For my final summative project, I have created a presentation using the software Prezi we discovered in this class. I have included a public link here to my presentation. It has been a pleasure blogging for this class, until next time...
http://prezi.com/zhnjrhdsnnsg/
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Presentations Day Two and Darren Kuropatwa
The second day of presentations was again very interesting! I really enjoyed the Skype/Illuminate presentation! I used Skype one time in the classroom during the my last placement. While teaching a grade 7 science course and studying rocks and minerals, I organized to have a geologist speak to the students through skype. I got all of the students to write up one-two questions for her beforehand and then she spoke for a little while and then she answered all of the students questions. The students loved this and found it very engaging! This is definitely one good use of Sype, however the guys mentioned a lot of other really exciting uses of both skype and illuminate. Some of the applications included using skype to share files, I never knew this was possible but it is a great application, and as Nathan mentioned, could be very useful next year to share resource among each other. Nathan talked about talking to other classmates who had more experience with a course to share resource back and forth. This is a great application and something that I would have never thought of! Another application that sounds really neat is to do quizzes using illuminate. I have done quizzes with students using senteo, which students find more exciting than a normal paper and pencil quiz. Senteo software is expensive, so schools could save on this technology if they already had illuminate.
One of the other presentations was on game use in the classroom. Again these guys had some great ideas! Games are very activating and engaging for students of the 21st century. One of the ideas that I got from this presentation was to use Tetris in math classes for teaching transformations. Students could describe what they are doing with each piece they move in reference to transformations.
Darren and Rob were back on wednesday for a presentation. We seen these two in our senior years math class first semester. They had a lot of great ideas and thought provoking messages. Unfortunately I had to leave early this day, one of the biggest things I got out of the time I was there was the idea of publishing student work. This provides students with motivation and extra determination as they have a larger audience. The example of the "Landslide" video was a great example of this. Students were very into the singing of this song. Students need to be reminded of to post things responsibly and be aware of what they are putting on the internet. Another site that Darren mentioned was Wolfram Alpha this site sounds like it will be great for teaching science and math courses. You can get complete solutions to examples and other questions. This could be something to monitor for student use and also a good resrouce for teachers. One thing I unfortunately missed was the demonstration of ipadio. This sounds really neat to record conversations.
One of the other presentations was on game use in the classroom. Again these guys had some great ideas! Games are very activating and engaging for students of the 21st century. One of the ideas that I got from this presentation was to use Tetris in math classes for teaching transformations. Students could describe what they are doing with each piece they move in reference to transformations.
Darren and Rob were back on wednesday for a presentation. We seen these two in our senior years math class first semester. They had a lot of great ideas and thought provoking messages. Unfortunately I had to leave early this day, one of the biggest things I got out of the time I was there was the idea of publishing student work. This provides students with motivation and extra determination as they have a larger audience. The example of the "Landslide" video was a great example of this. Students were very into the singing of this song. Students need to be reminded of to post things responsibly and be aware of what they are putting on the internet. Another site that Darren mentioned was Wolfram Alpha this site sounds like it will be great for teaching science and math courses. You can get complete solutions to examples and other questions. This could be something to monitor for student use and also a good resrouce for teachers. One thing I unfortunately missed was the demonstration of ipadio. This sounds really neat to record conversations.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Day One of Presentations
This week we started our class presentations, the first three presentations were on cyberbullying, filtering, and the history of the internet respectively. One thing I would really like to comment on is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is definitely on the rise these days, and I think that in the school we need to be doing a little more preventative measures. I think the reason that cyberbullying is one the rise is firstly just because the technology that is used in cyberbullying is more redily availavle for students, and it is also just at their fingertips. Also I feel that the distance associated with cyberbullying also promotes an increase in cyberbullying. There are a lot of things that people would not say face to face with someone, however through texting or the internet people wouldn't think twice about saying to someone. This seems to give people a false confidence that what they are saying or doing to the other person does not bother them. I think that schools need to start doing more preventative measures at an early age to make students aware of the damaging effects of cyberbullying. One of the best ways I feel this could be done is through using real life examples such as stories or videos of people who have been cyberbullied. I feel that these types of methods really hit home for students and would hopefully give them an understanding of the damage cyberbullying may cause. Sometimes I don't think students really understand the effect their action may have on others and just feel that what they are doing is a joke. These students need to be made aware of potention effects of cyberbullying.
Another topic from this week is filtering and the use of filters in schools. Personally, I do not feel that filters for websites such as facebook, hotmail, twitter, etc. are necessary in a school. These websites can be great resources within the classroom and blocking them really does not do any good because if a students wants to get onto the site they will find a way around the filter. What are your thoughts on filters??
Another topic from this week is filtering and the use of filters in schools. Personally, I do not feel that filters for websites such as facebook, hotmail, twitter, etc. are necessary in a school. These websites can be great resources within the classroom and blocking them really does not do any good because if a students wants to get onto the site they will find a way around the filter. What are your thoughts on filters??
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Odds and Ends
This week we were fortunate to have an appearance by the notorious Mike Nantais! We discussed some odds and ends from different presentations and also had another appearance by Dr. Gatin to review second life again. Part of Mike's instruction was on an Alan November video, which included many of the topics we have covered thus far in the class. A couple of things I got out of the video include; the idea of splitting the class up into different groups in order for every student to have a role in the classroom. He referred to them as "teams" and some ideas of different teams to use within the classroom included: research team, scribe team, assignment team, etc. I like this idea and it all relates back to the idea of the shifting role of the teacher to a facilitator within the classroom. This gives all class members a responsibility within the classroom. He also talked about using these teams to help create the assignments within a class. This idea of giving students responsibility within the classroom, collaborating, etc. helps to develop skills that will be useful in the workforce. This will also help students to take initiative and become life-long learners. This video really summed up a lot of the things we have done in class so far.
As mentioned, we had another visit from Dr. Gatin on second life and the applications of this program in the classoom. Today I was able to get a better idea of how to use this program and how it related to school because we could actually see the avitar moving around from place to place. One idea I had to incorporate this into the classroom was using the library on the program. This would be an engaging way to have students read articles. The avitar can take it out of the library and this will download the pdf to your computer. This may be a more exciting way to get students reading in the classroom!
Thats all...
As mentioned, we had another visit from Dr. Gatin on second life and the applications of this program in the classoom. Today I was able to get a better idea of how to use this program and how it related to school because we could actually see the avitar moving around from place to place. One idea I had to incorporate this into the classroom was using the library on the program. This would be an engaging way to have students read articles. The avitar can take it out of the library and this will download the pdf to your computer. This may be a more exciting way to get students reading in the classroom!
Thats all...
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Busy week of presentations!
We had two interesting presentations this week! On Monday we had Howard and Donald presenting about web-based instruction. There are a lot of courses and different ways of teaching them, and I was glad to see that independent study is starting to get pushed off the radar. This is not a very effective way for learning! They showed us how we could get onto courses using the demo username. In one of my placements last year I used this username to get more information on topics and examples to use in physics classes. I have also taught a grade 11 applied class with IITV, it took some getting used to for being on the camera the whole class but overall I didn't mind it. The biggest challenge was definitely classroom management, as it is hard to manage a class over a TV! I think that Elluminate might be more efficient because it could be more interactive if students can type in questions at any point.
On Wednesday we had Shawn from Boissevain school. He was really interesting and again showed us some cool new google apps. One of the apps that I liked was google calender. Shawn talked about getting different sites, iPods, phones etc. all synced to the same calender. He mentioned the possibility of using this app to have important dates on the calender automatically texted to all students in the class! I think that would be an awesome way to use the calender and get students involved! He also used google docs a lot in his classes, and one application of google docs he talked about was to use it for editing student work and sending it back to them for corrections. In his class he used epal for students to connect with students across the world! This sounded really cool, and a great way to broaden student's viewpoint and mindset! Another really neat tool Shawn showed us was Prezi, I had never heard of Prezi but it is a different way of making presentations. Powerpoint seems pretty overdone now but using Prezi you can create very different presentations and still add videos, pictures etc. into your presentation. It also helps to limit some of the words on the page and just uses key points. When you create one, you can also choose to share your presentation, then when you type in your topic, other people presentations on the same topic will pop up to give you an example and give you ideas! One last program we talked about was Picasa for sharing, ordering, organizing photos in full resolution. After field trips or events, you could send the photos to all of the parents so they could see what you had done etc. Whew!...this seems really long...that's all!
On Wednesday we had Shawn from Boissevain school. He was really interesting and again showed us some cool new google apps. One of the apps that I liked was google calender. Shawn talked about getting different sites, iPods, phones etc. all synced to the same calender. He mentioned the possibility of using this app to have important dates on the calender automatically texted to all students in the class! I think that would be an awesome way to use the calender and get students involved! He also used google docs a lot in his classes, and one application of google docs he talked about was to use it for editing student work and sending it back to them for corrections. In his class he used epal for students to connect with students across the world! This sounded really cool, and a great way to broaden student's viewpoint and mindset! Another really neat tool Shawn showed us was Prezi, I had never heard of Prezi but it is a different way of making presentations. Powerpoint seems pretty overdone now but using Prezi you can create very different presentations and still add videos, pictures etc. into your presentation. It also helps to limit some of the words on the page and just uses key points. When you create one, you can also choose to share your presentation, then when you type in your topic, other people presentations on the same topic will pop up to give you an example and give you ideas! One last program we talked about was Picasa for sharing, ordering, organizing photos in full resolution. After field trips or events, you could send the photos to all of the parents so they could see what you had done etc. Whew!...this seems really long...that's all!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Virtual World Presentation
Today's presentation on virtual worlds was all new for me. I have never heard of "Second Life" or even the idea of virtual worlds before or how they are used in the classroom. I must admit, I have some trouble wrapping my head around the whole idea and how it would be used in the classroom. I don't really understand all of the applications of "second life" that were demonstrated. However through the article that was posted, I have came across some applications that I could see using in my classroom. In teaching science, I have a strong belief in experiential learning and hands-on activities. Sometimes it is hard to get all of these field trips or hands-on activities included into class for various reasons as well as time constraints. The idea of using "second life" for virtual field trips would be a good way to incorporate this type of program into the classroom, and also to get students engaged on the topic. The article also suggests to use a virtual world to analyze real-life phenomenon. I like the idea of studying various real-life phenomenon using a virtual world, however I would have to play around with it to figure out how this would be accomplished.
The teacher's role in the classroom using a virtual world would shift more to a scaffold or facilitator and move away from long periods of instruction. I plan to continually try to move more into this role as facilitator and have students use some discovery activities to investigate topics. Using a virtual world would be a great way to help make this shift.
It is kind of a interesting concept that students can create a Avitar however they would like and control all features about their Avitar (ie. appearance) this may be a good way to help students going through puberty or having identity/ self concept troubles express themselves.
The teacher's role in the classroom using a virtual world would shift more to a scaffold or facilitator and move away from long periods of instruction. I plan to continually try to move more into this role as facilitator and have students use some discovery activities to investigate topics. Using a virtual world would be a great way to help make this shift.
It is kind of a interesting concept that students can create a Avitar however they would like and control all features about their Avitar (ie. appearance) this may be a good way to help students going through puberty or having identity/ self concept troubles express themselves.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Dr. Alec Couros Presentation
I enjoyed Alec's presentation via Elluminate this week! It's amazing the software that is out there now to keep us connected! During our last student teaching, I did a guest speaker thing through Skype with a geologiest while studying rocks and minerals. The students enjoyed it and I thought it went well, however it now that I have seen the Elluminate program, I can definitely see the limitations of using Skype compared to this program. My main concern was how students would be able to ask questions but this problem is addressed with the Elluminate program as students would be able to just type in any questions they had. I think this program would also have a place in distance education courses. When I was in high school I took a half credit calculus course through distance education which meant every Friday during lunch hour we would have a half hour conversation with an instuctor in another school and he could answer questions, assign work for next week etc. Considering the technology we have now this seems pretty ancient. The same type of thing would be set up through Elluminate and students would then be more involved and it would be more visual as they could see examples. All in all, I really enjoyed the program used for this presentation, and I think it would have a lot of goos fits in the classroom!
I liked Alec's philosphy of taking risks, becuase I think a lot of what we do online as things advance involves taking risks and potentially stepping outside your comfort level to allow you to grow and develop. Alec had some great ideas of how to use technology, his class Ning was interesting and very involved with the students. This is neat becuase it allows students to form relationships with each other on a more personal level too as they are helping each other and sharing information. Alec has some good points on the future of learning, as he says it is open and connected and that learning networks redefine how knowledge is created, distributed and controlled. This is an interesting point, to think about how technology and internet tools will change through out lifetime teaching and the endless possibilities there are using the internet! Alec had a very well prepared and interesting presentation!
I liked Alec's philosphy of taking risks, becuase I think a lot of what we do online as things advance involves taking risks and potentially stepping outside your comfort level to allow you to grow and develop. Alec had some great ideas of how to use technology, his class Ning was interesting and very involved with the students. This is neat becuase it allows students to form relationships with each other on a more personal level too as they are helping each other and sharing information. Alec has some good points on the future of learning, as he says it is open and connected and that learning networks redefine how knowledge is created, distributed and controlled. This is an interesting point, to think about how technology and internet tools will change through out lifetime teaching and the endless possibilities there are using the internet! Alec had a very well prepared and interesting presentation!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
PLN's
This week's presentation from John Evans on PLN's was interesting and also eye-opening. At the beginning of the presentation I didn't even know what PLN stood for, however by the end I can really see the importance and benefit of teachers creating their own PLN. The benefit of having a PLN has been emphasized, as in recent years there has been a decrease in traditional professtional development courses and there has been a greater need for teachers to complete more P.D. independently. John showed us how teachers can find different p.d opportunities online and how to use this information from online sources in the classroom. As I plan to teacher in a small rural community, it will be key to set up a PLN to make connections and create a network of support for the classroom. This will allow me to share ideas/resources, get advice etc. from other educators! Creating a teaching network will hopefully decrease some of the stresses of first year teaching!
Through my student teaching experiences, I have definitely wasted a lot of time searching for resources on Google, therefore I really like the idea of using Google Reader. Through your subscriptions, you can easily find anything you need on the sites or blogs. Through John's advice I subscribed for some neat sites including; wired science, 100 Best Blogs for Teachers, and my favorite is Free Technology for Teachers. This site has piles of current information and useful teaching tools. Using Google Reader will definitely save me a lot of time seaching the internet!
That's all for now, it was an interesting presentation!
Through my student teaching experiences, I have definitely wasted a lot of time searching for resources on Google, therefore I really like the idea of using Google Reader. Through your subscriptions, you can easily find anything you need on the sites or blogs. Through John's advice I subscribed for some neat sites including; wired science, 100 Best Blogs for Teachers, and my favorite is Free Technology for Teachers. This site has piles of current information and useful teaching tools. Using Google Reader will definitely save me a lot of time seaching the internet!
That's all for now, it was an interesting presentation!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
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