Podcast transcript
How does ICT assist teaching and learning in Queensland schools?
Teacher Liz Puller discovered the benefits of Thinking Digitally at a regional professional development session
Liz Puller, teacher, SunburyState School:‘We’re all learning together and that’s how he makes you feel. And somebody very quietlywould say ‘I did this or I did that’ and he’ll go ‘wow, that’s great’ and get excited about it – so everyone got excited.
‘What I really liked about his course was that you didn’t have to be an expert, in fact you didn’t have to know anything. We’re all learning together and the best thing is that we all got to share what we found out.’
How did the professional development opportunity inspire you?
Liz Puller, teacher, SunburyState School: ‘I took the kid in and I said ‘I’ve got an idea. I’d like to do a story, what do you think’. And he said ‘yeah great, let’s do that.
‘These kids can’t really write stories so we started with the Learning Object and went through that. He got excited about that, so we went from that and built a story. I said ‘my aim is to produce a stop-motion animation movie’ from a story that they have written – so it’s to share.’
‘These kids struggle with literacy but they were keen to make it vivid enough. I think they were seeing the picture inside their head as they were writingit. I think they were seeing how it would an animation at the end of it.’
What learning outcomes have you seen?
Liz Puller, teacher, SunburyState School:‘And Jasper now, I spoke to his teacher on Friday, he will write for you. Before he wouldn’t, it would just be a sentence. So it’s carried on that he’s willing to put done thoughts and not just an ordinary sentence. He’s even spelling correct – that’s huge for that kiddie. That’s wonderful.
‘I had one of the little Indigenous kids, these kids don’t volunteer to do work, and that’s what’s so exciting about this stuff. After we’d done Koala Control – a Learning Object, he said ‘can we do a debate?’. I obviously said ‘yes, but you have to write it first.’
‘And he’s just writing it –I’m just blown away.So they recorded it themselves on the webcam, they reviewed and they re-did it when they needed to.’