Home Economics Task Reflection

Hospitality Function

Culture Function

After receiving the necessary and vital help from my following classmates I was able to come up with an activity that supported the curriculum of home economics and also incorporated the fundamental contribution towards technology. This task can be seen by the following description and also the mind map below.  

Task:

o   Getting students to choose at least three different cultures that interested them or appealed to them. From here students need to research their style of cuisine, methods of preparation, equipment used and forms or ways of presenting foods. Via a blog the students need to record their findings on each of the three cultures discussing the positives and negatives of all three cuisines.

o   Then as a class students will to divide themselves into two groups need to pick two different cuisines and developed and create a three course menu that will be presented to the other group.

o   Students will need to think about, budget, availability of foods, presentation, menu choices, the nutrition available within each meal (throughout the application my fitness) and how hard their menu is to prepare. All these aspects will need to be recorded within a process journal (either via their blog or a wiki page).

o   Students will also be required to make a website as a group which will have their overall menu, fundamental research of their chose cuisine, images and examples of their trial cooks and a reflection of their function.

o   To assess their final menus, each group will be asked to create an instant restaurant that related to their chosen culture. Once they have decorated and produced their three course menu students of the other group will get to taste their finally foods (Just for a little bit of fun).

o   Based on their own reflection, students will also need to record (either throughout their blog or website) a score in which they believe the other team has achieved. Their score will need to be justified.

The digital technologies involved within this task can and should include Skype or YouTube (to see how other countries prepare, cook and present foods and how it is different from Australia), blogger (to recorded their process journal), Weebly (to show to the class their findings and final products, my fitness (to count the calories and nutrition available within their chosen foods) and wiki (another option for their process journal).  

Reflective Synopsis

EDSE12024

Assessment Task 1

Reflective Synopsis

After participating within the weekly embedded tasks, with relation to my own blog posts there is so much that I believe I have learnt, with regards to the vast range of digital technologies that can improve learning and offer good pedagogies. After discovering and learning about Bloom’s Taxonomy, the SAMR Model and the Dimensions of learning, I believe that throughout my blog posts I have gained a deeper and stronger understanding of how technology can be used within the classroom and how it benefits student learning, whether it may be individual learning or collaborative learning. This understanding and evidence of my own learning towards digital technologies will be depicted from my own contribution towards my blog posts, how effective and useful each technology could be within a classroom (with relation to the SAMR Model), evidence of how I have used each technology and my own contribution to other class members blogs within the online environment and face to face interactions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the duration of this digital pedagogies course so far, I have not only managed to contribute my understanding of each of the chosen technologies in all five embedded tasks, I have also managed to understand that a pedagogy is simply the art of teaching which defines student learning. At the beginning of this course I wasn’t confident in completing the embedded tasks, due to the fact that my prior knowledge towards digital technologies was very limited. However throughout my weekly blogs it can be seen that each week I became more and more confident and efficient towards understanding and using the nominated technology for the given week and also how technologies can be used to portray good pedagogies. This can be seen throughout my blog when comparing my embedded task one response to my embedded task five response. Overall throughout my blog posts I covered and developed a range of digital technology skills including, contributions to my blog, how to edit images, what Thinglink is and how to used sky view. After using the information provided within the course materials and my prior knowledge of these digital technologies I was able to clearly establish what the technology was capable of, the technical aspects of it, the learning outcomes it provided for student learning, how the particular technology could be used within a classroom based on the SAMR Model and evidence that showed my improved digital skills. Throughout my blog posts it can be clearly seen that all of these aspects and elements required were highlight and outlined throughout my blog posts.

One example of this can be seen throughout my interpretation of weeks 4 embedded task. During this particular week task I decided to focus on images. Throughout this week I had overcome a huge step in my attitude towards digital technologies, as I was more confident in completing the task due to the fact that I had a lot of prior knowledge and experience with incorporating images within learning. I believe that I was effectively able to include the technical aspects of images, the learning outcomes that they could offer to improve student learning and a suitable range of activities that could be used to incorporate images within the classroom. I also believe that I was able include the SAMR Model’s four stages of substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition and showed an effective example of how I had used the digital technology of images by changing the desired editing of an image. This blog post can be further viewed under week four’s embedded task.

However while I believe that I had effectively meet the criteria that was required for my own individual blog, I don’t believe that I managed to maintain this same outcome for the participation and contribution in the online learning community. This can be seen as during the first two to three weeks I didn’t comment or post anything about anyone’s blog. However during the fourth and fifth week of completing the embedded tasks, I was able to figure out how to respond and comment on other class members blogs. Therefore with relation to the criteria expect within the online learning community I do not believe that I have fully met the criteria as I only starting contributing within this online learning well into week four.

Another reason to why I believe that I have not met the criteria expected within the online learning community is due to the fact that my comments were not in-depth and did not offer constructive feedback. One of the reasons for this can be seen that within our group to was difficult to criticise blogs of my class members. Therefore with relation to this section of the task and the requirements expected I could have better extended my comments with constructive feedback to form more formative and engaging responses. However having said this, my participation within the course with relation to class member or face to face discussion, whether it was about the embedded task or discussions related with the course materials, I strongly believe that my participation within this was much more in-depth and constructive. This can be seen as when in class I shared my opinion when it was required and also worked in collaboration with other class members on certain aspects of given tasks.

Overall after reflecting on my own participation with the weekly embedded tasks it can be seen that I have effectively completed the tasks and engaged within the digital technology of a blog. By using my blog as a source of communication it can also be seen that I have used and developed of range of different digital skills throughout research conducted and by navigating my way around certain digital tools. With relation to the SAMR Model, Bloom’s Taxonomy and the dimensions of learning it can be seen that I have weekly highlighted learning outcomes and learning theories that could be achieved by using technology. Based on my own blog the main recommendation I need to improve on would be my ability to interact within the online learning community and offer constructive feedback.