Week 3 Reflective Post

Week 3 has been a very interesting week for me. After fracturing my wrist, I was forced (and still am) to depend solely on my right hand for just about everything. How does this relate to the wondrous world of ICT you ask? Typing, researching; using the Internet for Assessments, E-mailing, Net-Banking, Myspace/Facebook, keeping Up-To-Date with LATEST Fashion trends (http://www.vogue.com.au/) and of course, downloading music! All of which none of us in our prime social years could live without! This leads us to the exciting concepts and gateway into the ICT realm. As the internet is a collaboration of globally interrelated resources, it has been made more accessible to users all around the world, and has become predominantly integrated into today’s technologically advanced society, even more so, nowadays, in Education, becoming an easily functioning mechanism in our everyday lives. Following week 1 and 2, ‘Portfolio Item 1’, (which required the completion of a blog, which is a web site containing my own personal journals available for public viewing), it was made apparent to me that it would be a valuable and essential learning instrument and mechanism for teaching. In education, teachers now generate such aspects of technology to aid their students learning, in providing a range of content, observation, study suggestions, as well as effectively communicating with their parents. Students benefit from creating and maintaining their own online journals, not only for the development of personal self-expression, but assist in their development and learning strategies in all aspects of today’s fast-paced technological society. 

After reading the Week 2 Study Guide, I have observed several key facets, which has provided much food for thought and an interesting insight into the foundations of topics I assumed I had already prior knowledge of, and some of which I never consider to question. A prime example would be the internet. I honestly assumed that a large multinational corporation, following one nerd’s invention and vision, decided to invest, starting up what we now call the ‘Internet’, and in turn, made a great deal of dosh. However, it is apparent that I am wrong, and this is not the case, and the World Wide Web (which it appears that is the most common Internet service, known as ‘WWW’) was originally for the purpose of military use, and thus gradually began to filter into society. Nowadays children as young as 5 (probably younger, just from personal experience as observed on my prac) are searching the Internet, and children even younger are utilizing other aspects of computer technology, such as interactive counting and spelling programs etc (as observed in a preschool I once visited for work experience).

So what is the Internet? As stated in the first paragraph of the study guide; “The media has dubbed the Internet the ‘Information Superhighway’ and ‘Cyberspace’.”­­­­­­­­­­­­ Basically, the Internet presents itself as a provider of a variety of services, which in turn functions frequently on a ‘Client/Sever’ basis. This means specialized software, running on committed computers (which is the server), provides services and responses to requests made by programs running on other computers (which is the client). Sounds complex, but in reality, is very simple.

Furthermore, the Study Guide 2 also continues to discuss the commonly used ‘Electronic Mail’  (as known to us as E-mail). To be honest, as brainless as this may seem, I didn’t know what e-mail actually stood for! (Bimbo??? Perhaps..) Although I have many email accounts, and more than often am checking them all constantly, all day everyday, it is still an interesting notion to be aware of. Prime target, the use of email. Of course I have somewhat of an understanding in the essentials, such as; Reading an email and replying to it, sending an email to one person, sending an email to one person with a copy to someone else, sending an email to someone with a document such as a word processing document or a digital photograph attached, copying and pasting an Internet address from a web page into an email and sending it to a colleague, establishing an address book and finally, creating ‘Mailboxes’ or ‘Folders’ to store incoming mail under different topics. However, creating a signature to attach to each email I send, attaching a signature file to an email containing name and contact details, using the address book that is apart of my email programme, creating an email list or group from names in my address book and assigning it a name, then sending an email to the list created, all seems a bit advanced for my current abilities. Nevertheless, I do look forward to learning and conquering these challenges throughout the duration of the course.

Email as a communications medium is not quite a phone call and not quite a letter. It falls somewhere in between, and emails are not always received in the same manner in which they were intended to be comprehended, as they can be decoded through different context, as opposed to what they were intentionally intended to mean. Therefore it is essential to employ mail etiquette via the Netiquette guidelines (the Netiquette Home Page includes the “Core Rules of Netiquette”). This is a serious problem with email and has led to a number of legal actions. Furthermore, attachments and issues of Viruses and Hoaxes are also a matter in which concerned me. Installing Virus Protection in your computer before you consider downloading anything is essential, as the Internet is littered with such debris!!! Being a frequent downloader of music myself, this served as an eye-opener into the usefulness of such programs.After screening the “How Web Servers Work” http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-server.htm) website, which provides an overview of Internet concepts (like the client/server as above), I found very fascinating and useful information. Even the basic process such as URL’s, and the behind-the-scenes of the Internet; clients and servers, the protocol (”http”), the server name which is an IP addresses and stands for ‘Internet Protocol’ (”www.howstuffworks.com”), the file name (”web-server.htm”) and Domain Names, which is basically what the site is called- The host name (”www”)

The domain name (”howstuffworks”), and lastly, the top-level domain name (”com”), are just a few aspects to name a few, as to what I thought I had a great deal of prior knowledge of. Although I did not realize the real capacity and true extent of just how detailed and precise a simple address or “link”, as I would call it, can be, I find it compelling just how complex the Internet truly is, as opposed to my prior comprehension of an effortless and undemanding task.

On the contrary, how does this relate and service in teaching? How do we implement the use of such knowledge of IP Addresses and Domain Names and so forth, as a teacher, to benefit our students? It is in my opinion that it is important for a teacher to have an understanding of how computer networks, as well as the Internet and WWW to aid our students into comprehending the factors of research, deciphering and filtering relevant information from unrelated information and focusing on the immediate researched topics, leading to the basics of learning structure, organisation, achieving goals and set tasks, not only setting them up in, as previously stated, a technologically based and guided future, but the basic fundamentals of functioning as a human being. The potential applications of Internet services such as the WWW and email could enhance teaching and learning in the classroom in a multitude of ways. One of which is evident in the following link I stumbled across whilst researching for an essay for another topic, implementing the use of the interactive white board and its affects on a more complex and advanced level. I will not tell you what this website entitles, it is for your incentive to follow the link.. and be amazed! J

http://www.decs.sa.gov.au/learningtechnologies/files/links/ictpedagogy_stasinowksy200.pdf