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.