A Good Place For a School Trip- Techniquest

Techniquest is based in Cardiff Bay in South Wales. It is a very good place to take primary school children on a trip. The children believe they are having fun but as well as playing they are learning. I visited Techniquest many times in my primary school and there was always something to do. The exhibits there are based around science and there are many exhibits all of which encourage the child to play around with it to see what different effects different actions have. It is a very stimulating environment for all key stages of primary education. They even have an After Hours session!

 

Review of an educational blog

http://www.classroomtm.co.uk/

I found this blog when searching through Google for other people's educational blogs. From all the blogs I looked at this was the one that I believed to be most useful to put on my blog for you to see. It contains some tips on teaching and many posts on useful information if you are a teacher or are studying education. They mention discovery learning and show their opinions as well as the readers of the blogs' opinions. It gives teachers ideas on arts and crafts projects for Christmas and many ideas on effective ways of incorporating art and hand on crafts into the children's education. I believe that this blog is good for any teacher who wants a more creative approach to teaching. I have provided a link at the beginning of the post for anyone who wants to take a look. :)

Facebook - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

There have been many bad reviews of Facebook. If you haven't heard about a story in the press then you would have been shown one in an educational context. Places such as guidance classes in schools when discussing bullying, or a school assembly on the dangers of talking to people online. You may even have come across  a negative story of Facebook in college, university or even on the news.Therefore in this post I have decided to take a look at the pros and cons of using Facebook. I will refer to the pros as "the good" , the cons as "the bad" and include stories to show evidence of how Facebook can be bad. I will call this "the ugly".  So here it goes;

The Good:

Facebook can be used for a number of good things. These include ;

• Contacting relatives who live abroad.
• Finding family members that you have lost contact with.
• Finding old friends from school/college/university.
• Sharing photos with distant family and friends
• An affective way of joining groups that involve your interest.

The Bad:

However Facebook is used by a large minority as a tool for bad things. These include ;

• Creating pages or groups with intent to offend,upset or intimidate others.
• Creating a profile that does not represent the real you purposely and using it to hurt others emotionally.
• Using the website to promote a personal prejudiced judgement and discriminating against others.

The Ugly:

The Story of Hannah Smith

Due to an app on Facebook Hannah Smith took her own life after she received many messages stating that she should kill herself. Within the article (above) are others who have also experienced the same kind of behaviour from the website. Many lives have been lost through people using the site as a way of bullying people. Although Ask.Fm requires you to provide your name, you can choose to send messages and remain anonymous from the person receiving the message.

Bullying on Facebook is something I have not experienced personally. However a friend of mine from school and college was a victim of cyber-bullying through Facebook. He passed away in November 2012 and had many aspirations and ambitions. His main ambition was to be a photographer. Unfortunately due to Facebook many people have lost their lives. The people who choose to use Sites such as Facebook to cause hurt and distress to others are taking away the good things that Facebook is capable of doing. Below is a link on Lewis' story. Feel free to read the article and i hope this blog has cleared your thoughts on the Pros and Cons of Facebook.

Lewis' Story

Animation - How to use in an educational purpose

Here's the video I promised of some ideas on how to use animation programmes as a teaching tool. It was quite difficult to write although there was a text box tool but i found this didn't give it the same effect.

Simple Animation - My first attempt

I created this animation on a website with a free animation creator. This was my first attempt and I believe this could be used in an educational context for pupils of a young age ( Nursery and Reception) as an effective teaching tool. I will create an animation to show you my ideas on how i believe an animation could be used.

Changes

TED Talks - Geoffrey Canada

After watching this video I thought about what Geoffrey Canada spoke about. Geoffrey Canada helps children who are in poverty and follows them from birth to college age to ensure the cycle of poverty is not repeated and continued. He demonstrates good examples of why the education systems need to change as they are failing and demonstrates that we need a change and without failure there is no progression to better ways. I believe this video is valuable to have on my blog as it is very relevant to what is happening in the world today, my studies at university and also my future career. It makes you think twice about things. Although he speaks about the United States of America what he talks of is true for the United Kingdom also. Our PISA scores are very low and little is being done to improve them. I have put this video on my blog so that you can watch it and it will more than likely begin to make you think of his views and attitudes and wonder if a different education system would benefit children. Hope you enjoy this video as much as I have and relate to and agree with his argument for change.