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!