Befunky Review

Befunky is an app I first downloaded when doing my photography A Level in sixth form. I noticed it in the app store on my iPhone and thought I'd try using it, ever since I've been using it to edit photos on a weekly basis. It now has 2 different apps, one free and one which costs £1.69, and also has a web app. The web app gives you a choice from where to upload your photo, allowing you to upload straight from your computer or from other websites such as Facebook which is handy and easy to do. It provides you with a range of tools including the crop tool, a sharpener and even allows you to add text to your photos or make a collage with them.

Befunky also lets you do things such as turn people into cartoon sketches, give black and white images colour and you can you're then able to save the edited images in .jpg or .pgn formats, being the most popular of internet usage. Unlike some of the other apps, Befunky doesn't require you to sign up and register before being able to do anything, within a click of the "save" button you're able to upload your edited image to many different social websites or save it in your photo album. Everything about Befunky is simplistic and easy to understand. Whether you just need a quick crop of an image or a more elaborate presentation, Befunky can achieve your needs. Here are two images I made using the web app.

http://www.befunky.com/create/

Question Poll

History of Technology and Education

In the 1700's Chalkboards and blackboards were used, allowing the teacher to display information with the classroom by writing or drawing. Children were given boards themselves but would have to clean them after they were filled to be able to write more which meant erasing information and having nothing to keep it in other than their memory. In the 1800's books were introduced, not only allowing children to keep written information on different pages, but also enabled teachers and pupils to read and follow information provided in them. Between 1920 and 1990 electrical devices such as radio's, projectors and TV's and computers were developed, bringing visual and audio presentation and demonstration to schools. Towards the end of the 20th century was when people were introduced to the internet, allowing them to gain from others' knowledge and experiences, participate in chatrooms, share ideas and solutions and learn about the many diverse cultures out there. The idea of the internet was then developed in the early 2000's producing more and more interactive services and making social sites such as YouTube, promoting online popularity. Shortly after the success of the internet, development was taken further and the internet was put onto different devices such as iPads and smartphones. Providing facilities such as search engines and thousands of available apps, the internet has become a part of everyday life for students, providing information as and when it is needed. These days, use of mobile phones for internet purposes has become a routine.

The Newspaper Clipping Generator

This is an online app called 'The newspaper clipping generator'. It allows you to name the paper, choose a headline and then type information. This can be useful for displaying information in a different context.

Dangers Of The Web

When you surf the web, your computer is constantly downloading files and in some cases other software so you can use the web to its full capacity. However, sometimes these files or programs are written by people who want to steal your information or harm your computer. This is called Malware or Malicious Software. There is also a danger when using online social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, these sites can put children at a much greater risk to receive a message from a stranger which could then lead on to meeting with a stranger. Other concerns of social networking sites can consist of a lack of age-verification mechanisms, access to provocative pictures and videos, and easy access for predators and cyber-bullies.

On the Internet, cyber-bullying takes various forms. It includes sending hateful messages or even death threats to children, spreading lies about them online, making nasty comments on their social networking profiles, or even creating a website or profile to humiliate their looks or reputation. Cyber-bullying differs from school-yard bullying as teachers can't intervene when it's on the Internet. Another issue with cyber-bullying is that the bullies don't witness their victims' reactions as they are not in their presence. A woman named Mary Ellen Handy experienced being cyber bullied due to a girl being jealous after she'd dated a boy. She'd receive messages such as "I hate you, leave the school." from the girl, and Mary stated herself "she'd call me every name in the book." The jealous girl managed to get up to 20 others to join her and to send messages of abuse to Handy,  This case went on for a few months making Mary nervous to go to school, making her feel physically ill and even had a negative effect on her grades.

To make sure your child is safe using the web, make sure they know that they should never give out any personal information online such as a phone number, address, or any private information such as passwords or credit card details. Your kids would not give their address to a stranger on the phone, nor should they divulge it online. Teach your children to come to you and let you know if they have any trouble or anything which they have not seen before and might be dangerous. A parent can also use a parental control software for an appropriate reason to make sure their children don't go on dangerous websites.


References;
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/4-dangers-internet
http://www.internetsafety101.org/snsdangers.htm
http://www.surveilstar.com/top-5-dangers-of-using-the-internet.html

TED Talks

I decided to use this video from TED Talks as my subject because I sometimes fear preforming in front of people when playing rugby or the drums so 'How I beat stage fright' caught my eye and I felt a sense of good will after watching it. The video is about Joe Kowan, a songwriter who didn't have the confidence to show anyone his songs until the age of 30, when he decided it was time to put his fears behind him and show people his work. He uses humour to entertain the crowd but still gets his point across and I found it very inspiring on how he overcome his problems and fears, becoming a new confident person which allowed him to do what he wanted to do.  The song he uses to give his story is very funny, and you can tell that the audience are all intrigued.  His positive attitude inspires you to believe in yourself, and no matter how hard you may think something can be, you can still achieve it if you put your mind to it.

Blog Review - A New Approach

I've decided to write my blog review on "A New Approach". I decided to read and review this blog as I like to be up to date with all the new gadgets and believe that technology is going to have a massive impact on education in the future. Technology is used so often that people need to be educated to keep up to date with new changes and new techniques. Although this blog was initially made in 2007,it's still updated very frequently so there's always something new to look at and the information is up to date. It has plenty of tags on the right hand side which can be useful if you're looking for certain posts and even has a radio which you can turn on whilst scrolling through which adds a nice touch. Each post tends to have the same font style and similar size, with headings being bolder and larger to make the layout clear and easier to read. Each post contains media which is relative to the blog whether it's a video, app or an image, keeping it interesting whilst giving information at the same time. There are also has some fun and interactive applications available to use such as voting polls. The blog helped to give me ideas for my own posts and I would definitely recommend it to others that are interested in technology or are thinking about making a blog. A blog provides you with tools and method of uploading almost anything you need to display information and is a great way of creating a project of work, a good way to represent a business and also a useful app to use for making a diary or a page for your own entertainment.

Here's a link to the blog that's been reviewed; http://mandy-newapproach.blogspot.co.uk/

Glog

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A Glog is useful when different media is needed on one page. Here I have used text, images and a video from youtube to provide information, personal advice and examples of a chosen topic. Glog could be useful to teach as it's easy to function and children would be fascinated by the different media available for them to look at.

My Photo Story

My idea for my photo story came from looking back at the photo's taken on my first holiday away with the lads. Hundreds of photos were taken but I tried to summaries the holiday by using a small amount of images that were taken throughout the week.

Twitter

Twitter is a social network that is used by millions of people. You can publicly post whatever you like to say and can also add images and links, and it allows you to see what other people post. Unlike Facebook, you don't add people as friends and send requests to be signed up to each others profiles. On twitter, you simply follow someone and their tweets will then appear on your home page with the rest of the people you follow, unless the person has made their profile private. Twitter also has other features which allow you to communicate and keep up to date with society. When another person makes a tweet, you can "retweet" and/or "favourite" it. Retweeting it will add it to your personal page, and it will be shown on the home page for the people following you to see. Favouriting it will put it in a list with your other favourites, which are only viewable if you click on someone's favourite list. You can also reply to peoples tweets which easily allows you to have conversations and send messages back and forth to each other similar to texting. This means that everyone can see the conversation as they are tweets you're making on your personal page and they will show on he home page of those following you. However, Twitter also has a feature called "Direct Messaging" which means you can directly message someone and they'll be notified about it and be able to read it and reply without noone else being able to see it.

 Advantages of twitter;
1. Able to follow celebrities and other profiles which you're interested in
2. Keeps you updated with what's going on
3. Can communicate with people and see tweets and photo's which you may find interesting or funny
4. Free way to share images and to communicate with people all over the world
5. Often find interesting information and can learn alot of new things from others

Disadvantages of twitter;
1. People can get hold of your personal information and use it for
2. Can easily get addicted
3. Bullying can be popular on social networks
4. Stalkers can use twitter to find out what people are doing and where they may be

Vygotsky's disagreements of Jean Piaget's theories

Vygotsky made his theories around the same time as Jean Piaget who was another theorist who also specialised on cognitive development. Like Piaget, he believed that children are actively involved in constructing their own learning, discovering and developing of new understandings. However, Vygotsky was a social constructivist where was Piaget was a cognitive constructivist, so he placed more emphasis on social contributions to the process of development, whereas Piaget emphasised on self-initiated discovery. A lot of Vygotsky’s theories contradict those of Piaget as he did not believe in the stages and content of development. Another disagreement was on the order of the process. Vygotsky argued that learning is an aspect of developing, so he thought social learning must come before development, whereas Piaget’s notion stated that children’s development must precede their learning.

Why use a Voki?

I decided to use the 'Voki' Web application because I believe that it can be very useful for education. A Voki can help to keep pupils interested and focused as it adds something different and is also interactive, allowing children to have hand on experiences. An app like this is great for teaching younger children, a cartoon character that they can listen to and can personally edit will instantly capture their attention. Apps like these are simple to use and are available to anyone. Trying to learn a lot of information can often be difficult and a child can easily lose interest if the learning style stays the same, for example reading a book or listening to a teacher talk for an hour can often bore a child and it's very unlikely that they will actually learn something. Adding something like a Voki to the content can make a big difference, and will help to improve a child's computing skills at the same time.

Voki

Wordle

Wordle is a useful way of emphasising words and helps to summarise content providing an alternative, more appealing approach to bullet points. In education Wordle can be used by teachers to stress key points to pupils, to quickly recap on lessons and can also promote self reflections, preventing you from going off-track and sticking to main factors.  Pupils can also benefit from using Worlde to make brief points on topics, promoting self reflections which prevent the child losing track and allows them to illustrate information as a picture.

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Memory

Memory is our ability to store, retain and to be able to recall information in our brain. Just by hearing or reading information it doesn’t mean that you’re learning, you have to be able to remember the information in order to have knowledge of it. Chunking is a strategy used to help us remember things in groups. This can be very useful and effective but it also has it’s negatives. For example, chunking is often used to learn the alphabet but by only remembering it in a certain order, it makes it difficult to remember certain parts of it without going through the whole pattern e.g we all know the alphabet, but would all struggle to do it backwards because we have all learnt it using the chunking technique.

Systematic procedures also help to improve memory. An example of this would be using a sentence to help spell a word, such as Billy Eats Cakes And Uses Six Eggs to spell the word because. This method is also often used to remember patterns, such as the colours of the rainbow and the planets of the universe.  The only negative of this method is that people rely on it, and are unable to remember the pattern without using this technique.

Creative Development

Creative development is created through aspects such as responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas, developing imagination and exploring media and materials. Children benefit from free play and unstructured art activities, but left entirely to their own devices children’s play and artwork can become routine and repetitive. To solve this problem children need stimulation and creative problems to solve. Adults can help children to develop their creative skills through play by providing activities and creative problems to solve, creating stimulation.

'Creativity emerges as children become absorbed in action and explorations of their own ideas, expressing them through movement, making and transforming things using media and materials.' (Early Years Matters, 2007). An example of an activity that is used to help creative development would be allowing children to use clay to make their own model of an object. By letting the children make their own individual model, they develop physical manipulation and physical actions by squeezing, moulding and cutting the clay. They also share skills and knowledge with each other which helps them learn and improve on their problem solving. This activity helps the children learn because they enjoy the sensory qualities and they are able to have fun and use their own creative ideas whilst making the models. 

Reference;

http://wales.gov.uk/topics/educationandskills/earlyyearshome/foundation-phase/?lang=en

My Education Journey

I started off at Gowerton infants school as it was in my local area. I then moved on to Gowerton primary, which was when I started to play sports such as foootball and rugby. After this I went on to Gowerton Comprehensive where I sat my GCSE's and got the qualifications to go on to sixth form at the school. I then had the choice of what A levels to take and by passing these courses after two years I was able to join Swansea University.

Reflective Learning

Reflective learning allows people to analyse and improve on how they learn. It's an important part of individual learning and brings theory and practice  together by allowing you to look back and reflect on your actions. This then helps to develop critical thinking and analytical skills. When people reflect on their own learning process, it allows them to discover what makes them learn to their full potential, and what methods and techniques they find most effective. They can also work out which methods didn't work so they are able to change and do things differently to make it suit their preferred method.

Reflective learning can be recorded in various ways such as writing a diary, journal or even writing small notes. By making records it maskes it easier to reflect back on and prevents you from forgetting things. It also allows you to record your personal developement which allows you to see what methods work and which didn't.

Reflective learning is often needed and can be very useful. It's regularly used as a part of a practice-based assignment, project or work placement. Improving your reflection skills also enhances your learning experience, and reflection is increasingly used by employers.