Presentations

This was a great day to learn from our peers about topics that interested them.  All of the information that we learned was very relevant from things we need to know to things that will enhance our teaching. 

A theme throughout each of the presentations was internet safety.  This is such an important issue because internet safety for schools is something that is still being developed and experimented with as we are using technology more and more in the classroom.  I found it useful to hear many different opinions when it comes to what kinds of things should we allow our students to do and not to do with this technology.  Propor citations from the internet is something that I am still struggling with.  If it the citation is not very straightforward and easily accessible I am guilty of not bothering with it and just stealing the image.  Finding out about tools that will help do the citations for you was great. Filtering what content the students have access to through the school's wifi was something that interested me.  I initially thought that filtering was useful and did not pose many problems when it came down to inhibiting tools that the students may use for learning. When I  was in high school, most of us did not get around the filters but it seems that today's children are more knowledgable and can easily do just that.  The presentation about cyberbullying presented in the form of a short film was awesome not just because of the information but also as a way of demonstrating how media can be used effectively to teach in the classroom.  It was very engaging to watch the film as opposed to a formal lecture. 

I think that everyone did a fantastic job presenting to the rest of the class and that we all learned a lot in the preparation of our group information.

~ Carissa

Donald and Sophia

This was my first exposure to the web based course platform Blackboard.  The main take away point from Donald and Sophia was that before you embark on teaching a web based course, it is important to look at the pedagogy first.  Before this information I would have done it backwards and started right from course site and planned from there. 

One of the concerns raised from a room full of future teachers was the fear of reducing the number of jobs available for us.  I also felt that we were working to replace ourselves.  I was relieved to hear that for each course, the teacher has that scheduled into their courseload timetable.  The benefits of using a web based course were very clear.  I think that it is a great learning tool that can open up so many different options for a number of people.  For myself I think that I would want to have some years of experience teaching face to face with my students before I attempt to teach over the internet.

~ Carissa

Cool Tools

I would like to start this post off by saying that throughout this course I have learned so much about a site that I use all of the time, this site being Google.  Before this course, I only used Google to search for information or pictures.  I had no idea how useful all of its other features were.  Google Docs has been so helpful for completing group projects for school, it is something that I will continue using a lot.  Google + was something that I never paid much attention to and didn't really think that it could possibly be anything that I would find useful.  Lets just say I could not be more wrong.  There are so many neat things that you can do with this once you have created all of your circles.  I am a history major so completing my Arts Degree required me to write a lot of research papers.  It was stressed to us on an almost daily bases that using google for a search was a terrible thing to do.  After three years of this I came to develop almost a fear of using google and I was weary of even creating a gmail account.  I can definitely say now that there are great things that you can do from this one platform.

I absolutely love my bookmarking feature.  I decided to use Diigo and liked it right away.  I liked how simple it was to use and how things were organized.  After being shown Pearltrees in class however, I think I may want to give it a try.  I really liked how everything was displayed very visually pleasing.  With regards to the debate about Pinterest being a legitimate bookmarking site I feel that like anything else it has a time and a place.  There are certain aspects of it that make it very appealing (and as a new member veeerrrryyy addicting!!). 

This class without a guest speaker was very valuable to me because it gave me a chance to see how some of these tools work before I just jump right in.  I like to see what I am getting myself into before jump right in and try it out.

~ Carissa

Infographic

An infographic is basically a visual representation of information.  To me it is a way to present vital information quickly and effectively.  I think that it would be very valuable in the classroom.  I think that it would work very well for children who learn visually or for students that need a creative outlet.  Instead of having your students do a formal presentation about a topic, they could create an infographic to display their findings instead.  Depending on how you want to design your infographic there can be sections of text as well as video's and charts which encorporate many different learning styles.  

When researching for our group project about BYOD (bring your own device) to school, a lot of the information we were finding was presented in the form of an infographic.  I found them really engaging and a valuable way to find information fast.  I am not a visual learner and I felt engaged and enjoyed them so i think that for not only the visual learners in my class they are a great resource.

Here is the first infographic that I found that could be used in a science classroom learning about different ecosystems and the type of organisms live there. Shark's 

The next infographic that I liked was about the United States election.  It could be used in a social studies lesson studying democracy for example. Politics

My infographic was about the top five places in the world that I want to travel to in the future. Carissa's Infographic

~ Carissa

Twitter

To be completely honest I am finding it really hard to get into twitter.  I have had it for weeks now but I have yet to tweet anything and rarely check it, if ever.  I guess I feel like I don't have anything that I want to put out there for the world to see which doesn't surprise me becuase my facebook account is very much the same way.  I use it only when I need to connect with specific people for a specific purpose.  I really only went on Twitter when I was mentioned in a tweet.

Having said that I do see the potential merrits a program like this has.  It was useful when we had to create groups for a project over the weekend where we did not all have each others cell numbers to text.  We effectively made our groups in a short amount of time.  I am amazed at the amount of tweets the few people I follow have.  I cannot imagine being that active on any form of social media.  They always seemed to be posting new links to resources or interesting tools.  It makes me wonder how they have time to be finding all of this stuff or even retweeting things they felt were important from others. 

I intent to keep my account in the hopes that maybe it is just taking me longer to warm up to the idea.  Maybe when I feel I have more free time I will get more into it, have a better look around, and get tweeting myself.  

~ Carissa

Podcasts

The podcast I found was titled How Garbage-Powered Cars Could Work.  http://www.howstuffworks.com/podcasts/stuff-you-should-know.rss

This podcast based its statistics on the amount of garbage in landfills from the United States but the rest of their ideas are still relevant for how I would use it in the classroom.  I decided to start listening to it because the title grabbed my attention right away.  I find it interesting to think of how things are going to be in the future and all of the new innovations we are working to create.  I think that students would also have fun speculating about all the cool things we will be able to do in the future.  As I got listening it really got me thinking about what I could do with my students and how it integrates both science and social studies.

I would use it for a social studies lesson examining different regions or countries of the world with the amount of waste they produce and combine this with a map of developed and un-developed countries.  Because this podcast is based in the United States, I would encourage my students to find Canadian statistics on how much waste we bring to the landfill.  I would have my students come up with ways to reduce the amount of garbage we have in Canada that include what they could do as individuals and what the community as a larger population could do.  The final element would be to have the students come up with other positive things we could use our garbage for.  I would probably have my students do this in small groups.  This also fits in with science outcomes dealing with the environment and pollution.  Each group would share their information in the form of a podcast which reinforces the notion that we need to encourage students to be creators of information, not just consumers.

This is the first time I have ever looked at podcasts before and I was amazed with the variety of different topics that people talk about.  I originally was just looking at a few to complete my tech task but I ended up listening for much longer than I anticipated becuase I found them so interesting!

~ Carissa

Online Video

http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=27129&CategoryID=540

This is the link to my first video on ancient civilizations.  It would be useful as a quick introduction to this civilization because it is short and the information is relevant and to the point.  The facts are presented point by point so it is easy to understand and remember. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RP2KfewiJA

My second link is to you tube and is to a video clip of irrigation in ancient Mesopotamia.  I would use this video once in the part of the unit where we came to irrigation and agriculture.  The students would already have some background information about this society so it would be used to reinforce and supplement what they already know.  It could lead into further inquiries about irrigation, such as what other societies use it and is it still used today. 

As a learning tool, videos are another way to accomodate different learning styles.  The visual and auditory learners would probably benefit most.  Watching a video clip can be more engaging than listening to a lecture depending on the clip itself.  It has to be a high quality video in order for it to be engaging.  One of the neat things it offers for my subject area, history and geography, is the chance to take a virtual trip to many wonders of the world.  The students will be able to see inside ancient ruiins and many more artifacts than they would from a standard textbook.  Using YouTube can be risky for example, when searching for videos for this blog post there were few inapproriate suggestions that came up at the end of the video that were in no way related to the search I typed in. 

I would consider putting up student videos on YouTube or a different more secure video hosting site.  I think that by allowing the students to contribute we are reinforcing the idea that our students need to be creators, not just consumers. Having a real authentic audience for the students work is important.  They are more likely to work harder on a project if they know that real people are going to be able to access and watch their videos. 

As a student I enjoyed watching the relevant modern videos in class as a learning tool, but there were always certain classess where you did not want to see video clips becuase they were really outdated and were no different from a lecture the teacher could have given. I would definitely use them as a resource in my class.

~ Carissa

Edublogger!

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.ca/

This is Lisa Nielsen's blog.  She is an educator in the public school system, has written a book and is involved in talking and writing about the future of education.  I decided to follow this blog after the initial scroll through of the categories of her various posts.  After reading a few I decided that I connected with a lot of what she was saying and thought it would be useful to use the links that she gives out to other related blogs and information.  I also really liked how you could listen to webcasts of her speaking.  A lot of the things Lisa has blogged about are very current topics and very relevant to the controversies regarding the use of technology in the classroom.  I felt that I could use more information in that area as well.

I have learned so many new things from keeping up with her posts that it is hard to summarize a short list!  One thing that initially captured me was her view of "Passon (not date) Driven Learning."  This relates to the talk that we were just given by Clarence Fisher.  I also learned that students need to have real authentic audiences for their work.  This goes beyond the scope of You Tube to include reaching out to organizations that support your cause, facebook and twitter.  I know  a lot of educators would cringe at the mention of using these social media outlets for their students which is why I thought it was interesting.  There were also a lot of resources supporting the use of cell phones in class which is a very current issue.

I felt that a lot of her posts were relevant to the material we are learning about in class and further reinforced those ideas.

~ Carissa

Clarence Fisher

Clarence started off his lecture pointing out that education is really changing now whereas before it was very static.  In some instances change for the better is very hard to come by.  For this reason I feel that this is something that we should really embrace and take it as far as it will go.  Clarence stressed the idea that we should teach for engagement and passion based learning.  I could not agree more.  It seems like a very obvious idea but many teachers are more concerned with getting through the curriculum than engaged meaningful learning.  When you really think about it, this idea makes complete sense.  For myself I know that if I am pasisonate about something I am going to be very engaged, try my best and will be willing to work through difficult problems if I have to.  It makes sense that applying this in the classroom would produce very good results.

I am very happy that the idea of memorization is going away, even if it is slowly.  From my own experiences I would memorize enormous amounts of information for exams and ace the exams.  In a few months however I would not be able to talk to you for a minute about any of the informaiton I apparently know on that topic. 

The next key point brought up was that it is not enough to simply use the technology to play a slide show for example.  This will no longer keep kids engage.  Clarence suggested that the students need to be able to create and not just consume.  Students need a deeper reason to be online than because it's fun. 

The last point that really hit home for me was that we are done with the idea of debating if technology is optional or not.  I am a very pencil paper learner that is slowly adjusting to the digital world.  Having all of these different presenters talk about all the different ways technology can play a meaningful role in the classroom has really helped me gain a better perspective about the use of technology in the classroom.

~ Carissa
 

Digital Footprint

I discovered that a digital footprint does not only incldue everything on the internet about you, but also things such as sites you have bookmarked and visited.  I did not know that the your digital footprint does not just entail the sites that you use such as facebook and twitter, but also the people you interact with and the extent that those interactions are spread. 

The use of technology and social media is widely promoted in schools as well as the workplace.  For those reasons I think it is important to educate ourselves on why it is important so we will be able to maximize our footprint in a positive way.  For instance a positive easily accessable online presence can be used to showcase your skills and experiences.  Many potential employers will google you and try to find more information about you.  For this reason you may as well make yourself accessable but in a good way.  To do this you need to know your target audeience and make consistent contributions in order to build your identity and be recognizable.

 For teachers, professional networking is very beneficial.  You will be able to more effectively connect with other professionals if you have a strong online presence and a clear identity or 'brand'.  The most important piece of information I found about your online 'brand' was that it was more important to be yourself and not play a role.  Organic growth was emphasized. 

Students today typically have a large digital footprint without even realizing the implications.  For this reason I think it is important to not only educate ourselves about how to protect your footprint but also what your students need to be aware of.  For people in the professional field, seperating your personal and professional online profiles was recommended as well as enhancing your privacy settings.  For your students emphasizing not using inappropriate language or jokes online is important.  Something that I think everyone could be reminded of is that what others say about you online contributes to your footprint. 

When investigating my own digital footprint I came to the conclusion that my online 'brand' or identity largely revolved around my schooling.  Most of my new online presence and social media is becuase it was recommended for class to create things like a twitter account.  When I googled myself I found high school track records and high school academic achievement awards.  One interesting thing that came up was an article about Twisters Ice Cream Shoppe, which is where I work.  The article had nothing to do with me but I thought that even associations I am affiliated with came up.

~ Carissa  

John Finch and George Couros

John Finch raised a lot of concerns for me in terms of using the internet and technology in the classroom.  From the political side there are a lot of things that we do on a regul basis involving the internet that are in fact illegal.  Using copyrighted pictures from a google search or not sourcing information is something that occurs on a regular basis in most classrooms.  Even for myself I never even think twice before copying and pasting any picture I find on the internet for projects. 

Being relatively new to the technology world and still trying to figure out how to use technology programs in the classroom I was unaware of potential risks such as companies that are housed in the United States, or elsewhere for that matter.  As a teacher using these programs with student information on them this could be a potential risk.  John did an excellent job at opening my eyes in regards to the terms of service that I don't even read before I click accept.  I will definitely pay closer attention to details like that especially when it comes to the tools I am choosing to use in the classroom.

George Couros gave me excellent points to consider about the benefits of using technology to promote myself when it comes time to look for a teaching job.  Having an easily accessible electronic porfolio for the interview was a great suggestion.  He also emphasized the power of technolog y to demonstrate your love of learning as an educator.  With a forever changing and growing positive online presence you can easily demonstrate that you are willing to learn in the same manner than you want your students to learn.

 He also talked about our digital footprint and how it can be a positive or a negative.  He suggested to google yourself to see what comes up.  I was very amazed to see things like my high school track results come up.  One of my favorite ideas George expressed was that we teach children first and curriculum second.  this is a powerful statement when you think about how easily it is as a new teacher to become wrapped up in curriculum and putting individual student needs on the backburner.

This week's two presentations gave me a lot to think about and consider when it comes to how I am using technology and how I can use it to acquire my first teaching position.

~ Carissa