Blog Envy!

Before starting this blog, I had a little look online to see if any other Psychology teachers use blogging. I came across a blog by Caroline Rigby, called "Psychology teaching ideas". It's a blog for teachers of AS and A2 Psychology. Being a teacher in Wales, we use WJEC, but the writer of this blog uses the AQA exam board, therefore not everything she writes about will be relevant to Psychology teachers in Wales. Her blog, in my opinion, is great. She uses real-life examples to explain Psychological concepts, for example the minority influence in Social Psychology (https://carolinerigby.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/minority-influence-and-social-change-jamie-olivers-latest-campaign/). The blog also contains teaching ideas, advice for trainee teachers, and also posts on specific psychological studies that are taught in the A Level syllabus. I think this blog will be useful for me to follow because its ideas are contemporary and it could provide me with new strategies and teaching methods. However, not many of the posts mention using technology to teach Psychology, therefore I'm not sure how useful this blog will be with regards to using technology in the Psychology classroom, but I will definitely use it to check out the latest news. The layout of this blog is also rather plain and uninteresting, making it look quite unattractive to new readers. Despite this, the content is interesting and useful for teachers. Here is a link to the blog - https://carolinerigby.wordpress.com/

The Beginning of a Reflective Blog!

The aim of this blog is to assess the use of various ICT applications as teaching aids. I am a student teacher and I am keen to sample all of the new and exciting applications in the world of technology, to see if they can actually make a difference to teaching and learning. The blog will be reflective in nature. As a teacher, writing reflectively is essential because it is a way to evaluate what has been done, to see what can be done to improve further. Over the next few weeks, I will be trying a number of different applications to see if they could be used to aid my teaching. I will reflectively evaluate the applications, and I will finally decide which applications I will use when I return to the classroom. I am surprisingly excited to use some different apps, although a little nervous as I don't see myself as being completely confident with ICT, but I'm hoping that can change! I hope that by the end of this term, I will be able to confidently use a number of new apps as teaching aids, and be able to make my lessons a lot more interesting and engaging. I'm feeling very optimistic and excited to play around with technology to see what it can do! Feel free to follow my journey from a clueless student to a high-tech computer geek! Okay, maybe that's a bit too dramatic. Watch this space!