Summary of Learning

Throughout this course I have had the opportunity to learn what I felt was important.  Early in the semester Alec told us that this course was going to be about what we want to make it.  I have had the opportunity to learn many different things and become much more present and capable with social media, online presence, and learning how to utilize a variety of tools that are at our disposal at any given moment.  It has also taught me to sit back and remember to take in what is right in front of me, take the time to view, think, and create on my own before running to my iPhone for the answer.  I have truly enjoyed this class and I want to share with you my summary of learning.   

This will likely be my last post within the context of EC & I 831 but it certainly will not be my last post ever.  I will start a fresh new blog in the context of something such as trials and tribulations of a middle years teacher... or something catchy.  This is my Summary of Learning post.  I have put down a few words and then added an 8 minute video which incorporates a variety of things.  It is all done through screencasting because I was unable to get extended access to a Mac where I was hoping to play around with iMovie Trailer app.  I used the VideoScribe tool which was very fun and I can see how it can be used if you are very creative.  

Twitter/Tweetdeck

At the start of the class I was aware of twitter but unaware of its powerful uses.  I haven't been a creator much within twitter but when I needed an answer I was able to find one quickly.

Maker Movement

Makey Makey is amazing.  I was so enthralled with Sylvia Martinez and the experience of her session, that I have ordered 2 sets for my school which should be arriving very soon.  It was not just the tools she shared with us, but the understanding that students/people need to take time to be creators.  People need a chance to play and explore not just find the answer. 

Digital Citizenship

This is one of the most important aspects of the class for me as I am in a grade 7/8 classroom that continually deals with citizenship issues and online bullying.  The 21 Things 4 Students website has been an amazing tool that I am utilizing on a weekly if not daily basis for students to improve on their digital citizenship.  The best thing about digital citizenship is that it is no different than real life. 

Blogging has been an awesome experience.  I know my page does not look the best and it may not be the best writing but it has been an amazing outlet to express how I have felt about each class and what is going on with my projects. I have felt myself shifting my page to more of a personal blog about how things are affecting me in my life/profession and I am very excited to continue on with my blogging.

Networked Connected Learning

This is an area that has expanded for me and I have learned from others posts, blogs and links through our Google+ community, Twitter, and in my own school/division how my connectedness has improved over the last four months.  I am a confident person who always needs that knock back to reality that there is always someone who knows more than I do. This class has helped me realize how true this is and that I CAN find those people.

Blended Classroom

This is the biggest and most life changing thing I have done and I attribute it all to this class.  Thank you Alec and Katia for giving us the opportunity to go and learn about something new to use and change our ways.  My blended classroom has opened doors and windows and knocked holes in the metaphoric walls of my teaching.  Changing my classroom in this way has given me the opportunity to play around with almost every aspect of this class week to week.  I have the opportunity to utilize the tools you have given me to make my blended classroom better.  Sorry that sounded so much like an acceptance speech but if you want to know more please check out my Major Digital Project post and screencast to see what I am talking about.

Thank you again to Alec and Katia.  This has been my favorite learning experience so far in my entire education.  You have set the bar for the rest of my masters classes not only on amount learned but also in enjoyment recieved from a class.

All the best.

Kyle DuMont

Major Digital Project

So here is my Major Digital Project

As the semester began with EC&I 831 I was unsure of what to do for a major digital project but as the weeks went on and my knowledge was rapidly expanding I continued to shape what I wanted to do.  Near the end of September I had decided on flipping my classroom.  Initially my struggles were in the start up.  Trying to find a site that would fit my personal and classroom needs.  After searching a variety of online sites I found many were unusable for me.  I had asked Alec for his opinion and he led me to Edmodo. This is where my journey truly began.

My greatest fear was that my students may not be able to become independent learners through technology, the  major hurdle would be the amount of online tomfoolery might be to distracting and disengaging for most if not all my students.  On the other hand I was very hopeful that flipping my classroom would end up being a saving grace and I would reach those poor attenders and previously disengaged students... Oops not quite how it worked out.  If this project has taught me one thing it is that one idea is never enough.  So by early November I had emailed Alec and Katia to say that I had basically failed at the idea of a Flipped Classroom, but instead I had morphed it into a blended classroom.  I was a little worried about what the response was going to be as I had/have this notion that something like this might affect my mark! Katia replied and simply put my worries at ease by letting me know that truly they are the same and what works for me, works for me as long as I am  moving forward keep going.  (Thanks Katia)

As the semester was moving I was sharing my experiences with my wife (who is a teacher) and my friends/colleagues in my school and around my division.  This then led to group of teachers sharing information and having two other grade 7/8 teachers jumping on my bandwagon.  We have tried to create a collaboration part where we can post an assignment and then we can all use it, but at this point we are unable to do so effectively.  What we have to do is become co-teachers in all our classes and that brings up the issue of having all the notifications from every student not just our own.  Through more research and emails with Edmodo I have found a solution to this.  I have sent requests to Edmodo to become a subdomain administrator so I can set up a "School" where we can migrate through each others classes and utilize each others resources without being a "co-teacher".

Here are a few of the sites that I have attempted to utilize within my online classroom and how they have worked for me and what I plan on doing to continue or change my use of each tool.

Google Drive
As part of my collaboration throughout this project I wanted to increase the capability of student collaboration within my online classroom.  Katia suggested that I utilize a Google Drive document for the students to work in.  I have attempted this a couple of different times and when I have a strong group who is willing to work this is fantastic.   On the other side I have some immature students who have gone in and deleted their groups work after school and I do not see until the next day which is more of an annoyance than anything, but since I do not have my students set up with their own Google Drive accounts I am unable to see who is doing what to the documents.  So until I have the Google IGo accounts set up I will stray away from this resource sharing tool.    

Prezi -
We have used Prezi as a different collaboration tool for our students to create presentations with within the Edmodo online class.  Some of these have worked out fantastic and the work done by my grade 8 students was amazing in my perspective.  I have already began to create my next collaboration/inquiry project for my students with the idea of Prezi being the mode of communication.

Evernote - This site is one that we will utilize in the near future as the students begin to develop their online learning library and we begin letting them explore a little more on their own now that their procedures are in place for what they are required and how they are to act as a good digital citizen during the school day.

My biggest SUCCESS(es)!
I would have to say that the best thing about the blended classroom that I have now developed is the amount of participation and engagement from my students.  Prior to I would have about a 50% completion rate with about 50% of those coming in a week after a due date.  The accountability that this has given each and every student is amazing.  They are able to check their progress, their parents can check on them daily as well.   During our parent teacher interviews the conversation around our blended classroom was all about how the parents enjoyed being able to see exactly what their child was doing in school.  Apparently all pre-teens tell their parents is "we didn't do anything in school".... Now the parents can go online and see what they have done and make sure they are getting things handed in.
Another joy about this is the ease of communication and feedback between learner and teacher.  I have been able to interact with each and every student each and every lesson.  Even if it is a quick little note telling them their work was done properly and I was proud of them for completing it so quickly.  Or on the other side when the student completely misses the  point I am able to send them a private message to show them that I am here to help and they can ask me via message or come talk to me so we can figure things out.
Lastly the other amazing aspect of our blended classroom that I have received a tonne of feedback about is the posting of the teachings. Especially in math.  So many parents admit their weaknesses in school and they are open about how they feel helpless when it comes to supporting and assisting their child.  So they are very happy and excited that I am posting recordings of how to do different tasks so they can learn with their child and help them through the tough classes. 

If you would like to take the time to watch my screencast about my blended classroom please watch it below. 

I hope you enjoyed checking out what my Edmodo classroom looked like.  If you are interested at all in joining me in my online classroom please comment or email me at kyle.dumont@rbe.sk.ca

Full Grind Time

Well its almost time to be done.  As my general rule of procrastination continues to follow through I am feeling the pinch.  I am more prepared for the end of the this "class" as it hasn't felt like a true class.  It has felt like a continual learning opportunity.  One that has provided me with so many insights and new tools that it has never lost its excitement. The community of learners has been outstanding. I would like to thank everyone that helped me learn and share in their learning as well. 

The last week was very unproductive as it was Grey Cup 101 week here in our amazing city and I took in as much as I could.  I was reminded multiple times about how we view our world now through 4 inch screens and was mindful not to do that often and simply take in the experiences.  It was GREAT!
 
 
Here are a few things for the next week to prepare me for our final summary of learning and completing the "class":
Summary of learning is coming, I have compiled a list of things along with screen shots, quick little videos and most of my thoughts are organized I just need to get the tools (right apple products) to bring it together and make it entertaining. 
Major Digital Project:
This one is the thing I am most proud of from this class.  I have a mini little diary going and will post it this week with my day to day trials and tribulations.  I am going to have it edited so it is easy to read and hopefully not to dry. 
Networked Professional Learning:
Here is something that I have found very interesting through this class.  I have had the chance to read a plethora of blogs and follow peoples journeys with them which I found very interesting.  I have had the chance to comment and share my own thoughts and received many positive thoughts and encouragement throughout the course.  I am now interested in twitter which I had no love for at the beginning of the course and most of my love comes from tweetdeck so I can actually follow conversations and hashtags.  One of the coolest things I found was learning how to share information so quickly.  I was able to take the thoughts and ideas from the class itself, the posts from all my classmates, and the information I was able to acquire and share it with my colleagues to make my day to day job better and make me a stronger teacher.  This is one of the reasons my major digital project was able to be as successful as it was, because I took the skills I was learning and practicing in the class and put them to practical use within my professional life. 

Digital Classroom, is it diverse enough?

As this class continues to expand my virtual horizons I want to share everything with my colleagues and students. I am immersing my students with online media (time for kids, cnn student news, etc) collaboration networks (edmodo, Evernote, etc). I have been able to get colleagues from 3 different schools, as well as my team teacher to join in my  world wide web frontier. This has been an amazing experience so far, but... Yesterday I had a someone question me about diversity within my class in regards to my teaching and student learning experience.

I was able to explain that by utilizing a variety tools such as, YouTube, iGo account with Google Drive, multitude of math websites, aforementioned online media and collaboration sites I was able to justify how diverse my class is. For some reason I spent the rest of my day and into this morning worrying that maybe I am forcing my students to spend to much time in front of screens, and that I may be doing a disservice to my students because we are focusing to much of our time online and using technology.   

As an educator I know I am doing my job, I also feel that having a strong understanding of how to navigate and comprehend the online world is going to be essential for my students as they grow up in a technological world. 
As I  develop my blended classroom I continue to add in more and more modes of technology that my students can utilize.  I guess as its stands right now I am feeling confused and frustrated as it comes to this issue of diversification within my classroom.  By making the shift to an online classroom for most of my subjects I am noticing an increase in productivity from all my students, especially the ones who were completely reluctant to do any written work.  Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of managing, and check ins required if not more so from pencil and paper work, because the disruptions and now "silent but deadly", and those incidences easily contribute to a conversation about being a good citizen and what the difference between a good real life citizen and a good digital citizen look like, and how closely those concepts are now related. 
So I guess my opinion is that yes creating a blended classroom and utilizing the technology that our board encourages us to use as much as possible is what I need to be doing and it is good that I am doing as much as I am. 

Back to the basics

Getting back to the basics is what this week is all about for me.  Making sure I do the small things.  Read a couple blogs, ask a couple of questions, do a little bit every day.  On Friday I met with Katia and had a great conversation with her about the class and what I have been doing and how I can improve in a few areas.  She helped me understand Twitter better and finally got a tweetdeck page set up.  She also gave me a few good ideas for how to interact more and some creative thoughts for a summary of learning.  If you haven't seen the iMovie trailer app, please check it out! Awesome! I am going to be playing around with it in the very near future.
Here is a fun one that Katia showed me, this kid is great!


After last weeks conversation in class about all of our assignments I felt good right after the class thinking I have been doing not bad.  Assignment #3 Major Digital Project I feel I am doing great in.  I know I need to update my thoughts about how it has been developing and that will be up in the next day or two.
Assignment #2 Summary of Learning
I got really excited about.  As Alec talked about different ways to do this I was concerned with what others are going to be doing.  I want to stand out but be able to do a good job of it as well.  This was one of my main reasons for meeting with Katia last Friday and after our discussion I am confident that I will have an outstanding presentation.  There has been so much information given to us over the course of this semester it is very eye opening as to how little I know, not only about technology but about interacting in a online world.   I am very please with how far I have come already so I am looking forward to this unique way of reflecting.  I hope I can keep all my thoughts into a 5-7 minute presentation. 

Assignement #1 Networked Professional Learning
This one I feel I have done a good job of for some of it but I need to do more in certain areas.  Commenting on blogs, and pingbacking people are simple ways to improve in this area.   Along with improving my twitter presence (thanks again to my meeting with Katia this should occur a little faster now).  As Katia and I talked on Friday about this area of the class I came to an understanding of why Alec initially had the "Web" as part of the assignment.  It would be an interesting concept to put together and would really show how well one interacted with those within the class, and where we gained the confidence to expand our horizons and branch out as well.  I have thought about it over the weekend and I have a few ideas as to how I can improve my network and will work on it this week. 

My goals for the week are:
Send out 3 tweets in reference to #eci831
Find one article reguarding networked learning. 
Post my development of my Major Digital Project
Begin putting together my summary of learning. 

This is going to be a big week but I am very excited! 
 Go RIDERS!!!!

Our Students Digital Identity and Our Connections With Them

I just found this awesome site 21 Things 4 Students.  Its a site out of Michigan but revolves all around how the students conduct themselves online.  All I can say is WOW what an awesome site.  I will defiantly be looking through this thoroughly and getting my students to either do this as an ongoing project or simply add it to a morning routine and get through the whole course with my students. 
After going through a few others blogs and getting more into the online world with my own students I am finding the importance of being a good citizen through digital identity is in drastic need of guidance.  Aside from the lack of spelling and poor punctuation it is more about how they share and what they share with "each other".  I put that in quotations because I did a few searches and found many of their comments and postings that they thought were "private".  I got a bit of backlash from the students as I was "creeping" on their facebooks and askfm, but I told them that I wanted to show them how easy it was for me to find and that they need to be more aware of what they are posting. 
I have booked our resource officer to come in and do a presentation on cyber bullying and talk to my students about the importance of being a good citizen in all aspects of life. 
At the start of my blogging journey I was conflicted about what to do with social media and connecting with my students.  I am warming to the idea of utilizing two accounts one being a personal and one being a professional so I can connect with my students.  I am beginning to feel that if as a teacher I can be a good role model for my students through their digital life along with their real life I may have a stronger chance at making a lasting impression with them.
Has anyone else had changes of opinion when it comes to this touchy subject?  What are your thoughts?
See you in class tonight and hope to hear back from you. 

Creation Hour or Practical Applied Arts

I truly enjoyed last weeks class with Sylvia Martinez.  At my school we adopted to do PAA classes once a week and rotate through the students.  We stared this about 3 years ago and now that Joni Darke has had the time to become a consultant and create web page to help facilitate what is going on and what our options are the entire senior end of our school has truly bought into utilizing this time.    We have done a variety of tasks such as, flute making, learning how to grocery shop, cardboard boat racing, cooking, paper airplanes, kite making, Delta Darts (which has been my favorite so far).  I have a couple of things I wanted to do this year. I started this year off with grocery shopping as my PAA project.  I know it doesn't directly fit in with the concept of creation hour, or "making" but it is a skill that none of my students have and thought this would be a great time to teach them a life skill.  I was planning on in the new year to do a "meme" creation with the kids as part of my rotation.  Now that we were introduced to  Makey Makey I am thinking I will change to try doing something with that.  The nice thing is that I have time to learn about and tinker myself so I understand how to work with them and where to get extra materials. 

Final Project
My major digital project is coming.  I have started getting my students online.  (HUGE success).  I am continually tinkering with the edmodo site and connecting kids and learning about how to utilize it.  But like I just said I have the kids online.  Now this is forcing me to get it going at an accelerated pace.  I am not quite happy with where it is at yet but in the next couple of days I know it will be ready for me to invite my eci831 community to sign in a check it out.  The exciting thing is the amount of responses from the students I have gotten.  For me to get the amount of responses that occurred in the first day of my utilizing the edmodo site compared to me asking the students to write a response and hand it into me is drastically different.  The ability for me to check their progress and quickly respond to their writing is amazing.  This is why I am re-energized about my project.  I know last week I was feeling a little defeated but was able to gear down and get some serious work done on it and I have found some success!  This is a great feeling. 

My goals this week are to
1. Have my fractions unit ready to go
2. The next 3-4 reading assignments up a rolling for the edmodo site. 
3. Find an article relating to my Major Digital Project
4. Comment meaningfully once a day to a different persons blog or message on the community page. 

Connected Reality

This has been a very trying week.  With upcoming report cards, parents meetings, having my intern take over most of the responsibilities of the classroom teacher, going to different schools to learn more about new structures within classrooms, and trying to get online while working a second job and coaching.  I am feeling the my connected reality is a figment of my imagination.  I have even contemplated leaving my phone at home for a week so people can not reach me to ask me any more questions or requests for assistance.  So as it stands this week I am not living and learning in our connected reality. 
I am sure I can not be the only one who is in this boat, and it takes me back to a post about the balance of screen time posted by Jackie Sakatch.  I am trying to convince myself that yes 1. my time in front of the screen is appropriate, 2. It has to be meaningful because it is all for the students, and 3. It must be empowering if it is the first two. 
The last one is the hardest one for me right now.  I think because I am having such a hard time getting my students to buy into the appropriateness of their screen time and making sure their screen time is meaningful.  I am not seeing the success in utilizing the online math assignments, and teaching that I was hoping for.  I know it is early but I would like to see some more independence but instead I am seeing a lack of ability.  This then goes back to having my intern take over most of the responsibilities.  I would like to utilize more time throughout the day to reinforce certain skills, but I do not want to take away from her learning experience either.
Now where do I stand in being a good citizen within my classroom community when it comes to eci831... I feel that I have been lacking there.  My time management is lack luster and I have not had the time to put in as much as I have wanted or needed to in the last couple weeks, but I am hoping now that my intern is capable of handling more of her load without my instant support I will be able to sneak some time throughout the day to monitor and add to the community.
My goals this week is to review and check in on my progress of my major digital progress, add a couple of posts about what we are learning in class on Tuesday about gaming and about some program that is helping me flip my class, along with reading and commenting on at least 6 peoples blogs, or posts. 
Here's to reclaiming my connected reality within eci 831!

Higher Educations Future

So I know this is a little late but there was some reading, and a lot of conversations around the changing of higher education.  The general consensus that I was able to come up with was that higher education is in constant change.  Every university/post secondary institution is continually updating their curriculum and changing their courses to meet the needs of the next student.  Not much of a shock to me but the conversation turned interesting when I used the J. H. Newman quote “assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot” to describe the concept of university/post secondary education.  I asked if this was still the concept.  The people I talked with then thought and some agreed while some did not.  


Massage Therapist: "Of course that is the case.  If we don't meet to see the technique and practice it then how do we know if we are doing it properly?"

Resident Surgeon: "I would agree for the most part because people try to go to the place they feel will serve them the best.  But there are a lot of universities that people can go to get their undergrad degree before they decide what they want.  Bachelor degrees are the new high school diplomas." 

Teacher: "I don't think it has to be people from all over.  What is the University of Regina's enrollment at with people only from Regina?  I bet most of the university has Regina or surrounding area students."

Law Student: "Sure, people go to where they need to get their education.  I don't care if I know anyone or not, I will meet new people, I have enough friends so I just want to go to school to get my degree and start my life.  I will go where I need to do that."

So some of them missed the point so I then asked them since they agreed so emphatically I asked them if they could have taken a number of their courses online in the comfort of their bedroom and gotten the same educational outcome?

Massage Therapist: "Probably not, we did a lot of hands on things that needed to be in a lab essentially.  I don't see how you would learn without doing a lot of the practice."

Resident Surgeon: "For the theory courses yes, I would have rather stayed at home, but there were a lot of classes where I would not have even understood the lectures if I didn't have someone to sit down with and talk about for hours at a time."

Teacher: "The courses sure I could have done a lot of them at home, but how would the prof of known that it was me doing the work?  Also when it comes down to actually practicing teaching how would I have gained that experience without being in the classrooms? There are certain things that you need human interaction for."

Law Student: "It seems that most of my courses involve so much reading that I do most of my courses in the comfort of my own home, but the discussion and conversation that goes on in class is where the epiphanies come from.  I could get some of it from an online course but I don't see the deeper understanding coming through."  

So after the weeks topic of how university/post secondary will change I believe that it already is.  We are utilizing so much more technology than every before, but what will university/post secondary look like in the future, I am not certain.  But I do hope that the human connection is not lost.  I do not see how some learning can be embedded without human interaction.   This topic is interesting and there was a TIME article about What Colleges Will Teach in 2025.
Who knows but it will be interesting. 

Sues Message

After Sue Waters awesome talk there were a number of things that I realized I need to do better.
1. Link!
      This is something I did not even think about!  I was viewing blogging very similar to regular journaling.  It simply did not register with me that I could "Link" (connect) what I am sharing with my readers.  Once Sue showed us how simple it was, I felt a little embarrassed because of how I was not already doing it or making that connection myself.
2. Connect
    I think I am connecting to the class.  I realize that I am focusing more on the final project rather than class to class but I feel that the final project is the basis of how I am going to connect this class to my actual job, which is why I am taking the class.  I know I could comment and reflect a little bit more about the information we are learning week to week (which I am doing now!)
3. Comment/Join In
    This is a task that I will try to improve on week to week.  The only way of doing that is to make sure my posts are done earlier, so I can then spend time checking on others, and they will then have time to read and respond on my posts...
4. About page.
    This is something I will work on over the course of the next few days (aka weekend) and will get up and running.  It should be simple but I would also like to add in the design and development of my page as I have not completed that either and feel that shows a lot about a person as well.

5. How to get more people reading my blog? Attention seeking titles.
    This is something I am not very strong at... I feel that I can be spontaneously witty, but when it comes to creating catchy titles that I know are out there the pressure gets to me and I come up blank... I will try but who knows.
6. Images... Start adding images...
    I understand why adding images is a positive thing.  It makes it more visually appealing and in our society today people need that visual connection to stay focused.  I am one of those people.  My issue is, how do you find visuals that are meaningful for all the concepts we are talking about... Like this one for example... Do I find a picture of someone posting a picture?  It seems a little redundant... Maybe that's the point... Maybe I could do it with some humor.   We will see what kind of pictures I find.

7.  Flipboard - Awesome!  Why/How did I not know about this prior to this class.    This a spot where I can link all my media to that I find interesting, my blogs, tweets, news feeds, and its at the tip of my finger without having to jump around from page to page or app to app.  This is awesome! Enough said on this point.

8. Alec's Challenge - 

Create an EC&I 831 magazine for Flipboard, and add relevant links to it.  I think that we each can do this for ourselves and a "magazine" page would be unnecessary for us.   But it would be a good thing if people wanted to search for us.  I will try but I will also keep an eye out for it as a magazine due to the amount of people in our class and who knows how many of us will try to upload our info to a magazine page.

Now when it comes to how all this information will help me blog and become a better blogger... Well after the class my mind was spinning and my browser was packed full of tabs opened.  It took me until Thursday afternoon to go through each of the pages and simply browse each of them to get a stronger understanding of why Sue would mention them.  Obviously I found the Flipboard page to be one of my favorites. 

I am on my way to developing my major digital project.  As I said last week I am in the process of getting my edmodo class up and running with the focus to be within math.  I am also trying to do this within an Explore +4 model.  There are a bunch of great youtubes on this from teachers in Regina Public. One of the best ones for middle years is here:



This project is coming along and right now my big struggle is getting all the students signed up as it is taking some time due to the multiple levels of groups that I get to work with.  I have students from 4 different classrooms within my school and I am setting up emails, passwords and walking each of them through the process one at a time.  By next week I will be opening my page to be viewed by others so keep an eye out for my progress.  Thanks for all the support

Week 3 Communities/Final Project

After the class with Dr. Schwier I felt inspired and wanted to rush into my class to simply talk about communities.  The discussion we had about how people feel connected and a part of something really resonated with me from my own schools perspective.  We need to have that relationship with so many of our families otherwise we are not respected and then that negatively effects how we can run our classroom.  It also made me think of how the sense of community will help me be successful in this class and throughout my entire masters program.  If I can develop an online community with a variety of professionals that can help me become a better educator, learner, writer, etc, why wouldn't I?  I am beginning to view this class as another branch in my network of professional colleagues, that I can work with to create a more positive atmosphere for my system, school, and class.  With all that I am excited to talk about my final project.
After an email with Alec, I have decided to work towards creating a blended classroom.  My reasoning is because I have a group of students this year that need to work in small groups, and mostly at their own pace.  Either it is due to attendance, behavior, or their specific learning styles.  In our school we already break our students up into reading groups, math groups, writing groups, Inquiry groups for our social and science outcomes, and practical and applied arts groupings as well.   With the variety of students that roll through the classroom every day combined with the 60% attendance I get each day, I am finding it very difficult to keep each student engaged.  Either they are finishing the assignments and I need to find filler assignments for those students that attend regularly, or I am attempting to catch up and push those poor attenders through the assignment that they are unable to meet any outcome.  I am hoping that with a blended classroom it will help scaffold the learning in my classroom for the variety of classes I am in charge of teaching. 
All of our students have access to laptops in our school and each one of them have their own specific ID and passwords.  We have the tools within our school that a blended classroom seems like it might help with the success of our students.  With my research so far into blended classrooms I have found some sites that are helping me begin to create meaningful tasks that will help my students learn and meet objectives while staying within their learning parameters.  Some very helpful sites I have found would be:

https://www.edmodo.com/
This is most likely going to be my learning hub.  Within this site I have been able to upload my assignments, and bring in Youtube videos for my math instruction.  I am planning on reconfiguring my math class to include this new learning tool into my Explore +4 model I have started this year with.   This website I believe will help me create a more postive learning atmosphere as the students will have more of an opportunity to work one on one with me during our math times because we will have a strong understanding of what we are supposed to be doing each class, based on where each student is at. 

http://learni.st/category/featured
The Learnist website is another site where I have began to dive into and it is helping me find new ways to demonstrate how to do a variety of rational number problems.  I am starting off with a unit on integers and through the learnist website I have created a board that deals with this skill directly.  I get daily emails that may have useful information, videos, and problems for the students to solve. 

https://www.khanacademy.org/
Khan Acadamy is another website that I have began to play around in and its is useful for the practice of skills.  I say that because I began looking into this after I had already found the videos and "teaching tools" that I needed for the first unit.  Now that I have began to navigate through the website I have found that their teaching videos are the same or very similar to the videos  I have found... I will definately be utilizing this website in the future.  I am not sure how it will link into the Edmodo site and therefore may simply use it as a source of information, but nonetheless I will be on here quite frequently.

So far these are the sites that I have found and had some form of success with.  As you can see I am putting most of my focus on the math curriculum, that is mostly because I have an intern this semester and she is doing most of our Language Arts and I do not want to put the task of making sure the assignments are online ready.    I am not ready to share my progress with the sites yet with the public, I am hoping next week I will have most of my students registered into my classes and I can start with a "soft opening" of the concept with them.  I am both excited and nervous to do this with my students.   Right now I have high expectations for this concept, but I am also slightly jaded and truly very worried that this will flop and will be more of a stress than a help.  That is where my "online community" comes in... I am hoping that I can bounce my ideas off my community members and share my trials and tribulations along with my successes and hopefully I can not only develop a stronger understanding for online resources but my students can improve their understanding of any content area that I teach them throughout the year. 
My request to my community members would be that if you know of or have any sites/videos that are good for demonstrations of skills, techniques, tasks, or development of any of those topics please don't be afraid to tag me, tweet me, share with me, post on my wall, or send to me any other way possible.  Thanks for the help and I look forward to hearing, reading, contacting any and all of you!

Second Week

So the first week went well.  Got my blog up.  Playing around with twitter. Started to develop my about.me page.  I was very excited when talking to friends about this class and how we are connecting and interacting.  I am also very excited to do our major digital project.  A couple of years ago a couple of teachers and I got together and did an anti smoking unit with our students.  We went to the point of writing a skit, creating a song, and then decided to make a youtube video.
Please check it out and let me know what you think.  For our major digital project I think I am going to work with either my class (if I can get the permission for media release) or with my teacher friends again and do an anti bullying video.  I would like the media side of it to be a little more advanced though and hope I can gain the tools or access to the tools through the course. 



Now that is just one idea of what I have done and I think a bullying video with collegues or students would be fun and very engaging as I have done it before and have seen the benifits. 

Another idea would be to create an online presence for my students.  I have a lot of students that miss school on a regular basis.  I am thinking about creating a data base for my students that they can get onto at home, or at school once they are back and it will give them the opportunity to be independently learning.  I am not sure how this would work or what would be the best way of going about it.  I know with Regina Public we are supposed to be going full bore with our Powerschool accounts and having it updated and that is one option.  But I wouldn't mind using something that is a little more user friendly.  I am thinking of something like Igo accounts for my students, or possibly starting a google community like this one.  As for how it would look as a major digital project I am not certain and I will probably have a few questions for you and Alec throughout if this is the route that I choose.  I am one of those people that come up with ideas but has a hard time figuring out how to actually accomplish it on my own.  That is about it for me this week.  If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can create an online community for daily/weekly/major assignments that is user friendly for low readers and EAL students please let me know.  (also please let me know what you think of my video... It was a lot of fun and my students loved it because of the message and they got to see their teachers being goofy)

Thanks for reading see you next week.

First Week.

So ECI 831 is my first masters class.  When I signed up for this class I thought that I was fairly knowledgeable in the realm of technology... apparently not!  In this first class I was surprised about how little I utilize the tools I do have.  I have done some simple blogging with my classes, but never took it very far.  I had a twitter account then simply didn't feel like using it so I ended up forgetting the password.  I have a facebook account that I check on almost everyday, but most of the people I am connected with are typical facebookers where they use the site to complain about their daily lives.  I have began doing a clear cut on that one to make my facebook more appropriate for what I am looking for out of it... (but gossip and the gong show of society is partly intriguing as well... so we will see how many people get cut.)  As for multi media, websites, online professional communities and the plethora of other tech tools that are out there I am essentially illiterate.

With all of that being said I am passionate about technology in my classroom and am very excited to have the opportunity to experience the variety of tools that are available to us as educators.  As it stands I use technology at its basic sense in my classroom.  We use digital cameras, laptops and Ipads, along with our projector and mimio tools to help make the learning more interactive and engaging.  When the technology is used to its full potential I really see large jumps in the comprehension of the given material the students are working with.  Which makes me more excited about taking this class as I am hoping to learn more about how to make our time with these tools more interactive and productive. 

Within my class I like to embrace the tools that my student are able to bring into the class.  I am leery about connecting with the students on a social media level as there seems to be a stigma about lines being blurred.  I would never cross a line but it is the immaturity of the students that I am more concerned with.  I think that connecting with the students would give me a greater insight into their daily lives, but at the same point when is it acceptable for us to become that personal with our students?  Which brings me to the thought process of how a decade ago you had to work at having your personal life be public yet now it is the opposite where you need to work even more diligently to keep your personal life private.  I am hoping through the semester I can develop a stronger stance on the issue and either make a decision as to whether I will begin to connect with my students on a social media level or not.