The online application I chose to do my show and tell on is screencast-o-matic.com. I chose this because it is a site that I have used before, and I have actually recommended it to others in #I4Ed.
Screencast-O-Matic is a screencast site that is very simple to use. It allows you to capture what you are doing on your screen, as well as your voice from a microphone, all at the same time and without having to join the 2 files afterwards.
Having a digital footprint is very important for me being a pre-service teacher that will soon be on the hunt for a job. If a principal or administrator looks me up on the internet, they should be able to get a good idea of who I am as a person and a professional from what they find about me. With that being said, I (and all other pre-service teachers) need to ensure that what they will find about us is what we want them to see... a high-achieving professional, not an immature 'hooligan'.
Now... let's see what we can find about me!
Google: At the very bottom of page 1 is a link to my Twitter account, and on page 2 I am mentioned in an obituary. Under Google Images, nothing comes up.
Dogpile: On page 1 I found 2 posts I had made on a snowmobile forum, that is all.
Yahoo: Page 1 I had a post a made to a snowmobile forum, that is all.
So what did I learn from doing this? Well, I learned a lot in a very little.
I learned that there is next to nothing about me on the internet when you search my name (and nothing of relevance).
I learned my Gido (grandpa) Steve Melnyk who is 97 YEARS OLD has more about him on the internet than I do (since he has a house in Brandon and it is listed on Canada411 and other sites).
In these next few months I have a lot of work to do to get my online presence to the point I want it to be. If I keep building up my PLN, I'm sure that will make it that much easier.
There were some (all!) great presentations on Tuesday and a TON of awesome information from each one. I first want to give a shout out to all #I4Ed'ers for making it such an informative class!
For anyone that was not able to make it to class, or if you want to watch our video again, here it is...
Cyber-Bullying:
#BYOD: I think this is a great idea. There is one point that will for sure come up when anyone speaks of this topic, and it will be this: How will you get administration on board? It is true that there is a good number of the more "mature" (to not be offensive) crowd that is using technology, and even more in-depth than some of us that have grown up with it most of our lives. This could be because of having to learn how to use it anyways, so they might as well go all out, or it could simply be because they are wiser and see the value in it. With that being said though, I know a lot of the "mature" crowd who still struggle with technology. My father, for example, refuses to learn new skills on the computer, but spends 2-4 hours on it every day. For him to use the internet he has all of the sites he wants to look at in his bookmarks so he doesn't even have to type (he is an old school 'hunt-n-peck' guy).
Either extreme will be possible for us to have as new teachers in the coming year. I think it will just be a matter of pointing out what exactly is so beneficial for the students and why they cannot gain those skills without technology... and to think of the children!
How NOT To Steal From The Internet: This is a huge issue in the schools that students do not even know (or care) about. Sure a teacher may tell their students to make sure they list where they got their information from, but why? That is the topic that really needs to be covered.
During my one student teaching placement I got to watch students give a presentation on an animal of their choice, and how they adapted to their environment. After looking at the resources some kids gave, it was a little shocking (I guess shocking wouldn't be the word... more like taken back). "Wikipedia", "Google", and "Internet" were just a few of the resources that were given, and from more than just one student too! This obviously says the students have not been taught how to give references and why to give references, just to give references. It is a scary thought that this is happening all around the world in classrooms, but the fact of the matter is it will always be this way if we do not do something about it.
The Internet: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly: My thought on this topic is simple... Everything starts as a good, and it takes something or someone to turn it bad or ugly.
I believe everything on the internet starts as a positive. If someone is posting information onto Wikipedia, for example, their thought of sharing is good! However, when they have the notion to post false information instead of true, that is where it turns.
Students of today's classroom have to be knowledgeable on what good and bad information look like, and the only way to do this is teach them about it! If we are able to create that knowledge, then maybe, one day, there will be no need for filters. That is one BIG maybe though...
Filtering and Blocking in Schools: This is a topic that will receive much support from both sides, but also some in the middle. There will always be people thinking there should be no internet filtering at school, some will think there should be thorough filtering, and some may think there needs to be some filtering, but not excessive amounts... That is where I stand.
I feel filtering is needed in schools and we will never get away from that. It is something that needs to be there to protect the students, the teachers, the administration, and anyone else in the school. The line for me though is when schools have vague filters that may block something that is entirely educational.
The filters need to be specific so they only interrupt unwanted searches and activities. Like the example given in class, if searching Mars Explorer, it may be blocked simple because of the fact that if put together, the two words look like this: marsexplorer. I don't think it matters how much time we spend on making the filters relevant though, there will be some thinks that will always be blocked if using any sort of filter.
So for week 6 of the course, we did not have a guest speaker in class which lead my brain to log out of Blogger (and even log out of the course to an extent... oops!). This then posed a problem when I looked at the weekly blog post guide and it said to post about things we were talking about... umm... can a get a whole post out of that? I just heard my brain yell back "No... was on vacation!", so I guess that option is out. Which leads me to look at what has arose while going through this course.
Looking back at the tech tasks, there were a few that came easily, and a few not so much. There were also a few that intimidated me before even reading the description of them.
TT #4: RSS Reader & feed - "OH MY GOD! WHAT ON EARTH IS A RRS OR WHATEVER IT'S CALLED?!?" *thinking to myself... why did I switch out of phys ed methods?*
Now after actually taking time to read what a RSS Reader was, and maybe getting some hints on the best one to use, I took the big jump to reader.google.com and couldn't believe what I actually saw. "Was this all there was to setting up a feed? All I have to do is enter their blog address and BAM it's on there? No way!" Conundrum #1 solved!
TT #5: Organize your cool sites! (Bookmarking) - "Ugggggghhhhhhhh................ Pinterest..............."
Since then, I have learned there are more bookmarking sites out there other than Pinterest (although... as much as I don't want to admit it... I am spending much more time on that darn site than I should be!). I tried my hand at Diigo to start with. My short patience showed with this site, and it was onto Peartrees I go! I found much more relief using Pearltrees as soon as I signed up. I love how it is laid out (I have many pet peeves, and a non-uniform layout is one of them... Darn you Pinterest once again). I like how I can see everything right there on the main screen, and if I want to go further down the "tree", I just have to click on it and it will open only those branches. Diigo just seemed too much like opening my favorites bar on the browser (which I have laid out in folders too).
These were definitely my two most "adventurous" tech tasks to date. I'm sure there will be more as I hammer through the remainder of them in the next week, but those will be another story.
If I were to actually look at what my network was like even two years ago, the web would be much smaller. There would be no Twitter (Thanks to Mike for making it mandatory!), Maple, Google Reader, FaceTime or Skype, Ning, Moodle, or even Gmail. So that basically leaves me with Facebook, Hotmail, and YouTube. My network WAS basic, IS decent now, and WILL continue to get larger and more useful as time goes on.
And what would the 21st Century student's look like?
As for a student, I feel as though they are not connected through a lot of different resources, but connected a lot through one resource (ie. Facebook!). This may just be my opinion, but it seems like every time I see a student on their cell phone or a computer, there is always a tab with Facebook running. Even if it's in the background, it's still there.
The edublogger I chose to write on is The P.E. Geek AKA Mr. Robbo AKA Jarrod Robinson. He is a physical education teacher from Australia. He is a large believer in mobile education since it is useful for a mobile class such as physical education (go figure!).
On his blog, Mr. Robbo posts a lot of great apps to use with Android and iOS devices. There is everything from attendance, to assessment, and even games with the rules and all equipment needed. There is a small fee for the apps, but they would be very useful from my phys ed point of view. For a complete list of the apps, click here.
The main reason I decided to follow Mr. Robbo is simply because it is a phys ed blog (my first teachable). I've sifted through a good number of blogs and found a decent number that were focused on math (my other teachable), but I wanted to focus on phys ed and increase my resource list for that subject. Following this blog will do that, and more for me. It is incredible the number of resources, apps, and ideas that are presented on the blog. It was very overwhelming to start into it because of this reason, but after awhile, I learned to sit back, breathe, and just click and read away!
Looking more in depth at the apps available on the website, I could not bring myself to paying for them at this point. HOWEVER, when I am actually making money teaching instead of paying money to be taught, it will be a different story. There are some great videos explaining each of them on Youtube.
Follow The P.E. Geek...
Blog: http://thepegeek.com/
Twitter: @mrrobbo
Youtube: jazrob86
What are web-based courses you ask? It is very simple: a course that is based on the web! With a WBC, a student can be in a small town and can be taking a course (over the web) with an instructor in a larger city that is out of their area. This allows a lot of the smaller communities without the high enrollment numbers to be able to offer all courses to students even if they do not have a teacher in the school to teach it. That instructor can be responsible for students across the province all from one room.
What's the definition of distance under these circumstances? It is simply when a student and teacher are separated. I was somewhat shocked by this definition because according to it, a student could be at one point in the city and the teacher could be at the other end of the city, maybe twenty minutes away, and that is even considered distance learning.
Who needs it? Well here are just a few examples that we talked about:
- Students from rural schools where there isn't enough enrollment to appoint a teacher to that class (ie. Physics, Psychology, etc). This allows the students to engage in all (or most) of the courses they want that may not be offered at their smaller and/or rural school.
- Students who's timetables do not allow for them to take the course. This may be due having another optional class scheduled during that time slot, or if the course is optional and from a different grade level they may be a higher chance for it not to work.
- Students who may not be able to attend class for a period of time (ie. student pregnancy, travelling for athletics). This way the student is still able to keep up with their studies even though they have no face-to-face contact with a teacher.
These seem like that could be a useful tool if used correctly. I know for one of my student teaching placements my cooperating teacher had a fancy machine for having students from other schools join her during grade 12 Pre-Calculus class. She said at the beginning of the year she had 3 students with her, but by the time I showed up in October, the machine was pushed into a corner of the room, with a stack of chairs in front of it, and a nice layer of dust on top. So obviously this wasn't used properly, but if it was, maybe it wouldn't be sporting the dust on top.
Well, I have to say, my whole thoughts of Twitter have change since I started #I4Ed. The only real question in my mind right now is, why did I wait so long to start?!
My first impressions of the site was it was basically like a character-counted version of Facebook. I also went on to think it was more for people to share their life stories and every minute happenings such as "going out to take the dog for the walk" or "in the bathroom, having problems". I also thought the only real people to follow were celebrities or professional athletes, which I had no interest in either.
Now that time has passed and I have taken some time to browse through Twitter and follow some peers and educators we had present in our I4Ed class, I have split my Twitter mindset into three categories: professional, personal, and recreational. Professional is the category where past and present University Prof's are, as well as teachers, administrators, and even certain websites (ie education.com). Personal covers peers, friends, and even coworkers. Any companies, groups, and athletes I follow would go under recreational. Even thought they are not categorized when I go onto Twitter, as I read through the new tweets I'm always thinking "professional...professional...personal...recreational...professional" and visualizing each going into their 'folder'.
Moving forward from now, there are a few things I want to do to make use of the full potential of Twitter. The first is to learn more about hashtags. I still do not know fully what the purpose of them is, so that is on my to do list. Second is just to tweet more often and link to certain sites and ideas. This I'm sure will come easier when I am out teaching and have more resources coming in and out.
Even though our session with Clarence Fisher was short, it was jam-packed with information. He gave me a lot to think about, way more than I am going to mention here.
When I think back to my days in high school. there are a lot of differences, the major one being technology. As I graduated, my school was receiving their first Smart Board. It was utilized by only one teacher in the entire school, and was only for the last few months I was there. It was a very abstract concept to some teachers as they had been in the profession for 20+ years already and did not like the idea. Now, in 2013, If we are given an opportunity such as that to try a new device, we must take that and run with it. We must change our game plan to accommodate the changes that come to the system, the curriculum, the devices we use, and anything else that may effect our teaching.
2. We need to focus on two big ideas behind education:
Engagement: Students need to be kept engaged during a lesson to make it effective. If the student is able to shut their brain off at any point, or stop listening to the teacher, the teacher has most likely lost them for the remainder of the class. If the student is kept busy (not just with busy work, but with meaningful tasks and assignments), their brain will not get that chance to turn off and they will be able to learn much more than they think they are able to.
Passion-based learning and teaching: This really stems off engagement for me. If a student is engaged while learning a concept, they may consider that to be more favorable than if they don't care about it. By engaging the student, they will be able to learn better what is being taught and connect it with real life as well (they might need a little prompting for this part). The teacher also has to be passionate about what they are teaching. Students will pick up on if a teacher is fudging their way through a topic or an entire course and will give up on it to. It will be another classic case of monkey see, monkey do. But if the teacher cares about that topic and puts some effort into their lessons, the positive energy will rub off on the students (even the unmotivated ones) and they will do better.
Students now are posting more online than ever before, and they are not using a filter. They are posting inappropriate status', tweets, and even pictures of themselves getting drunk. Yeah, great idea. Then, a little down the road, they are applying for jobs and wondering why the are not getting them. Hmmm... I wonder why?! Maybe if they would use their head and actually think before they post, they may not be having that issue!
As pre-service teachers, we are constantly told we must teach the curriculum, but George brought up a good point regarding that... Teaching the children is our first job. You have to know how to teach the children in your class before you can attempt to teach them the curriculum. Without this step, you may have some issues transferring the knowledge and getting the children to have a deeper understanding of the material. By actually taking the time to teach the individuals, we may find out more about the students as well (learning disabilities, exceptionalities, etc).
We need to be school teachers, not just classroom teachers. A classroom teacher will only focus on their own room and their own students. Their intrigue and initiative gets left at the door when they walk out and they do not care what happens after that point. A school teacher, however, thinks of the entire school community as a whole. They collaborate with other teachers and resource staff, as well as treat all the students as if they were all in their class. This creates a much better sense of belonging for all and should be an overall goal for all schools and teachers.
