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.

Bring Your Own Device?

This week we read an article called Young Canadian's in a Wired World. The article stated that children and teens were more connected than ever, going as far as saying that 99% of students have access to the internet outside of school.

This prompted a discussion about bring your own device programs in schools and whether students having a device with them was a distraction or whether it could be used in a constructive manner. In my opinion, BYOD is a great idea.

Throughout my three student teaching placements, I have had a variety of experiences with technology. From teaching in a room filled with 18 computers, to being in a school with a computer lab with computers older than I am, to not using any technology what so ever. Each experience had its own draw backs that could have benefited with each student having their own device.

Examples:

The computer lab had 18 computers. My grade 10 geography class had 24 students. You do the math! When doing a project requiring a computer, what do the six students who aren't lucky enough to get one do? Also, there was very little space for students to move around with all of the computers taking up most of the space. If each student were to have their own device it would solve the math problem as well as the space issues.

 

A computer lab having ancient computers wastes time and frustrates students. So much so that they don't want to even use them! This school was actually moving towards BYOD which was why the school hadn't needed to update their computer lab.

 

The problem with not allowing students to use technology at all is that they get bored easily. These kids all use technology at home, some of them probably even have their own device so not having the opportunities to use the technology is boring and sometimes frustrating to them! And let's face it... technology is fun! In this case, BYOD probably wouldn't be practical for a grade 5 class but having opportunities to use the laptop cart or the iPads would have been very beneficial.

I would love the opportunity to work in a division where students all have their own devices because I think that I would be able to use them in a productive way.

What are your thoughts/experiences with BYOD?

Follow an Edublogger

This is the first of many "tech tasks" that we are required to complete for my Internet for Educators (I4Ed) class.

Math = Love is written by Sarah Hagan, a high school algebra teacher in Oklahoma. I happened upon her blog by accident last May and I have been following her ever since! What I like about Ms. Hagan's blog is that she posts pictures of her Interactive Notebooks that she makes the kids do. Even though the curriculum in the United States is different than here in Manitoba, a lot of the Math concepts overlap and she has creative ways to help students remember concepts. 

For example, one of my favorite pages on her blog is Polynomials and Factoring where she shows really neat tricks to factoring when a > 1.

Also, I'm pretty sure Sarah is a bigger math nerd than anyone else I know... I'm pretty jealous! She has some great ideas for celebrating Pi day which I might actually use this year while out student teaching! 3.1415926... or 03/14/15 9:26 am will be epic... if it wasn't on a saturday!! Oh well, guess we will have to celebrate the day before, which of course is not quite as epic but could still be a fun day for students. 

Anyone who loves math should definitely follow this blog. And even if you don't love math, she posts a lot of posts called Things Teenagers Say. Its always good for a laugh or two when you're stressed!

Digital Dualism and Digital Identity

Digital dualism is the theory that people can act differently online than they do in real life. 

I think that some people hide behind computers to say things that they may be too scared to say face to face with someone but I also think that someone who bullies people online is probably a bully anyways.

This week we also talked about digital identity. It seems like after all of the horror stories we have heard about teachers and Facebook or other social media, it would be the best decision to just stay off of these sites all together. It turns out that employers are expecting you to have at least some presence online. The trick is to make sure that it is a positive one.

That is what this class is about: connecting with other educators online, sharing resources, and creating a positive digital identity.

 

Back To School 2015

Well, I've made it to my last semester here at BU! This semester, I am a part of the Internet for Educators class. Like ICT, I4Ed requires that I blog every week so here I am!

This week the course started off with a bang with two guest speakers. The first was Dean Shareski who talked to us about the difference between a 20th century classroom and a 21st century classroom. One idea that I thought was really important was that the idea of sharing. Dean talked about students sharing what they were doing in their classroom with the world through the use of technology. Hearing this wasn't exactly new to me, but I liked the spin that Dean put on it by saying that if a student creates something that just their teacher will see then it will be good enough but if a student creates something that they are going to post online then it will be their best work. I would love to post student work online in some fashion but depending on the division that I will be working in, that might not be possible because some divisions have very strict internet sharing policies. If I wasn't able to post student work online, I may do something more local such as sharing in the classroom and in the school.

The second speaker was John Finch from Manitoba Education. One thing that dominated our discussion was the issue of Copyright. I could go on and on about this topic, but I will save that for another time. The point that I took from John's discussion this time was that we must weigh the benefit of certain technologies against the cost of them. For example, SMARTboards are in nearly every classroom in certain divisions but they are not necessarily being used to their full potential. I think that mostly these SMARTboards are being used as glorified projectors. They are not adding a lot of benefit to most classrooms. I know for a fact that there are teachers who are actually using them to enhance learning but I think that the percentage of those teachers is slim. I know that in my last few placements I haven't used the SMARTboard for much more than to do notes in math, and to show websites to students in other subjects.

Fun Fact: I'm thinking of moving to Mars. Why you might ask? Because it's warmer there than it is here in Manitoba!