All good things come to an end!

Sigh, I still remember my first day in Ed Tech class and how frustrated and overwhelmed I felt by the idea of learning about technology and being able to figure out smart notebook!  I wanted to quit before I even started!  Now that the course is done, I must say I feel totally different than the first day.  I feel more confident in using technology, I feel that I have come close to mastering smart notebook and I have loved this course.

Smart Notebook:

This is something I have loved using and it has spoiled power point for me!  I much prefer the tools I have at my disposal in this program.  I love, love, love the camera that allows me to snap pictures of anything I want and resize it.  The only downside is I am very disappointed that SD76 is rumored to be dropping this program.  I hope not and if it is I think it also needs to be dropped from this course.

These are a few of my favourite things:

Snipping tool

One of my favourite tools that I have learned about is the snipping tool!  Hello!  This has changed my life forever.  I now can snip anything I want from my computer screen, save it, transfer it and then use it again!  So much better than copy and paste.  It works amazingly well with images and you can also resize what you have snipped.  It is a program that can be downloaded free but most newer computers have it.  It is one of the best secrets on the planet and now I know about it!

Interactive Tools:

We used a variety of different tools to encourage class participation.  I loved them all!  I had used Poll Everywhere before in a class but got to know it better in this classroom.  It is such a fun way to get your students to use a cell phone to register in a poll!
Answer garden is a great way to get a word cloud of answers or phrases from the class.  I thought this was more limiting but I still really liked it!
Padlet: At first I didn't love this one but after trying it again, thanks to Cammi, I must say it has shot up to close to the top of my list!  I love it as an interactive way to get students' feedback!  Another bonus I learned is that students can  use it as a forum to add photos!  Love it and I will use it.
I also loved using all that Google has to offer.  Until this class, I had no idea all that Google can do!  I adore Google forms and will use that in my classroom as a tool for communication with parents.

Just talking about all these amazing apps gets my heart beating!  I can't wait to make my classroom the coolest place ever!

Movie Making

This is something I have always wanted to try and now I can see that both stop motion and iMovies are going to be a big hit in my classroom!!  Stop motion is so easy!  I know that kids will have so much fun doing it.  How do I know?  I'm over 40 and I loved it!!  It is a great way to get students to think creatively!
iMovies are great as well and I think that students will love using that for projects and I will love using it for making an end of the year movie of all we did.  It is such a fun way to showcase all that happens in the classroom!

QR codes:

I knew about these and have even used them a little bit but after using them in class I will use them even more!  I love them!  I can't wait to have a bulletin board showcasing some of my students art work and beside their work have a QR code where parents can watch how their child is doing in the class!  QR codes are fun as treasure hunts for students, information givers for both students and waiting parents, and centres where students can do a question and then check their work.  This will have a prominent role in my classroom.


I am so grateful that I needed to take this course.  I was scared of it and uncomfortable with technology but now I have come out of the course better informed and ready to embrace new technology. My aha moment happened when I actually knew something about technology my husband didn't know and I was able to show and help him.  I usually just sit helplessly and wait for him to come to my rescue.  I feel so much stronger now in the area of technology.

I know I will keep my classroom blog and twitter account going.  I have found that twitter indeed has been a great source of knowledge and have started to follow some teachers that share my same philosophy.  I feel that technology is always changing and in order to stay current I need to embrace forums such as twitter and follow blogs of those that keep up with technology.  I can't wait to put the things I have learned into practice in my classroom!

Thanks, Cammi and Paul, for opening a whole new area of my education!  I hope to be able to keep discovering new technology as I keep current and give back in the area of education as I discover new things for myself and share them with my colleagues.

Stop Motion!

I was just snooping on my classmates blogs and realized I didn't post my stop motion video!  I had so much fun making this one.  I was gone for the weekend and we were staying in a hotel so I used the free breakfast and made some toast and ate it!  It was so easy!  I know my future students will love playing with the stop motion app and feature found on i-phones!

Check it out!
Mana Mana Toast

This years practicum

I wish I would have started a school blog last year.  I want to be able to keep all my good ideas somewhere.  I have stored some in a notebook but if I would have done it digitally it would have been better.  I plan on using my blog for this for the rest of my schooling and when I am a teacher.

I have one more class left!  I am so glad to be almost done.  Spring has sprung here in Medicine Hat and it makes me anxious to get out of the classroom and into my garden.

I was in a grade 4 classroom in my English Literature practicum.  It was great.  I was in the Catholic School Division and I have never worked there before so it was nice to see all that they have to offer.  I learned a lot about literacy circles and how to use them with a novel study.  I really enjoy children's literature and learned a lot from this class and from my mentor teacher.

I was also able to do running records and a miscue analysis; something I have never even seen done before.  You have to be fast doing the miscue but I was glad to have the practice!!

One tip that I really liked was when your students are in pods (which I hope to do in my class) if they need a reminder to listen or they are struggling that day, they get a letter.  Once they spell out the word ROWS their pod is broken up and put in a row.  I thought this was an interesting way to remind them that collaborative work is a privilege and they have to live up to that expectation.

Thanks Mrs. C for allowing me in your classroom!!

i-movies! I'm famous

This last week we used iMovie in my tech class.  I am grateful that I was forced to learn how to use it.  I have been going to make movies for years but never took the time to learn!  I have to say it was so easy and user friendly.  If you haven't tried it and want to, make sure you just start!  I learned many techniques; most by trial and error.  I bought and downloaded a reverse app to reverse a piece of my movie.  It was compatible with iMovie so it was perfect!

Check out my movies:

Staying alive country style is a parody of the movie Saturday Night Fever using the song Staying Alive.  I loved my group!  Those girls are so fun!   This time of year is pretty ugly on the farm. I wish it was green and my trees were all budded out!


    Staying alive country style

The next one was a movie trailer for our movie, Besties!  We were going to do it as a love story between my friend Cassidy and my goat Oreo.  When she met him, he fell in love and wanted to be with her all the time. We started off that way and got all the footage but when my husband saw it he said it looked bad.....so I changed it to friends.  None of group except Cassidy are in it.  Check out my baby goats!!  So cute.  Just 3 days old.

Besties

I also made a personal video on how to make buns.  I did a 10 minute video at first, very detailed, then read the assignment (after working on it for hours!!)  It was supposed to be short.  So I re-did it and cut it down to four minutes.  I just watched the best video on bread yesterday and it was 1.5 minutes with no talking.  If I did it again, that's how I would do it.  No one has time to watch 4 minutes anymore!  lol  If you want to make my mom's buns, check this one out.

yummy buns!

My last one was a screen-cast.  One of my favourite applications is Symbaloo and in this screen-cast I tell you a little bit about it.

symbaloo

All in all, I feel famous!  I actually have something on Youtube!

I-pad key to classroom magic!

 



This week I used the app Stop Motion.  It was so amazingly easy!  We went away this weekend so I left this part of my assignment until the last minute.  When I woke up this morning in the hotel I knew I had to get this project done. I downloaded the app onto my iPad and iPhone and off I went down to breakfast.  I was worried as the app itself didn't give a lot of instructions. It just had a button that said start project here and then it showed a few things.  I couldn't believe how easy it was!

Watch my video:  http://youtu.be/RMV7NlLKoBw

Step 1


Figure out what you want to make a stop motion movie of.  I was limited to a hotel room and a free breakfast. I chose preparing my toast and pouring a glass of juice.  It was so fast! I just snapped pictures of every step; that's it.  Once I had my 40-50 shots I was done both the camera work and my breakfast!

Step 2

I watched my stop motion movie and marveled at my genius!  It worked!!!  I did notice that I had switched my view when I was doing the juice from horizontal to vertical.  Now what!  I have to say I am not that technologically savvy but I figured out right away how to take another set of pictures holding my device horizontally, select them and put them before the work I had already done!  It was that easy!  I fixed a few other problems; I had gone from the plate to the toaster and then the plate again and it looked funny so I just moved the toaster pictures together and it was fixed.

Step 3

Watch it 10 more times and make your family watch it over and over, forcing them to recognize your genius.  Then I wanted to add music.  I knew I wanted the song Mana Mana by the Muppets so I downloaded it from iTunes.  I selected it and I could see it overlay but no matter how often I fiddled with it I couldn't get it to play.  I was discouraged and worried it had to do with copyright.  I played around with it, had my husband try to fix it and finally left it until we got home.  In frustration, I had my husband try again and at last he figured it out.....my phone was on silent!  Lol!  So dumb!  I over complicated it. I thought it was some complicated glitch and it ended up being very easy and I had the music loaded the first try.

Step 4

I uploaded it to YouTube.  You can upload and edit your film right from the app.  It was quick, easy and painless.

I know that you can add credits and backgrounds but you have to pay to unlock many of the more advanced features.  It isn't expensive, for $1.49 you get a lot.  I also realized that I could have edited my photos in the app. I didn't have to redo all of them.  This will be a great tool in the classroom.  I had so much fun making this little movie and it was so fast and easy to use.  I can tell that students will love using this and doing projects.  Another week in class that I learned about some cool tools for school!

Classroom Excitement! Web 2.0 review.

This week I was able to search for and play with different tools that are available on Web 2.0.  Web 2.0 is filled with cool things that can be used in the classroom.  I looked through the seemingly endless suggestions on the webpage called cool tools for schools  http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/  There were so many interactive sites and fun things for the classroom it was almost impossible to break it down to just three.

            Under the heading music tools, I liked the application called SongSmith. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/  This is a free music editing tool by Microsoft.  I love music and I think that this is a powerful learning tool.  What I liked about this application is that you only need a microphone on your computer and a song in your heart.  If you have limited music knowledge, it will help you sound like a professional.  All you do is sing into your mic and it creates background music for you.  Choose whether you want it to be rock, country or classical, to name a few, and it will create chords to fill in your song.  It helps teach the basics of chords and how they are used in a song.  It is also great because it will cater to multiple students at once.  You can each lay down your track and then it puts them all together with background music for a song.  If your students have a good understanding of music, it offers a higher level of song creation.  In a video on the website with testimonials, one teacher said it was nice because students can work together in groups and collaborate.  It is like having a teacher’s aide for each group.  Some students are less shy working with the computer than in a classroom full of students as they experiment and play with their music.  I really like this because it is free and set up very well for classroom use. 

            The next interactive web page that I loved was found under creativity tools.  It was called class tools. http://www.classtools.net/  Wow!  It was amazing and filled with many useful tools for the classroom!  It is a history teacher’s dream.  There were many sites that you could go to and create things to enrich your classroom.  ‘Fakebook’ was a site for teachers to create a historical Facebook-like page of famous people in history.  It was so fun and something that students would really find interesting and informative at the same time.  Also there was the ‘Twister’ app which creates fake tweets from historical figures.  ‘SMS Generator’ will create a chat conversation between historical figures. I love ‘Postit’ which was a labeling tool used to post your own image and students then use post it notes to label or break down the picture.  Another great interactive piece was called ‘Lights out’.  Again, all you do is upload your own picture which is then blacked out. Students use a match as their virtual light to discover things on the page, all with the click of a mouse.  It features several random name pickers; one like a slot machine and another like the big wheel on the Price is Right.  Timeline creators, fillable fish bone diagrams, venn diagram templates and countdown timers are a few of the other many amazing interactive tools that are perfect and quick to use in the classroom.  Great site! I highly recommend it to all teachers. 

            Writing is an important part of student life.  Students need to be able to create stories and share their ideas creatively.  I loved several of the applications found under writing tools.  I am working in a grade 4 classroom right now for my practicum and I felt that all of these would be very useful and create a lot of interest in writing for my students. Toondoo http://www.toondoo.com/ is a really cool site to make comic strips.  You can use the stock images or upload your own images which I thought was a really fun added bonus to really get to personalize your characters.  It is free but very limited.  What I mean by that is you can only create 10 strips under each registered name.  A teacher wouldn’t be able to do her whole class; each student would have to create their own user name.  I think it would be really fun to create and show my skills by creating my own comic strip.  I also liked Bitstrips, http://www.bitstrips.com/ where you can create your own personal emoji and create comic pictures.  It is also very user friendly.  It is free and doesn’t limit the number of pictures you can make.   One more cool site for younger students that I loved was Zooburst http://www.zooburst.com/  It is a digital storytelling tool that creates 3D popup books.  They are simple but very fun to look at.  You can have 10 free books or pay $50 a year for unlimited use.  It is interactive and an interesting way to get children to write their own story and a rewarding way to see it come to life.

My comic strip from Toondoo.  I made it in a couple of minutes

Sample of my emoji from bitstrip

            There is one last site that I thought was really useful as a teacher and for students. It was Ookaboo http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/.  This is an image search tool that I never knew about.  I always use Google images and you usually have to cite them when using them in a paper, presentation or website.  These images are copyrighted.  Ookaboo is a free image site; all images are free to use on blogs, presentations and websites.  They are organized according to precise concepts and are easy to use.  You can upload your own image to share if you want. 

            I love learning about all the many options and things available for the classroom.  I could have spent days researching these sites.  The classroom is a place that I want to be able to use as much technology as I can.  Technology is the new language that students need to know to make them a productive citizen.  Many of these sites I looked at will enrich the classroom and engage the student.

            

Interactive Apps and how they work in the classroom

 I really enjoyed my EDTS 325 class this week.  We looked at 7 different interactive systems and how they can be used by teachers in a classroom.  It was so interesting to see all the different systems and experiment with them, seeing how each one worked from both the view of the creator (teacher) and the student interacting with the app.  I am going to review my findings for 3 of the different systems and examine both the pros and the cons of each.

 They will be rated as follows:

5=very effective (user-friendly, multi-purpose)  

4=mostly effective (fairly user friendly, useful features)

3=somewhat effective 

2=potentially effective, but only with practice 

1=uneffective, too complicated/simplistic

POLLEVERYWHERE:  4.5

Teacher Use

            First, I am going to look at it from the view of the teacher creating questions.  http://www.polleverywhere.com is a great site to use for quick polls in the classroom.  Their tag line is “30 seconds to set up and no sign in required”.  They are true to their word. I had already used it before so had created an account.  The benefit of this is that all your polls are kept under your sign in name so they are available for reuse.   It is a great tool for the classroom. They created a room with a number for me to add my questions with multiple choice answers. Then the questions are activated and the student is given a code to text to their phone. DONE, that easy!  

Student Use

As long as the student has access to their own cell phone it is easy, especially the second time.  The first time I used it, I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to text just because it was so new to me (and I am old!).  It was fun to see the answers register and the graph grow.

Flexibility

The only drawback is that there isn’t an open ended response.  Students can’t type in an answer and have it displayed. So, it is great for a quick poll in the classroom.  Flash quizzes with live instant results, what a great way to get students attention. All free!      

Diagnostic feedback

As a teacher, you can create reports and identify which students answered what, which is good to identify needs.  You can also create anonymous polls to protect student identity.

Plickers:  4

Teacher Use

This was my first time on www.plickers.com .  Wow, is all I can say. Wow, was I impressed with this app.  It is so exciting.  You get real time answers from your students with just the click of the camera. It reads the student’s answer card giving real time results.  It is a lot more work than the other applications we used as you need to add your student’s names and print out individual cards for each student.  Once you have done the initial setup, it saves your class list and you can laminate the cards so that they can be used many times.  As the teacher, I think that as you gather the answers by scanning the room with your devices camera you have the most fun watching the information get snatched up magically and organized for you.  I think it is great for younger classrooms or in classrooms where students don’t have access to digital devices. 

Student Use

Students get a laminated card that is made just for them with their names linked to it.  It is easy to use, they simply hold up a card with the side with the letter that corresponds to their answer at the top.  Little kids may get confused with putting the right answer to the top.  It isn’t really exciting for the students but I think the teacher has fun gathering responses.

Flexibility

No open ended response.  Just good for quick polling of predetermined answers.

Diagnosis feedback 

It is a bit limited as it only works for multiple choice questions and not open responses by students. It shows in real time as the phone passes by the students.  It shows which students you have scanned and if you missed anyone.  It is a bit cumbersome as you have to print out cards, keep them organized and hand them out to the students each time.  I think the first few times would be very fun but I worry because it isn’t as spontaneous, it wouldn’t be used as much as the others.

Padlet-3

Teacher Use

            I have a real mixed review of www.padlet.com .  Padlet was easy to sign in and you can create an account or just use it without creating an account.  I loved that students got to fill in their own padlet or sticky note, so it was the best application for individual unique responses.  I really disliked that it wasn’t user friendly.  I felt frustrated trying to set it up.  The question text was too small.  I wanted to be able to adjust it and make it bigger or bolder on the screen.  I even used Google looking for ways to change it and couldn’t figure it out.  I see how it would be a great way to get student unique responses and I am sure that I will use it in my classroom. 

Student Use

Padlet is very easy to use. Students are logged in by room number and they double click anywhere on the page to write their response.  It is a great way to get the individual voices heard.  It can be used on a desktop or tablet.

Flexibility

This is a great application for individual response, although you can’t use it for multiple choice responses.

 

Diagnosis feedback 

It was very difficult to figure out.  Out of all the websites I used, I spent the most time trying to figure this one out and felt very frustrated!  It offers an option to use a background, which I was thrilled with, but when you applied the wallpaper it repeated the picture rather than fitting to size.  There was no adjustment at all.  It would have been nice if you could mute it or make the student answers more prominent.

FYI

Socrative Teacher- 5

Google Forms- 5+

Answer Garden- 3 (very cool but just makes word clouds with the answer so I would give it 5 for making a classroom word clouds but 3 for effective polling)

Kahoot- 4

            I only was going to review three of the seven sites I used but I can’t stop without mentioning Socartive Teacher/Socrative Student.  Socrative is so versatile!  It was easy to set up and I loved how you could add pictures that related to your quiz to make it more appealing.  It is great because it has several different ways you can use it.  Space race is a quick race to see who can answer the fastest!  I love competition so it is a great way to wake up and engage your students.  It also has an exit ticket where, as a teacher, you can get a snapshot of the students’ understanding, questions they have or what they have learned.  Great way to end the class.

            My other favorite is Google forms!  What an amazing site.  It is so versatile and just like everything Google, it seems perfect in every way.  It has many different ways you can ask questions from grids to multiple choice.  It saves automatically and is free.  Finding out about this will impact me greatly as a teacher.  I believe this is the answer to communication with parents.  No more crumpled papers on the bottom of the back pack!  

Blogs a teachers best friend

           Ok, I admit it, I am a blogging addict.  Next to Pinterest, I love to read others' blogs.  When you are a blog addict it is easy to lose yourself for hours and end up far from your original link.  Blogs are a powerful way to link to other people that are doing the same thing as you.  In my personal life, I link with other mothers, crafters, gardeners and quilters.  In my future professional life, I see how I can benefit from reaching out to other educators and teachers that teach at the elementary level.  Why spend hours re-inventing the wheel if someone else had the work already done or great hints on how to engage your students in the curriculum.  I love the world of teaching because teachers love to help and share ideas that work in the classroom.

            There is a lot of buzz in the blog world about student driven teaching.  There is a shift in the old way of direct teaching and teachers are really talking about ways to capture their student’s attention and have them invested in their own learning.  I know, here in Alberta, there is a push for change as well as working toward Inspiring Education, which will help us prepare our students for the ever changing world and the challenges they will face.  I am excited to be coming into education during this time of change.  Alberta isn’t the only one that is facing these changes; the blogs I read took me all over the United States, different Canadian provinces and even to the United Kingdom.  All are talking about this change and many are focusing on engagement of students as well as technology. 

            Learning is messy blog focuses on technology and talks a lot about how schools are reluctant at times to adapt to new technology and use the resources that are available, ie, Wiki, Pinterest, twitter, Facebook, blogs.  There is a real fear for some schools to open up these available networks and allow teachers and students to use them.   Brian Crosby is the author of this blog and has been an upper elementary teacher for over 30 years.  He now facilitates STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and helps administrators realize the importance of using technology in their schools.  He is part of the high hopes project which is open to all teachers to participate in.  In April/May of this year, they will be sending weather balloons 30,000 feet into the air and streaming data and student experiments back to classrooms.  They want anyone who wants to participate to have their students write what is their ‘high hope’ for education.  Blogs like this are exciting to me because someone else is doing the work and putting the weather balloons in the air but my class could participate, observe and do projects based on the data they produce.  Blogs make the world a smaller place and accessible right here in Medicine Hat.

            It is so tough to narrow my focus to only three blogs.  I really enjoyed Michael Smiths The Principals page blog.  Each entry was short and sweet (I need to learn from this, I tend to be long winded), and humorous.  He tackles real issues such as bullying and how he is finding it is an overused word.  Sometimes things just happen, life is unfair and things go wrong.  Often he finds, as the principal, that when unfair things happen the parents and students claim bullying but really it’s just life. Sometimes things aren’t fair.  He also spoke of the fact that we over worry both as parents and educators.  We need to sometimes just sit back and let things happen.  I really like his view point and enjoyed each of his posts that I read. 

            The flipped classroom blog was also very interesting.  I watched several of the videos they had prepared for teaching what a flipped classroom is.  I have to go back to this website as I still have many questions about what this classroom would look like.  I found it really interesting and there are a lot of people talking about the benefits of flipping your classroom.  A flipped classroom is where you do the lectures and lessons at home and then come to class to do your homework or the actual engagement of the subject.  As with anything this new and radical, there are lots of concerns and they address these very well with a series of short video clips.  If you are involved in education in any way, I recommend giving this blog a read.

            I have found so much information in my readings of the suggested blogs in the last few days my mind is swimming with more questions.  Each blog is hosted by educators and they are looking at how to improve their craft and help their students.  The desire is to have emotionally intelligent students and move away from standardized testing.  Many also deal with the struggle of finding credible information in using technology and how to we educate our students to be great digital citizens.  There is a concern about the lack of free play and studies show that it is leading to depression in our young students. 

            Cool Cat Teacher (Vicki Davis) is a great teacher blog.  One thing I noticed about this site as well as many of the blogs is all the advertisements.  The adverts are a big distraction and I found some of the blogs, especially the really popular ones, more difficult to navigate because of all the promotional adverts.  Cool Cat blog talked about close reading and explored activities that you can do with your students.  It is a program that is promoted by snap learning and you can buy worksheets from them that your students can actually mark up and practice close learning with.  It is handy because, of course, we don’t want our students writing in their textbooks; especially here in Canada as they aren’t personally owned; they are re-used.  Again, I don’t like the number of product promotions I see but this is the reality of being a popular blogger today.

            Cool cat blog talked about how we are the lead learner as the teacher and we set the tone and level of excitement in our classroom.  So we need to step it up, set goals and try something new this week.  If we are excited as the lead learner our students will be too!  I really liked her post about classroom authors and how we can create books collaboratively with students from all over the world.  Also, I loved her suggestion for thinglink which makes pictures interactive and cardkiwi which allows students to make their own flash cards!  She uses technology and apps to inspire teachers to think differently and get excited about their lessons.  I was so inspired to read her many suggestions and could lose myself for hours in this website. 

            I am just beginning my discovery of education blogs and already feel like I have learned so much from my fellow bloggers.  I encourage all educators to get blogging!  It’s a fun and easy way to stay linked to other educators and start dabbling in new ideas and technology!

            

Technology- where are we headed?

        Technology is something that I have a love hate relationship with.  I love all that it can do and when it works I am thrilled.  I hate that it often causes me frustration because it doesn't work when I want it to work.  I am only a few weeks into my technology in the classroom course and my feelings toward technology are already changing.  The more I learn about all technology can do to aid the teacher in the classroom, the more excited I get to start implementing it.  It seems that often the initial output is a lot of work, such as making digital lesson plans in smart notebook, yet once done they can be used and reused with greater efficiency. 

Wordle of my personal view of technology

            In Education, technology can be a huge asset in the classroom.  With the click of a mouse a teacher can reach out to thousands of other educators for ideas, support, experiments and hints for the classroom.  Simple things from art lessons, lesson ideas, curriculum helps to how to deal with parents and administration all can be a huge help to me as a teacher.  Also for the students there are hundreds of websites, pictures and videos that can engage them and enrich their learning.  Students are familiar with technology and it is a huge part of their home life, so teaching them using what they already know is a powerful tool in the classroom.     As a future educator, it excites me to see all that is available to help me be the best teacher I can be.  Technology is an excellent way for both students and teachers to learn from what thousands of others have learned or are learning and build from existing knowledge. 

            I love blogging and reading blogs.  I have been reading and publishing a blog since 2009.  I started blogging as a way for me to journal my and my family's journey through life.  I then publish the books so that we have all our memories for a keepsake.  I have a large group of friends that also blog so it is a wonderful way for me to keep up with them and their families.  I have always used blogs for crafting, gardening and quilting ideas.  Blogs have enriched my personal life and given me a voice to share and capture priceless moments.  As a teacher, I can see that a blog will be a great way to share ideas about things that work in my classroom , projects and pictures to help give back to the education community.  I am sure that I will use a blog in my class when I am a teacher and share what we are doing with parents, administration and fellow educators. 

            One concern about technology in the classroom is the lack of funding to get proper, updated technology.  Often, in the public school system, we are running with old computers, software and few personal devices such as tablets.  This is a problem that can be met by allowing students to use their own devices.  The article tech- briefing; BYOD discusses both the benefits of students bringing their own devices and the concerns that teachers have. 

            On the plus side, students know their own devices so there is not a learning curve for them to figure out the device they are to use.  On the flip side, teachers are going to have to be well versed on many different systems so that they can help the students and give proper instructions on steps they need to take.  I know that in my experience in schools often children, even at a young age, have the most modern technology being used.  I am constantly surprised by how many children in grade one have iPads and iPhones and know how to use them better than me.  School systems usually do not have the funding to keep on the cutting edge of technology, so by using student’s devices, schools can have access to modern devices.

 After reading the article BYOD, I have to wonder about families that are not tech savvy, can’t afford to buy their children the required device or are using old technology.  Schools do not want to encourage an even wider gap between students of different economic standing, so can equality be assured?  Also, schools have to consider if all 500 students bring their own devices to class, how will they handle the increased network traffic?  Schools have to ensure sufficient capacity and bandwidth to support the devices being used.  When using technology, faster access is demanded.  Nothing is more frustrating than waiting forever for a website to load with a slow internet connection. 

Another benefit of using student’s devices is that instead of spending money on hardware, administration can instead spend it on software and high end tech programs that are not found on most devices. Every student with an iPad and cell phone could create a huge distraction to the classroom without policies and rules about their use.  There will have to be policies in place to ensure that teachers still have control over the use of their personal devices, what can be used and what should be avoided.  Money will also need to be put aside for teacher PD.  Teachers need to feel prepared for this shift in their classroom and be trained well in available technology.  Not all teachers are tech savvy and many will have fears and frustrations toward allowing personal devices in the classroom, so training is vital for this to work.

With increased technology use in the classroom and students using the internet there is also a concern for their safety.  The internet is full of amazing websites but it is also filled with pornography, inappropriate sites, social media which can lead to cyber bulling, identity theft and creepy people.  All of these things are a factor in why schools ban personal devices, block websites and have strict control of content available.   In the article tech-briefing – digital citizenship these concerns are addressed.  Digital citizenship is about teaching students respect for themselves and personal responsibility.  Yes, at home and at school we can shelter our children from the big bad internet by blocking any questionable sites, but the concern is whether our children have learned from this or once they are somewhere without blocks, will they seek it out because they haven’t been properly taught?

Inspire Education is where the future of our teaching and curriculum is headed.  The goal of Inspiring Education is to help students become ethical citizens and engaged thinkers.  We need to consider that instead of blocking these websites and not allowing students access to their personal devices we as educators need to do just that, educate!  We need to teach students about the dangers that are found on the internet, empower each student to respect themselves and to use technology responsibly.  As a parent, I agree and disagree with this concept.  I agree that children need to be taught about technology and the dangers there are in using it.  I think personal responsibility is key to helping each child to respect themselves.  Yet for myself, there is a big BUT here.  Where is the line?  My daughter had many friends that would watch R rated movies at a young age, play video games that were mature and had parents that didn't think the same way as me and allowed their children to do things I would never allow my daughter to do.  Some look at pornography as not harmful or think violence is okay.  The rules in my own home regarding the use of technology were much stricter than others.  I still feel I taught my daughter to respect herself and to be responsible but as a child, it was also my responsibility to monitor what sites she used, to check text messages often and to make sure the cell phone and iPad were not in her room late at night.  

In my opinion, in order for this to work as far as BYOD and digital citizenship, rules and policies need to be firmly in place and all teachers and administrators need to be on the same page.  I agree that teaching students respect and responsibility is of utmost importance but I am leery about free and open access to all websites.  I also wonder about conflict over their personal device.  I am sure when it isn’t being used correctly and teachers need to step in and take away the device for a time, the issue of it being their personal property will be brought up, often, by both students and parents.  I am shocked now by what parents allow in their homes.  Many times I have had kindergarten children tell me about a movie they watched over the weekend that I would never watch myself because of its content and parents let a 5 year old watch it!  Also, video games played or talk of zombies and killing games is shocking.

 The future of technology and access in the classroom may force teachers to walk on a tight rope, balancing precariously as we try teach them what is good content and content they should avoid and parents may not have the same belief.  The speed that technology is changing will make it so that teachers will have to be constantly educating themselves so they are on the cutting edge and aware of the newest program or device.  This will be more work but I believe that technology as a whole, despite some of my personal concerns, will be a huge benefit to my future classroom and the students learning.  As new policies are made and things like BYOD introduced, there will be growing pains as sometimes change is difficult and stretches us in uncomfortable ways.  In the end, I am excited for the digital possibilities and what will come in my teaching career!

About Me

          It has been a lifelong dream of mine to be a teacher.  In 1994, I moved to Medicine Hat and started taking courses at the college.  Then I met a wonderful young man that swept me off my feet and we got married. We had our beautiful daughter just over a year after we were married.  My husband was going to school so I supported him and stayed home to raise our family.  Once I started as an Educational Assistant in the school system I fell in love with the thought of teaching again.  I am a cancer survivor and as such I am driven to fulfill that dream now despite being older than many of my fellow students. 

            I live on a small hobby farm just outside of Medicine Hat.  We have lots of different animals that I absolutely love!  I plan on bringing in lots of animal babies throughout the years to visit the classroom.  As a family we love to quad and spend hours on our farm and in the mountains enjoying our time together.  I am passionate about gardening and in the summer find myself in my large garden daily fighting off weeds.  I love music; I sing, play the piano and am currently learning to play the ukulele.  I am also an avid reader thanks to my grade six school teacher who opened the magical world of books to me.

            The thing that makes me the happiest is spending time with my family and friends.  I am passionate about life and think that it should be filled with laughter and love.  I love to travel.  I lived in England for two years as a missionary for my church.  We have traveled all over every summer jumping in our motor home and driving all over Canada and the United States.  My husband is an instructor at the college so he gets several months off in the summer time.

            I know that I will be an enthusiastic, loving and dedicated teacher.  I have many years of experience teaching and working with children and youth and have loved each teaching experience.

My personal philosophy on teaching

              The most important aspect for me as a teacher is for each of my students to know that I care for them.  It is important to know each student personally including their background, their emotional and academic needs.  Once I know them and what they need in order to succeed in the classroom, I hope to vary my methods of teaching using the multiple intelligences.  I know through laughter, fun, interactive lessons and a warm, loving environment each student will thrive.

              I do not believe that a student is a ‘tabla rasa’(empty vessel), that information is to be poured into.  I agree with the philosophy of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky that students need to be actively learning and constructing meaning to lessons by building on what they already know.  Social interaction and active students in the classroom are vital to learning.  In the future, I hope to provide a classroom that is interactive using tables for working and white board paint on the walls for students to have group discussions and opportunities to teach each other.  I would like my classroom to be like a home which will provide a safe environment with comfy seating, indirect lighting and living things such as plants and a class pet.  In order for learning to be facilitated, mutual respect for all members is needed and no one should have a fear of being criticized in the classroom.  It should be a safe place to make mistakes as that is often how we learn.

              I am an advocate of character education in the school.  I believe, as a teacher, it is my job to be a role model both inside and outside the classroom.  It has been my experience that many opportunities arise daily to help students recognize unwanted behavior or teach better communication skills.  I understand that each person needs to prepare themselves to build up the society in which we live.

              I do not believe that to be an effective teacher I need to stand at the front of the room and lecture daily.  I believe that many truths can be discovered as students share and interact with each other.  It is my job as an educator to be organized, have well thought out lesson plans, keep up my own personal care, continue my person education, learn from fellow teachers and reflect on my day.  I personally believe that reflection is the key to becoming better.  It is a practice I use in my daily life as I ponder over my day each evening, thinking about what went well and what can be improved.  In continuing this practice I will be able to continue to direct my classroom and meet the needs of each student by trying to grow each day.  I believe that each student, myself included, needs to set goals and work towards stretching to become a better learner.