Well everyone here is a little video I have put together for my summary of learning. Now this was my first attempt ever at something this crazy! It was defiantly out of my comfort zone! So I hope it provides you all with a little laugh!
Category: Reflections
I am A Lighthouse!
My teaching metaphor. Well there’s something Ive never really thought about before. After putting some thought into I came to the conclusion that I am a lighthouse. I chose to picture myself as a lighthouse to my students because as a teacher you are there to guide your students. Where in retrospect this is what a lighthouse does. Its light guides the boat towards the shore as I see myself do for my students. I don’t want to be directing them where to go I want to help them chose the best path for them to reach the shore. I see myself as a lighthouse because students initially get to take ownership of their learning. Were I am simply there just to guide them.
Overall I think that this is a great metaphor for the type of teacher I am going to be.:)
A World worth Exploring…
Well here it is everyone my six word story. I actually struggled with coming up with a six word story. I never expected it to be this difficult but I was wrong.
Anyways this is what I came up with. I think it turned out pretty great. I chose this particular picture because I love traveling and exploring this beautiful word we live in. This picture was taken from my trip this year to Las Vegas at Red Rock Canyon.
What are you thought on my six word story? I would love to know if anyone has any suggestions of a great place to travel 🙂
Let’s Go To The Moon!
Last week we were asked to try out a program called scratch. This is a really neat program that allows you to create interactive stories, games and much much more. I’ll admit that I had some troubles trying to figure out how to get my characters to move but I finally discovered how it worked.
I think this would be such a useful program to use in the classroom and be really fun for students. This is a great learning experience and you can do almost anything imaginable.
Check out my very own Scratch!
Remind Students and Parents…
So this week while I was exploring my twitter I came across a great app called Remind.
This is a really neat app that allows teachers to interact with their students and their parents. This is a great way for teachers to notify their students and their parents with important messages. It’s a very beneficial app for parents to keep up with what is going on in child’s classes.
This app is amazing due to the fact that parents can either receive notifications through email or text messages. It is also great for teachers in the fact that you can schedule a message to be sent say on the first day of school and not have to worry about it. This is very handy since we all know how busy the lives of teachers can get.
I personally think this is a very neat way for teachers to communicate with their students and their parents. It also is a great way of manipulating technology in the classroom.
If you want to see how Remind truly works and just how great it is check it out!
Youtube Your Way to Brazil…
This week in my ECMP 355 class we were asked to create a conversation or video about a particular tool or resource in the classroom with a partner. So first off I had to find a partner. In my search I ended up partnering with Jenna.
Jenna and I picked a spot to sit down and do our filming and we somehow landed in front of Brazil! We discussed earlier that we would do a video discussion on Youtube. The teachers perspective would be for the use of Youtube in the class and the parents would be against. We had a lot of fun filming this video and we hope you enjoy:)
Let us know what your thoughts or concerns are about using Youtube in the classroom:)
Media Smarts!
Well through this last weeks session in class we talked about a very neat and interesting website that is now open to all Saskatchewan teachers. When I first thought about what this website would be about I thought something along the lines of an interesting and new approach to teaching children the smarts behind all types of media.
By the definition of MediaSmarts I’d say I was pretty spot on. This is a great website fulls of helpful resources that relate to issues such as media issues like gender representation, marketing and consumerism and also digital issues like online hate and privacy.
The first section I decided to explore was My World. I found this really interesting and an neat way of learning about the safety’s of the internet. My word is like an online course that teaches students about digital literacy through a matter of four chapters. It contains neat things such as Intantmail which help students understand the importance behind their emails. Another is Spaceface which is pretty much like a safer version of Facebook. Spaceface lets you see what your friends are doing and interact with one another. All the sites on My World are simulated sites that are used for helping students learn.
I think there is an endless amount of ways I could incorporate this into my teaching. I think I would definitely use this in a computer class by having students complete all of the chapters to help educate themselves on the necessary precautions to take while using the web.
If you have used MediaSmarts in your classroom I would love to hear how:)
Digital Citizens!
I chose to watch the The Sextortion of Amanda Todd. I thought this was such a sad and touching video. I actually hear a lot about young girls extorting their bodies on the internet and not knowing the consequences. There are so many other cases just like Amanda outs there that show the negatives of technology. I think this is a prime example that everyone can learn from. It also shows teachers, parents and many others of the precautions they should take in showing student’s how to appropriately use technology.
From this class I have learnt how the internet can be a scary thing if you don’t take the necessary per-cations, but it can also be a great place from anyone to learn and grow from the great resources the internet can offer us. I think that people shouldn’t be scared of this great piece of technology but they should educate themselves to become more confident in it. I know for one this class has made me more aware of what I post and advertise.
I think Amanda Todd’s story should help parents and teachers educate their children/students on creating a healthy and safe digital citizenship. We should know that all children are going to create a digital citizenship weather we approve it or not. So we should be one step ahead of them and start to educate them of the wrongs and rights of it.
Here is a great article I found that give tips on being a good digital citizen!
Photo Credit: ToGa Wanderings via Compfight cc
Capturing the Spirit of Open, Networked & Participatory Communities in Our Learning Environments…
HOW DO WE CAPTURE THE SPIRT OF OPEN, NETWORKED & PARTIPATORY COMMUNITIES IN OUR LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS?
I think to do this we need to show student openness in the classroom. This is usually done in ways such as having students do group work/projects, working in pairs and deciding on things as a large group. This gives students a great idea of what an open community is. It gives them a feeling of being needed and also to need others. Which is what you need in order to be part of a web community.
In today’s society most students know how to operate multiple forms of technology. Which is very helpful towards the teacher. As the teacher you can incorporate many different forms of technology into your lessons, but you must first and most importantly make sure that you yourself are familiar with it. You must help students come up with a set of appropriate guidelines when using technology. Using technology such as twitter, classroom blogs and Edmodo is a great way for students to work freely and interact with others. It is important that a teacher promotes the use of technology in the class. Like allowing students to bring their laptop, iPad etc.
I believe that with technology becoming a major part of everyones lives its important to show students how you can use these amazing education resources to connect with others. It shows them a whole new world of exploring things with others.
Miss. Russell 