important that we reconginse our indigenous learners and their way of life so we can plan meaningful learning experiences to enhance their learning abilities.

Access and Equity

Internet Safety

Hello All

When surfing the internet everyone; especially children have the right to safe, high performace internet browsing.

Child Safety
Parents and educators have a responsibility to protect children from exposure to harmful material on the world wide web; materials such as:

  • Pornographic images
  • Offensive materials
  • Hateful materials
  • Voilent materials
  • Material that encourages illegal or dangerous activities

NetAlert is an ongoing commitment to provide safe online environment for families and children. Cybersmart offers advice, resources and activities for young children, children, teenagers to enjoy safe internet browsing; and training for schools and librabry staff.

Net alert website (which also has access to the Cybersmart website): http://www.netalert.gov.au/


Stranger Danger
Stranger danger on the internet is when there is contact with someone online who is claiming to be someone they are not. People on social websites such as myspace, facebook, twitter and chatrooms take the risk of comming into contact with stranger danger. So that is why when using the internet, use a nickname, never give out on full name and address and passwords should be a mixture of letters and numbers (more secure) and to be never given out (people can use your account).

Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is when bullying such as teasing, spreading rumours and recieving unwanted messages happens through technologies such as SMS messaging, discussion groups, chatrooms, instant messaging and email. Ways to prevent this is to block or delete any unfriendly users and ignoring unwanted messages.

Privacy
Privacy on the internet refers to protecting personal documents or images that have been uploaded onto the internet. For example when on social networking websites such as facebook there are options to change privacy status to select who can see your details.

Walled garden approach refers to a closed set of information services provided for users. Schools have restricted access on the world wide web; can only access government approved websites this is to promote child safety by preventing stranger danger and cyberbulling over the internet.

21st Century Learners

Hello All

Since the turn of the millienum, our learners have developed a whole new learning style which we as learning managers need to adapt to in order to teach our students. They have grown up in the digital age where we rely on mobile phones, internet, digital cameras, video games and music players in order to recieve information,commuicate; basically to survive in today's society.

Prensky (2001) has categorised learners as:

  • Digital natives: born into and grown up with digital technology and therefore have the specific language and syntax around technology.
  • Digital Immigrants: born prior to the digital age and therefore are forced to adapt to the digital world.

"Digital Immigrant instructors who speak on an outdated language (that of pre-digital age) are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language." -Marc Prensky-

Prensky's native Vs Immigrant generalisation is agreeable. Since the turn of the millienum we have been bombarded with the introduction of new technologies which are being updated all the time. Technologies such as the internet with the introduction of facebook, myspace, twitter, youtube and MSN; web cameras, digital cameras, mobile phones, blackberries, video games; the transition from VCRs to DVDs and Casettes to CDs and MP3s. I would agree that learners born after the turn of the millenium would be classed as digital natives as they are growing up with this technology; however for myself I grew up in the 90s where I listened to cassettes on my tape player and walkman and watched videos on VCR. When I reached my teenage years was when the new digital technology came in; I needed to be able to use the internet in order to complete learning tasks, videos and casettes were no longer being made so I needed to get a stereo system where I could play both cassettes and cds to listen to my music. At 16 I got a digital camera to replace my old one which bought film and took it to the shop to get developed. At 17 I got my own mobile phone; 18 an MP3 player and discovered the use of USBs and memory sticks which I needed for uni studies.

Now I am only 20 but I dont know whether Prensky would class me as a digital native or immigrant as to my more mature peers; but I do consider myself to have a pretty good knowledge of todays technology but who knows what technology will be invented by the time I graduate and begin my first year of teaching.

A bit of Humour...

Hey Guys
I thought I would Jazz up my blog with some old favourite technology comics I used to read in IPT back in high school.. hope you like them!!









Learning Theories: Behaviourism, Constructivism, Cognitivism and Connectivism


Hey!! Here is a summary of the learning theories


Behaviourism
The behaviourist theory was developed by B Fredric Skinner. Skinner believed teaching was a process of transmitting external knowledge to students through demonstration, reinforcement and controlled and sequenced practice (McInerney, 2005). The pour and store method clearly demonstrates this theory. Skinner also perceived the brain as a 'black box' that could not be adequately observed or studied in subjects (Nichols, 2007).


Constructivism
The Constructivist theory was developed by Jean Piaget; he opposed Skinner's theory as he believed individuals must construct their own knowledge and understandings based on what they know and believe. Piaget also recognised the importance of the brain's structure and function (Nichols, 2007). Brain research tells educators how the brain works and what is important when developing learning experiences.


Cognitivism
(Related to the diagram above) Cognitivists believe the 'black box' should be opened to gain and understanding of its mental processes such as thinking, memory, problem solving etc.
Sensory memory is used to percieve incomming information which can be both visual and auditory; incomming information picked up is dependent on whether the information is important to the person recieving it.
Working memory organises information ready for long term memory. Its storage capacity is limited to less than nine elements at a time.
Long term memory permanently stores all knowledge and skills; its storage capacity is unlimited


Connectivism
Connectivism involves learning within a social network using various tools and technology. For example as what we managing e learners are achieving right now. We are part of a social network and we are learning through reading the topic and posting blogs and responding to our thoughts ancd comments. I found it intertesting in the video where they explained the student had access to blogs, wikis and podcasts from the worlds best proffessors. There is so much information to be learnt these days but this can be dependant on access to high performace technologies. As a future learning manager I think using technologies such as blogs are a great way to share thoughts and ideas with other learning managers. The learning emerges from finding and posting information onto the web then reading other blogs and recieving feedback I would implement them in my learning environment by allowing my students access to blogs, imformitive podcasts and videos etc because there is so much information to be found and the technology is there but we just need to know how to work it.

Mazlows Heirachy of Needs



Hello all


I found Kunc's reading on Mazlows Heirachy of Needs very interesting; I have learnt there is more to human survival in this day and age than just the three basic needs: food, water and shelter. Once this critera is met, we feel all have the right to feel safe and secure from the dangers in our world such as abuse, terrorism etc. In order to survive we also need the love and support from strong rich relationships which we have with family, friends and work collagues; with the support of strong relationships with others we begin to gain our self esteem and find our place within communities. Self esteem can be found through our achievements and recognition and respect we again from our peers.


As learning managers we need to teach our students the appropriate behaviours and skills required to meet the criteria of Mazlows Heirachy of Needs in order to survive out in the community. The classroom should be a place where students can model, learn and practice these vital skills therefore preparing them for community life.


After reading Kunc's reading; it reminded me of an article I read in the Courier Mail not long ago. it was an article about an independent learning centre that has been set up at Toolooa State High School. It is a virtual classroom where the students are taught how to be able to live independently in their own place. Students are able to practice skills such as personal health, real estate (renting, morgages), money (budgeting, paying bills) and baby care. It made me wish that I was given the opportunity to learn skills like this while still at school; as I still live at home with my parents moving out of home and fending for myself does scare me just a bit.


Here is the link to the article. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!


Multiple Intelligence




Hello all

The notion of intelligence is based on IQ testing which can be far to limited to mesure human intelligence. Dr Howard Garner believed their was a broader range of human abilties and divided intelligences into eight categories



  • Bodily Kineasethic (Body smart): Enjoy sports and performs well at swimming, athletics and gymnastics


  • Visual/Spatual (Picture smart): Performs well in the arts and is good at activities which requires looking at pictures, map reading, graphs and puzzles.


  • Verbal Linguistic (Word smart): Enjoys reading, writing and communication with others.


  • Interpersonsal (People smart): Enjoys interacting with other people; belongs to a team or club; good at sharing.


  • Intrapersonal (Myself smart): Knows their personalities, values and beliefs and strengths and weaknessess.


  • Logical/Mathematical (Number smart): Performs well at mathematics and other number activities and is a good problem solver.


  • Musical (Music smart): Enjoys music and recognises different sounds and instruments.


  • Naturalist (Nature smart): Enjoys learning about plants and animals.

People's abilties in these categories vary from person to person; some people perform better at some skills than others. For example a person may find it difficult to play a musical instrument however find it easy to play a game of football (BGfL, 2002).


Here are my results from the multiple intelligence questionaire (from highest to lowest ranking)



  1. Interpersonal

  2. Naturalist, Logical & Intrapersonal

  3. Visual/spatual

  4. Kinaesthetic & Linguistic

  5. Musical
I also watched the youtube clip of Sir Ken Robinson (for the millionth time); I have been inspired this clip since I first watched it in my first year of uni. I totally agree with everything Robinson says about creativity.

" Kids will take a chance and if they dont know they will have a go..they are not afraid to be wrong..If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original..by time they are adults they (kids) have lost that capacity (of being creative)..frightened of being wrong..we stigmatise mistakes..the result is we are educating people out of their creative capacties"
- Sir Ken Robinson-

Sir Ken also goes on about academic inflation and intelligence. He explains that we know three things about intelligence
  • Diverse - We think visually, auditory, kinaesthetically, abstract and movement.
  • Dynamic -Intelligence is interactive
  • Distinct - Intelligence is different from person to person (the girl in Sir Kens story at 15: 17 needed to move to think; she was a dancer)


Even through my experiences at Birralee Kindergarten earlier this year I have learnt that creativity is important as it allows children to think of unique ideas; children value being creative they are more engaged in activities which allow them to use their orginal ideas; they feel good showing off something that they have created themselves rather than set tasks. Also, the classroom looks much better with 20 or so different projects hanging on the walls than 20 projects that are the same.







Personality

Hello All
As we all know by now all students are individuals; they all have individual personalities, interests, cultural backgrounds and values and beliefs. As learning managers we have a responsiblity to not just teach them to reach learning outcomes but to get to know each of them as young people. By getting to know your students personalities and interests learning managers can design learning experiences that will be sure to engage students as it can be related to topics they know and like. For example if students like AFL football (which I do!!) I could make base this on a learning experience on the 6x tables (as a goal in AFL is worth 6pts), and addition. the scoreboard in AFL will usually read Goals: Behinds: Total: for each team so you could also do simple algrebra Goals: 15 Behinds: _ Total: 104 how many behinds? (14 is the answer; 15 x 6 is 90; 104 - 90 is 14 therefore this team kicked 14 behinds in the game.) and so on.

Here are some strategies for getting to know your students' personalities. Enjoy!

Class Book
Students; with their families make a page each about their names, age, family members, hobbies etc and bring it to class (teacher should also make a page). Teacher collects all pages and places them into a folder which can be displayed in the classroom for students to read. Students should take turns to take book home to read with their families.

Favourites
Resources: 1 ball

  1. Students and teacher sit in a circle. The teacher starts by choosing a topic (can be food, animals, sport, subject etc) then saying "my name is (insert name) any my favourite food is (insert favourite food)
  2. Teacher then rolls the ball to another student and they state their name and favourite food before rolling to another student who has not had a turn
  3. Continue to roll the ball around the circle so everyone has a turn
  4. The last student gets to choose another subject

I also took the personality quiz on the website and here are my results:

My type is: ESFJ

  • Slightly expressed extrovert (11%)
  • Slightly sensing personality (12%)
  • Moderately expressed feeling personality (50%)
  • Moderately judging personality (33%)

Learning Styles



Hello All


I am posting my results from the learning style quiz, very accurate too, my results are so me! so here goes


Active Vs Reflective

Result: 5 towards Active

Very true as I am the type of learner that enjoys getting in and doing the activties and duscussion ideas with other peers rather thinking to myself. I dont like listening to lecturers all the time, I need a range of experiences and resources to stimulate my learning. I usually prefer group work rather than individual work as listening other ideas and perspectives tends to shape my own thoughts and generate new ideas. However there can be times when I like to work by myself without any assistance. This is becuase sometimes I come up with lots of ideas that I want to take credit for.


Sensing Vs Intuitive

Result: 5 towards Sensing

I enjoy learning about facts and figures rather than abstracting, compairing and contrasting this is the main reason I enjoyed maths, science and SOSE when I went to school because there was usually just one right answer (this made it easier to study for exams!) This didnt mean I hated english there were activties such as play writing and presenting I did enjoy however I liked maths and science better because it was easier to understand and I enjoyed the occasional maths and science quizes and I had higher grades for those subjects.


Visual Vs Verbal

Result: 1 towards Visual

I learn much better when visuals assist what the lecturer is saying. Colourful visuals and demonstrations help me understand what the lecturer wants from me.


Sequential Vs Global

Result: 3 towards Global

I can go through assignments (which usually go for 6 weeks) and not fully understand the concept then at the last minute (sometimes AFTER the assignment has been handed in) I will get it.


As future learning managers we need to undertsand that our students will have different results if they were to take these quizes, even within our campus group we would have all recieve different results. So we need to cater for ALL these learners for them to acheive their learning goals.


Just to prove my point What were your results? Im sure they would have been different to mine.



Dale's Cone and Learning Pyramid


Dales cone illustrates the learning effectiveness using different learning strategies. The strategies at the top of the cone are the least effective which are verbal lecturers, still visual images such as diagrams and flow charts and video and audio recordings. The learning experiences at the bottom of Dales cone are said to be the most effective. These learning experiences are more hands on and meaningful to students which is what I think teachers need to do but there is also the problem of funding, resources and the amount of time spent to plan and implement these experiences which could be why teachers fall back on learning experiences that have verbal and visual symbols.



The learning pyramid shows the average amount fo knowledge students retain from certain learning experiences. For example students will only retain about 5% from listening to a lecture, 10% from reading from a textbook or similar. Down the bottom of the pyramid students retain 75% by actully doing the skill and 90% by teaching others. This I would have to agree with just with my own experiences (Read previous posts).


For my up comming two week block at my prep classroom I am starting a unit which is based on the sea, and my learning manager plans for them to start locally and by the end of the year they will have reached the north pole in time for christmas. So I plan to start at the beach then move into local waters. I was thinking of using a large cardboard box for them to build a boat to go around the ocean in (hands on experience?) and bring in lots of resources they can look and touch and even use in their play. Would you think these would be classified as effective learning experiences according to Dales Cone and the learning pyramid? Comments please

Indicators of Engaged Learning


Hello, I thought I would submit my results from the indicators of engaged learning quiz in a new post as the last one was so big. I had med to high indicators of engaged learning with high performace technology to match.

Learning Engagement Theory

Hello All

Since reading the Managing E Learning website and Kearsley and Shneiderman's Learning Engagement Theory I have to agree at the arguments made about students engagement in activities and behaviour. When behaviour is not a problem in the classroom it is because the teacher is using a range of different teaching strategies and resources to engage her/his students to reach the learning outcomes instead of using what we would call stereotypical 'traditional' methods of the teacher standing at the front of the classroom writing notes on the blackboard/whiteboard while the students are sitting at their desks coping this information into their work books without actully really understanding the concept of this information. Lets face it these days are over, our students no longer can learn by these teaching methods as they find this boring and dont see how they would use this information when they leave school. We also live in a world where new technologies are being created as we speak; toadys students are using the internet (myspace, facbook, twitter), computer and video games and mobile phones to gain information and we as teachers are supposed to prepare our students for a world where even more advanced technologies and occupations will be created. Just by watching the 'Shift Happens' clip on Chloes Blog was very moving - the top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 (next year!) did not even exist in 2004 (that was when I was in year 10) my teachers were teaching for occupations that have only just been created I found that very amazing and now worry how I am supposed to teach my students for these jobs I wount know?

Now comming back to the engagement theory; engaged students are communicating, planning, using social skills (Relate), problem-solving, decision making, creating and evaluating (create) for an outside customer such as a campus group, school, organisation or charity (donate); skills that the workplace demand proficience in. More importantly students have more control over their learning and have fun when taking part in these projects. During my studies I remember having fun taking part in group projects where we were free to brainstorm how we could present our ideas, have a long time limit to create the resources needed to present it to our peers and lecturers. I talking about projects such as 'The Techo Child" exhibition in my first year of uni, the presentation of contempory issues around gender (the deal or no deal game and powerpoint) in my second year and the most recent presentation of Visual Literacy where we gathered information and resources to display to fellow peers and lecturers. Im sure you all remember them!! I would feel confident doing these projects as I could listen to different ideas and perspectives which would stimulate my thinking, have support the whole time doing the project, being able to get to know my fellow group members and develop social skills and most importantly I had fun!!