Personal Learning Journey!

For my final project I created a wiki for my school. The reason I chose to do this was for myself to get more comfortable with using a wiki so in the future I can use a wiki for staff meetings in my school. I plan on teaching my staff how to use a wiki with the one that I created. Using the wiki for staff meetings will help eliminate the use of so much paper and for the staff that are absent they can log onto the wiki when they return to see what they have missed. I am planning on using more technology in the school! The wiki that I have created can be found at bnschool.wikispaces

Technical disaster in Edmonton!

I am so frustrated with technical difficulties!!! The night before I left on holidays the power was out in Buffalo Narrows for 6 hours, I was trying to finish my last assinments for this class. So I had to take my work with me to Edmonton. The hotel that I booked in at has wireless (Or so I thought). My family went to the Battle of Alberta hockey game on Friday night and I stayed in the room to finish my bio video and my final blog. I was able to finish my video but I had no internet access in the hotel due to renovations. They told me that I would have internet access by Saturday so I continued to do my work. On Saturday I still did not have internet, now they say on Sunday. It never did happen, I was stressing in Edmonton and still trying to have fun with my kids as this was their trip. Well the hotel did give me one free night stay due to the internet problem! So I had to rush home on Monday to add my post, what’s life without a little stress (easy to laugh now haha)

Animoto

[Thanks to Ronelda, I found this awesome site called Animoto! theguys@animoto.com

Here is a sample of one of the videos that I created!

My Family

Edtechtalk

On March 25, 2009 I had the oppurtunity to connect to Edtechtalk, the discussion was about “Teachers teaching Teachers” At first it was confusing, but when we introduced ourselves as Alec’s students all went well. Edtechtalk is like our regular tuesday night classes on eluminate. Some of the topics that were discussed: 1. Technology Integration 2. Engaging students with Teachers 3. Media Communication 4. Digital Storytelling 

Most of the participants were from the United States, but it was good to hear from some teachers that are just starting out with technology.

Some websites to check out:

http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/digital storytelling

http://www.needleworkpictures.com/ocr/blog/?p=439

Hope for technology in Northern Sask.

Last week I attended Principal meeting for our school division. During the week some of the Principals that are in the masters program had a chance to show case  to the superintendents what they have been learning about technology. On the last day of our meetings we had a presentation on the importance of technology. From this meeting a committee was formed to create a site on technology and how to use it for our division. This committee will meet and discuss filters, bans and ways to incorporate technology into the classrooms. I look forward to the new possibilities with technology in our school division!

Technology!

During this class we are learning about the importance of technology in the classroom. This definitely has been a learning journey for me! I no longer consider myself computer illiterate, nor do I feel that I know enough to teach my fellow colleagues. The discussion in last night’s presentation was on technology in the classroom and we need to model using technology so others will follow. My question and concern is “Why are the universities not incorpaorating a computer class into the B.Ed program?” This way we will have teachers with some training in technology when they graduate.

Is the internet rewiring our kids brain?

I have just read this post on msn and thought that I would share it. http://www.sync-blog.com/sync/2009/02/is-the-internet-rewiring-our-kids-brains.html Now there is not much evidence to back up this statement but I thought it would be a good article for feedback and comments.

Who is Stephen?

After our class on Feb 24th, I felt lost agian. We had the oppurtunity to listen to Stephen Downes. I did not know anything about Stephen before the class (I should have googled him!) therefore I had a hard time following him. My mind was on the family fun night happening at the school and not on the class, so I was not focused. I finally took the time to google Stephen http://www.downes.ca/ and have found some very interseting sites that have helped me better understand who Stephen is and why he is important to on-line learning. The following links http://www.downes.ca/post/38502 and http://www.downes.ca/post/38550 have helped me!

Creativity

I just finished watching the video by Sir Ken Robinson.

Do Schools Kill Creativity? – Sir Ken Robinson  If you have not had the oppurtunity to see it yet, I highly recommend it. When I read Stephen’s blog this video sounded interesting so I decided to see it for myself. In the video Sir Ken Robinson says that we grow out of creativity, as children we start out very creative. As a former kindergarten teacher I have to agree with him. In the kindergarten program the children learn from being creative. As they continue through school the creative subjects (arts) in is not valued as much as the academics. The math and language arts programs take over. In kindergarten we would learn through music, dance, drawing, etc. The curriculum for grades 1-12 is focused more on academic.

Identity theft?

One of my very good friends that works for the RCMP is always warning me about personal information on the internet. When she saw my photos on Face Book, she told me that somebody can easily steal your identity by using your pictures. At first I was very frightened and I was going to cancel my Face Book account. Then I started this class, and realized that there are proffesionals out there in cyber space that are not worried why should I be! Does anyone taking this class ever worry about identity theft?