Tech Task #11 - A Peek Inside Your Classroom

This weeks tech task asks us to think about our future classrooms. To think what it will be like, the must haves, the pedagogy and the overall learning environment. To be honest, this is something that I have been thinking about for the last four years since the beginning of my journey through becoming a teacher. Although I have been constantly thinking about it, my ideas are constantly changing. There are always new ideas and teaching 'must haves' popping up that I know I would enjoy using. If there is one thing that is for sure, my future classroom will be very tech friendly. I've always imagined having a well connected classroom and using technology in my teaching and ECMP355 has given me many resources and tools to work with to achieve that goal. I want to lay out what I have learned in this semester to paint a picture of what my future classrooms may look like. 

BLOGGING - I hope that blogging will be a big part of my future classroom. Through this class I have been able to explore many classroom and student blogs and have really enjoyed it. The process for students is so engaging to having their own blog as well as it lets parents explore their child's learning process. Sue Waters did a wonderful ETMOOC presentation on Student Blogging. I would highly recommend anyone wanting to start student and classroom blogs to check out the session.

This semester in ECMP355, I myself, have learned the importance of blogging and staying connected. The benefits I have experienced would be the same for student blogging. Some benefits I have noticed are that I've grown my personal learning network and it keeps growing! Things like reading other blogs, commenting, receiving comments and making connections through Twitter all have expanded my learning network. Genuine writing experiences are created through blogging. My blog allows me to write whatever I want to write and student blogs will allow them the same opportunities, it's also a great way to get students writing who don't like using a pencil and paper. They also have an audience to read their writing which makes the experience motivating! 

GOOGLE - This semester I have really learned more about Google- that it is more than just a search engine. I've gone from using it only as a search engine every now and then to using it daily on my phone and computer on Google Drive, using Google Hangouts to connect with others, keep track of the blogs I follow with Google Reader and much much more. I've been able to use Google Drive everyday whether it was taking quick notes of things I need to remember to essays to major projects. What I like most is that it saves without me having to remember to hit save and that it syncs immediately to my phone and other devices.  I will definitely be using Google Drive in my future classroom with students. One tool in Google Drive that I will find myself using often is the Google Forms because there is so much I could do with the forms for my students, parents and staff. Also Google Docs is a great way to have student collaborate on any project or assignment.

TWITTER - I enjoy using Twitter, it's a great way to stay connected. I struggled at the beginning of this class thinking of how I would use it in a classroom because I felt that it wasn't particularly beneficial for young children. My opinion was completely changed after listening to one of our sessions #6 Technology in the Primary Classroom, where some wonderful teachers (@techieang, @kathycassidy and @KLirenman) who explained how they used Twitter DAILY in their classroom. They were using Twitter in creative ways which I wouldn't have even thought of before! One mentioned that they would read tweet each day and do grammar and spelling checks on the tweets. Now that I have followed classroom tweeters, I feel like it is something I would want to bring into the classroom. 

These three things, blogging, google and twitter, will form the base of my classroom. My classroom will be emerged into technology and be well connected. The possibilities are endless, which is very exciting!

The Sterotyped Teacher

Today in my ECE class, we had a wonderful presenter, Michelle Gray, who gave us some insight on the EYE (Early Years Evaluation) assessment which happens in pre-school and kindergarten. Although I have many comments and things to write about the EYE assessment alone, that is not where this blog post it going. 

Michelle Gray gave us some examples of what to expect in the EYE assessment. One example she gave is that children are given pictures of certain occupations which they have to identify and tell what the role of the person in the occupation does. If they are able to identify the particular occupation but not tell of the role, they receive zero marks. If they tell what their understanding of the role is, but it is not an 'accepted' answer, they also receive zero. Michelle mentioned that there are three occupations that are shown, a firefighter, a police officer and a teacher. Through her experience she has noticed that one that children often get wrong is the one of a teacher. Why? Because how do you show a picture of a teacher? Most police officers and firefighters are in a uniform that easily identifies them as being in their roles. How is one to identify a teacher through a picture? 

One picture that is provided is of a women, with a bun in her hair, holding a textbook writing "ABC" on the board. Most children cannot identify this image to that of a teacher. Children may say, "A girl writing on the board." With Michelles suggestion to change the picture, they did. They changed it to an image with a female holding a globe. You know, because all teachers stand in the front of the room holding the Earth. Michelle found that that is how children would respond to the image, "Umm, a lady holding the world?" Young children cannot connect to these images because the teachers they work with each day do not look like the people found in these particular images.

These are stereotypes of what a teacher "should" look like. In reality, there are few teachers who will appear that way. For fun, I googled the word "teacher" and clicked to see the image results. All the results contained a female, a chalkboard in the background and they are either wearing glasses, holding a pencil or an apple, pointing, or they look mean. I don't know about you, but I haven't run into a teacher who looks like the following teachers in my professional years of becoming a teacher. I'll give credit to the fact that the people in these images aren't wearing cardigans with knitted apples and one room school houses all around. I realize that these images of teachers were realistic years ago when blackboards were dominantly used, students sat in desks in rows and students all learned through direct instruction, coping notes and worksheets. Are there people today that still believe that a teachers role is to stand powerful among all the students and dictate learning?

 

Not one of the top search results contained an image of a teacher with a child or group of children learning through a hands on experience, a classroom filled with students working on different tasks in a way that suits their learning needs or a teacher facilitating learning through various uses of technology.

I know these images are only a few of teacher stereotypes. Are there other stereotypes that you have faced as a teacher?

Tech Task #10 - Best Ideas

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this session live, however I watched the recording and found three wonderful presenters who I learned a lot from. I enjoyed the session on Technology in the Middle Years because they provided lots of valuable to resources and ideas that I can use, not only if I were a middle years teacher but also ideas that are relevant to the primary grades as well! The following are some of the ideas from the presenters that I liked best and feel like I would use.

Heather Durin
@hdurin 
heatherdurin.com
One thing I thought was so interesting that Heather talked about what the online radio station, 105theHive. I've never heard of this kind of thing before so I think that is why I found it interesting. This is a place where students and teachers can connect! This is a tool that allows students to broadcast their learning and be excited about it! I am so excited about this tool right now that I can't wait to use it. I have actually been listening the last half hour and it is wonderful! This would be great for students to show off their work, also for those band and music students to provide some entertainment live as well! This would also be great for primary grades because there are so many things that could broadcast: poems, songs, a journal entry, etc.

Royan Lee
@royanlee
The Spicy Learning Blog
Something that interested me about Royan was the fact that his classroom was paperless. I remember a while ago on the news there was a high school somewhere in Saskatchewan that was making the change to be a paperless school. While the idea seems a tad frightening it is also SO; exciting at the same time because it is bringing in today's technology along with being environmentally friendly for the most part. I'm not sure how well this would work with primary students because it is so important for them to be able to learn to draw and write and hold a writing tool properly. So for the younger grades, I do not see it being beneficial for being one hundred percent paperless but to for sure have technology be a big part of the classroom. (It IS awesome and beneficial for middle years, I bet they love it!)

Clarence Fisher
@glassbeed
Remote Access
I found it interesting that Clarence talked about differentiation and technology and said that students won't always be motivated by the same tools. This is something I never really had thought about before. Just like teachers differentiate learning all around the classroom, it is important to differentiate the tools the students use and how they use them. I am now aware of the differing technology needs for all students and have definitely put much more thought into this. 

The presenters were great and all shared many valuable ideas for us to use in our future classrooms! It's too bad I wasn't able to attend this session live and connect with them live as I was working. It is great that I am able to follow these educators on Twitter to be able to connect whenever I need.

Tech Task #9 - Are You Well Googled?

Here are the results of my name Googled. All the information that comes up is actually about me as I have a pretty uncommon last name. Most of the things that come up are about Pinterest, Prezi, and my blogs. I was surprised that Twitter and Facebook didn't come up in the search. In the next nine pages my name comes up a lot with more Pinterest, TeachersPayTeachers and Stampin' Up! pages that I am on as well as online obituaries. I found it interesting how Good Reads is the top thing that comes up on my search because its a book app I downloaded in December and haven't even used since then. Also, my Google+ account shows up but it isn't something I use regularly...or at all. 

I am pleased with the results although in the future I would like to see my blogs to one of the top search results. I am hoping to create classroom blogs in the future. All my results are really positive so I am happy with that.

Tech Task #8 - Blogging from Mobile Device

Hi everyone! I feel like I've been away from my blog for a while. I have to admit, the past few weeks have been tremendously busy! I can finally feel the end of the semester..but not the end of winter.

I am really hating the amount of snow that is still here. Last year at this time, it had all been melted. I watched a video last night of my friend ditch boarding (wakeboarding in waterfilled ditches) on St. Patricks Day last year. It's starting to get really sad because I cannot yet see the end of winter soon.

I am excited because next year, I will not see snow once! (Hopefully!) I found out last night that I have been offered a position to teach in Australia for a year. I've accepted the offer and I'm really quite anxious! Everything will happen pretty quick as I leave in July, so the next four months will be spent working as many shifts as I can, getting a VISA, an Australia Teaching License and a bunch of other paperwork and planning. I'm very excited and grateful that I have been given this fabulous opportunity.

This was a post from my phone using the Blogger app for iPhones!

Tech Task #8 - QR Codes

I like QR Codes because they are a quick and easy way to access any kind of data. I see QR codes almost everywhere I go and I like scanning them to see where they will take me. They are on the Tim Horton's tills when you order a coffee, I've seen them in restaurants where you scan the code to get the cocktail or wine menu, and I've seen them recently on the Co-op Fuel Up to Win game board! They are seemingly all around, but I hardly ever seen anyone (other than myself) scanning them. 

The QR Code I produced takes scanner directly to my baking blog. I put the code on the back of my business cards so that people can immediately be directed to my blog. The people I gave them to turned the card around and asked, "What's this for?" and so I explained.

I think the problem with QR codes is that you need to download a QR Code Reader. I think Smart phones should come already equipped with a QR reader since there are so many QR codes out there waiting to be scanned. Downloading a QR reader takes the ease and quickness out of scanning a QR code (if you don't already have a reader). The people I gave my cards to were kind of thinking "why would I go to the hassle of downloading and scanning this QR code rather than googling it" -at least thats the impression I got from them. 

Never the less, I think they are useful and I was brainstorming about somethings I could do with QR Codes in the classroom. I got really excited! How AWESOME would it be to make up a little scavenger hunt and they had to use an iPad (or iPod, providing there are some to use) and they have to find the QR codes and scan them and it would either come up with an education video, facts, whatever you what!! I think it would be SO FUN! 

Here's my code if you wanted to give it a scanny scan. 

Tech Task #7 - IFTTT Recipes

Tech Task #7 required us to set up an account and make recipes on IFTTT. IFTTT stands for "IF THIS THAN THAT" which allows you to create "recipes" or connections in a statement that will trigger your "ingredients" or channels/social media spaces. You can make your own recipes any way you choose! I've gotta say, this is probably one of the coolest and easiest ways to stay connected!

Here are two recipes I have already created. 

If BLOGGER then TWITTER: 

This is a recipe I linked to both my blogger account and twitter account. What this recipe will do is it will tweet a message that I specified to include that I made a new blog post, the name of the post, labels from the post, and a link to the post. We will test this out after I post this post! I love this because I usually always forget to tweet out my new blog posts. This requires NO thinking or remembering on my part, IFTTT does it all for me! 

If INSTAGRAM then TWITTER:

Here is another recipe I created and linked to both my Instagram and Twitter accounts. Just like the one above, this recipe will tweet my new Instagram posts when I post pictures. I enjoy using Instagram but I rarely tweet out my images, mainly because I forget (I'm a forgetful person!). This will tweet out the caption and hashtags of of my post along with a link to the picture! This is so exciting, I will have to post a new Instagram to give this a go!


I will more than likely be creating more IFTTT recipes because I feel that they are just so handy! I like that you can specify and customize the actions and ingredients to make the recipe work for YOU!

If you haven't already, give it a go!