Well since my last post I have completed a second student teaching placement, worked all summer, started my 5th and final year of my university career, and almost completed a third student teaching placement.
I decided I should start blogging again, I really enjoyed it when I started, but I have just become preoccupied with "life."
Maybe to start I should talk about my second placement in a grade 7/8 multi-level classroom. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot from my cooperating teacher. She used so much technology in her classroom and really had the students engaged in everything she did in her class. I ended up teaching a social studies unit that I had created on Ancient Rome, which was fun, but after I completed it I found so many other things I would have loved to have done. I also did many science lessons, that my cooperating teacher and I created together, and I taught. The group of kids I had were also very smart and pushed me in my thinking, when asked many questions.
The class used the ipads on a regular basis as well as my cooperating teacher used the smart board everyday in her lessons. From this I learned so many things, and I have a list of awesome apps that fill up pages in a notebook. Student teaching in this class was an awesome experience, and I learned more in those 7 weeks then I had in the weeks prior of sitting in a classroom. The best experience is just to put yourself in front of a class and teach.
The summer flew by, and here we are. I have two weeks left in my fall placement, and am thinking about wrapping up the first semester.
I cannot say how much I am loving elementary school. I am teaching in a grade two class with 18 students and I feel like I have found where I want to be. I am planning like crazy, teaching full time and loving it. My cooperating teachers are extremely helpful and really letting me explore and take in the whole teaching experience.
I planned a whole unit on "Community" and the kids have really taken to the activities and I feel like they will just pick up whatever you throw at them.
My mornings consist of ELA, which is daily five, journaling, poem learning, brain breaks and plenty of fun. They love to do daily five and sometimes ask to do it. I try and mix things up a little bit, just so its not the same thing everyday, and they are always willing to do anything. In the afternoons we do math workshop, which again they are crazy about (anything that involves moving around and different activities they love) as well as social studies and art occasionally. I am just loving everything about grade two. :)
Anyway, my plan is to post some of the stuff we do in class, some of the resources I use etc. So stayed tuned, I will keep this blog going!!!
-LB
Sunday, 3 November 2013
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
Things I Have Learned
Well folks, I have FINALLY completed my final project. I have learned so much throughout this course and I could have added a lot more now that I think of it. This project was a real challenge for me, not coming up with things I have learned but creating the powerpoint and adding audio and then syncing it together so it all fit. I guess that's another thing you can add to the "Things I have Learned." I really enjoyed being in this class and I learned a lot of valuable "stuff." I hope I can take another course like this again next year to help expand on the stuff I have taken away from this year.
So here is my final project. It took a lot out of me this past week....I'm glad I finally got it done!
#thingsihavelearned
-LB
So here is my final project. It took a lot out of me this past week....I'm glad I finally got it done!
#thingsihavelearned
-LB
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Presentations- So many things to learn
Ok, I lied a little in my last post about that being our last mandatory one! Ooops sorry. So yesterday in class we did some presentations on research we had done on education and technology related topics, and it was really fun and informative. Our group did a little presentation entitled "The Internet, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" if you would like to check it out here's the link https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ErYv_zr4MNtcYhiK5iqU9O64-vkTF1lqO-A3bAtl3W4/edit
It gives you some food for thought about the internet and its uses ETC.
Anyway there were a few other presentations, and they were all very well done, quite engaging and had plenty of useful information. I found one presentation that really stuck out. It was entitled "How not to steal from the Internet." As a University student you think you know how to cite sources and that you'll never plagiarize because you don't want to get that AD on your transcript, but in actuality we do it anyway. When we make presentations we add pictures from Google images and never say where we got them from or "give credit where credit is due." So this got me thinking, how many times have I taken some information from the internet and not cited it? Probably too many to count now. So this presentation gave us helpful resources for ourselves as well as for our students on the proper way to use resources we have gathered from the internet and what many of the "Terms of Use" categories mean. I think I'll keep this presentation and its resources handy.
I would like to give everyone a big high five for a job well done. I feel like we have learned a lot about the internet and technology in this class (Uhhh duh Lindsey this class is called Internet for Educators!) stuff that I never would have thought to talk about. So yay us!
-LB
It gives you some food for thought about the internet and its uses ETC.
Anyway there were a few other presentations, and they were all very well done, quite engaging and had plenty of useful information. I found one presentation that really stuck out. It was entitled "How not to steal from the Internet." As a University student you think you know how to cite sources and that you'll never plagiarize because you don't want to get that AD on your transcript, but in actuality we do it anyway. When we make presentations we add pictures from Google images and never say where we got them from or "give credit where credit is due." So this got me thinking, how many times have I taken some information from the internet and not cited it? Probably too many to count now. So this presentation gave us helpful resources for ourselves as well as for our students on the proper way to use resources we have gathered from the internet and what many of the "Terms of Use" categories mean. I think I'll keep this presentation and its resources handy.
I would like to give everyone a big high five for a job well done. I feel like we have learned a lot about the internet and technology in this class (Uhhh duh Lindsey this class is called Internet for Educators!) stuff that I never would have thought to talk about. So yay us!
-LB
The End is Near...What does the future hold?
Well folks, the end of the semester is nearing and for many in this class, you will move on to bigger and better things. This is one of the last "mandatory" posts for my internet for educators class and I really hope I can keep up the blog posts as I embark on my second student teaching placement because I have really come to enjoy it and my cooperating teacher, I found out, is the technology "guru" in her school, so this was really exciting for me to find out.
Education has come a long way, even from when I started school, which really wasn't that long ago. Technology infused classrooms are where education is at right now. Technology is how the 21st century learner is going to learn , we have moved past the textbook phase and into the tablet phase. Technology is the "it" thing and so as educators we must accept this and go with it. Looking at the Horizon Report I was surprised at all the ways technology is being brought into the classroom. All of the tools and techniques that involve learning through technology really lets all learners have the opportunity to use technology.There was a piece of information that stuck out to me from the report and that was, at what point is there too much technology? How do we as teachers know what to use and what not to use. We can't keep using the same types of technology and techniques over and over again because then we aren't growing and changing at all either. I guess as teachers we will have to figure it out ourselves, it will take some mistake making but I think eventually as we find out our own unique teaching styles it will become a simpler task. The future of education has lots of changes ahead of it. But I know one thing, it will be very technology oriented. We won't see the effects of these implementations for a while, as everything takes time, but I am sure the benefits of having the world at our fingertips in the classroom will be great. Taking this class and learning about all the exciting things that education and technology have to offer makes me even more excited to be heading into the classroom in two weeks. Although it will be a challenge, I'm ready to learn. Being a 21st century learner is a great advantage and I can't wait to be a 21st century connected educator.
Next up is a little slideshow that is a presentation and a mashup of everything I learned and taken out of this course!
-LB
Education has come a long way, even from when I started school, which really wasn't that long ago. Technology infused classrooms are where education is at right now. Technology is how the 21st century learner is going to learn , we have moved past the textbook phase and into the tablet phase. Technology is the "it" thing and so as educators we must accept this and go with it. Looking at the Horizon Report I was surprised at all the ways technology is being brought into the classroom. All of the tools and techniques that involve learning through technology really lets all learners have the opportunity to use technology.There was a piece of information that stuck out to me from the report and that was, at what point is there too much technology? How do we as teachers know what to use and what not to use. We can't keep using the same types of technology and techniques over and over again because then we aren't growing and changing at all either. I guess as teachers we will have to figure it out ourselves, it will take some mistake making but I think eventually as we find out our own unique teaching styles it will become a simpler task. The future of education has lots of changes ahead of it. But I know one thing, it will be very technology oriented. We won't see the effects of these implementations for a while, as everything takes time, but I am sure the benefits of having the world at our fingertips in the classroom will be great. Taking this class and learning about all the exciting things that education and technology have to offer makes me even more excited to be heading into the classroom in two weeks. Although it will be a challenge, I'm ready to learn. Being a 21st century learner is a great advantage and I can't wait to be a 21st century connected educator.
Next up is a little slideshow that is a presentation and a mashup of everything I learned and taken out of this course!
-LB
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Show and Tell, Technology Style
I have three apps that I would like to share with the blogger world (and my class). I was doing a little thinking about some of the struggles or maybe things in class that we used or did that could be enhanced by technology. So the first thing I thought of was writing. Students struggle with ideas about what to write about whether it be in their daily journal or for writers workshop. I found an app that has thousands of writing prompts on it. You click on it, give your phone or Ipad or Ipod a shake (I downloaded it on my iPhone) and BOOM a writing idea that's a little bit out of the ordinary but should spark their imagination.
Another idea that came up when I was looking back on my student teaching experience, and some classes that I took last semester that used the smart board was a lot was surveying or polling of information. Surveying the class is a good activator and its interesting to see the different ideas in the classroom, and since its private there is no peer pressure so you kind of get an honest answer. I know there are some good polling applications on the smart board that involve a "clicker" but a cool one I saw on a fellow Internet for Educators blog was one that was online and the class could use their smart phones and text in their reply. Very Cool.
The website is: http://www.polleverywhere.com/. Give it a look if you can.
Another interesting tool is called DropBox, anyone heard of it?
Well you send out an invitation to receive a certain folder and you download the program or "Box" to your computer or smartphone and whenever someone adds something to that folder in their box, whether it be an assignment or music or something everyone that got the invite for that folder will also receive the same information. It is also an easy way to share large files. I was introduced to it a couple of months ago, and I use it to share new music with friends!
I am sure you could apply it to a classroom setting as well!
That's all for my show and tell technology style!
-LB
Teaching Veterans Keeping Up with the Pace of Technology in the Classroom
An option for last weeks mandatory post was to talk about the stuff we discussed in class, well since I didn't think it was safe to travel back to B-Town (It stormed and the roads were snow packed and icy) I missed this class, so I could post on ideas and topics that popped up after doing tech tasks and reading other blogs. As I read my friend Jenn's Blog (you should give it a read!) I was inspired to talk about technology closer to home but also a topic in the education world. I decided to talk about technology and education viewed from a very experienced, excellent and inspiring teacher. (She's a great mom too!) The idea also came after I listened to another podcast entitled "Keeping up with the Pace of Education Technology."
My mom who retired last June, taught in the public school system for 35 years. She graduated from Brandon University in 1978, a time where you hand wrote everything, and only had to be in school for 4 years in order to obtain your B.Ed. Mrs.Braun has taught everything from Kindergarten to Grade 8. She spent the last 20 years in a Grade 4 classroom and here saw the evolution of technology. The first computers in the school were ones that used those huge floppy disks and were mostly used to play games (really, really, lame games) very little word processing and of course no internet. Those were then replaced with the white dells with huge monitors that weighed a hundred pounds and here word processing was used more and more in the classroom. Soon there wasn't just a computer lab but a computer in every classroom on a rolly cart. And soon after that all those white heavy, clunky dells were replaced with the coloured apple computers. (click on the link if you don't know which ones I'm talking about) Now there was computer class put into the timetable, and it was mostly spent on "all the right type a typing program to help develop typing skills. Internet access was now available but very limited because not a lot was known how to best utilize it in the classroom. Professional Development sessions were offered to help develop computer skills and resources for teachers. For someone who had not grown up with a computer or used a computer in University, like all the new teachers, she embraced it and tried to learn along side her students. Soon after came apple laptops and the apple monitor which are now used today. The school gave her her own Macbook and she managed to navigate that on her own (with little help from me.) While all of this computer business was going on, the smart board technology was out there and she wanted it in her classroom. She saw the opportunities and potential that it had for her classroom. She asked for one for her classroom and finally one was installed, the first in her building! She began using it daily in her lessons and when she had student teachers in her classroom they showed her all sorts of new stuff that could be done on the smart board. Technology and all it has to offer was fully accepted by a "veteran" teacher. She used the internet and video in her classroom on a daily basis, just to provide a different perspective on different lessons she was teaching.
The point of this post was to show that even though my mom began her teaching career in a time when there was little to no technology available to be used in the classroom, she embraced the changes as technology became more readily available and learned along with her students to make sure she was giving them the best opportunity to stay connected and "on top" of this technology based society. I think there is often a stigma that older more experienced teachers have trouble integrating technology or don't want to integrate technology into their classroom. But it's benefits are so many that they are not only limiting their students but also themselves.
Technology is changing the way we teach, everyone should try and use it to its full potential. The class I am taking is helping me to understand this, and is also helping me get the most out of technology for my classroom. I am excited to try and use some of the things I have learnt in this class in 2 weeks in my Field Experience placement.
-LB
My mom who retired last June, taught in the public school system for 35 years. She graduated from Brandon University in 1978, a time where you hand wrote everything, and only had to be in school for 4 years in order to obtain your B.Ed. Mrs.Braun has taught everything from Kindergarten to Grade 8. She spent the last 20 years in a Grade 4 classroom and here saw the evolution of technology. The first computers in the school were ones that used those huge floppy disks and were mostly used to play games (really, really, lame games) very little word processing and of course no internet. Those were then replaced with the white dells with huge monitors that weighed a hundred pounds and here word processing was used more and more in the classroom. Soon there wasn't just a computer lab but a computer in every classroom on a rolly cart. And soon after that all those white heavy, clunky dells were replaced with the coloured apple computers. (click on the link if you don't know which ones I'm talking about) Now there was computer class put into the timetable, and it was mostly spent on "all the right type a typing program to help develop typing skills. Internet access was now available but very limited because not a lot was known how to best utilize it in the classroom. Professional Development sessions were offered to help develop computer skills and resources for teachers. For someone who had not grown up with a computer or used a computer in University, like all the new teachers, she embraced it and tried to learn along side her students. Soon after came apple laptops and the apple monitor which are now used today. The school gave her her own Macbook and she managed to navigate that on her own (with little help from me.) While all of this computer business was going on, the smart board technology was out there and she wanted it in her classroom. She saw the opportunities and potential that it had for her classroom. She asked for one for her classroom and finally one was installed, the first in her building! She began using it daily in her lessons and when she had student teachers in her classroom they showed her all sorts of new stuff that could be done on the smart board. Technology and all it has to offer was fully accepted by a "veteran" teacher. She used the internet and video in her classroom on a daily basis, just to provide a different perspective on different lessons she was teaching.
The point of this post was to show that even though my mom began her teaching career in a time when there was little to no technology available to be used in the classroom, she embraced the changes as technology became more readily available and learned along with her students to make sure she was giving them the best opportunity to stay connected and "on top" of this technology based society. I think there is often a stigma that older more experienced teachers have trouble integrating technology or don't want to integrate technology into their classroom. But it's benefits are so many that they are not only limiting their students but also themselves.
Technology is changing the way we teach, everyone should try and use it to its full potential. The class I am taking is helping me to understand this, and is also helping me get the most out of technology for my classroom. I am excited to try and use some of the things I have learnt in this class in 2 weeks in my Field Experience placement.
-LB
Web Based Courses
Today in class we had 2 presenters come in and talk to the class about web based courses or WBC. I have never used a web based course before. But they are used a lot here in Manitoba. As Donald and Sophia mentioned there are basically 4 ways to use web based learning,
1. As part of a blended learning environment
2. As a teaching resource
3. With a face to face class
4. With actual distance learners
Web based learning is a great alternative for rural school divisions that don't have the numbers to support upper level courses like pre-calculus, calculus, physics, etc. Web based courses can be used by a few students in a number of high schools and they can all video in and talk to the teacher and learn that way. This is a better option compared to not taking it at all. Another great reason for web based learning that was talked about was credit recovery. This means that if a student failed a course, they can take the units that they struggled with online without having to re-do the whole course. WBC are also a great alternative for someone who is motivated but cannot succeed in a classroom environment.
As with anything there are concerns with this type of learning. As a pre-service teacher that will be looking for a teaching job in the next couple of years, having the web based courses cuts jobs. There is only one teacher needed for 5 different classes instead of 5 teachers, one for each class. All of this technology is great and it has so many benefits especially for those students who cannot be in a classroom for various reasons. Yet the concerns for me and my Bachelor of Education class are many. Now I am just wondering what your thoughts on this are. Should web based learning be promoted more? Are my concerns legitimate?
-LB
1. As part of a blended learning environment
2. As a teaching resource
3. With a face to face class
4. With actual distance learners
Web based learning is a great alternative for rural school divisions that don't have the numbers to support upper level courses like pre-calculus, calculus, physics, etc. Web based courses can be used by a few students in a number of high schools and they can all video in and talk to the teacher and learn that way. This is a better option compared to not taking it at all. Another great reason for web based learning that was talked about was credit recovery. This means that if a student failed a course, they can take the units that they struggled with online without having to re-do the whole course. WBC are also a great alternative for someone who is motivated but cannot succeed in a classroom environment.
As with anything there are concerns with this type of learning. As a pre-service teacher that will be looking for a teaching job in the next couple of years, having the web based courses cuts jobs. There is only one teacher needed for 5 different classes instead of 5 teachers, one for each class. All of this technology is great and it has so many benefits especially for those students who cannot be in a classroom for various reasons. Yet the concerns for me and my Bachelor of Education class are many. Now I am just wondering what your thoughts on this are. Should web based learning be promoted more? Are my concerns legitimate?
-LB
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