The Continuum and EverFi Presentation

This week we had to solidify our thoughts about where we are currently on the continuum of whether or not teachers should be able to decide what technology tools they and their students should be allowed to use. 
With:
1 - very little control --> 5 - complete control
I was around a 4. I think it is important that teachers be treated as professionals and therefore be given control of what they do in the classroom, but I think that teachers need to be trained specifically in technology and digital citizenship so that they can model those skills for their students. 

This week we also had a quick presentation from Everfi. From what I understood, they have online courses that teachers can have their class work through. The courses center around online citizenship as well as STEM topics. On a side note, I just learned what STEM means! (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)

One of the courses that I thought might be really interesting to have a look at and possibly use in the class is one that they hope to have out this summer called Math and Science of Hockey. I think that this would be very engaging to students who don't usually think that math is fun. It said that it was for 5-8 but I'm sure a lot of the topics would also be applicable to grade 9 or 10. 

Show and Tell - PowToon

PowToon is a video making tool that I am using to create my final project for our Internet for Educators class. So far, it is as simple as PowerPoint but way more exciting. It looks similar to PowerPoint as well. There are slides that you can move through.

Then you add text, images, animations and audio.

It is easy to choose how long your slides and animations last and when they come in. 

Last you export the file. I haven't done this yet, but I expect that I will be able to embed my video on my blog.

Here is a look at the full screen.

Stay tuned for my final blog post which will include my video. I haven't found any bugs yet, hopefully my video turns out okay!

Podcasts

So this tech task required us to listen to podcasts and share what we found. I'm not a huge fan of podcasts that are entirely audio because I am not an auditory learner at all! My mind tends to wander if I don't have something to look at and focus my attention on. This is why I was really excited when I came across this podcast. 

The Math Dude is a Podcast that comes with a Website that has a full transcript, as well as diagrams that follow along with what he is saying. I listened to the episode about FOILing and I really enjoyed it. He was really good at hooking students because he started out with a joke about aluminum foil in the microwave. It was pretty ridiculous, but days later, I still remember it and I'm sure if I have to actually use FOIL, I will be thinking about this podcast. 

I also liked how he explained why foiling actually works. When I learned this concept, I was given the "rule" but not the "why". It worked for me, but I know it would not work for every student. 

I'm not sure that I would use podcasts in my classroom on their own. If a student wanted to do one as a choice for an assignment I would definitely support that, but I don't think that I would make it a mandatory thing because I personally don't like them that much. 

Using Video in the Classroom

There are tons of jingles online to help students remember math concepts. In my experience, the more ridiculous the song, the more students like it and remember it. 

I recently came across this gem about the unit circle. I would definitely use it in a grade 12 pre-calc class after they have learned the unit circle to help them remember it. Also, if you tell them that you have an awesome video to show them after, the anticipation will make memorizing it way less boring! I would also use it in a calculus class because it is important for them to remember the unit circle as well. 

I love (love love!) the idea of getting students to create their own songs or jingles for remembering difficult concepts. I also like having students make a video of themselves explaining how to do a certain question because it helps you see what they are thinking and why they may be making certain mistakes. You can also see how deep their understanding of the concept is.

In one of my student teaching placements my cooperating teacher had the students make amazing race videos right before I got there were a few that turned out really well. 

In terms of sharing student videos on sites like youtube, I'm on the fence. I think that if I were to do that, I would make an account for my classroom and then I would put the videos up on it so that I can keep track of them. I would also give students a choice about whether they felt comfortable with sharing their video. If they didn't want to share it with the world, I would definitely insist that they share it with the class. 

Infographics

Here are two infographics that I found that I would think about posting in my classroom.

29 Ways to Stay Creative

Visualizing Pi

Here is an infographic that I created on Picktochart. As you may know, I am a coach of Special Olympics Softball. This weekend I participated in the LETR Brandon Special Olympics Polar Plunge so that is what I chose to make my infographic about. It was actually pretty fun to make and Picktochart has some great templates to get started with. I like the idea of having students make infographics because they should have more visuals than words and it makes students pick out the main ideas.

 

Twitter

So for the last few weeks I have been on Twitter. I have tweeted a total of 9 times, favorited 5 tweets, I have started following 33 people, and accumulated 13 twitter followers.

I am not sure that Twitter is for me! What I mean by this is that I cannot make myself keep up with twitter regularly. I cannot find things to tweet (other than the fact that I won Roll Up the Rim this morning! Yay!).

What I do like about Twitter though is that I have found a lot of math teachers to follow and they post really interesting things sometimes. For example Dan Meyer posts really fun real life math problems. My favorite was this post! 

I also like Twitter when I am coaching Special Olympics because SOM has a very active Twitter account and they often tweet out results and pictures from provincials and national games in real time. 

Even though I don't think that I will keep up with Twitter in my personal life, I would still like to use it in the classroom. I've said this before but I love that it allows students to connect with experts outside of the classroom. It also teaches students to be brief with a maximum of 140 characters. Sometimes in math you get explanations that are paragraphs but don't really say anything. I think it would be cool to have students explain concepts in a twitter format. Brief but concise!

Education Technology in BSD and Assessment for Social Media

This week we had a presentation from the Brandon School Division about technology in the classroom.

I was pleasantly surprised by the process to be able to use certain technology tools in the classroom. I admit that I had thought that the school division was quite restrictive in their internet use. After the presentation I found that they would just prefer that if there is a tool that BSD provides that does the same as the tool you want to use as a teacher then they want you to use the BSD one instead. I think this is a pretty reasonable request, especially because the tools provided by the school division are private and you don't have to worry about student information getting out.

Something that I found interesting about this presentation was their focus on personalization of learning. It goes along with the theme of not using technology for technology's sake but to actually use it to enhance learning.

One thing that I have started to think about is assessment. What I am wondering is if I were to do a project using social media like Twitter, how would I assess it? Also, would I force the students to use it, or would I allow them to choose what they want to do? What would you do? Would you use social media as one big project or would you have a topic and allow students to choose how they represent it?

Technology in the Classroom Presentation

This week we had a presentation from a teacher that teaches in a one-to-one environment at his school. He had some great ideas for integrating technology in a meaningful way.

He talked about SAMR which is an acronym for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition.

The first two are basically about using technology the same way you would use a paper an pencil. For example, making a PowerPoint just to display information.

The latter two make students use higher level thinking. One requirement of modification and redefinition is that the work is available to a public audience. I've talked about this on my blog before, how I believe that when students are doing something that they are showing to more than just the teacher they are more likely to put more effort into it.

One thing that was stressed in the presentation was not to use technology just to use it. It is important to ask "what are you going to do?" rather than "what tool are you going to use?". This was in response to a question from a student that we have all heard..." can I just make a PowerPoint?"

This presentation gave me great tools to try out. I haven't looked at all of them but I want to post this list so that I can look them over and save the ones I like.


Twitter Chats, Padlet, Spotify, Schoolology, vines, tingling, chatterpix, popcorn maker.

This presentation was extremely worthwhile and I look forward to trying some of the things we were shown. Particularly using twitter.

Digital Footprint or Digital Identity

For this tech task we were asked to examine our digital identity so I googled myself. This is what I found. 

Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, My E-portfolio, a blog post I submitted for Special Olympics, Facebook, and a newspaper article about a scholarship I received. 

Overall I would say that I have a pretty good Digital Identity. I would also say that it reflects who I am "in real life" as well. 

We had a presentation this week which talked about technology in the classroom. I liked what he was doing in the classroom with Twitter and teaching his students to connect with professionals. I especially liked that he was teaching them to be selective about what questions they ask and to follow through with conversations and be polite and professional. He also talked about how he uses Twitter Chats to teach students to defend their opinions with facts. Basically, all skills that they will use in their everyday life but a safe and fun way to practice it. It also helps them to create a positive digital identity even before they leave high school. 

I would like to do something like this in my own classroom someday. 

PLN and the Connected Student

My Professional Learning Network has expanded just in the last few weeks since beginning the Internet for Educators course.

My PLN has expanded to include blogs, Twitter and Google Plus since joining this class. I think that I am probably less connected than a lot of others but hey, you have to start somewhere right? Take for example Twitter. I haven't used it since I was in high school but I have started to follow a lot of well known educators and I have found links to pretty cool math ideas.

This is a mind map of what I think a connected student would look like in the 21st Century.

 

 

 



I think it is important for us to know where students are gaining their understanding of the world. I created this mind map based on my brother a year ago when he was still a high school student. A big part of his life was social media and online gaming. When those are what interest students outside of school, why not bring an element of them into schools to engage these students. Because, we all know that using twitter for a class assignment, or sharing ideas through a wiki or a blog are much more fun and engaging than doing a worksheet!

Organizing Yourself Online

Before my time in the Faculty of Education, I never really used any special tools to keep myself organized other than using the bookmark tool on whatever browser I was using.

I have come to see that being organized online is essential and actually saves you a lot of time when searching the web.

One of the new sites that I learned about through Internet for Educators is Diigo. I have never used this site but I can see the uses for it. It is similar to Pinterest but it organizes articles and shows summaries of them rather than pictures.

One of the best ways that I have found to organize yourself online is through using Symbaloo. What I love about Symbaloo is that you can embed it into a website. I think that it would be beneficial when you have students doing research or sharing resources. A student could email or tell the teacher about a website that they have found and the teacher could review it for reliability and then add it to the symbaloo on the class website. 

I currently use feedly for following blogs and I use Pinterest to keep track of teaching ideas.

Resources for Manitoba Teachers

This week we had a couple more people for Manitoba Education come to talk to us about the different resources that are available to us as teachers.

First there is Maple, a social networking site for Manitoba Teachers. On this site there are resources for almost any subject you can think of as well as announcements about upcoming events. All you need is a username and password.

Next is Blackboard, which allows anyone to view online courses in most of the compulsory subjects for high school. These courses are particularly useful for teachers who are teaching a subject that they have never taught before. This site even lets you create your own course! I will be talking more about blackboard in a future blog post as one of my tech tasks.

These presentations have been very helpful because I was unaware of all of the resources that are available to teachers. I know that many of my friends have gone straight to Pinterest anytime that they needed a fun idea for an activity but sometimes when searching in Pinterest you have to sort through a lot of mediocre ideas before you find something that fits. Whereas on Maple or Blackboard it is very easy to find what you are looking for.