A Blog Review

I have just read a blog by a Professor called Stephen Bevan on Wellbeing in Schools - launch of an innovative new pilot programme. Health and wellbeing in schools and colleges has become an integral part in education.

Mr Stephen Bevan has written a blog to discuss and improve health and wellbeing within education. I have worked closely in a college environment to improve physical activity and I feel this blog relates to my personal experience. Below I will discuss and review Mr Stephen Bevans blogs and give my own thoughts and opinions on how we can improve health and well-being in education.

I totally agree with Mr Bevan who believes introducing new schemes and ideas into education should be a high priority throughout schools and colleges. I believe every school and college in the UK should implement health and well-being into their curriculum. By implementing health and well-being, it will hopefully increase the student’s education results as well as social skills and how to live a healthy life. Schools have statutory duties to promote children and young people’s well-being and statutory responsibilities to provide a curriculum that is broadly based, balanced and meets the needs of all pupils (Murray et al., 2007).

Mr Bevan has many concerns about student’s diet and physical activity level so by promoting and delivering health and well-being to students it will hopefully encourage and ensure that children and young people develop the knowledge and understanding, skills, capabilities and attributes which they need for mental, emotional, social and physical well-being now and in the future.

In addition to improving the health and well-being in schools, it can also improve student’s overall grades as research evidence shows that education and health are closely linked. By promoting the health and well-being of pupils and students within schools and colleges has the potential to improve their educational outcomes and their health and well-being outcomes. Bradley and Greene (2013) and Suhrcke and Paz Nieves (2011) believe health and education are closely linked. So by promoting and educating health and well-being to students within colleges and schools has the potential to improve their educational performances and their health and well-being outcomes.

However it is all good promoting health and well-being into the curriculum in schools and colleges for teachers and students to follow, but at home will the parents and students follow this procedure? I believe teachers can do their very best to educate and help students live a better lifestyle, however when the pupils are not in school, will they and their parents continue to follow the guidelines set by the schools and colleges?

 I don’t think they will!!!

I agree with the blog written, but Mr Bevan has not mentioned anything about how he would implement health and well-being strategies to parents and I feel there is still a lot of work to make health and well-being a success in education.

Reference List

Bradley B and Greene A (2013). Do health and education agencies in the United States share responsibility for academic achievement and health? A review of 25 years of evidence about the relationship of adolescents' academic achievement and health behaviors. Journal of Adolescent Health, 52 (5), 523-32 2.

Murray N, Low B, Hollis C, Cross A, Davis S (2007). Coordinated school health programs and academic achievement: A systematic review of the literature. J Sch Health. 77:589-600

Suhrcke M, de Paz Nieves C (2011). The impact on health and health behaviours on educational outcomes in high income countries: a review of the evidence. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe.

http://www.theworkfoundation.com/blog/2520/Wellbeing-in-Schools-launch-of-an-innovative-new-pilot-programme

Rita Pierson an Inspiration

I viewed Rita Pierson TED Talk on Every kid needs a champion and found it very appropriate, useful and inspiring to my teaching practice.

Rita Pierson once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don’t like.’” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

I will have to agree with Rita Pierson’s response to her colleague as I believe students are more likely to learn, stay focused and be motivated if they have a good relationship with a teacher. In the world of teaching every single student is affected by their teachers in some way, it can be positive or in a negative way. If a student is treated badly by a teacher or has had a confrontation with them, do you think the student will have respect for that teacher?..... I don’t!!! 

I feel to get the best out of a class, a teacher must have a good relationship with their students.

It is impossible for a teacher to like every single student in a class, however Rita suggests every single student in the class should get equal support from the teacher. But does this happen?....... 

I agree that every student should have the same support from a teacher, however I believe this will never be the case as when students and teachers have a disagreement, there is a loss in respect with each other, then the student will be to anxious or afraid to ask for help. I have seen this happen in the past and through my teaching observation.

In conclusion I am a strong believer that teachers should have a good relationship with their students to get the best out of them and to make sure that they have the best education as possible. Even if a teacher doesn’t like a certain student or students, they should still make them feel wanted by encouraging them and using positive reinforcement.

The most appropriate applications used to support my Teaching.

During my short time as a trainee teacher I have used a number of applications to support my planning, delivering and evaluation of lessons.

The first application that I believe every teacher will use in some capacity is Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office can help the teacher in their day to day work (Cunningham et al., 2004). I will use a number of Microsoft applications to aid my development as a teacher every day.

Microsoft Word is essential for me as a teacher, I use Microsoft Word to create lessons plans on a daily basis, to create scheme of works and to write my teaching reflections. I also use Microsoft Word to create handouts for students and assignment briefs. Microsoft PowerPoint is also essential in my teaching practice. I find it the easiest and most beneficial way to present and deliver a lesson to the class.

Moving away from Microsoft Office, I use an application called Gambreaker on the apple macs during lessons. The Gamebreaker application is used during the Analysis of Sport Performance module I teach. This software is used to analyse live or recorded individual or team performances to identify strengths and weaknesses of an individual or team. Over the years more and more sport clubs are using the Gambreaaker performance analysis system to analyse performance of athletes both in team and individuals sporting contests (Bishop 2008).

Also during the practical lessons and assessments I will use a number of strength and conditioning applications on the iPad to analyse their technique when completing weight training sessions. This will show an in-depth analysis of the student’s technique so they can recognise and evaluate what they are doing correctly and what needs adjusting.

Reference List

Bishop, D. 2008. Sports Performance Analysis: Coaching and Training, Peak Performance Journal of Sports Sciences 4, 49-59.

M. Cunningham, K. Kerr, R. McEune, P. Smith, and S. Harri (2004), Laptops for Teachers: an Evaluation of the First Year of the Initiative, ICT in Schools Research and Evaluation Series No. 19.

The value of Mobile Technology in Teaching

Over recent years there has been a dramatic increase of mobile technology in the classroom. Cushing (2011) believes over the past two decades, technology devices have become mobile, portable and networked to the point that they have become pervasive in everyday life. Johnson et al., (2011) states the use of mobile devices has become common among a wide range of age groups due to affordability and availability.

The use of mobile technology can enhance learning, motivate students and help student interaction in the classroom and outside the classroom. Newhouse et al., (2006) found that recent advantages in mobile technology such as imbedded sensors, cameras, motion detection, location awareness, social networks, web searching, and augmented reality present the potential to foster learning and engagement across multiple physical, conceptual, and social spaces. Furthermore, Kukulska-Hulme et al., (2009) suggests mobile learning enables teachers and learners ubiquitous and seamless access to information and convenience, expediency, and immediacy are valuable to teachers and enhance students’ learning.

As mobile technology plays a big part in people’s life, I believe using mobile technology can be a great asset to develop learning and understanding in the classroom by using different methods of mobile technology. Students love mobile technology and use it regularly in their personal lives. O’Bannpn and Thomas (2014) stats there is no surprise that young people want to employ mobile devices to make education more engaging and personalise it for their particular needs.

By using mobile technology, it will certainly encourage students and help them stay focused and on task during lessons. Jacobs (2013) states connected mobile devices in the hands of students has the potential to dramatically improve educational outcomes. Addition to this Sad and Goktas (2013) found that technology-rich activities can sustain high levels of student engagement and peer collaboration compared to less technology focused activities.

However, can using mobile technology have their limitations?

Reference List

Cushing, A. (2011). A case study of mobile learning in teacher training–Mentor ME (Mobile enhanced mentoring). MedienPädagogik, 19, 1–4.

Jacobs. I (2013) “Modernizing Education and Preparing Tomorrow’s Workforce through Mobile Technology”, paper presented at the i4j Summit, , p. 2.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., & Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium.

Kukulska-Hulme, A., Sharples, M., Milrad, M., Arnedillo-Sánchez, I., & Vavoula, G. (2009). Innovation in mobile learning: A European perspective. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 1(1), 13–35.

Newhouse, C. P., Williams, P. J., & Pearson, J. (2006). Supporting mobile education for pre-service teachers. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(3), 289–311.

O'Bannon, B. W., & Thomas, K. (2014). Teacher perceptions of using mobile phones in the classroom: Age matters. Computers & Education, 74, 15–25.

Şad, S. N., & Göktaş, Ö. (2013). Preservice teachers’ perceptions about using mobile phones and laptops in education as mobile learning tools. British Journal of Educational Technology. 

Analysis of applications used during the ICT Module

Whilst undertaking the ICT module I have come across many different applications which can aid my teaching experience and help to plan and deliver a lesson.

The most obvious application which I have regularly used in the past and most certainly will continue to use is Microsoft PowerPoint. I find Microsoft PowerPoint a great application to use whilst delivering a lesson as I believe it is the easiest and most proficient way to create and present a lesson to the class.

I find Microsoft PowerPoint really easy to use, to input text, data, pictures and videos it’s just a simple click of a few buttons. I believe you can cover a number of learning styles just through PowerPoint.

As I teach low ability students in Sport Coaching it is very easy to input pictures and videos into my presentation, the students are able to learn in a better way rather from reading from handouts or other visual aids. Also certain modules I teach are very practical, so I find by using Microsoft PowerPoint it is easy to show video clips with description on the techniques needed for certain aspects in different sports before the students perform the activity themselves.

Another application I have come across is Prezi. Prezi is a similar version to Microsoft PowerPoint, however it is done online, so you do not have access to the internet you will not be able to use it. Prezi is very similar to PowerPoint, as in the way you present your lesson but I find it very fiddley and more time consuming to use. I feel Microsoft PowerPoint is much more user friendly and I will continue to use PowerPoint over Prezi.

Hot Potatoes is another application which I will not be using. This application helps teachers to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises. As I teach college students I feel this application is very simplistic and will be more suited to primary and secondary school students.

Socrative is an online application which I would use. This application allows you to create a questionnaire relating to the lesson taught and gather results instantly. So as a teacher you can evaluate and assess the students and see if they have understood the lesson through a form of question and answer. Through the use of real-time questioning, result aggregation, and visualisation, teachers have instant insight into levels of understanding.

Wordle is another online application where it generates a word of clouds from a text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. This application will be not be used a lot during my time as a teacher, but I will consider giving handouts to the students for preparation for exams, with reminders of the key words to use whilst revising for an assessment or an exam.

Barriers to the effective use of technology in education

Technology plays a big role in changing the education environment in many school and colleges. However, not every school or classroom has had the opportunity of using technology in their classrooms or education system. Some of the benefits of using technology in education can include ; easy access to academic information , ability to learn easily which results from the use visual learning in classrooms which is helped by technological tools like smart white boards ( Lambert and Kidd 2008)

Technology is complex so some schools and teachers find it difficult to integrate technology in their existing curricula. For schools and colleges to benefit from the use of technology May (2000) states they have to agree and change their curricula, they need to find ways to integrate it with technology, so that in every subject taught, students and teachers find great use of technology. Furthermore Hartshorne and Aijan (2009) believes refusing to learn technological tools and how to use them in the classroom, will leave many schools backward and this can also effect on the grades of students in those schools.

A number researchers have identified a number of barriers that effect the use of technology in the classroom. The researchers claim that the barriers are the lack of professional development, resistance to change and access (Brown 2008; Hulbert 2008; Oblinger and Oblinger 2005; Richardson 2009).

Lack of professional development

The lack of professional development and support can act as a barrier to the effective use of technology in education. Alexander (2006) states in many schools, teachers feel unprepared to learn and integrate technology in their classrooms, yet for students, they have the knowledge of using this technology for educational purposes. In addition Lamb (2004) states there is a lack of training programs to teach teachers on ways they can use technology to simplify their job and also make it easier for their students to learn better. Analysing these statement it suggests to me that if teachers have no training skills on using technology for educational purpose, then students will miss out in their development in education.

Resistance to change

Another barrier of using technology is the resistance of change. Bullock (2004) believes some teachers have refused to change from the old way of doing things and have refused to change their strategies and tactics. Also Bromme et al., (2005) suggests using technology in the classroom can be so demanding because students always need help and this scares teachers.

Access

The lack of effective access to technological tools has also acted as a great barrier towards the effective use of technology in education. Many schools and teachers have no accesses to technological tools like smart whiteboards and projectors which can be used in visual illustrations in the classroom (Beggs 2000). Similarly Collis and Jung (2003) states some schools do not have enough computers and they even lack access to internet which can be of a great use in academic research and remote learning.

Reference List

Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning?   EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), 32-44.

Beggs, T. A. (2000). Influences and barriers to the adoption of instructional technology. Proceedings of Fifth Annual Mid-South Instructional Technology, Middle Tennessee State University, USA. Retrieved January 17, 2007, from http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed00/beggs/beggs.htm

Bromme, R., Hesse, F. W., & Spada, H. (Eds.). (2005). Barriers and biases in computer-mediated knowledge communication-and how they may be overcome. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer. Brush

Brown, J. S. (2008). How to connect technology and passion in the service of learning.  The Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(8), Retrieved October 2, 2008

Bullock, D. (2004). Moving from theory to practice: An examination of the factors that preservice teachers encounter as they attempt to gain experience teaching with technology during field placement experiences. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 12(2), 211–237.

Collis, B., & Jung, I. S. (2003). Uses of information and communication technologies in teacher education. In B. Robinson & C. Latchem (Eds.), Teacher education through open and distance learning, London: RoutledgeFalmer, 171–192

Hartshorne, R., & Ajjan, H. (2009). Examining student decisions to adopt Web 2.0   technologies: theory and empirical tests. Journal of Computing in Higher   Education, 21(2). 

Hurlburt, S. (2008). Defining tools for a new learning space: Writing and reading class blogs. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 4 (2),182-189

Lamb, B. (2004). Wide open spaces: Wikis, ready or not. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5),   36 -48. 

Lambert, J. & Kidd, L. (2008). The potential and limitations of teaching and learning in an e-Learning 2.0 environment from a cognitive load perspective. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (pp. 6003-6008).

May, M. K. (2000). Technology success: Mentoring makes a difference. Communicator [Online serial], 17(3). Available: http:// skyways.lib.ks.us/KAECT/mentoring.html.

Oblinger, D., & Oblinger, J. (2005). Is it age or IT: First steps toward understanding the   Net Generation. In D. G. Oblinger & J. L. Oblinger (eds.), Educating the net   generation. Retrieved August 7, 2008

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for   classrooms (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

   

My experience of mobile technology in learning

My experience of mobile technology in learning

A number of modules I teach, require practical assessment. So during the practical lessons and assessments I will use an iPad to take photos and record the individuals and the group for evidence of my teaching. Also the students and I, will use a number of strength and conditioning applications on the iPad to analyse their technique when completing weight training sessions and sprint training sessions. This will show an in-depth analysis of the student’s technique so they can recognise and evaluate what they are doing correctly and what needs adjusting.

I will use and download mobile phone applications to help analyse and aid the students and myself. For example the students were required to undertake the bleep test. In a matter of seconds I was able to download the bleep test on my mobile phone so the students could complete the test.

In today’s society every student will have access to Facebook on their mobile phones. In the college where I am undertaking my teaching practice they rely on Facebook to contact and update any information that is required for the up and coming lessons on the Sport Coaching Facebook page where all students have access to.  On a regular basis I will write a post to remind the class what they need to bring to the lesson or if there is a change of circumstance to the lesson, such as a change of room.