Final Project

Tech Task 12

The Future
What an exciting time to be a teacher, we have so many resources and technology available to us. As we move forward this will only continue to increase. In the immediate future I see schools all moving towards becoming 1 to 1 schools, meaning that each student has their own device. I have been in schools that already have this set up and it does create a whole new world of possibilities in your classroom. I really like a quote from the late Yogi Berra, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future". When it comes to technology it is improving so fast that it is difficult to try and even fathom what is possible. I found this video (shared below) and I used it in a presentation for our literacy class. It is about this innovative and interactive e-book, the video is a few years old and this book is actually available in the app store. When technology can make a book so engaging and hands on it really makes me question if we will have physical books in our future classrooms. I think that paper books are on the way out. When you think of each student having their own device, how easy would it be for each student to have all the books they need right on their device. One thing that I do not see happening is teachers losing jobs because of the prevalence of technology. Yes students have more information available to them but that has just changed the role of the teacher. Instead of providing the content for students the teacher has shifted to be more of a facilitator of learning. Think of it from the digital book perspective, yes they may replace physical books. But the students will still need to be able to read regardless of what format the book is in. Look further into the future, say 20 years down the line, it will be interesting to see what our roles look like as educators. I think we will see a lot of change in that time but as long as we embrace the change we will be just fine.  

Tech Task #9

Using an Online Video in the Classroom
I really enjoy TED talks, I find it is one of the best resources for finding informative and inspirational videos. One video that I found which I would like to use in my classroom is a Ted talk by Eduardo Briceno. In the video he talks all about how we can get better at things. His point is that you wont just get better if you do the same thing over and over again. If you want to get better you have to do harder and harder things, you have to challenge yourself. What I find with the way he delivers his speech is that it leaves you inspired. After watching the video you want to challenge yourself and try to get better at something, which is why I want to use it in my classroom. In my classroom I want implement some sort of independent inquiry based learning. For inquiry based learning to be effective students need to invested in what they are learning about. I think it would be a great video to use to help get students excited to be in charge of their own learning. Hopefully they would take that initiative and really challenge themselves with whatever the choose for inquiry based learning. If the video was well received and students seemed inspired by it, I would consider showing more videos like this one. If I ever thought students were getting lazy or off track with their inquiry projects I could show another video that makes students realize the importance of taking charge of their own learning.  

Tech Task #10

Commenting on a Students Blog

I checked out Kristen Thompson's Canadian History Class' blog. The students posts were very good, some were very creative. I really liked a graphic that one student created about Louis Riel. They had a picture of Riel made out of a bunch of different words that describe him. The blog post that I chose to comment on was also unique. The student had written a post from the point of view of a teacher in a residential school. I thought it was a really authentic way to share knowledge about residential schools. I have shared a screenshot of my comment below:

Week 8

This week we had the principal of Minnedosa Collegiate Bryce Ridgen as our guest speaker. At Minnedosa Collegiate the school is 1 to 1, meaning that for every student at the school there is a device. Whether it be a tablet, ipad, or laptop all students have some device available to them. My last placement was in Rivers and the school there was set up in the same way. Both schools are in Rolling River School Division so perhaps it is a division wide initiative. Being the principal of a 1 to 1 school Bryce had many good ideas to share with us. One idea that I really liked was using Padlet so that students can anonymously collaborate as a class. So you could create a discussion on Padlet and put it up on the smart board. Then students would be able to share their ideas anonymously up on the board. I like the of being able to share anonymously, I think that it could bring up some really good conversations. As a phys. ed. teacher I could see it being really good for some difficult topics that come up in the health curriculum. Things like sexual health and mental health are topics that not all students are willing to talk about openly in front of their peers. Padlet would give students a venue to share what they want to share and ask questions that they want to ask, without that fear of being judged by their peers.

The part of the presentation that I really liked was when Bryce talked about rethinking summative assessment. This has kind of been an ongoing theme with a few of the guest speakers that we have had. I really like the inforgaphic that Bryce showed us, "101 ways to show what you know", which I have shared below. This is an image that I would like to put up in my class or hand out to students. I plan to give students plenty of choice in class. This graphic would give students all sorts of different ideas of things they could do to show me what they have learned. Bryce showed us some example of things that students had done for him. It was amazing the creativity and knowledge that was achieved by high school students.  I look forward to the unique projects that my future students will take on.

Tech Task #8

Podcasts

I have tried listening to a few different educational podcasts and have not had much luck finding any good ones that interest me. The problem I think is that they often spend too much time introducing the teachers/ educational professionals who are going to be on the podcast. Then when they finally bring them on to speak, the guest themselves spend more time talking about who they are. They only end up talking about their ideas for a few minutes. To me it just seems like too long to listen to only get a few minutes of actual ideas and strategies that you could use in the classroom. Perhaps I just had bad luck with the educational podcasts that I tried but for me I didn't find listening to these podcasts the most worthwhile professional development. I think I will stick to educational blogs, twitter, pinterest, teachers pay teachers, ect. for my personal time spent on professional development.

I do however have a podcast that I listen to on a weekly basis. It is just a personal interest of mine but I like the possibilities of  being able to incorporate it into a math classroom.  The podcast is called TSN hockey analytics. They have a weekly 45 minute podcast where host Andy McNamara usually has a few different guest speakers and they talk everything new in the hockey analytics world. Hockey analytics is a new fad in the sport where people are creating these new advanced statistics to determine all sorts of things about the game. Who the best players are, what the best strategies are, which teams will win, etc. The traditional hockey experts who have been around the game forever are being replaced with mathematicians/ statisticians. If  anyone has ever seen the movie Moneyball, it is exactly like that just with hockey instead of baseball. I think it could be a great way to get students excited about math. I really like the inquiry based learning idea that has been shared with us by guest speakers. When I first thought about inquiry based learning I thought it would be really good for science and could see it working not bad with history. I didn't think of math for inquiry based learning really at all. But when you think about it, the main knock students have with math is they say "when are we ever gonna use this". Inquiry based learning would be exactly that, seeing a bunch of different ways that you can use math in real life. I think math would be perfect for a 20time project. One day a week they are able to get away from a traditional math class and do something that interests themselves. If there were hockey fans in the class I would encourage them to look into hockey analytics. If there were students who liked other sports, they could look into analytics into their sports. There would be lots of different options for the non-sports fans as well. I think it would be a great way to get students interested in math and learning in new ways.

Tech Task 11

Show and Tell - RefMe

One app that I have found that I would like to share with my future students and you guys as future educators and it is called RefMe. I found this app somewhere in my post-secondary education and have used it ever since. Essentially it is an app that can help you organize and easily cite all the references you use, either for a paper, project, or whatever else. I found this to be one of the most difficult parts of transitioning from high school to university. You get to university and all of a sudden you are expected to write these academic papers; and there are all sorts of different formats MLA, APA, Chicago Style. If that is not intimidating enough, they scare you with the fact that it could be considered plagiarism if sources are not cited properly. That is one thing that I wish I would have came out of high school with more knowledge on. Which is where I think this app can be used; to teach students how to references sources in their writing and how to do it quickly and easily.

The app is available for your phone, tablet, ect. There is also a website that you can use. You sign up for an account and then everything is all in one place. The coolest aspect of the app has to be the fact that you can scan the barcode on a book and the app will give you the reference for that book instantly. I have used this so many times for textbooks. Professors always ask you to reference the textbook in your paper. So I just hold my phone camera up to the barcode on the back of the book, the app recognizes it, it asks you what format you want the reference in, and it gives it to you. Almost like magic!!

The format of RefMe is easy to use and easy to stay organized. It is like most programs where you can have different folders and within the folders different files. The files on RefMe are called projects, and within them you can store all the resources you have used for that project. How I liked to use it was have folders for each class then if there was a paper I would create a project for it. Then when you are done your paper you can simply export all the references. It also makes collaboration easy as you can share the projects. So if you are working on a group project you can share the RefMe project with your group members. Then everyone will be able to add the resources that they use for the project. There is no longer the need for one group member to go around collecting a list of all the resources everyone used. Everything is in one place and the references are made for you.

Referencing isn't the only skills you need to write a good academic paper. For teaching students how to structure their papers in the appropriate format I would recommend the Purdue OWL.

If you give your high school students these writing skills and show them this app they are going be thankful. Start them into it slowly and gradually show them more and more. Even just leaving high school with some awareness and skills will make the transition to college/university that much easier.

Tech Task 7

Inforgraphic

I got the idea for this infographic from my last cooperating teacher. It is a list of fitness activities that match up with the letter of the alphabet. Then each day at the start of the class you can have a word of the day posted. This word of the day will be their fitness warm-up/ work-out as they will have to do the activity that corresponds with each letter of the word. These inforgraphics can be posted in each corner of the gym so students can spread out and do their work-out.  You would probably want to teach students these exercises first so that they do not all have to ask how to do them. It makes for an easy to incorporate warm up.

I used piktochart to make the inforgraphic and found it very easy to use. I think that if you purchased the pro version there would be even more possibilities but as it is there are many options with the free version. I plan to continue to use the free version as a way to create any graphics that I might find useful in my teachings or everyday life. If I really find myself wanting to be able to do more I will consider buying the pro version. Piktochart is something that I will show to my students as well. We just had a guest speaker who encouraged us to rethink summative evaluation. His point was that there are multiple ways for students to show their understanding. I think infographics could be a great way for students to show understanding and would be interesting to see what they might create.

Week 7

We had John Finch in class on Tuesday, his expertise comes in the field of copyright. His presentation this week did not primarily revolve around copyright but in talking to people who have heard him speak before said that he has quite a list of things that we should not be doing as teachers. One that did come up was the fact that you technically can not use public radio to provide music for gym class. It is nice to be aware of little things like this and I think that we as teachers need to  protect ourselves but you have to draw a line. It gets to the point where if you followed all the rules and regulations there really would be very little things you could do in schools. I think the primary thing we need to do as teachers is ensure student safety. If students safety is put at risk, that is when you will get in trouble. Copyright laws just don't hold that high of a level of importance to me. I think it is hard enough to try and find enough good resources that engage students, without trying to figure out if the copyright laws allows them to be used in the classroom. If I think that something will promote learning and engage students I am going to be willing to use it. Whether it be an online video, an article or whatever else I will be willing to take a little risk when it comes to copyright. Look at the two teachers who came and spoke to us last week, they were pushing the issue when it came to social media and technology in the classroom. I think it is part of being a good teacher, thinking outside of the box and being willing those sort of risks. Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me.

Week 6

This week we were able to have two young and innovated teachers as guest speakers. Kirsten Thompson and Tyler Letkemen are both ambassadors for using technology in the classroom at their respective schools and school divisions. In a little over an hour they were able to share with us many online tools and projects that they have done with their classes. What I like about being given these kinds of resources from teachers in the field is that they are current and they have been successful.

One thing I liked that Kirsten showed us was the remind app. You can send out reminders to your class via this app and it will go to their phone. You can do this without having to share your phone number with students. Parents can sign up and get all the same reminders. I found this to be such a safe way to be able to communicate students and parents. As a phys ed teacher I know that I will be coaching many different school sports. I think the remind app will be a great way to communicate with students and parents as a coach also. Kristen also told us about the blogging project she has done with her students. She uses it as her main assessment tool and the nice part is her full 26 page document of student handouts/parent letters is all available for free from teachers pay teachers. If I find myself teaching a course where I think blogging could be a great assessment tool I will turn to this as a resource.

My favorite idea of the class came from Tyler Letkemen, and it was about using a website called Blurb. The website turns work into professional quality books. What he does is get students to submit their best writers workshop writing to him electronically. He then takes his students writing and uploads it to Blurb and makes a book of their work. He keeps one in his classroom and one goes in the class library. So they have to take pride in their work because people will see it. He brought a couple of books to show us and they look very nice. One way I could see myself using this in a gym class is when you have students create their own games. They have to write up the equipment needed, the rules, and whatever else. Then you could make a book of all the different games that your class designed. You could even bring them out from year to year and students could pick a game from the book that they wanted to try and play. Another way I could see myself using it is when students create their own fitness routines or work outs. At the start of the year you could have students all make up their own work outs. You could make a book of all of the different work outs and then throughout the year you could go through the book and try everyone's work outs. I just feel that it would be very gratifying for students to see their work published like that. It would be incredibly beneficial for their confidence and self efficacy.

Tech Task 4 - Follow an Educational Blogger

Teacher Tech Trials

Corey Engstrom - "I started this blog as a way to give educators an inside look at how technology is being used around the world to enhance the learning process and increase student engagement. I am a 5th grade teacher in a little town called Kingsburg, California. I am a life long learner and excited to be a part of all the sharing, learning, and growing this blog promotes."

What Corey does with his blog (Teacher Tech Trials) is feature the ideas of other educators and how they are incorporating technology in their classrooms. What I like about this style of blog is that you get to see the ideas of many different people all in one place. You don't have to go out and find the blogs of a bunch of teachers who are using technology. Corey does all that for you with his teachers tech trials blog. If he shares the ideas of a teacher that you really like, then you can follow their own personals blogs or social media accounts. Corey always credits the teacher and gives the readers a ways to connect with that person and find more of their resources. It is a great blog to grow your personal learning network and promote professional development.

A recent post that I found interesting from Teacher Tech Trials was an innovative idea from grade 8 teacher, Scott Herbert (@MrHebertPE). He was having trouble getting his grade 8's to engage in his science class so he turned to something he calls gamification. According to Engstrom's blog, "gamification is the act of applying game elements to non traditional game settings". So just how did Herbert do it? He took his classroom and turned it into a medieval land. Students were put into teams, called guilds, and traveled through five different kingdoms, the five units of science. All school work that had been completely gamified; students would encounter challenges and have to use science to solve their problems or defeat their enemies. 

I found this to be such a creative idea, little iphone games that have similar themes to this have become so popular especially with children. I can really see how this would engage the students. The one downfall I first thought of when I read this was the time and effort it would take to gamify all of the school content. But when I got thinking about it, it would make lesson planning more enjoyable. It would be fun to try and think up different challenges or missions. I think something like this could be used with all age groups but I feel it would be easier with younger students. My reasoning is just that younger students would buy into it more, but if you had the right group it could be done with anyone. 

Check out Teacher Tech Trials for more great ideas!

Tech Task #3 Twitter

Using Twitter as an Educator

I was already on twitter before entering this class however I find myself using twitter in a much different way coming out of this course. I joined twitter in 2010 as a pure form of entertainment. I used it to connect with my friends and follow sports/humor type accounts. I enjoyed twitter for a number of years, but of late I found myself quite bored with it. I never tweeted anymore and I rarely even went on and scrolled through twitter. When I learned we were to use twitter for this class I decided to make a new account. With this new account I decided to aim it more towards being a professional teacher, not that my old account was inappropriate it just didn't have much value. When you first start a new twitter account they recommend 20 accounts for you to follow. I followed these accounts and what I learned from these accounts is that twitter is a great source for getting news. I think it is important as an educator to stay up to date with the news. Students will always want to discuss what is going on in the world, I think you owe it to the students to be able to share and discuss these current events. Which is why I have chose to follow various local and national news sources on twitter. Much less time consuming to use twitter than flip through a news paper or watch an hour long news program on TV. I also find twitter to be a great professional development resource for teachers to use. Twitter is full of fellow educators and they use this venue to share their ideas. I have been able to find many educators who are active on twitter. What I find is that not only is it good for what they share themselves but many re-tweet other resources, whether it be teachers or organizations, and then I can follow these accounts too and really grow my network. Another thing that allows me to grow my network is a twitters list feature. I was able to use the lists to find many different Phys Ed resources. I followed a popular Phys Ed teacher on twitter and then went to his lists. From there I could see all the groups that he was apart of. I found one called "The #PhysEd Dream Team", which was a list of 22 of the best physical education contributors on twitter. I then subscribed to this list and I am now able to go into that list and it will give me a feed of all of the members tweets. This is a great feature to be able to organize your content on twitter. Also it makes it easier to find valuable resources as there is so much on twitter good and bad. I look forward to continuing to use twitter as a tool to gain knowledge and grow as an educator.

Week 5

This week we had Flin Flon high school teacher Daniel Dillon as a guest speaker via zoom chat. Daniel was talking about how he uses virtual reality headsets in his classroom. This was a really new concept for me, as I had never tried virtual reality before. So my eyes were really opened up when I learned about how they can be used in the classroom. The one thing I really found intriguing was how affordable the headsets can be. I don't know why but I had just assumed that since they were a new and innovative technology that they would be very expensive. However Daniel was purchased some for about 8 dollars. So for around 200 dollars he was able to purchase enough headsets for his entire class to use. I had no idea that something like this would be such a realistic thing to be able to use in your classroom.  I really like possibilities of using it for geography, I think being able to virtually see different places in the world without actually having to go there would be a great learning tool. Before I would feel confident enough to implement this technology in my classroom I would want be more familiar with it myself. So I think the first step will be to get my own headset and explore some of the apps that are out there. Daniel gave us an extensive list:

Virtual Reality Apps
Google Cardboard
360 Video
Titans of Space
In Mind
Google Expeditions
Go Pro VR
Full Drive VR
Google Arts and Culture
Chair in a Room (scary)

The other thing that Daniel talked about doing in his classroom that really interested me was 20 time projects. 20 time projects are something that Daniel does every Friday and is an idea he got from American educator Kevin Brookhouser. It is called a 20 time project because students spend 20% of their time on it. The project is follows the inquiry based learning/ open learning concept, which I have written about before. Essentially students are able to choose what they want to learn about and how they want to learn it. Daniel expressed that he would like to see the education system shift more to this style of learning, which I agree with. He brought up Met schools where the entire school system is based on this type of learning rather than just 20%. Met schools have become very popular in other parts of the world. Finland was the place that Daniel credited with starting to use these types of schools; I know that Finland has a very well respected education system. Daniel shared his disappointment that Canada hasn't shifted their education system more to this style of learning.  He said that the US, Australia, and New Zealand all have very similar education systems to Canada and they are seeing new Met schools pop up across the country. Yet Canada still has very few, interestingly enough there are two MET schools in Manitoba, both located in Winnipeg.  They might actually be the only ones in the country I forget what he said. He really encouraged that if we ever get a chance we should go check out these schools. Below I have shared a video about the Seven Oaks Met School in Winnipeg. It provides a good look at what exactly they do at the school and some of the success they have had with students. It will be interesting to see if more Met schools pop up across the province and country as a whole. Perhaps some of us will get a chance to teach at a Met school in our careers if we see this type of shift. 

Tech Task 5 - Digital Footprints

Your digital footprint is essentially everything that there is about you in the connected world that is the internet. Social media is the best example of how we create these footprints and with the popularity of social media we are all creating our own digital footprints everyday, often without even realizing it. I found a TED talk about digital footprints, (which I have shared below). What I liked about this video was that idea that we contribute to other peoples digital footprints and other people contribute to ours. This is a bit of a scary thought but important to understand, and something that I would want to teach my students. It is very true on social media as people are often posting or sharing about other people, adding to their digital footprint. Where I would take this conversation with my students is to the topic of cyber bullying. I would want students to think about the things they post on social media could affect someone. Even the posts that are suppose to be funny and may seem harmless can be negative if it is not how the other person wants to be portrayed. I want my students to not only be aware of their own digital footprint but others as well.



Digital Dualism is an idea that the real world and the online world are two separate places. I do not agree with this idea and a lot of the reason is because of our digital footprints. Our online actions directly influence our everyday life in so many way. Which is why I would argue that the "real world" and the "online world" are very much combined and interconnected. With that being said I do think that people often act very differently in these two spaces. I think that I am different from most people, especially people my age. I am much more reserved online than I am in real life. I would say that I am an outgoing person bit I just do not have an interest in being outgoing and active on social media. This is not the case with some people though. There are many people that use social media as their platform to speak out. People who often wouldn't speak out in these same real world situations. To me this is exactly what is wrong with the online world. It seems to often be a place of negativity and hate; my reasoning is that people don't have that same compassion for the person on the other side of the screen as they would for someone face to face. Lets relate it back to cyber bullying, and the reality is these online insults and degrading comments can have the same negative effects as in the real world. I think educating our students about their own digital footprints and how they can positively influence others would have a big impact on creating better digital citizens.

Tech Task 6 PLN & The Connected Student

Personal Learning Networks & Today's Connected Student 

Personal Learning Networks (PLN)

Your personal learning network is a variety of sources that you use to grow and develop as person. Today our networks rely heavily around the internet and its many services. You can look back to times before the internet and our personal networks would have looked very different. It would have consisted primarily of books and people. Today we still use these same types of sources we just access them in a different way. We still learn a lot from other people, only we no longer have to be face to face. The internet has created a venue where all different kinds of people can connect from anywhere in the world. The toughest part is that there is so much information it is sometime difficult to find the valuable resources. Luckily there have are many different programs created to find, sort, organize, and share information online. As a teacher and student I have found many of these programs useful and they together have helped me use the internet as a resource. Below you will find the main applications and platforms that I have used to create my Personal Learning Network. 

Link to map

Today's Connected Student
From a very young age today's children will be using the internet. Which means that they are creating their very own learning networks whether they know it or not. So what does it mean for today's students and for us as teachers? I think there are both negatives and positives. A major positive is Students have access to more information than ever before. We are already seeing extremely talented and smart young people as a result. I think that is very exciting and the sky is the limit with all the opportunities today's students have. With that being said I think that there are some downfalls to how connected our students are. The major negative that I see is that they are always connected and have no time away from it. There are new problems that are going to arise from how connected people are and we are already seeing it. One that is becoming more and more common are mental health issues that arise from social media. What happens is people tend to use social media to exaggerate how great all the things in their life are. People see how great everyone's life seems on social media and question their own happiness, which has been linked to a lot of depression. This is just one example that I have heard of but with how connected we are becoming these types of things will continue to come up. Below is an example of just how connected today's students have become. What I tried to create focus on was the fact even our connections with people and traditional resources are being changed and impacted by technology. 

Link to map

Week 4

We had guest speaker John Evans in with us this week for class. John works for MAPLE, which stands for the Manitoba Professional Learning Environment. Essentially it is an online community where educators and people in the education field can connect and collaborate. It is a private community which means you have to be accepted into it. This is what makes it such a valuable resource because you know all the content is coming from Manitoba teachers. Its not only content from other teachers you will see on maple. Maple is the venue where government documents regarding education, ex) curriculum updates, first get posted. For example right now they are completely redoing the ELA curriculum. Before it can be officially released it needs to go through an extensive review/ approval process. However they can keep Manitoba educators updated with the new curriculum by posting the unofficial prototype on maple. If teachers are on maple they will be able to get familiar with the new curriculum and starting implementing aspects of it in their classrooms. That way it will be much less overwhelming when the new curriculum is released. That's just one example of how teachers can use maple for professional development.

John's knowledge on professional development was what I really took away from his presentation. He called it your professional learning tool kit and what he really made me realize was how all the online social networks and platforms we use as teacher are forms of professional development. I guess I had never really thought of it as professional development but I have got many great ideas from teachers pay teachers, Pinterest, and even Facebook. Technology has made it so that we can have this sharing of ideas between teachers more frequently and conveniently. As we no longer have to all gather in the traditional professional development session ways. Professional development is something that is always going to come up in the job interviews that come with applying for teaching positions. My eyes have really been opened up to all the different ways professional development can happen. I feel way more prepared to speak to professional development now as I will include how I will use platforms like Maple and social networks to grow as a educator.

Week 3

On Tuesday we had two guest speakers from Manitoba education. Donald and Shannon both work in the department of web based courses. From going to high school in a small rural community I knew that web based courses existed. I never took a web based course but they were offered to us and my mom actually taught a web based agriculture course for a number of years. What I didn't know was how many courses there were available and how they were set up. Manitoba Education uses an online platform called Blackboard for all of their courses. There are 44 full courses that have been created on Blackboard that match Manitoba curriculum. That is another thing I didn't realize; that there is already a course full of content on Blackboard. I just assumed that the teacher would have to create the course themselves online. The one thing that Donald pointed out is that the course doesn't provide assessment assignments. The assessment is left up to each individual teacher. Using blackboard to teach a web based course is something that I would like to try at some point in my career.

The nice thing is, even if I don't get to teach an online course, I will still have the opportunity to use the course content that has been created on Blackboard. All courses on Blackboard are available to Manitoba Teachers upon request. Donald and Shannon mentioned a new trend in education known as blended learning. Blended learning combines the traditional face to face classroom practices with computer mediated activities. Some schools even don't require their student to go to school each day; however that is not legal in Manitoba public schools though. This is something that I would like to incorporate in my future classrooms. Where I have the odd assignment where my students have to log on to Blackboard and do it from there. The reason I think this would be beneficial for students is because of how many post secondary classes are taught this way. Most colleges and universities have their own platforms similar to Blackboard, whether it be Moodle or whatever else. I would say that around half of my post secondary course has required me to log onto these platforms to either get the class notes, submit assignments, etc. I think this would be a great skill for high school students to be familiar with as we prepare them for their future. It could even lead them to be confident enough to take online courses in the future. Which we are seeing more and more, as a option to further one's education.

Tech Task 2 - Curation

What is Curation?

When I was investigating the term curation, I came across many long winded, tech type definitions. However it was one of the non-tech definitions that really helped me understand the concept. Like many of the words we use in the IT world; curation had meanings long before the internet. There is actually an occupation where curation is a persons job. They are known as curators, and are often hired by museums and art galleries. Their job is to collect, organize and display these artifacts or pieces of art. Essentially this is exactly what we are doing when we talk about curation from information technology stand point as well. Digital curation are ways in which we can collect, organize and display the data and information we access online.   

How Do I Curate? 

I think my most powerful curation tool is right in my pocket at all times, my apple iphone. The smart phone puts everything in one place and makes it so easy to organize and prioritize. Every social media platform that I use has an application for the iphone. All my different emails are on my phone. I can subscribe to podcasts and be notified anytime a new one is released. Sports are an interest of mine, I prefer the score app because I can really customize it to my favorite teams and leagues. There are so many other apps that I have too, but I do not use them as often. I really have my phone curated to the apps that I find the most important and entertaining.  The notifications setting are what really allow me to control what I am kept updated and informed about. I simply need to download different apps and then I am able to control the notification settings for each individual app. 

How will I use curation as a teacher?

Feedly

I am just starting to use the RSS feed "feedly" and am finding it very useful. I really like how it can put all of my classmates blogs in one place. I could see myself using this to keep things organized when I am teaching. Simply create feeds for each class that I teach, then I would have any work that is done by my students online organized and in one place. 

Pinterest

I am also interested in using pinterest more as a teacher. I currently do not have my own account but I have used it to look for different games in gym and other lesson ideas. I would continue to use it in this way but more so I am interested in using it as a curation tool for my students. I spoke in a previous blog about my interest to try "inquiry based learning" or "open learning". For this process to reach its full potential students will need to be organized online. Students could use pinterest to do this. They could create a board for their project and then pin all of the information and data they gather to that board. I would use their pinterest board as part of my evaluation for the project. 

Week 2

This week we were lucky enough to have Alec Couros as a guest speaker via online video platform. Alec is an educator who works at the university of Regina and is a real expert in the field of education technology. His presentation was both entertaining and informative. He really provided a great combination of statistics and examples to drive home the fact that the internet has a huge influence on today's youth. Which is something that we as educators need to take into consideration as we move forward in our careers. It really tied in to what we talked about in the previous class with personal learning networks. Students will begin to create their own personal learning networks online from a very young age. We as teachers are going to be able to have a big impact by teaching students how to use these networks effectively.

One idea I really liked that Couros talked about was the concept of "open learning". It is a project that he often assigns his students with where they are in charge of their own learning. They are able to pick content that they are interested in and use the material that is available to them (internet) to learn. I think this idea has the potential to be very beneficial for students on many levels. Firstly, it is the perfect way to teach students how to use their personal learning networks effectively. Plus the practical experience they will get using the internet during the learning process will promote future learning beyond the classroom. Second, possibly the most obvious, I like the idea that students are able to find content that interests them. I think this would really add to the enjoyment element. It has been proven that more learning occurs if students enjoy what they are learning about. Lastly I really like the way this concept sets no limitations on students. Such an open concept creates the possibility for students knowledge and understanding to go above and beyond expectations.

Obviously, like any method, the "open learning" concept will not work for every student. Some students would undoubtedly require a little more structure. However I feel a little more structure could easily be added to individual students as is needed. I look forward to trying this concept in my future classroom.   

Week 1

This week marked the first week in our Internet for educators course. Within the first week we have already been introduced to a variety of online platforms that we can take advantage of as teachers. The first is a type of social media platform offered from google known as Google Plus. I am not familiar with google plus as I have never used it before, that will change with this course as google plus seems to be one we will use through out the course. For the class we have Google Plus Community set up. This allows all class members to join the community using their google profile. Thus giving us a platform where we can all communicate and share information. I have used some of googles other online features in the past and look forward to learning more about google plus.

The other social media platform we will be using during the course is one that I am more familiar with which is twitter. I have used twitter for a number of years but on more of a personal level than professionally. Also I am currently not as active on twitter as I used to be. So I have a basic understanding of how twitter works but have a lot to learn about some of the new features twitter offers. As well as ways that twitter can be used professionally as a teacher.  

Feedly is a type of RSS feed and one that I plan to use in this class. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary and is a way to tell if there is something new on website without having to go to the website itself. Technically it is a way to organize all of the online information that you find important. You can put all the different types of sites you normally visit onto your RSS feed, this feed will be able to show you any new posts from the webpages.  I plan to use this service to monitor my classmates blogs as well as manage some of my personal interests online.