Appendix 4

Group 4 Technologies

This group of technologies were actually a lot of fun to get involved with and experiment with!  I know I really enjoyed having a good old play around with Google Earth and Google Map, especially when I found my house and could zoom around the streets!  I also quite liked Gizmo and what it offered for both students and teachers, I know that after checking it out I'll definitely be attempting to use it in the classroom (especially when trying to get students to understand tectonic plates etc).

But perhaps the technology I most enjoyed was that of Dipity.  Basically this is an online timeline generating website, where you can create your own timelines based on anything you want, or you can view timelines that have already been created.  I decided that I would test this technology out and so I created my own timeline, which you can see below (I have also included a direct link to the timeline on the Dipity site).

http://www.dipity.com/staceydraper/My-literacy-and-numeracy-journey/

My literacy and numeracy journey on Dipity.

And because I found Dipity perhaps the most enjoyable of these technologies, I have provided an indepth 'Concept Map' to show how I view this in a teaching context.  As I was unable to access the mapping links provided to us on the ICTs moodle site I had to locate some mapping sources from out in the universe.  The one I have used here is called 'Mindjet Mindmanager', it's free to download and I found it so simple and easy to use!

To break down everything that was included in this group of technologies, I have created a very basic and simple concept map.  I decided not to go too over the top here with the information as I wanted to avoid an over crowed and messy looking map.  As it turns out, with the small amount of info I did decide to include, the map did eventually became incredibly crowded.  Unfortunately, for some unknown technological reason I was unable to use the concept mapping tools provided on the ICTs moodle site, so thus I again had to source my own!

The program that I used in this case is called 'Personal Brain' and is available online as a free download.  It still has me confused, and I don't quite know how I even managed to create this mind map as I found the program incredibly confusing to use!

All in all though, this group of technologies I have found to be a lot of fun!  I have certainly enjoyed every minute of creating things and experimenting with the programs.  I can not wait to get in and start using these in the classroom!