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.