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.