Welcome to 2 Teachers

One Day to eCommerce

One Day to eCommerce is a project I am developing to enable a group of Year 9 IPT students at North Sydney Boy's High School (NSBHS) to develop eCommerce sites in a single day. It is ambitious and challenging, and currently under development. The project will be delivered sometime in late April or early May, and before that time this post will become a repository of materials that can be used by students at NSBHS, as well as teachers from other schools who may wish to repeat this project.

Hello World!

Today marks the end of a personal and professional journey, as I become a qualified teacher under the New South Wales education system. All of my university assignments are complete, and in under and hour I will teach my final lesson under Professional Experience 2. Whilst the course I have been studying is under a year in length, my journey began several years ago when I first started considering a move into teaching.

The Learning Teacher

Somehow I have made it through three weeks of professional practice without having time to write and reflect on my progress. Where I was relatively comfortable teaching ICT on my last prac placement, I have found teaching ESL to be an entirely different experience. For the first time I have been asked to teach without a projector and computer, which has made me realise how much I rely on these tools to deliver interesting content to students. Initially, without these tools I found myself at a loss as to what to do, short of traditional "talk and chalk" teaching.

Drupal Presentation, CSTA NSW, 26/10/2009

This page provides support for those who attended the NSW CSTA presentation I ran with Peter Stidston, Chris Dam and Nirvan Gelda on the 26th of October, 2009.

Please use the comment facility below to ask any questions, or leave feedback. It would be very useful to me if you could fill out the feedback form.

Materials

Digital Video Editing

Today I was experimenting with digital video editing, which is a creative process I hope to be able to use with my students. As part of this experiment I created the following video using Sony Vegas. Ideally, when working with primary students I would use less technical software with a more child friendly interface. The aim of this video is to present a portfolio of some of my visual arts creations. The techniques shown here are a great way for students to showcase their work while developing multiliteracy skills.

Literacy

Traditionally literacy has been seen simply as the technical skills needed to read and write (UNESCO, 2004). While these features remain key foundations for literacy, today’s modern world demands far more. Verbal and written communication skills, critical thinking and an ability to interpret a wide range of texts whether they be graphical, written or multimedia are all features of today’s literacy requirements (Winch et al., 2006). Literacy can no longer be seen as a fixed achievement but rather as life long learning.

Looking Forward

Over the past 3 months I have learned a lot about teaching. However, there are still areas I can improve. What will I focus on in the coming months?
 

Assessment

Thus far, my student assessments have been relatively unsophisticated, relying mostly on written tasks. As I being my teaching practice, I will look for new, more imaginative ways to assess student prior knowledge and learning.  This desire has been prompted by course-related work undertaken in regards to assessment.

Project Development

As part of our on-going learning, we were asked to develop a project that could be used as a unit of work under the Stage 6 Preliminary course. By applying the principals of Backwards Design and Project Based Learning, I built up the outline of a project from the syllabus documents, and then worked to create the details. The outline currently does not include lesson plans, but these could be developed from the task outlines created. The work so far is contained in the attachment below:

Creating A Digital Hub: Website Creation for Teachers

Recently I have been fielding questions from pre-service teachers regarding setting up their own website to support teaching and learning. I usually point people to a wiki (www.wikispaces.com) or blog (www.onsugar.com) service as a starting point, and show them how to integrate content from other sites and services. The video below aims to answer such questions in a thorough, easy-to-follow manner, so that teachers can help themselves.