I have been working on my website today, although I have realised that I do not have anything on the home page. The home page is particularly important as it is the first page that is seen when accessing the website. However, because the home page is such an important page I am unsure about what to place on the page. I am hoping that while doing my Citizenship PGCE I will be able to place something really engaging and interesting to act as a front cover to my website.
Today I am planning to work on my ‘Key Terminology Page’. This page will be really useful in helping me to develop my subject knowledge. However, I would like to avoid as much as possible just writing definitions on a page as I think that this way of putting together a page is unengaging for young people and adults alike. Therefore, I plan to (where possible) include clips, diagrams and images to add further meaning to the written text. The page is headed ‘Key Terminology’. I am unsure about this wording as I think it makes the page sounds uninspiring and this is obviously something I aim to avoid. Therefore I need to consider what I am going to title the page. When creating my lesson examples I have particularly struggled with wording the objectives. While I am clear in my head about what I want the young people to have learnt by the end of the lesson, I am aware that I need to make sure that I have included lower and higher order thinking skills. Therefore, I have been reading about Bloom’s Taxonomy (Dymoke 2013 pp.64-66) and this has helped me to structure my learning objectives and, to present different levels of thinking throughout the lesson from ‘understanding’ to being able to ‘evaluate’.
I have found that over the past few weeks working on my website has been quite a slow process. I am starting to realise how much work goes into each lesson plan. I am mindful that the lesson content needs to be engaging and appeal to as many different leaning styles as possible (VAK). I am realising that I also need to consider the content and my self- made resources are appropriate for GCSE and that the main task includes differentiated material. Today the sources I have used I have put in Verdana font as this is a recognised dyslexia font (Imrie 2013). If I taught this lesson I would need to make sure that I was organised in taking time to photocopy the resources in different colours to make the resources accessible to pupils with Irlens.
I have decided to include a teaching tools page on my website in order to document teaching strategies in the classroom. My view for this page is that I will be able to continue to add and rewrite this page as my knowledge and experience of teaching strategies in the classroom changes and increases. This page will also be useful throughout my course and future teaching journey.
When continuing to work on my website I have found it difficult to judge timings of tasks. I have planned all my lessons for an hour; however I am unsure whether I have under or over prepared for each lesson. I think I will be able to revise my timings when I am able to teach some of the tasks to see how realistic my time allocations are.
Today I sent my letter to a head teacher of a local primary school; I hope that it is a positive response. I am really looking forward to seeing where young people begin their educational journey.
Today, after being very anxious about setting up my Citizenship Weebly website; i have made a start. The initial look of the website does not look as frightening as i first anticipated, however there are a lot of different buttons and aspects to understand and use. However i need to remember that my anxiety will decrease as I use the website, and therefore I will aim to add to the website at least three to four times a week. This experience can draw parallels with that of a young person who may find a particular subject difficult. They may just want to avoid that part of the curriculum rather than continuing to revisit the subject and overcome the barriers they face.
I wanted the overall look of the Citizenship website to be bright and engaging and not conform to an obvious theme, such as the use of people as a background. I aim for my website to be as visual as possible, taking full advantage of images and videos. ‘Today images seem to inhabit every part of our lives, and everything seems to be or have an image’ (Manghani, Piper and Simons 2006). I feel that in order for my website to be current and challenge the minds of myself and other young people and teachers. I need to take advantage and highlight the ‘power of images’ (Mitchell 1994:15 cited in Manghani, Piper and Simons 2006) as a thought provoking, and valued resource. I aim to discuss further, my use of images, content and layout of the website in future blogs. Manghani S, Piper A and Simons j (2006) Images: A Reader. London, SAGE Publications. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2014
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