Like any good tour guide on a trip worth a recommendation, they have to give you an overview of what the plan is so that you don't stray off course or get pick-pocketed at the common tourist attractions. It's in the handbook - tour guiding 101. A heads up so to speak!
Okay, I made that up...
I do believe though that our job as a teacher is knowing and recognizing when there is an unsavory amount of use of social media that we have access to 24/7. I had a conversation recently with my youngest son who is in his first year of university about this very topic. I asked him, could he give me some perspective on whether he thought social media took up too much free-time for someone like him? He thought so but did not really articulate what could be done about it other than simply to hope for better will power. This got me thinking, and so I watched the following video by Dr. Cal Newport that was recommended to me. I believe that it is important to know about the 'other side', for the sake of our future students. Not talking about the negative side does not mean it doesn't exist. Being informed allows for the confidence to do something about a problem and to learn that yes we are the ones in control. This video is just under 14 minutes, you could start watching it at 6:50 to save time.
Watch the video! My takeaway message from the video though is this: 1. Social media is not essential - it's entertainment; 2. It is harmful and would need to have serious benefits to outweigh the negatives, on the continuum of thriving in the economy one is trading off high-value productivity time for easy to replicate and produce low-value fluff; 3.There is so much life to enjoy and find purpose in without social media. "Be on the road to awesome" just like Kid President says, thanks, Justin! "Create something that will make the world awesome."
Another part of my week was about why copyright matters by presenter John Finch. Note to self - DON'T be in the 3% minority that violates the copyright laws once a week in Manitoba! Use http://copyrightdecisiontool.ca/DecisionTool/
I'm going to make a go-to list of places to search for images and music that can be used as long as credit is given, just in case I need to play a game of musical chairs or a game of 'freeze' in the gym as
substitute teacher...but aren't those valid reasons to use music under the copyright law?
I took the advice from one of our professors this week, I spent some time searching for wisdom from the ages. This is a quote that I thought applied quite well to this course and ICT in the classroom:
"Always fall in with what you are asked to accept.
Take what is given, and make it over your way.
My aim in life has always been to hold my own
with whatever's going. Not against: with"
Robert Frost - Vogue, 14 March 1963
I find comfort in searching the past to make sense of today. It is the constant quest that cycles through every period and every generation in time. So, in the spirit of persisting with ICT in the classroom, I will share my thoughts on what I gladly embrace from the past week.
The most recent assignments that add to my ICT knowledge are slide shows, e-portfolio, and coming up next, the creation of a short video. Cheers, to my tech credibility rating increasing in my household!
I really enjoyed how our pixlr.com came together on "Learning is...". I found the animoto.com software to be user-friendly and I can easily imagine a variety of ways that it can be used in teaching. It was not difficult to select a template, photos, music and transitions. In the past, I have taken many photos on student field trips, retirement parties, baby showers, and special events that occur in the school or classroom. These photos ended up in what I have affectionately termed as 'digital no man's land' as a folder on my computer or external hard drive.
Applications of this software are numerous in the classroom: a mini-lesson, a tool for individual students or groups of students to show their learning. I also see myself down the road perhaps presenting in my own workshops and using a video slide show to share a collection of photos or quotes that I have curated that are relevant to my topic.
I also re-watched the videos that we were shown in class last week. I think it would be a brilliant idea for students to compile a collection of their own moments over the course of a term, a year, or longer as in William Hoffman's video. The Harold B Library 'Old Spice' style of commercial, Typography, "Who's on First?" Abbott and Costello, the Mash-up, Mary Poppins - Scary video by Chris Rule are all good jumping off points for student projects that will more than meet curricular outcomes. I now understand why the school division might block Youtube.com after watching the Elf movie as a mash-up thriller, though. It is a good idea to use these types of videos by embedding them into a presentation and have students react and perhaps create their own versions without getting bogged down by watching an endless stream of videos. Let them do that on their own time at home...yes parenting teens was a blast...
I attended the Eventbrite presentations and I will attend more in the future if I can. They all presented powerful hands-on experience of Project-Based Projects, The Flipped Classroom and Creating Meaningful Tasks for students in the classroom.
In case you missed it on G+ community here are the summaries.
Powerful Projects: Pint-Sized Edition, Devon Caldwell (Oak Lake Community School) and Leah Obach (Hamiota Elementary School)
Supported by today's technology, project-based learning is engaging and exciting for students and teachers. Good project-based learning provides opportunities for meaningful and authentic learning, while promoting the development of important 21st-century skills. Powerful projects help students meet curricular outcomes while they are making a difference in the world. Join this session to hear a small, pint-sized sampling of powerful projects that young learners have led in our classrooms!
The Flipped Classroom, Matteo DiMuro (Math, Computer teacher, Vincent Massey High School, Brandon)
Classroom flipping is an instructional strategy where course content is consumed outside of the class in order to maximize learning activities and teacher contact time during class hours. An introduction to flipping your classroom, including why you should flip and how you can begin flipping your classes. Resources and flipping techniques will be shared.
All the World's a Stage, Tyler Letkeman (ELA teacher, Vincent Massey High School, Brandon)
Using Technology and the Internet to Create Meaningful Tasks. Turn the grumbles of, "What's the point? When am I ever going to use this?" into whispers of, "Hey, I might actually like this!" by providing audiences and tasks that extend beyond the classroom.
This evening is sponsored by ManACE - www.manace.ca
I've realized recently that there are a lot of people that like quotes as much as I do, so here is a quote that makes me smile every time I read it, mainly because I hear Eric Idle's voice in my head as I read it:
“There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” Douglas Adams
Trying to reach a level of proficiency with all my classes is a struggle every week: studying hard, participating, and taking on new challenges. ICT has been the class that has pushed me further outside of my comfort zone than I thought possible and challenged me to feel like all the struggle is worth it.
The first great surprise came after being reluctant to start a blog. I trusted that in the process I would learn something useful to share with colleagues and future students and so I plodded forward. Blogging has given me so much more in terms of my personal growth and I am not just saying that.
I have been struggling with the part of becoming a teacher that means I must 'brag about myself', I am all about making connections with the students but telling other adults what is special about myself whether it's for an interview or on a resume, not so much. I like to let the facts speak for themselves and if you have questions I am very comfortable with entering a conversation that way.
So on to the next seismic shift - a web page! A new level of understanding myself as a life-long learner. An e-portfolio/web page is the ultimate 'brag about myself' forum. Will the effect be the same as the first time I clicked 'publish' on the blog? My gut feeling is yes, and the proof of that is that even just thinking about what to brag about is forcing me to clarify the essential questions of who I am as an educator and re-package my disjointed philosophy of teaching.
The jury is still out on whether the e-portfolio will land me a job or not, however, the process of learning how to create an e-portfolio is a practical one. As a teacher, some of my students and colleagues may have an interest in publishing a blog, vlog, etc. and I know I’d enjoy being able to share with them what I know and help them out. I am also looking forward to helping my two sons expand from their Instagram platform to blogs or vlogs this summer and who knows, maybe even a web page… This week I attended a workshop on workshops which I would love share more details on another blog. One tech tip that I will share with you right away though is the slide show software that was recommended. It is called Haiku Deck. Our presenter said it will change our lives when it comes to presentations. https://www.haikudeck.com/static/img/home/haiku_deck_screencast-solid-color-background_800p.mp4
It struck me this week that share seems to be the theme of the moment, has anyone else notice this? For example, my french methods class has set up Dropbox for sharing lessons, rubrics, language learning games and assignment instructions so that we will all have access to these resources even after we graduate next year. I am certain that I will be grateful to have access even after our class is done. Are the other methods classes doing similar things in their classes? I had an opportunity to reacquaint myself with my art appreciation side when I attended a Take 22 presentation given by Curt Shoultz. The presentation was based on chapter 11 of the book CREATING THINKING CLASSROOMS: Leading Educational Change for a 21st Century World By Garfield Gini-Newman and Roland Case. It is Shoultz' strong belief that sharing is the most important component of teaching. The Take 22 format of sharing with others in the education field his own professional development is a good example of his belief. He shared with us three great takeaways: his presentation/summary of chapter 11 of the textbook, a graphic organizer that he created for self-assessing artwork in an art class, and a Checklist for Creating Assessment-Rich Learning. Wow! The presentation by John Evans on the Maple Forem also placed a heavy emphasis on sharing for teachers. The Maple Website is designed to provide a network for teachers and other educational professionals. The new ELA curriculum is being introduced on this site so I will definitely be looking at it on a regular basis. I also remember a while back reading about how Millenials are defining the sharing economy similar to this article https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/275802 and so it is not surprising that the sharing of teaching resources stretches across cities, provinces, countries and the globe as Mr. Evans suggests.
In my last placement, I had an excellent CT that shared with me any resources I asked for, most of the items were within reach on her shelves. I made some copies of curriculum material that I needed to prepare the few lessons that I was responsible for creating on my own, and any questions I had were answered. I remember thinking that if I ask I shall receive but being so new to the complete francophone teaching environment I did not really know what to ask for. For instance, I did not know about an online software that is useful in checking french grammar on documents, BonPatron.com. For English grammar, Grammarly.com has been working very well for me in all the platforms I now use. Now with my basic knowledge of resources that are useful I have already started to compile a shareable document on GoogleDocs. The final word is this - Teaching without sharing is like reading Shakespeare alone in silence, "Shakespeare is meant to be viewed and heard" as Cameron Tataryn said just this past week.
The Globe Theatre, London, UK https://www.flickr.com/photos/jnaehler/3706177381/ .
