We are actually doing this review of the course one week early, because the 9th session next week will be the last session of this course & we want a fun day next week in preparation for Christmas.
We started the session by reviewing our blog & reminding ourselves of the topics we have covered since week 1.
We read the quotes under the Blog Title:
- "The best form of learning, is learning through thinking, reasoning & analysing".
The image above appears to capture this quote in an informative manner.
We think this is where our course does meet the WEA objective of using education for a social purpose. Our group is one where students need appropriate support to carry out tasks & to stay 'on task'. However, everyone has a voice & everyone has their own opinions. By using research & dialogue as the tools of learning, every student can make their personal contribution, prompted & encouraged by the tutor. We can explore opinions & feelings, reach agreement or agree to differ. The difference is, if research is carried out thoroughly, everyone is that much more enlightened & the reasons & decisions are empirical (based on evidence).
- "If you are curious, you will learn."
Much of our course involves asking questions, exchanging opinions & finding out a little bit more information on a topic, whether we feel we know about it or not. Curiosity is the key to opening our minds & becoming better & more critical thinkers.
These quotes appear to capture in two short phrases, exactly what we are trying to do by changing the focus of our learning from computer skills to using computers for research & discussion. In essence, we are now using our education for a social purpose. This is currently the focus of WEA education.
We are a complex needs group where discussion is one of our main strengths. When asked 'What is the meaning of the word 'curious', Dieter replied in a flash, "it means using your mind".
He is right of course. The whole point of doing research is to expand the mind, to find information, to discuss our findings, the rights & wrongs, the advantages & disadvantages. To share our views & debate the topic. This group has grown enormously & the WEA Group is using technology to its advantage to assist in our research of a variety of topics that we have agreed to study.
We did a brief review of each session up to last week, then we decided to expand a little on the Football theme in the light of recent developments with the clubs we follow, Doncaster Rovers & Rotherham United.
Football continued...
Rotherham United are red hot at the moment, playing some of their best football & achieving some remarkable results. During their latest game they won by 4 goals to 1. They are rising up the League 1 table & if they continue this trend they could be in line for promotion to the Championship. If that happens, they could be playing against Doncaster Rovers in the forthcoming football season.
Doncaster Rovers have also turned around their fortunes with some significant wins & draws that have seen them rise almost to mid-table from the very bottom.
We used the hyperlinks to useful websites to view the BBC football web pages & to enable us to discuss the information we found there. We looked at the league tables & the positions of Rovers & United. We read the match reports & studied the game statistics. We found the names of goals corners & the timescale of their scores. We also looked at the match analysis for ball possession, target shots, fouls etc. we discussed the red & yellow cards used by the referee & how they came to be used to assist players & fans alike to understand significant moments & the resulting actions in a game.
Christmas
After break we finished with an online activity on the theme of Christmas. We looked at a variety of e-cards that can be sent to anyone with an email address. These are animated cards that include music & instructions to complete the greetings & send the cards.
Shaun demonstrated his computer skill with windows. He knew how to maximise the screen & he shared his knowledge & skill with everyone.
Today was a busy, informative & fun filled session.
No comments:
Post a Comment