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.
Monday 28 October 2013
Sunday 20 October 2013
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!
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.
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.
Monday 7 October 2013
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 -
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
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 -
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
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