Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Wiki

Two weeks ago we looked at creating a Wiki. I had only ever heard of Wikipedia so was interested to learn more, after getting shown in class I felt that it was quite interesting. A Wiki is a space where you can share information and all edit. The following week I had research week and was set a task to do on Wiki.
We were put in groups of 4 and then given a username and password; we then had to create a group. We logged on to Wiki and created a group folder. The folder was named 'Education of the future in 20 years time' in that folder we created 4 other folders with each of our names. Mandy gave us a PowerPoint to guide us and wrote some bullet points that we had to discuss. Firstly we had a group discussion of each of the points and then wrote in our named folders what we think it would be like. We also edited the front page and added pictures and also edited the fonts and colours.


I found this a really successful task and that it a wiki would be very useful in the future for things such as organizing days out with friends.

This is a video that I found fascinating, its about technology of galss in the future, I feel that this shows what display panels in schools are going to be like.

Tuesday, 1 November 2011

Reflecting on the task I was set

After numerous attempts of trying to complete the task I was given I have finally succeeded. When I found out that I had to Blog as a part of my ICT course I thought that it would be very interesting as Iv always wanted to do one but was never sure how. Yet after completing this task it wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. I’m still new on the whole blogging weekly thing so hopefully that the reason I struggled. I feel with things like this is a lot of trail and error.
I feel that there are many different ways to reflect on your work but the one that I tend to do a lot is brainstorming or mind mapping and it wasn’t until this task that I fully understood how important it is. Being in university is a big step from school and I feel sometimes that I am given so much information in a lecture and written so many notes that I just turn off. I now feel that reflecting on my work well help me a great deal. Having a blog to write on every week will motivate me to keep on refecting on my learning and talk about what I struggled with and what I enjoyed.
Overall I found this a enjoyable experience as it’s a more enjoyable way of reflecting that just pen to paper.

Reflective learning

Monday, 31 October 2011

Website Review

We were given a task to think of a particular topic and then find a suitable website that could be used to give you information required. The chosen topic that we decided to research was ‘Sunbeds.’ The reason for choosing Sunbeds to research was because it’s something that everyone knows what sunbeds are and what they do.
I was in a group with 3 other people the first step was that we all had to individually find a website that we thought was reliable. I came across a website that looked genuine and started looking more in depth. I looked at simple things, such as when was the site last updated, does the site have any reliable sources? etc.
After having a quick look I decided that I really like the site and as another member of the group happened to come across the same site we all agreed to use it. The site we settled for was http://www.sunbedassociation.org.uk/
We then decided to evaluate the site and started discussing the good and bad points. The site had good use of colours, it had different hyperlinks for different things, it had tabs for useful information and news, which we thought, was good but whilst doing this we discovered that the site was not what it seemed.
The first thing that we noticed was that the statistics didn’t seem realistic so we checked to see if it had any sources and it did but the sourses used were ‘Source: Consumer Research on Sun tanning and Sunbeds, The Sunbed Association, UK, 1997, conducted by Taylor Nelson with a sample base of 6143 adults.’ Which was information from their own research.
The group eventually found a number of things wrong with the site. We clicked on a link that took us to a page with Dr Holick who had won 18 awards which seemed genuine but quickly realised that it was a biased site due to the fact that the name of the site was ‘UV Advantages’ although this was not a reliable the group decided that we would still present it to the class not letting on that it was a bad site to show how clever and realistic some sites look and how careful you have to be.
We also used something called http://www.easywhois.com/ and to my surprise the website came up this just goes to show that you cant believe everything you read on the Internet.
After completing this task I have learnt a lot about websites and how unworthy some of them really are. I enjoyed evaluating this website and feel more confident in what to look for in order to make sure the information im using from the internet is correct.

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

About me

I am currently a student in Swansea metrapolitan university and am studying Educational Studies. This is a 3 year course and after that I hope to get on the PGCE course and become a primary school teacher.