The Pause: ..."pining for the fjords" or in my case the Rocky Mountains!

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