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.