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.

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.