AWESOME EDUCATIONAL GAMES WEBSITE

Check out this website for great educational games...
http://surfaquarium.com/MI/intelligences.htm

mp3 blogs The Presets MP3s

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK

I have now had my blog for at least a month, and if you have read any of my post's you may have learnt that I am a uni student studying teaching at Notre Dame Sydney. In the last 5 posts on my blog there is a link to my education class's wiki. As studying teachers, to us it is vital that we learn and become 100% capable at ICT. This wiki is our latest experiment as we are learning and expeirencing everything that ICT possibly has to offer to make us the most ICT expeirenced generation of teacher's yet.
So if you are reading this, I would love it if you could leave me a comment or two on what you think of my blog or if you have any suggestions on how i could improve it. Also feel free to check out our wiki and let us know how we are going.
Thanks

BRADFORD SCHOOLS E-PORTAL

This e-portal is totally devoted to ICT and education. It covers extensivley information on multiple intelligences and the need for ICT in education. This website provides numerous articles, links and idea's for the use of ICT making recommendations for the essential ICT tools that all educators and students should be able to access. It goes further for example in one article to list what ICT tools are essential for each multiple intelligences.
It also covers ICT across the curriculum and ICT for special needs students. This website is one that all teachers should be able to access or be informed about as the importance of ICT in school's is becomming ever more important with each day we pass by further into the third millenium. In particular teacher's need to be aware and be capable of using these different tools themselves, always aiming to stay one step ahead of their students, so they can use ICT to it's full potential to educate students in today's world.

http://www.bradfordschools.net/content/view/226/182/

THE KNOWLEDGE TREE

http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/edition-10/ipods-in-educationinnovations-in-the-implementation-of-mobile-learning/

The knowledge tree is a fantastic site, it is an e-journal for online and innovative learning. There are numerous which are free to read to anyone. In particular the articles focus on the importance of and the establishment of online communities, also in regards to learning. Some of the articles acknowledge the fact that we are living today in a truly digital world, and to be able to teach our children we must embrace this new technology. One of the articles, which the link is for above focuses on the craze of i-pod's in particular. This article disuccuses the potential for and how i-pod's are currently being used in education.
This is only one of many other brilliant articles that are worth a read. They provide some interesting idea's that should be consider by teachers and educators, young and old alike.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddjz64dp_0gwkpss

EXPLORING THE STRUCTURE OF THE WIKI

The Wiki ofcourse starts with the name of the person or the subject that the Wiki is discussing.
Secondly the Wiki consist's of importantly a contents section, for example this was taken from a wiki on Rudolf Dreikurs. This wiki is a private one, unlike many which are public wiki's. They are created by a person or group of people, who can add and edit information they post on the wiki.

This can be seen at:
http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Dreikurs,_Rudolf

Dreikurs, Rudolf
From WikEd
Rudolf Dreikurs (1897-1972)

Contents
1 Descriptions, definitions, synonyms, organizer terms, types of
2 Application in classrooms and similar settings
3 Evidence of effectiveness
4 Critics and their rationale
5 More Books by Dreikurs
6 Alternative explanations due to diversity considerations
7 Signed "life experiences," testimonies and stories
8 References and other links of interest

The Wiki also uses numbers to categorise each chapter in the content's. Within these there are sub headings. In each section there is an edit button. You can see the different postings different people have contributed to the wiki. However as these are anonymous there is no way to tell who is posting them.

SECOND LIFE

http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki

Second life is a virtual world for anyone and can be used by educators and academics. There is second life which is 18 +, and second life teen (for under 18's).
The rule in second life is that there are no rules. You live a virtual life, you can do anything and everything that a person can do in normal life. You can buy land, you can get a job you can do almost anything.
To find out more click on the link above...

THE MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE WHEEL

This multiple intelligence wheel has been taken from the website:
http://surfaquarium.com/mi/intelligences.htm

When planning a lesson it is vital for teachers to be aware of the multiple intelligences of students. By being aware of these intelligences, teachers are capable of creating lesson's that will appeal to all students. Not all students learn the same, some will like to work by themselves others will like to work in groups. Some students need visual aids to assist in their learning and others prefer using equations and problem solving skills to learn.
When planning a lesson teachers should have activities that cater to the three domains; introspective; interactive and analytic. Within these there are then the nine multiple intelligences. The only way to appeal learning to all students is by making sure that these intelligences are included when planning a lesson.


"Intelligence is the ability to find and solve problemsand create products of value in one's own culture."-Dr. Howard Gardner

In a nut shell, these are simple descriptions of what the multiple intelligences are:

Kinesthetic - interaction with the environment
Existential - connecting to larger understandings
Interpersonal - interaction with others
Intrapersonal - feelings, values and attitudes
Logical - reasoning and problem solving
Rhythmic - sound and patterning
Naturalist - classifications, categories and hierarchies
Linguistic - spoken and written word
Visual - seeing and imagining

THE ADELAIDE DECLERATION

The Adelaide decleration was a meeting which recognised that the schooling of Australia's children is the foundation on which we biuld our future as a nation. Council agreed to act jointly to assist Australian schools in meeting the challenges of our times. In reaching agreement to address the following areas of common concern, the State, Territory and Australian Government Ministers of Education made an historic commitment to improving Australian Schooling within a framework of national collaboration

The Goal's of the decleration can be found on the following site:

http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/school_education/policy_initiatives_reviews/national_goals_for_schooling_in_the_twenty_first_century.htm

REFLECTION -

The Adelaide Decleration was possibly the most historicaly signifigant agreement in Australian Education. The Australian Government gave full recognition to the undeniable importance of the education of Australian children. They are the foundation block's of the future of this nation, without the proper education that all children have the right too, we are breaking that foundation.
The education we provide to our children, cannot just simply be an education. It has to be an education of quality. Where we give the best we possibly can to the future of our country, so that they have the opportunities to be anything they can dream of.

BOARD OF STUDIES WEBSITE - RESEARCH

WEBSITE IN GENERAL

The board of studies website has thorough and precise information for both teachers and students. However while the information is extremley helpful, there are countless numbers of links on the website, and finding your way around does take some getting used too. Just recognising where the Website Index was took me a little longer than I assumed it would, although I think that if i had of followed the task and spent 10 full minutes exploring the site first, I would have had a much better grip of where everything was.

ADVICE ON PROGRAMMING AND ASSESMENT

What are programmes?

Programmes are sets of plans that guide individual teachers in their selection of lesson outcomes, content, teaching stratergies, resources and assesment procedures.

Each Programme should have

1. A rationale

2. Aims

3. Outcome statements

4. Content statements

5. Teaching stratergy statements

6.Assesment guidelines

There are three types of programming

1. Content - based programming

2. Activities based programming

3. Outcomes based programming

YEAR 10 SYLLABUSES FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

WHAT TYPE OF PROGAMME IS THIS SYLLABUS ?

This new syllabus uses all three types of programmes. It includes consideration of outcomes or teaching stratergies ( content-based). It provides some idea's for activities and learning expeirences (activitiy based), which can be seen on slide 13. And it has information on what students should be able to do on completion of the programme (outcomes-based).

WHAT I HAVE FOUND

After finding my way through the website I was able to find the syllabuses for my major for teaching, Personal development, health and physical education. This was presented in either a powerpoint or a PDF file. However the powerpoint was much nicer to look at, as it is colouful and uses diagrams to represent important aspects of the syllabus such as outcomes and objectives. The syllabus uses graphs and diagram's to help develop a better undesrtanding for teachers of how to use the information the syllabus is providing to them. The use of mind maps, table's and charts allow teachers to better organise and plan how they are going to adapt the syllabus to their teaching programme.

HOW CAN I USE THIS

When I start teaching, even for my prac, these syllabuses are going to be my life line's. They will be the most important documents we will use as teachers. The tables and self assesment sheets in particular are all very adaptable, and I would definitly be applying them to my teaching. The answers to the questions are all very clear and precise, and I will be refering back to the text continously. In particular I will refer to the last page, which is help along the way. This provides details of other documents I can use to assist in my planning, preperation and teaching.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BLOG?

Things you must include:

Basic Links such as - Home, Add, Message, Comment and Block, the rest are mainly down to personal choice, the reason why I include the Block link is due to people harassing or annoying someone.

Try to design your profile around you - colours that match you specifically but keep it so it's easy on the viewers eyes

If you have Graphic Experience then create your own images for your layout, this is great because you then stand out from the rest of the crowd

Do not worry if you can not create graphics yourself, there are sites to teach you just google "graphic design tutorials" etc. You can even get some free graphics to use.

Your profile can still look good without graphics though, if you know some basic html and css then you can get results just as good. There are lots of websites out there offering free tutorials and codes but to get really good you need to learn not just do what it says.

Things you should not do:

Stop ways of interaction - no add, message or comment options without these people cannot interact with you.

Have links that are hard to read due to colour, size, hovers which hover to the same colour as your background.

Graphics that are just too harsh on the eyes, do not go too crazy with your design/graphics or people will just click off your profile

DO NOT jam pack your profile with things.

FOR OTHER INFORMATION ON WHAT MAKES A GOOD BLOG CLICK ON THE HYPERLINK'S BELOW.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2006/03/what-makes-good-blog.html

EXCELLENT WEBSITE - ONLINE COMMUNITIES

While browsing on Stephan Down's website I came across a blog which has fantastic links to information about online communities, podcasts, blogging and other aspects of creating online communities especially in the context of the classroom and the school.
It is definitly worth a look, I reccommend it as being one of the most helpful website's I have found concerning online communities.

http://onlinesapiens.com/blog/category/communities/

thank u 4 my present xxx

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ICT AND LEARNING STYLES

ARTICLE ON ICT AND ITS RELATIOSNHIP WITH LEARNING STYLES
ICT in education: From blackboard to keyboardBy Clare Lavery

EXTRACT FROM WEBSITE -

"A recent independent research report (ImpaCT2) showed that ICT can help raise standards. It looked at the relationship between pupils use of ICT and their performance in exams. High ICT users performed better than low ICT users. The difference in performance was the equivalent of a whole term or a grade. Researchers also noted than high ICT use leads to a change in learners learning style. They were able to study better by themselves and were more independent, not so reliant on a teacher to give them all the answers."

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A BRITISH BASED ARTICLE

http://www.britishcouncil.org/languageassistant-essential-ict-education.htm

loves it

ur just jealous cos ive been chatting on line with babes all day napoleon

TEST TO WORK OUT YOUR LEARNING STYLE

What's Your Learning Style?
Learning styles refer to the ways you prefer to approach new information. Each of us learns and processes information in our own special ways, though we share some learning patterns, preferences, and approaches. Knowing your own style also can help you to realize that other people may approach the same situation in a different way from your own.
Take a few minutes to complete the following questionnaire to assess your preferred learning style. Begin by reading the words in the left-hand column. Of the three responses to the right, circle the one that best characterizes you, answering as honestly as possible with the description that applies to you right now. Count the number of circled items and write your total at the bottom of each column. The questions you prefer will offer insight about how you learn.
1. When I try to concentrate...
I grow distracted by clutter or movement, and I notice things around me other people don’t notice.
I get distracted by sounds, and I attempt to control the amount and type of noise around me.
I become distracted by commotion, and I tend to retreat inside myself.
2. When I visualize...
I see vivid, detailed pictures in my thoughts.
I think in voices and sounds.
I see images in my thoughts that involve movement.
3. When I talk with others...
I find it difficult to listen for very long.
I enjoy listening, or I get impatient to talk myself.
I gesture and communicate with my hands.
4. When I contact people...
I prefer face-to-face meetings.
I prefer speaking by telephone for serious conversations.
I prefer to interact while walking or participating in some activity.
5. When I see an acquaintance...
I forget names but remember faces, and I tend to replay where we met for the first time.
I know people’s names and I can usually quote what we discussed.
I remember what we did together and I may almost “feel” our time together.
6. When I relax...
I watch TV, see a play, visit an exhibit, or go to a movie.
I listen to the radio, play music, read, or talk with a friend.
I play sports, make crafts, or build something with my hands.
7. When I read...
I like descriptive examples and I may pause to imagine the scene.
I enjoy the narrative most and I can almost “hear” the characters talk.
I prefer action-oriented stories, but I do not often read for pleasure.
8. When I spell...
I envision the word in my mind or imagine what the word looks like when written.
I sound out the word, sometimes aloud, and tend to recall rules about letter order.
I get a feel for the word by writing it out or pretending to type it.
9. When I do something new...
I seek out demonstrations, pictures, or diagrams.
I want verbal and written instructions, and to talk it over with someone else.
I jump right in to try it, keep trying, and try different approaches.
10. When I assemble an object...
I look at the picture first and then, maybe, read the directions.
I read the directions, or I talk aloud as I work.
I usually ignore the directions and figure it out as I go along.
11. When I interpret someone's mood...
I examine facial expressions.
I rely on listening to tone of voice.
I focus on body language.
12. When I teach other people...
I show them.
I tell them, write it out, or I ask them a series of questions.
I demonstrate how it is done and then ask them to try.
Total
Visual:
Auditory:
Tactile/Kinesthetic:
The column with the highest total represents your primary processing style. The column with the second-most choices is your secondary style.
Your primary learning style:
Your secondary learning style:
Now that you know which learning style you rely on, you can boost your learning potential when working to learn more. For instance, the following suggestions can help you get more from reading a book.
If your primary learning style is visual, draw pictures in the margins, look at the graphics, and read the text that explains the graphics. Envision the topic or play a movie in your thoughts of how you’ll act out the subject matter.
If your primary learning style is auditory, listen to the words you read. Try to develop an internal conversation between you and the text. Don’t be embarrassed to read aloud or talk through the information.
If your primary learning style is tactile/kinesthetic, use a pencil or highlighter pen to mark passages that are meaningful to you. Take notes, transferring the information you learn to the margins of the book, into your journal, or onto a computer. Doodle whatever comes to mind as you read. Hold the book in your hands instead of placing it on a table. Walk around as you read. Feel the words and ideas. Get busy—both mentally and physically.
More information on each style, along with suggestions on how to maximize your learning potential, is available in the book Learn More Now (Hoboken, NJ; John Wiley & Sons, 2004).

(c) Marcia L. Conner, 1993-2007. All rights reserved.

HEY SARAH

Hey Sarah...
oh my gosh im like sitting across the room from you!
you have a pretty blog....



love you long time :-)

social constructivism in action...adding friends to contribute to my blog...

In today's workshop we were able to connect with our friends and contribute to each other's blogs. If we were to have done this last night at an organised time, I don't think it would have worked as successfully. In class today we were able to talk to each other to see what was working and what wasn't, and this discussion would have been more difficult as such correspondence would be less accessible. Working together as a group today helped such connection become possible. What happened in class today was a clear example of social constructivism, as individually we were were able to construct our own meanings and knowledge through the process of discussion in a social group. As indicated in the definition of social constructivism, 'language in a social gathering facilitates the articulation of thought', and thus helps develop further understanding. Establishing the connections we did today, and ultimately the understanding of how to contribute to each others blog, was helped by the group of us helping and influencing each other. If we had completed this task last night, the knowledge we gained today wouldn't have been achieved through this lack of social networking and constructivist environment.

If i added you at 8pm

If i had added my contributors at 8pm yesterday instead of 9:20 this morning it would have caused great distress. at this point we are able to sit together talk freely and work out who is on who's blog and if the system is working correctly. if i had been sitting at home on my own, trying to work out who i added successfully and who i didn't and which persons blog i am able to contribute to and to which persons site i can't i would have been a mess. being in a social surrounding and working together enabled us to work it out together and turn to help if need be. not only are we able to talk about it but we are also able to turn around look at another persons screen and show them exactly where to go. if sitting at home on my own and chatting through MSN without being able to see the screen the person through the chat room was discussing it would have been enormously confusing. ending up in phone calls occurring to try and realise what we are doing, where we need to 'click' and who's on who's blog. By eventually attaining the other blogs and authors onto each others site we are know able to access more information on the same topic, we are able to network with so much more ease and easily show work we have produced instead of needing to send files back and forth through MSN or email accounts now we can simply log on and view the files, information and sources we need for the work we are searching.

friendships

Thanks heaps for accepting to be my one and only friend on google blogs lol have good times networking learning with me ... xxx

WHAT WOULD IT HAVE BEEN LIKE IF...

What would it have been like if as a class we had all signed on to our blogs at 8pm last night and started posting and sharing information?
Almost every night I sign into my myspace, and do just that. I talk to all my friends, leaving comments and sharing pictures, while at the same time usually on msn or doing something else.
It really involves multi tasking, because you are having different conversations with different people on different topics, keeping in mind that anyone who is connected to the person you are talking to can read what you have written, and so can the people they are connected to and so on and on.
If we had of signed on last night, I think that by the end of the time I would have spent on my blog, almost the whole class would be connected. Everyone would be cutting and pasting information from everyone else, perfecting their own blogs. There would be single conversations and group, even class discussions occuring as people post more and more blogs. I dare say that by the end of the time spent we would be almost experts on using our blogs and making them as creative as could possibly be.
Blog's are easy to get addicted to, because they are fun, you can talk to all your friends and express yourself.
However on a serious note, what we are doing by using our blogs are creating a social network, a community of learners who can come together online. This is what social constructivism truley is. By responding to each other's posting, we are learning further and further.
If you have any further idea's or comments on social constructivism, give me a post
:)

Social Constructivisim

Principles of Social Constructivism
Prior knowledge is crucial to any learning experience
People perceive things differently
Collaboration with others facilitates understandings
Knowledge is more meaningful when it is linked to existing understandings
Knowledge is richer when it has multiple links.

Social constructivism & the role of the student
Students:
play a central role in their own learning
are actively engaged in the learning process in an attempt to answer/generate questions, and solve problems
use strategies to monitor their own learning
are metacognitive learners
co-learners / co-teachers

Social Constructivism

Social constructionism or social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge based on Hegel's ideas, and developed by Durkheim at the turn of the century. It became prominent in the U.S. with Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann's 1966 book, The Social Construction of Reality. The focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the creation of their perceived reality. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, and made into tradition by humans. Socially constructed reality is seen as an ongoing, dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it. Berger and Luckmann argue that all knowledge, including the most basic, taken-for-granted common sense knowledge of everyday reality, is derived from and maintained by social interactions. When people interact, they do so with the understanding that their respective perceptions of reality are related, and as they act upon this understanding their common knowledge of reality becomes reinforced. Since this common sense knowledge is negotiated by people, human typifications, significations and institutions come to be presented as part of an objective reality. It is in this sense that it can be said that reality is socially constructed.

The following are useful websites which contain various types of educational games and programs, which will keep students wanting to learn.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/games/
This website is the best of all educational game websites I have seen. The games are extremley interactive, bright, colourful and will grab students attention. There are an extensive list of games covering vast subjects and area's or learning, for almost all ages.

http://www.funbrain.com/
Fun games website only for Primary school. Nice bright colours and pictures.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_menu.htm
Another good website for educational games, however the nobel prize and bbc sites are much more efficent.

http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/
One of the best sites I have seen for educational games.
Great games, had a good game for those studying Lord of the Flies.

FOUR EXAMPLES OF COGNITIVE TOOLS YOU CAN USE

1. INSIPIRATION
2. ARCHICAD
3. SIM CITY
4. WEB QUEST

COGNITIVE TOOLS

DEFINITION - COGNITION -
The mental processes involved in perceiving, attending to, understanding and recalling information.



WHAT ARE COGNITIVE TOOLS?


Cognitive tools and environments activate cognitive learning strategies and critical thinking. They are computationally based tools that complement and extend the mind. They engage generative processing of information (Wittrock, 1974). In generative processing, deeper information processing results from activating appropriate mental models, using them to interpret new information, assimilating new information back into those models, reorganizing the models in light of the newly interpreted information, and then using those newly aggrandized models to explain, interpret, or infer new knowledge (Rumelhart & Norman,1978). Knowledge acquisition and integration, according to these definitions, is a constructive process, so when using cognitive tools, learners engage in knowledge construction rather than knowledge reproduction.






CRITICAL REFLECTION
It is from Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development that we have found and created tools that help to assist further the cognitive development of students. Cognitive development concerns our abilities to reason, think, understand and remember the world around us. To do this we use processes that involve attendint to, understanding, recalling information and perceiving. We can enahance our Cognitive Development by using cognitive tools.

TRY A DIGITAL ARTS COURSE AT THE POWERHOUSE MUSEUM...SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE!

POWERHOUSE MUSEUM

Digital arts. Courses for curious people. Professionals, teachers, school groups. State of the art computers, software, facilities. Friendly, knowledgeable, experienced tutors. Small classes, personal attention, inspiring environment. Convenient - weekdays, weekends, evenings. Questions answered. Problems solved. On the spot.


GET CREATIVE

GET PRODUCTIVE

GET CONNECTED


The focus of SoundHouse and its programs is the creation of music and editing of sound using computer systems.The focus of VectorLab and its programs is the use of computer systems for image production and manipulation. 2D, 3D, video and motion graphics.The Studio is the venue for specialist programs including our Special Access Kit service for people with a disability and our Links to Learning youth program.


This course at the powerhouse museum is a perfect example of a cognitive tool. It embraces using higher level mental processes while at the same time involves the technological world around us.

To find out more click the link below:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/soundhousevectorlab/

CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING THEORIES

Formalization of the theory of constructivism is generally attributed to Jean Piaget, who articulated mechanisms by which knowledge is internalized by learners. He suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation, individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences. Assimilation occurs when individuals' experiences are aligned with their internal representation of the world. They assimilate the new experience into an already existing framework. Accommodation is the process of reframing one's mental representation of the external world to fit new experiences. Accommodation can be understood as the mechanism by which failure leads to learning. When we act on the expectation that the world operates in one way and it violates our expectations, we often fail. By accommodating this new experience and reframing our model of the way the world works, we learn from the experience of failure.

JOHN HATTIE

ARTICLE ON JOHN HATTIE TAKEN FROM : http://www.multiserve.co.nz/about/johnhattie.asp

New Board member - John Hattie
Multi Serve Education Trust, New Zealand’s leading educational services provider and exporter, has further strengthened the line-up of its Board with the appointment of highly regarded and well known educator, John Hattie, PhD.
John Hattie is currently Professor of Education at the University of Auckland and one of New Zealand’s most internationally acclaimed academics. In his 30-year educational career he has supervised nearly 200 Doctoral and Masters dissertations, published 300 conference papers and contributed to dozens of other scholarly texts.
Stewart Germann, Chairman of the Board of Multi Serve Education Trust , said the new appointment was very timely for Multi Serve’s ongoing development. “John is an exceptional educator with a wealth of experience and we’re delighted to have him on the team,” he said.

Professor John Hattie's research review synthesises research that tells us which factors, and which teaching methods really make the difference to student acheivement.

WILLIAM GLASSER

William Glasser, M.D. is an American psychiatrist born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1925, and developer of Reality Therapy and Choice Theory. He is notable for having developed a cause and effect theory that explains human behavior. His ideas which focus on personal choice, personal responsibility and personal transformation are considered controversial by mainstream psychiatrists, who focus instead on classifying psychiatric syndromes, and who often prescribe psychotropic medications to treat mental disorders. Dr. Glasser is also notable because he has used his theories to influence broader social issues such as education, management, marriage, and recently advocating mental health as a public health issue, to name a few. Last, but not least, he is notable because he warns the general public about his profession and the dangers therein.
William Glasser was educated at Case Western Reserve University (Ohio, U.S.), where he received a B.S in 1945 and a M.A. in clinical psychology in 1948. He received his M.D. in 1953 and completed a psychiatric residency between 1954 and 1957 at UCLA and at the Veteran Administration Hospital of Los Angeles. He was board-certified in psychiatry in 1961. The University of San Francisco awarded Dr. Glasser an honorary degree in 1990. In 2003 he received the American Counseling Association's Professional Development Award; in 2004, the ACA's "A Legend in Counseling Award;" in 2005 the Master Therapist designation by the American Psychotherapy Association and the Life Achievement Award by the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology.
A practising psychiatrist, he has also authored and co-authored numerous books on menta health, counseling, and the improvement of schools, teaching, and several publications advocting a public health approach to mental health versus the prevailing "medical" model.
During his early years as a psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in LA, he met Dr. G. L. Harrington, an older psychiatrist who Glasser credits as his "mentor." Glasser founded The Institute for Reality Therapy in 1967, which was renamed The Institute for Control Theory, Reality Therapy and Quality Management in 199 and later The William Glasser Institute in 1996. The institute is located in Chatsworth, California, and has branch institutes throughout the world.
By the 1970s Dr. Glasser called his body of work Control Theory. By 1996, the theoretical structure evolved into a comprehensive body of work renamed Choice Theory, mainly because of the confusion with perceptual control theory by William T. Powers, developed in the 1950s.

JEAN PIAGET

Jean Piaget
(August 9, 1896 – September 16, 1980)
A Swiss philosopher, natural psychologist and developmental psychologist, well known for his work studying children and his theory of cognitive development. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget is also "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing".
The stages of cognitive development
Theory of cognitive development
Piaget served as professor of psychology at the University of Geneva from 1929 to 1975 and is best known for reorganizing cognitive development theory into a series of stages, expanding on earlier work from James Mark Baldwin: four levels of development corresponding roughly to (1) infancy, (2) pre-school, (3) childhood, and (4) adolescence. Each stage is characterized by a general cognitive structure that affects all of the child's thinking (a structuralist view influenced by philosopher Immanuel Kant)[citation needed]. Each stage represents the child's understanding of reality during that period, and each but the last is an inadequate approximation of reality. Development from one stage to the next is thus caused by the accumulation of errors in the child's understanding of the environment; this accumulation eventually causes such a degree of cognitive disequilibrium that thought structures require reorganizing.
The four development stages are described in Piaget's theory as
Sensorimotor stage: from birth to age 2 years (children experience the world through movement and senses and learn object permanence)
Preoperational stage: from ages 2 to 7 (acquisition of motor skills)
Concrete operational stage: from ages 7 to 11 (children begin to think logically about concrete events)
Formal operational stage: after age 11 (development of abstract reasoning).
These chronological periods are approximate, and in light of the fact that studies have demonstrated great variation between children, cannot be seen as rigid norms. Furthermore, these stages occur at different ages, depending upon the domain of knowledge under consideration. The ages normally given for the stages, then, reflect when each stage tends to predominate, even though one might elicit examples of two, three, or even all four stages of thinking at the same time from one individual, depending upon the domain of knowledge and the means used to elicit it.
Despite this, though, the principle holds that within a domain of knowledge, the stages usually occur in the same chronological order. Thus, there is a somewhat subtler reality behind the normal characterization of the stages as described above.
The reason for the invariability of sequence derives from the idea that knowledge is not simply acquired from outside the individual, but it is constructed from within. This idea has been extremely influential in pedagogy, and is usually termed constructivism. Once knowledge is constructed internally, it is then tested against reality the same way a scientist tests the validity of hypotheses. Like a scientist, the individual learner may discard, modify, or reconstruct knowledge based on its utility in the real world. Much of this construction (and later reconstruction) is in fact done subconsciously.
Therefore, Piaget's four stages actually reflect four types of thought structures. The chronological sequence is inevitable, then, because one structure may be necessary in order to construct the next level, which is simpler, more generalizable, and more powerful. It's a little like saying that you need to form metal into parts in order to build machines, and then coordinate machines in order to build a factory

LEV VYGOTSKY

Biogrpahy
Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, was born in 1896 in Western Russia (Belorussia). He attended the Institute of Psychology in Moscow (1924–34), where he worked extensively on ideas about cognitive development, particularly the relationship between language and thinking. His writings emphasized the roles of historical, cultural, and social factors in cognition and argued that language was the most important symbolic tool provided by society. Vygotsky died of tuberculosis in 1934, leaving a wealth of work that is still being explored.

Work
Being a pioneering psychologist, Vygotsky was also a highly prolific author: the collection of his major works contains 6 volumes written over roughly 10 years. Vygotsky's interests in the fields of developmental psychology, child development, and education were extremely diverse. His innovative work in psychology includes several key concepts such as
psychological tools, mediation, and internalization
the zone of proximal development
and covers such diverse topics as the origin and the psychology of art, development of higher mental functions, philosophy of science and methodology of psychological research, the relation between learning and human development, concept formation, interrelation between language and thought development, play as a psychological phenomenon, the study of learning disabilities and abnormal human development (aka defectology), etc.

Cultural Mediation and Internalisation

Vygotsky investigated child development and how this was guided by the role of culture and interpersonal communication. Vygotsky observed how higher mental functions developed through social interactions with significant people in a child's life, particularly parents, but also other adults. Through these interactions, a child came to learn the habits of mind of her/his culture, including speech patterns, written language, and other symbolic knowledge through which the child derives meaning and affected a child's construction of her/knowledge. This key premise of Vygotskian psychology is often referred to as cultural mediation. The specific knowledge gained by a child through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization.
Internalization can be understood in one respect as “knowing how”. For example, riding a bicycle or pouring a cup of milk are tools of the society and initially outside and beyond the child. The mastery of these skills occurs through the activity of the child within society. A further aspect of internalization is appropriation in which the child takes a tool and makes it his own, perhaps using it in a way unique to himself. Internalizing the use of a pencil allows the child to use it very much for his own ends rather than draw exactly what others in society have drawn previously.

Psychology of play
Lesser known is his research on play, or child's game as a psychological phenomenon and its role in the child's development. Through play the child develops abstract meaning separate from the objects in the world which is a critical feature in the development of higher mental functions.
The famous example Vygotsky gives is of a child that wants to ride a horse but he cannot. As a child under three, he would perhaps cry and be angry, but at around the age of three the child's relationship with the world changes "Henceforth play is such that the explanation for it must always be that it is the imaginary, illusory realization of unrealizable desires. Imagination is a new formation that is not present in the consciousness of the very young child, is totally absent in animals, and represents a specifically human form of conscious activity. Like all functions of consciousness, it originally arises from action." (Vygotsky, 1978)
He wishes to ride a horse but cannot, so he picks up a stick and stands astride of it, thus pretending he is riding a horse. The stick is a pivot. "Action according to rules begins to be determined by ideas, not by objects..... It is terribly difficult for a child to sever thought (the meaning of a word) from object. Play is a transitional stage in this direction. At that critical moment when a stick – i.e., an object – becomes a pivot for severing the meaning of horse from a real horse, one of the basic psychological structures determining the child’s relationship to reality is radically altered".
As children get older, their reliance on pivots such as sticks, dolls and other toys diminishes. They have internalized these pivots as imagination and abstract concepts through which they can understand the world. "The old adage that children’s play is imagination in action can be reversed: we can say that imagination in adolescents and schoolchildren is play without action" (Vygotsky, 1978).
Another aspect of play that Vygotsky referred to was the development of social rules that develop, for example, when children play house and adopt the roles of different family members. Vygotsky cites an example of two sisters playing at being sisters. The rules of behavior between them that go unnoticed in daily life are consciously acquired through play. As well as social rules the child acquires what we now refer to as self-regulation. For example, as a child stands at the starting line of a running race, she may well desire to run immediately so as to reach the finish line first, but her knowledge of the social rules surrounding the game and her desire to enjoy the game enable her to regulate her initial impulse and wait for the start signal.