Week 9 - ICT in a Nutshell

For my summative blog post I decided to use a tool that I never got a chance to use throughout the semester but which I wanted to try... PREZI!!

Even if I don't use some of the tools that we learned about in my classroom, I will definitely use them in my personal life!! Like I've said before, Evernote is amazing. I will also edit photos using be funky and other tools. And coming up this summer, I will be using iMovie to create a souvenir video for my Special Olympics Softball team. I will take photos while we are at the National Games and put them all together so that each of the Athletes have something to remember the week by!! 

I plan to continue blogging at least throughout my two years in Education. I would love to have a class blog. I think its a great way to reflect and share your ideas. 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year... 

Talk to you next semester!

Week 8 - Evernote

Today in ICT we were shown Evernote, an app that is compatible with iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC etc. 

I decided to download the app because it looked kind of interesting an useful and was I were right. I went home and installed it on my computer and started putting notes from my classes into the app. The best part is that one of my profs puts all of his notes and articles on moodle, and before I would have to open pages and go back and forth between pages, but now I can add all of the notes to a notebook and add my own notes along with them. Very cool. I also love how the app syncs between devices so that when I do something on my iPhone I can see it on my computer later. 

This would be great for high school students because they can use notes they take in class and also choose articles and pictures found online to better understand concepts and they can organize it all in one place. Also, you can record voice notes on Evernote so if the teacher is saying something important but the student doesn't have time to write it down they can record the teacher and keep the audio file in a note. 

I would like to use this to share things with my students because you can make the notebooks public.

Until next time...

This is Evernote!!

Week 7 - Literacy with ICT

Literacy with ICT was the theme of the week here in ICT class. We had a guest speaker talk about how literacy with ICT has been integrated into the K-12 curriculum. 

One thing that really stuck out about Literacy with ICT is that it is mainly about the literacy part of it. Both of the guest speakers in our class have mentioned that technology is used to enhance learning but when students have to fight with the technology they are using then it inhibits learning. In other words, simple and easy to use technology is best when using it in the classroom.

This week we also went back and looked at poll questions that we all took at the start of the semester and reevaluated where we stood on each topic. My group discussed whether mobile devices should be allowed in the classroom. This debate could go on forever, but the main points are:
Pros
- information at your fingertips
- most kids have some sort of device whether it be a smartphone, ipad, ipod, laptop, etc.
- there are many cool apps that can be used in the classroom

Cons
- if not used properly, they can be a distraction
- videos can be taken and posted on the internet (privacy issues)
- not all families can afford to buy their child a mobile device

Our group decided that mobile devices should be allowed in the classroom but with some limitations.

Next week we will be working on our group projects. My group will be presenting how to make an effective smartboard lesson.

Week 6 - Back to being students

This week in ICT...

We made a powerpoint 6 word story about our student teaching. Each slide had just one word and a picture to go with that word. I could see this being used in a classroom where students have to summarize a book or an article that they read. Having to summarize an entire chapter in just one word would make students really think about what they read. 

On Thursday we had a guest speaker from the St. James school division in Winnipeg. He gave us many great ideas about how to use technology in quick and easy ways. One thing that he said that really stuck out to me was that students should have to think more about the task than about the technology. So basically students should not have to fight with difficult technology to get their point across. My favourite activity that we did with Darren was the video that we put up on YouTube. I wish that this could be used more in schools but many schools have privacy policies to get through to be able to post a video of students. 

Anyways, here is our video that we made in about 10 minutes!





This was a very cool idea and I think with more time we could have done a better job and this could be an excellent video.

Week 5 - Sink or Swim, This is it!

Here we go! In less than a week I will be student teaching in a real classroom. The subject? Grade 10 Geography. So the question now is how do I incorporate all that I have learned in ICT class into my lessons. Well one way that I will be doing it is by using GIS as a mapping tool. I don't know a lot about the program yet, but luckily my cooperating teacher is practically an expert! I will be joining watching his GIS class and will also be joining the PD session that he in running. Hopefully when I come back I will be an expert as well! The room I will be teaching in is basically a computer lab so lucky for me I will be able to incorporate technology quite easily. Unfortunately the classroom doesn't have a smart board. There are so many cool uses for them and, when used properly, they can be a great teaching tool. Hopefully my next teaching placement will have a smart board so that I can learn how to effectively use it. 

This week we have just been catching up on all of our projects, finishing our websites, thinking about the group project, and blogging as always. 

When I get back from Student Teaching hopefully I will have lots of experiences to blog about.

Here is a video that we watched today about bad powerpoint presentations... I bet everyone who is reading this has made at least one of these errors... because what is the point of making a powerpoint without changing the background, and animating absolutely everything in it!! This is super funny!!!


*** This blog should have been published about 5 weeks ago but I'm still learning about this program and I forgot to publish it!! Oops!! :)

5 Weeks of Student Teaching

For the last five weeks I have been in a real classroom and I absolutely loved it. It went by so fast. I was in Geography classroom where I taught 2 slots of Geography20S and I sat in on a Geography40 and a GIS course. 

Technology was a large part of the classroom activities while in the school because the room that I was in had 18 computers. I was able to use a variety of resources other than textbooks because students could all go on the computer and use the internet to get up to date information rather than the out dated textbook information. 

Learning GIS was a large part of my student teaching experience. Although there were quite a few small bugs that came along with using the program, I was constantly blown away by the things students could accomplish with the program. 

The school I was at had a closed circuit tv system throughout the school, which they used to play video clips or picture slide shows of students working, or school events. I only found out about all of the things they could put on the screens in my last couple weeks but I often walked down the hall and saw a pack of students staring up at the screens which were showing students in their Halloween costumes.

Overall I had a great 5 weeks and look forward to my second placement. New school, new ct, new students!! It will be great!!

This was an extra blog post for the week all about my student teaching placement. I will have one more specifically for ICT class later in the week. :)

Week 4 - I thought we were supposed to be GIVING the homework?!?

Oh my goodness! This week has been crazy! It seems like all of our teachers have been trying to fit in as much as they possibly can before we are sent out into the schools! I think I speak for all of the students in first year when I say: As if we weren't stressed out enough...!!

In ICT this week we have continued to go over the 6 C's of ICT.

This week has been about Creativity!! Using photos in creative ways has been the theme this week. I made a quick Animoto video in about 5 minutes. I don't really have any ideas about how I could use this in my classroom other than for activation strategies. We also did a lot of photo editing. One assignment was to finish the sentence Learning is... I chose Lifelong! We should never stop learning no matter how old you are. And that is why we are learning to make lesson plans that focus on long term understanding rather than short term learning. 

Anyways, today is a really short blog post. Hopefully I have time to do another one by the end of the week but if not then I will update once student teaching has begun. Wish me luck!!

I will leave you with two pictures today. 

The first one is an assignment that I did where I edited a photo. I chose one of me and an athlete from the Special Olympic team that I coach! Go Comets!

The second one is of course my wordle! This week I used wordle to create a word splash with words I most commonly use in my blog!

Week 3 - The 6 C's of ICT

Well, its that time of the week again! 

We've been talking about the 6 C's in ICT. They are:

1. Curation
2. Communication
3. Creativity
4. Collaboration
5. Critical Thinking 
6. Citizenship

Last week I posted about Google Docs which fell into the Collaboration category!

This week was Communication week. We have been creating websites for our hypothetical classrooms. I won't post a link to mine yet because it is not quite finished but when I am done there will be a link to it on my blog. It is really tough to make a classroom website when I do not yet have a classroom of my own but I am doing my best. We used Weebly to create our websites... super easy to use by the way!

Curation (or, website organization!) was the other C we talked about this week. There are way more tools for keeping track of your favorites then I would have ever thought. Here are just a few of my favorites: Feedly, Pearltrees, and Diigo.

However, the very best website for keeping track of everything you love has got to be Symbaloo! When I have spare time (no idea when that will be, we've been busy!) I am definitely going to make one of my own and use it as my home screen. I will also add one to my website! 

So September is almost over and in exactly three weeks I will have completed my first day of student teaching. The list of things that need to be completed before that in our classes is insane! These next few weeks are going to be crazy!! Wish me luck!

Here's another Wordle with key words from this week!

If you haven't yet, check out my All About Math page for some super cheesy but super awesome calculus videos! Even if you have no calculus knowledge they are hilarious!!

Week 2 - Reputation is Everything!

Well, its that time of the week again! Time for another blog post!

So what happened in the wonderful world of education this past week? Discussions in all classes seemed to center around the idea of social media and it's implications for us as teachers. Now social media can be everything from the obvious facebook and twitter, to google docs. For anyone who has never used google docs (which was me up until yesterday) it is the greatest invention since sliced bread... well maybe not, but there are some really cool uses for it! I made my own form! Fill it out now!

Anyways, in our discussions we keep coming back to the negatives of social media. 

1. Once its out there... its out there for good. So be careful about what you post and what other people post on your behalf. We're teachers now and we have to act like it (whether we like it or not!)
2. To friend or not to friend... that is the question. We will be out in the schools in four weeks today and it is guaranteed that we will be getting friend requests from our students. Do we accept? NO! It is only asking for trouble.
3. So what is the best way to communicate with students and parents? There has been a lot of discussion on this topic. In my opinion, a class website is the way to go! Maybe email... but definitely no texting students and no facebooking students. 

These are only a few of the many topics brought up by my fellow almost teachers this week. Unfortunately, the answer to many of our questions was it depends on the situation. Well for a math major like me... that is definitely NOT the answer I was looking for! Black or white, yes or no, those are the clear as mud answers I'm looking for!

Well, I think that might be all I have to say for today. I will leave you with another wordle I created. What can I say, I love these things! 

Week 1 - Wait... we're not teachers yet?

So here it goes, my very first blog post!!

So September 3, 2013, 90 students walk into the education building with excitement and high hopes that every single one of them will get a full time teaching job in two years time! What do we find out? Well turns out that only 50% of us will find a job. Of course everyone believes that the 50% includes them... how could it not? We are all intelligent, energetic, social beings who are looking to make a difference in the lives of all the children that we will come across! But what we didn't know is that before we can become full fledged teachers we must make it through 2 years of assignments, presentations, and yes... blogging!!

Technology... its everywhere!! We can't hide from it so we might as well embrace it. And that is the aim of our Using ICT in Education class. To learn how to effectively use technology in our classrooms whether it be in the form of Youtube videos like these ones, smartboards, websites, blogs, Twitter... must I go on?

This week we were introduced to the world of technology in the classroom. My favourite part was learning how to create this blog. As scary as it is to post my own thoughts for everyone to see I can see how this will be very helpful in the future. It is a time for reflection. What works, what doesn't work, some ideas for next time. We also learnt how to use Wordle, which makes word splashes quickly and easily. These can be used in the classroom to introduce a new topic, on bulletin boards or as a study tool. Today, I am using one in my blog!

Well that's all for my first week. This is only the beginning and the possibilities are endless!