Module 9

"Scootle"

After conferencing with colleagues, I too feel that I don't yet use Scootle to the best of my ablility or use it to the best of it's ability. But....hopefully that will change!

Spending time downloading and exploring the Scootle Guide enabled me to become familiar with the abundance of resources it has to offer. The already established learning paths were sensational. I really like the idea of colleague sharing and peer teaching.

"Second Life"

Not yet convinced...I think it's great that we, as teachers, are learning the ways in which we can educate our "21st Century Technologically Savvy Students", but I worry that this sort of make-believe world may take away from living in the real world. We are already worried about the growing obesity epidemic and how children these days are spending too much time on computers - this is essentially adding to this problem. Whatever happened to taking the kids outside, lying them on the playground and allow them to reflect using all of their senses???

I do however recognise the advantages of learning through "Second Life". It allows the students to travel through time and to countries that would otherwise be unattainable. This gives students the opportunity to role play, as well as interact with each other on a different level. But I doubt this would be an achievable outcome for primary students, let alone infants - much more geared toward high school students.

"Social Networking"
As a frequent user of FaceBook, I can't really bag the phenomenon of social networking sites...but Twitter?????

C'mon - I really don't need to know what people are doing every second of their day (nor do I care) and I am in no way wanting to let others know what I'm up to every second of the day. Plus when do people find the time to be continuously updating their status?

And unlike what some people post and upload, I'd be very careful, as not everything can be completely private!