Check out my Final Reflection below.
Well, I can't believe ECMP 355 is already over. I have learned so much in such a short period of time. I came into this class struggling with the idea of using technology in the classroom because I wasn't sure that it could be used effectively for learning. I continued to dwell on the idea that my students would see tech in the classroom as a toy and not get any work done, but I have learned that technology is really great tool for encouraging children to participate in classroom activities in so many new ways. I am excited to learn more about incorporating technology into the classroom now that I have a better understanding of HOW to use technology with children. Thank you to everyone who helped me through this class as I troubleshooted and needed answers. Thank you especially to Angie (@TechieAng) for encouraging me through your blog and for allowing me to interview you and to Dean for helping me fix some annoying tech problems and encouraging us to try new things! This class was an amazing experience and I am so glad that I have taken it. Check out my Final Reflection below.
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For the most part, I really enjoyed reading my classmates blogs. I think it's interesting that we are all teachers but the topics of the blog posts varied so much from person to person. The aspect of the blog posts that i enjoyed most were not when people shared videos or pictures of things they found on the internet but instead when people shared their own experiences, opinions, and thoughts.
I think that it is much easier to interact with each other when the blog posts take a personal shape. That is how I tried to shape my blog posts. Rather than posting only a picture or video that I found, I tried to leave some thoughts or questions that I had alongside it so that it could be a discussion piece rather than just something to look at. I think that I contributed to the class by sharing my experiences and beliefs in my blog posts. I also feel like my educator profile is a significant contribution to the class because there is so much information on how to use technology in the classroom and how to start incorporating tech if you are starting from nothing. My educator profile of Angie Harrison (@TechieAng) also directs my classmates to her professional blog as well as her Twitter space, where there are so many teachers to connect with and interact with. One aspect that I found especially difficult about blogging was keeping up with all of my classmates blogs. It was very overwhelming for me to go on to our ECMP355 class page and have 25 new entries that I hadn't read. I wasn't very good at reading posts or commenting on posts daily but instead I would sit down and spend a day reading posts and commenting on posts because that's what worked best for me. I liked reading my classmates blogs because it challenged me in my beliefs and made me consider different options for techniques and strategies in the classroom. I loved it when my classmates shared resources on their blogs and in their posts (I have a new bookmarks folder of all the tools that I accumulated...it's almost overwhelming!). I really liked the interaction that happened when I started commenting on posts with more than just, 'that was an interesting read'. I learned that I could ask my classmates (and other bloggers) questions and that when conversations got going it was more meaningful than just reading the post and walking away from it. One thing that I found difficult was when I commented on other peoples blogs and there was no response, even if I asked a question. I worked extra hard in this way on keeping comments on my blog responded to and I worked on responding directly to the person that asked the question or commented. One thing that I had hoped to see more of was challenges and questions about my posts, but I think that the lack of these things has partly to do with choosing the educator profile over the blogging assignment. Because I chose to do the educator profile I found that the social learning aspect made it harder to interact because I was not blogging daily. This was very frustrating for me because I felt like I should be able to interact more but I wasn't (and still am not) sure of how to do so, except through commenting on other blogs. I feel like a significant amount of learning also happened through classmates troubleshooting together, whether it was on Twitter or through blog posts, I really loved the collaborative learning that went on in this class! One of the times I felt that I learned the most was when I listened to or attended the session. I felt like the learning that happened there was so deep because we were interacting with the speakers through tech tasks (and seeing how classmates completed these) as well as compiling mass amounts of resources. Not only did we gain resources and knowledge but I think that I was also given the opportunity to learn how to use these tool effectively in a very short period of time because we had speakers who were proficient in using these tools teach us how to use them. Overall I feel like the social learning aspect of this course is a huge part of this course, without it, blogging would simply be a personal journal with reflection but no discussion and refining. I am so impressed with the posts that my classmte had and all that they had to teach me and I want to take the idea, of peers teaching each other into my own classroom in the future! Posts that I commented on: May 13-17: What I Know About Twitter by Renee Clemens Welcome by Mariette Anderson Meditation in the Classroom by Calli Illerbrun Tech Task # 2 Part 1 Google Form by Swati Dixit (completed the Google form) Tech Task #2 Part 1 by Carlee Quiring (completed the Google form) Tech Task 2: Google Form! by Jenna Kulyk (completed Google form) Share the Road... by Shane Markham May 20-24: A Vision by Swati Dixit Sue's Session by Nicole Helland The World Was A-Twitter: Analyzing the Power of Social Networking by Matt Giesbrecht May: 27-31: Tech Task #4 - Be a Better Blogger by Jocelyn Thomas June 3-7: No Social Media = :( by Bretten Young Tech Task #6 -- Storytelling (Part 2) by Carlee Quiring June 10-14: My Inspiration! by Maria Sinclair Dear Stress…Lets break up! by Swati Dixit How Critical is Feedback in Education? by Shandra Nelson Helpful Hints for Saving Money! by Lacey Euteneier Have You Filled A Bucket Today? by Lacey Euteneier A Change in Opinion (Tech Task #7) by Nicole Roeher Taking the Plunge by Mariette Anderson Overwhelmed :( by Alia Dlugan Technology In My Class by Marley Riddell Always Look on the Bright Side of Life…Some Inspiration? by Adrienne Dechief Engage Me! by Swati Dixit What makes you Itch: Inspirational video by Kayla Fontaine A Must-See on Textbooks by Lacey Euteneier Education Awareness making a splash! by Noelle Broda Explain This? by Lacey Euteneier I had a great time interviewing Angie Harrison (@TechieAng)! She is a wonderful teacher and is so willing to help you learn and share what she is learning. Thanks so much for letting me stalk and interview you Angie, I've learned so much from you and can't wait to keep reading your blog. You are an inspiring teacher and I am really glad I've had the opportunity to meet you! Troubleshooting Also, a word of advice for anyone recording a Skype interview...don't do what I did... I really mean it, don't even think about it. I recorded the interview in QuickTime Player, then exported it to iTunes, I imported it to Garage Band to edit. I then exported to iTunes again....THEN I had to go into movie maker to make a video for YouTube because you can't embed your own videos into Weebly unless you have the Pro upgrade. When I went to publish the movie I couldn't publish it to YouTube because the recording was longer then 15 minutes so I had to go back into Garage Band, chop the interview in half, remake the videos and then upload it to YouTube. Needless to say it was quite the process and took many hours of wanting to pull my hair out, but at the time it was the only thing I could think of because my Mac wouldn't let me download Skype recording tools. Anyways, if you have to record a Skype call I really hope you can get a free tool to download cause the whole process was quite exhausting, well at least it was for me because I'm not a very techie person, so please bear with me on the quality of the recording, I did my best. My Questions for Angie 1. Why did you decide to become a teacher? 2. What is your favourite part about being a teacher? 3. How do you decide how often to update your blog or make a new post? 4. How do your students’ parents react to the active use of technology in the classroom? 5. Have any of the parents made suggestions or asked for certain kinds of technology to be included or left out of the classroom? 6. How did you develop your PLN (Professional Learning Network) on Twitter? 7. How did you go about finding other classrooms to Skype with? 8. Have you ever Skyped in professionals from different areas when teaching a lesson? What was the response from students? 9. Do you have any advice for new teachers on how to begin incorporating technology into day-day activities in the classroom? 10. What would your advice be to teachers who have limited access to technology in their schools? 11. Do the students have access to the iPads and iTouches all the time? 12. What is the students’ favourite most loved technology tool? 13. Do you structure the time the students have with the iPads? How do you do this? 14. Have you found a better way of keeping all the apps and O.S. up to date than when you first started with the iPads? 15. Is there anything you miss about the classroom when it wasn’t so ‘connected’? If not: What about the devices make class time more enjoyable with the students/for the students? 16. Do you have a goal for your class blogs? Is it geared to parents, students, or maybe both? 17. How do you keep parents up to date on classroom activities? Email, blog, Remind101? 18. Do your students have their own blogs or blog on the classroom blog? Would you like to see this in the future? 19. Have you ever had a blog that your students posted on? What were the benefits and disadvantages? 20. Do the students use other online resources? Math/literacy games on the web? 21. Are there ever difficulties with students sharing devices? I know this is one thing you told them they would have to do. 22. How do you assess learning with these tools? What forms of assessment do you use? Do the students contribute to assessment? Parents? 23. I know you don’t pick favourite apps but what is your favourite website or app for students to use today? The Interview Part 1 Part 2 Angie, thank you again for helping me, teaching me new things, and for investing your time in me. You have no idea how much you are appreciated!
Well, when Dean suggested the educator profile I thought I would hate the project. I thought that stalking an educator would be boring and that I wouldn't get anything out of it. I was wrong. I am so happy that I took a leap and did the educator profile assignment. I learned so much as I read through Angie's blogs and as I got a sense of who she was as an educator. Angie is a Kindergarten teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator.
When I started this assignment I decided that I would read every small post and every other long post (unless there were long posts that related to each other). But as I read I got so caught up in reading Angie's posts that I ended up reading every post on her professional blog. Needless to say that Angie is a fun and engaging writer and it is easy to feel like you are in her classroom or collaboration team as you read through her blog. Angie shows her love of collaborative learning through her use of Twitter and blogging as well as through her open sharing of resources she has assembled. Through Angie's writing you truly get a sense of her aspirations for her students, herself, and her classroom and it is a fresh way to look at the classroom, you can truly tell that Angie has a passion for teaching, but most of all for her students. Spaces where Angie Interacts Twitter: @TechieAng Professional Blog: http://techieang.edublogs.org/ Classroom Blog: https://mrsharrisonk.wordpress.com/ Collaboration Blog: http://wecanseeprojectsharingspace.blogspot.ca/ This assignment was very useful for me because I was able to see an educator reflect, discuss, and refine her practices. It was also a really good experience for me to see how technology can be used so efficiently in the classroom. Angie is always looking for ways to improve her teaching practices and she is always seeking comments and suggestions on her professional blog. Angie interacts with those who comment on her blog and she also encourages people to comment on her classroom blog because students share their work in digital formats, and let's be honest, what kid wouldn't be over the roof if they had positive comments or questions about the work they were doing?! On Angie's classroom blog she gives parents information and tips on how to work with their children on how to continue learning at home. She shares apps, large and fine motor activities, language and math games, and so much more. She also posts images of activities that have gone on throughout the day to keep parents updated and to continue the documentation process. When I first started reading Angie's professional blog, I knew that she used technology to in her classroom but it was amazing for me to find out that her classroom is fully equipped with iPads, mini iPads, iTouches, and an iMac. Angie and her class are also avid Skype users. Skype is used to speak and interact with other classrooms around the world. One of Angie's goals in using Skype is that students will begin to grasp the concept that there are other students around the world and that they can work and learn together even though they are not in the same space. Check out this CTV News clip of Angie's Kindergarten classroom using Skype. BYOD (Bring your own device) Angie has used this technique with her students in the past and it has worked well because students are excited and engaged. One thing that she found difficult, is that the primary students didn't always bring their devices and often when they did, they weren't charged so it was a learning process. I think this technique would be especially beneficial to all ages in the classroom because it helps students get to know their devices and learn how to use them as learning tools. Some of what I learned about teaching and about Angie from my time as a stalker Skype allows students to have a closer experience with what they are learning, they are able to experience technology as an educational tool, rather than just a toy. This means that students get new experiences and they learn how to use technology responsibly. Angie believes that it is the educators responsibility to show children how to use for a greater purpose! Twitter can be a great tool for interacting with other teachers and getting ideas for in the classroom. Angie uses her Professional Learning Network (PLN) on twitter and through her blog to connect with other teachers for Skyping and doing classroom challenges. She also uses her PLN for tips and tricks on classroom activities as well as for discussing issues pertaining to education. Angie used Twitter to build an inquiry project around duct tape with her PLN and multiple classrooms engaged in this challenge. Check out the hash tags: #ducttapechallenge and #ducttapechat on twitter to get a better grasp of how this project worked. Angie invites other teachers to join in on classroom activities and do the activities in their own classrooms as well and she believes that we, as educators, should share what is and isn't working in the classroom. "Blog, tweet, and shout it out." (Private victories verses public victories, Professional blog, Feb. 9, 2011) Angie wants students to be able to explore things for themselves without limiting them to do exactly what she shows them, innovation is a big part of Angie's classroom! Learning through inquiry brings excitement into the classroom, and technology keeps things exciting. Angie believes that iPads are an essential part of the creation process in primary years as they increase the amount of useful classroom time. "Our students nees to be creating, exploring, collaborating, and reflecting on a daily basis." (Why focus on the tool?, Professional blog, Jan. 7, 2011) Angie believes that there is a need to learn about different types of tools and how they can best be used in the classroom (try them for yourself before you use them in the classroom). Apps, apps, apps! Angie uses apps to document classroom activities and what the students are learning in her classroom. She believes that documentation doesn't have to look a certain way and that if it is fast you can get really accurate information in the moment, instead of it being a reflection over documentation process. Angie documents student's work through videos, audio, photos, and writing. She believes that documentation should be for students to reference their learning and one way that this is possible is through the app Pic Collage. Pic Collage (app) is a great way to quickly assemble photos of classroom activities and Angie puts what the children say over top of the pictures so that they can go back and see what they are learning. This is a great tool because it can be used for reflection and teaching students that weren't working on that task how to navigate it, i.e. building a bridge with blocks. "When I started teaching 20 years ago, I used to spend my Saturday mornings scouring garage sales. Now I spend my Friday nights searching the app store" (Confessions of a serial app buyer, Professional blog, Dec. 3, 2011) While her classroom is very technologically equipped, HER FOCUS IS NOT ON TECHNOLOGY BUT RATHER ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT!! In Angie's classroom, technology is never used without a purpose. If something can be done better without technology (in most cases the iPads) and be done better with paper and pen, it will be. Angie wants students to learn how to use technology with intentionality and know that it is used for interacting and that it's "not just screen time", the students always need to be learning. "I’m not in favour of providing one of anything to all students. We need to provide students with a vast array of technology and help them understand that they can be problem solvers and develop skills to interact with a variety of tools not rely on one." (Why focus on the tool?, Professional blog, Jan. 7, 2011) Angie doesn't use themes like a typical kindergarten classroom would. Instead, Angie brings discussions the children have to life through incorporating their interests into lessons. The students read, write, and work with what they are interested in learning about. "We can't wait for [technology] experts to show us the way." (Private victories verses public victories, Professional blog, Feb. 9, 2011) Angie is a critical thinker and provides feedback on the technology she is using in the classroom with her students, she often shares how she used it, how she wishes she had used it, and what she will change for her next interaction with the technology. Angie is a learner. She is always looking for new and innovative ways to continue educating herself and her students. She wants education to be fun and engaging and I think she is doing a great job at her work. Take a look at Angie's professional blog for great teaching tips and tons of information on using technology in the classroom, I promise you that it will be worth your time! Well it's been a while since my last post. My classes have gotten very busy with a lot of papers and other assignments to write and at the moment I am wishing that I was being reminded about all my assignments because I feel like I am missing things, even though I'm not.
After listening to Liz Kolb's session on Mobile Learning I feel like I have a better understanding of how cell phones can be used to engage students in learning and help them take control of their learning. Liz offered so many great mobile tools for learning in the classroom; I will only talk about a few. Visit Liz Kolb's blog for more information on mobile learning. The first tools that I plan to use in my classroom are Remind101 and Celly. I love that with Remind101 you can keep students and parents updated on classroom activities. I think Remind101 will be useful because you can remind students and their parents about upcoming projects and field trips ex: 'Field Trip Update: Remember to bring an extra pair of socks for our snow shoeing trip tomorrow, in case your feet get wet! It's going to be a cold day, so dress warm!'. I like that this tool is available for free and that even if students don't have cell phones parents can serve as a reminding agent for their children. I would like to use Celly in my classroom to have study groups or question periods during the week when school hours are over. I think that this tool would be amazing for students to have access to each other and for question times as well as my self, kind of like hosting Twitter office hours. I also think this would be interesting to use as a question 'area' during class times where students could ask their questions and we would address them with the whole class. The sad thing about Celly is that their SMS service is unavailable in Canada so hopefully this service will become available before I have my own classroom. I would also like to use ipadio in my classroom. ipadio is a tool that allows you to make podcasts right from your phone. If you are an iPhone or Android user, there is even an app for you. The great thing about ipadio is that you can embed your podcasts right into your blog. I would like to make podcasts explaining what an assignment involves and post it on my classroom website so that if students aren't able to remember something about an assignment or they missed a day of class they can go online and have a listen for themselves. Well I have two more mobile learning tools that I would like to talk about. The first is QR Codes and the second is polltogo. I would like to use QR codes in my classroom if I was teaching middle years or high school to lead students to additional resource tools to assist them with research for projects or to direct them to the class blog at the beginning of the year. So I've come to the last tool I will talk about for today and that is polltogo. I like polltogo because it is a tool that I can use to see how effective my lessons are and how my students are connecting with classroom materials. I also think this would be an interesting tool to see what kinds of activities students would like to do, this tool will allow me to offer my students an opportunity to provide me with their opinion while providing them some privacy as well. I seriously recommend checking out Liz's blog because she has so many great ideas on how to incorporate technology and specifically mobiles into the classroom. Until next time! Part 1 For Part 1 of my digital story telling experimentation I decided to try out Five Card Flickr. Five Card Flickr is a very easy story telling tool to use. You simply click the link that brings up random images, choose one in each of the 5 sequences and write a short story about the photos you chose. The images are kind of like a visual story prompt and are all quite lovely. I enjoyed the ease of the Five Card website as well as the variety of images that are shown to choose from. Here is my first Five Card Flickr story. Five Card Story: Journeysa Five Card Flickr story created by Haleigh Oberkirsch
I had a dream that I walked down a road and came to a raspberry bush, it had the most beautiful lush berries on it- the kind that grow on my grandparents farm! All of a sudden I was tossed into a desert but when I entered a small tunnel I discovered the other entrance led to an earth toned urban center. As I looked around an eagle feather floated down from the sky and landed on my head and as I grabbed the feather I was thrust above the buildings and I was the bird. Here is my second Five Card Flickr story. Five Card Story: Play Timea Five Card Flickr story created by Haleigh Oberkirsch
Under a tree sat two young children. As they sat the giggled about the trails the had encountered at their school. One trail had lead them to an abandoned swing set by a pond where they had found their most prized possession, their slimy new pet. Part 2 For part 2 of my digital story telling experiment I chose to do three Daily Create tasks. I really enjoyed looking through the different Daily Create tasks. I like that the tasks are all different in that some are writing, some are drawing, videos, photos, etc. all is done and shared digitally with the rest of the class. I think that this is a very cool tool that I would like to do once I have my own class because it gets the creative juices flowing. I also had to learn how to use Flickr for the Daily Creates and it is very quick and simple to use. The first Daily Create I did was Daily Create #455 (tdc455) called: You know it’s going to be a good day when… The second Daily Create was #503 (tdc503) called: Using your foot and a pen write out your name on a piece of paper (or heck an iPad). Well since I don't own an iPad I used paper from the recycling bin and put my feet all over my sister-in-law's highlighter. :) My third Daily Create was #424 (tdc424) called: Describe one unusual small thing that brings you joy, e.g. driving under an underpass in the rain. Here is the link to my post.
I really enjoy playing in mud...in my husband's and my car. I especially enjoy doing this on the back road to his parents' house and watching his face as I do so. He really enjoys having a clean car and I think it's really funny when it's covered in mud because well, I love mud and have loved the feeling of it since I was the tender age of two. The irony of it all is that I hate being dirty so if I get out of the car and brush it on my way out, I'm not a happy camper. What is something simple that brings you joy? My advice on digital story telling? Give it a try because it can actually be a lot of fun! This from a girl who does NOT consider herself a story teller in any way. So, go on give it a try and send me a link in comments to show me what you can come up with! Cheers! |