Can't believe it's over!!

           Can't believe it's over.....Need to keep up the Christmas spirit until New Year!!!

Revision!!!!

Over Christmas we have needed to revise for exams due to be sat in January, this includes the research and revision of Vygotsky and Piaget.

For those who are unfamiliar with these names, Vygotsky was a Russian and his research has been the base of many learning theories and cognitive development, one of which has been known to become the Social Development theory. Vygotsky was very much behind social learning and interacting with one another. Vygotsky believed that the idea for the potential of an idea depends on 'the zone of proximal development'. The zone of proximal devleopment is illustrated below along with a picture of Vygotsky.

 

 http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html

 

 

Piaget was a Swiss man and his research was to prove how learning should focus on development rather than learning per se. Piaget believed that there were particular stages of cognitive development, they were:

 

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Piaget's_Stages

 

 This was Piaget:
 

 

 This was just a quick update on the Uni work I’m trying to cover through the holidays!! Hope your all having a fab Christmas break!!

Pros and Cons of Facebook

                                                        Pros and Cons of  facebook.com

Facebook was launched in February 2004 as a social networking site, it now has over 1 billion user worldwide, and at least half of which are accessed through a mobile device.

I use Facebook myself but there have been many occasions I have considered deleting my account. I don’t like how so many people can access your information and photos. I do keep my account as private as I like but I still think twice about uploading pictures of my brother and sisters, as you never really know who could see them. I keep my account active as it the main way I keep in contact with my friends and some family back in Mid Wales.

There is an age restriction in place to having a Facebook account but children soon figure out how to change their date of birth to create an account. There should definitely be a more secure process to setting up an account as there is certain content on Facebook that some children really could find upsetting, offensive or confusing.

Whilst logged into Facebook you are able to have instant conversation with friends online at the same time, send private messages to both friends and people who you are not connected with, View other profiles and photos and play games. You can also create your own photo albums and tag people that you are friends with in photos that both you and other people have uploaded.

There is now a system in place which I think is a good move for Facebook, where if someone tags you in a photo or a post you have to review and agree to being linked to this post before it goes public. Prior to this as soon as somebody tagged you in a photo you were instantly linked to it without your approval.

I do think that Facebook is keeping up with the times and they are trying to make the site more accessible and secure for users. I will definitely keep my account to stay in contact with friends and family back home as well as seeing any photos that friends and family add on a regular basis.

There is no doubt that I will definitely keep my profile private where only friends can see any posts or photos that involve me.

Blog review - creatveeducation.co.uk/blog

http://www.creativeeducation.co.uk/blog/

One of the Blogs I follow on my page is the ‘The Creative Education Blog’. I find this very interesting and useful as it covers all types of discussions about the curriculum, classroom ideas, behaviour and many more subjects. This blog would be very useful to both new and experienced teaching staff as new ideas are always welcome in the classroom.  

Some of the discussions include:

How to tackle persistent lateness

Inspiring students – Emily’s anti-bullying campaign

Using Drama to liven up your lessons.

This blog really does cover a wide series of issues that a teacher will more than likely stumble across.

This blog also has a search box at the top of the page which allows you to search within this blog for certain topics or related words in the text. A list of these given texts will then appear on the page in front of you.

You can also sign up to this blog page to receive all of the latest updates from this blog and you will also receive a copy of their Twitter guide for teachers which comes in pdf format.

Even if you are not signed up for updates on the blog you can still write as a guest on the blog page giving you opinion by commenting on posts you feel that you are knowledgeable on.

Christmas!!!

So Christmas is over!! It has been a fab Christmas though, it's so nice to see all of the family. All of my family back home have been insterested in how Uni and work is going, so I was able to update them with everything! It's not very often we all meet up so it was very special!

 I'm now getting my head down trying to get upto date with work we were given before Christmas!!

I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and wishing you all a prosperous new year!!

Education innovation in the slums.

http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_leadbeater_on_education.html

Following watching a video on ‘Tedtalk.com’ by Charles Leadbeater : Education innovation in the slums I found his talk very interesting looking at the information he had gathered whilst researching education in the slums across the world.

Charles Leadbeater went to a place called ‘Monkey Hill’ in Rio which has one of the fastest growing young population in the world. At the age of fourteen you will find that the majority of children will drop out of school as they may find it very boring, they may feel that they have better things to do with their time or as in many cases they may go on to work in the ever growing drugs trade. In this video Charles Leadbeater shows us a fourteen year old boy who dropped out of school and went onto to work in the drugs trade within a short period of time he was turning over $200,000 a week. This just shows how appealing this terrible lifestyle can appear to be. 

CDI’s are being introduced gradually across slums in certain areas by various social entrepreneurs, CDI’s are community centres with computers that children can have regular access to. The idea is that these computers are there to make learning both fun and accessible. There are also some schools in the slums set up by nuns, but you will find that at least half of the children in these schools will have no parents, the majority of the rest of the children will probably only have one parent.

These schools do not follow a curriculum like we do in the UK, their schools are there teach they the basic life skills to stay alive, how to earn an honest living and very importantly making aids an important issue. One way of learning that is very different from schools in the UK is that the start of the day is opened with a question, task or game rather than diving straight into a school lesson. This firstly gets the attention of the children as it will involve discussing/playing/doing something relevant and interesting to them. This may not seem like it is part of learning but it can then develop into a project whether it be music/dance/art or many more.

One part of the video that did interest me, which I have seen on documentaries previously, is the learning bus. Asia is full of building sites and on each building site there are approximately 30,000 children, which is enough to house a city. On most of these sites you will find a bus which is actually a school, which gives these large amounts of children the hope to have an educated future.

Other than schooling there are success stories where children have gone on to learn a trade such as carpentry, you will see one success story on this video.

Given the situations that these slums are in I do think a lot can be learnt from them, obviously we are in a much better off environment but the strategies of learning could definitely be approached.

Back to Uni!

So I am back to uni part-time until Christmas, feels weird being back and getting into it slowly!! The day started with an exam!! scary times!!

What is a blog?

Blogging has been around for about ten years now and this site (Blogger) started back in 1999.

Blog stands for 'web log' and basically is a library of online diaries. Anyone can write anything on their own blog, so blogs are not a reliable source for gathering information. There are many 'spoof' blogs out there...so look out for them!
However many businesses use their own blog pages to communicate with their customers aswell as newspapers using their own blog sites for free publicity and to communicate with their readers.

A blog can be described as a sort of website but some of features that make a blog different are :

* Readers can leave comments
* Content is pulished in a chronological fashion
* Content is updated regularly

Also a blog can be in any language.

Blogging can be used for numerous reasons including :

Educational purposes
Personal diary
Business purposes / publicity
Social networking
Hobby related and many more!!!

Operation Time! :-(

So unfortnately I have not been in Uni for a while as I was suffering with ear problems which ended up with me having a big operation on my left ear!!
I have been trying my best to complete an assignment due in on 10th December and I am now also trying to get upto date with my blog!!
I'm hoping to make a gradual return to uni next week though, I'm very much looking forward to seeing all my uni friends and seeing what I have missed out on....although I know my Christmas is going to be haunted with catching up on missed work and readings!!
I can't wait to return full-time in January 2013!!!

My youngest Sister growing up to date....

About me

Hi my name is Gwalia I'm 25 and am studying the Degree with honours in Educational studies at Swansea Met. I am studying this course as for the past 4 years I have been working in schools whilst studying NCFE level 2 Classroom Assistant  then progressing to the CACHE Level 3 in Supporting Teaching and Learning.
Whilst working in schools I have worked in both mainstream Primary and Secondary Schools as well as Special Needs Schools acrossMid and South Wales. Whilst the past four years have given me invaluable experience I now feel I need to progress in my career which didn't seem achievable whilst in full-time employment.
At the end of this course I would very much like to work with Welfare or Educational support.
I was unsure about giving up work when I first came onto this course but I am glad I made the choice I did. I have also found part-time work to help support myself which has been an added bonus.

I am very much enjoying the course so far and have made some fab uni friends in the process.

I now live in Bridgend with my partner Chris, we bought our first house together this year. I am originally from Mid Wales from the Llandrindod Wells area but moved to South Wales three and a half years ago to be closer to my partner.