TASK 2: TECHNOLOGY - Well if you don't mind i might compare now

Blogger, Wikispace and Weebly tools are awesome and offer opportunities for teaching and learning that were not so long ago unimaginable. I’m not going to lie, I’m so impressed with all three technologies. Personally I must say I enjoyed working with weebly the most as I thought it was the easiest to work out. With this said there were many advantages with blog and wiki too, and the problem solving was very rewarding for me- once I figured how to achieve certain things, this type of problem solving activity is a very important part of learning.

In my opinion the tools vary in complexity with blogger being quite simple due to the fact that it’s just a blog and wikispaces is the next level of complexity as it offers fantastic opportunities for collaboration and weebly seems to combine both. From this, I determine that blogger may suitable for the early years, and wiki and weebly may better suit an upper primary cohort.  I love how all systems are supportive of various learning theories, namely, constructivism, connectivism, and behaviorism. These theories directly relate to the 21^st, digital teaching (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett, & Farmer, 2012). It is important to note how important it is to explicitly teach safe, ethical and legal practices and display a poster of appropriate behavior and refer to it frequently when using ICT.

It is also important educators consider the pedagogy used when teaching with ICT tools. Drawing from past observations, sometimes teachers forget that these tools don’t do the teaching for them. Its important that appropriate scaffolding of ICT lessons are achieved to ensure students are achieving higher order thinking and tasks are beneficial (Birt, 2015). With this achieved, students are able to use inquiry processes to make connections and assess, integrate, synthesis and evaluate new information. ICT supports highly creative reflective processes through organizing ideas, modeling and visualizing the invisible (Birt, 2015). Ahhh, endless possibilities.

Now time to compare (whoop whoop):

Reference:

Arthur, L.,Beecher, B., Death, E., Dockett, S., & Farmer, S (2012). Programming and planning in early childhood settings (5 th edn). South Melbourne, Vic, Australia

Birt, K. (2015). Managing E-Learning, FAHE11001 [know your learner and the brain]. Retrieved from: https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=101648