Creating A Timetable

   Just thought I would update you with another website that I find useful, and one that I would reccomend. Getrevising has a tool that you can customize so that you can view your weekly timetable online, and you can also print it, so you have a hard copy for yourself. On the timetable you can add classes and also other activities or hobbies that you do in the week. Study time can also be added, which in my opinion is a really helpful tool to plan out the amount of studying that you do in the week, and balance it out with other activities. This helps to motivate me to stick to a study plan, and also stick to deadlines, which can even be added in to the timetable.

Below is an example of what you can create.

An example of a timetable

Blogger - Strengths and Weaknesses

   The website that I use to blog is Blogger, and although I am relatively new to blogging and using the site, I believe that I have enough experience to talk about the good and bad points of the website. Below, I have compiled a list of some strengths and weaknesses that I have found using the site.

Strengths

1. By embedding HTML codes into your blog, you can make a blog post look good and help readers be directed towards youtube videos to help with understsnding of the subject that they are blogging about for example.
2. You can link text to a website, for the convenience of the reader.
3. A search bar can be added to make searching the blog easy.
4. Easy to customise the layout and template.
5. Labels help readers to nagivate the blog.

Weaknesses

1. What you can do regarding the text is limited, for example the font size and font type.
2.  Although you can customise the template and add your own template, it is quite difficult to make it look unique.
3. Difficult to place images onto the blog post, and also to adjust the size to your preference.
4. It is difficult to know what your audience want, especially if you have no comments or not many readers.
5. It is quite difficult to find online, for example if you want to gain more readers.

How To - Adding Tables To Blogger

   A useful tool for blogging is adding tables to your blog. Blogger however, makes it difficult to add it onto your blog. In this blog post, I will show an example of how to do this.

• The first step is to create your table on a programme like excel, then select and copy the cells.

• The next step is to go to Tableizer and paste the table into the box. The font size, colour and font can be changed.Then click tableize.

•  Copy the HTML code.

• On the HTML part of blogger, paste the HTML from tableizer into blogger.

• Click on publish and your table has been created! 

• Below is the table that I created.

	Pros	Cons
1	Easy to access, for example on multiple devices (laptops, tablets, smart phones etc.)	Anyone is able to access and edit the pages on the site, therefore giving innaccurate or even false information.
2	Can be updated at any time, unlike an encyclopedia in book form.	Internet 'trolls' can change the information as a joke, if not administered properly.
3	Free to all users, nobody has to pay for the information.	If used by students, the information they use could be inaccurate or wrong.

Another Useful Online Tool...Animoto!

   Here is another post about an online tool that could assist with revison or would even help teachers present a lesson in class. The website is called Animoto.
   I tried out this website, and put together an example video below.

     

    As you can see, my creation isn't the most artistic/original piece of work. The video took under five minutes to create, using some of the many provided images, and one of the provided themes. You can also add your own videos or pictures to personalise videos, and choose the music that you can use. I think that this site would be more useful in terms of presenting rather than revision, as there is not much text that you can put onto the animation. There is an extensive gallery of videos, themes, music and images that you can use for free in your animoto creation, and choosing these was something that I really enjoyed doing.

   A negative point of this app is that you have to sign up to use the service. The website is free to use, but there is only a limited amount that you can do with it. For example, the length of the video can only be thirty seconds long. This is a downside as some people might want to make a longer video.

   Overall, the website is restricted as to what you can do, but it is useful and the finished creations are very appealing to look at.

Useful Revision Tools With ExamTime

  Just a quick update to show you readers this useful website. If you need a tool for revision, this website is very useful. You can create online mind maps, quizzes, notecards and revision notes. There is even the oppurtunity to embed your creation into your blog. I have used this website myself whilst revising for exams, and I found it very useful. It may even be useful to teachers, they may want to create a quiz for their class, for example.
   Below is an example of what you are able to do on the website.

ABCdoes.com

    

   This blog is a recommended educational blog that I follow, specifically aimed towards the early years part of education. The author of this particular blog has been a head teacher for ten years, therefore giving him expertise to talk about education in particular. Advice is provided to assist children with literature and reading. The blog is updated regularly, which is something that I particularly look for in a blog.
   The blog has resources for early years teachers to use, for example, play dough recipes to encourage learning/play. There is also information about any conferences that the author is taking part in, so teachers can gain useful ideas about teaching, an example being Excellence in Early Years.
   I think that the most valuable part about this blog is the experience that the author has in education. The ideas in the blog are really interesting, and provides very useful activities that teachers could try out. These activities are all tried out by the author, who would want to provide blog readers with a tried and tested way of teaching.
   Despite this, I think what would be useful with this blog is if there were to be more resources to help teachers, as there is a very limited amount on the website.
   Overall, I think that this is a great blog for anyone who would want ideas for teaching children in the early years. Many useful activities are suggested, by an author who has much experience in the field of early years education.
  

Future Technology in the Classroom

   Future technology is an interesting subject to think about, as there are many different possibilities. There has been a lot of change in education and how they use technology over the past hundred years. From the introduction of computers into the classroom to today, with ipads being a common feature in some classrooms.

   

   The above youtube video shows an example of what a typical classroom could look like in the future. Holograms are used and each student has their own personal device to interact with during the lesson, to take notes or write projects. The tables are also interactive to assist with learning. As you can see, the students are not using books as part of their day.
   Technology has gradually become a part of everyday life and is increasingly become more and more common in education and in classrooms.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

   The video above is very inspirational to me. It is a video clip from a TED talks conference, where speakers get together and talk about certain issues in the world today. The topic covered by the speaker is quite a controversial one, if schools kill creativity. Sir Ken Robinson attempts to tell his message to the audience in a funny, humorous way. Education was something in my experience that I did enjoy, but I personally felt that it was very restricting in the way that work was expected to be completed. Success is measured by academic achievements in schools, but creativity is not viewed as success compared to academic.

7 Photo Story

   Below is my seven photo story, a day in the life of Lily the bichon frise.

Wordle

 Wordle is a useful application that can be helpful in terms of education. All you have to do is paste a selection of text into the website, or the URL of the website and it will create an image of the main words in the text. This would be particularly useful in an educaional context if an individual has to remember key words, if doing revision for example. It could also be used by teachers, to list words and then pupils could look them up to find out their meaning. The colours of the text, the font and the layout of the words can be changed, vertical or horizontal, or a mixture of both.
   Despite this, there are a few cons about this web 2.0 application. The software Java has to be downloaded onto the computer to create a wordle, and this can take some time to download. Also, in an educational setting there is not that much that you can do with this application.
   Below is an example of the wordle that I created, based on the text that is on my blog.

Should You Use Wikipedia?

   I am sure everyone reading this would have used, or at least be familiar with Wikipedia. There is much controversy about the reliabillity of this Web 2.0 application, due to the simple fact that anyone is able to access and change the information on any of the pages on the site.

Below is a table demonstrating some of the pros and cons about using Wikipedia.

	Pros	Cons
1	Easy to access, for example on multiple devices (laptops, tablets, smart phones etc.)	Anyone is able to access and edit the pages on the site, therefore giving inaccurate or even false info rmation.
2	Can be updated at any time, unlike an encyclopedia in book form.	Internet 'trolls' can change the information as a joke, if not administered properly.
3	Free to all users, nobody has to pay for the information.	If used by students, the information they use could be inaccurate or wrong.

A Typical Day in University

   We were asked as a team to create a video in university, and edit it ourselves using an application on an IPad. We used imovie to edit our video. Overall, we were relatively happy with our work, but we did have complications using this app. It was very difficult to add video clips to the final clip, as we had to view them to see what videos they were, and then determine where they would be placed  in the final piece. The ability to speed up certain parts of the video would have made our final video less boring. The music in the video that imovie provided was also very repetitive, and got actually quite annoying by the end of the video.

Can you guess?

The animation above is what I created with the software '2Animate'. It is a well-known catchphrase, can you guess it? As you can see, my art skills are very limited but I found it interesting to use an unfamiliar software to experiment with. It actually took longer to make than I expected, but in the end I managed to create a small animation.

Reflection

Reflection is an important part of learning, as essentially we are learning from our own mistakes. The brainstorm map above shows the reflective process, and how I would personally deal with reflecting on work in university. I used the website bubbl.us to create the image, and I found that it was a simple yet effective way to create a map fot brainstorming.

Why am I here?

I am here, at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David for a number of reasons. I attended an open day here when I was studying my A levels and the course that I looked at studying sounded really interesting, and would help me get into my chosen career. I hope to be a primary school teacher when I complete the three year course. To do this, I would need to do a PGCE after the three year course.