The guest speaker’s presentations from last Wednesday’s class have made me reflect on my teaching perceptions and attitudes towards technology.  Kathy Cassidy was one of the presenters, a classroom teacher who has been a strong leader in effectively incorporating technology into her classroom. It is fascinating to see the innovative and creative activities she uses with her grade 1 students, as they use a variety of technological tools to enhance their learning.

As a teacher aspiring to seek new and innovative ways to engage student learning, I have learned a lot from Kathy Cassidy’s work.  Although she is renowned for her implementation of technology, it is vital to remember that students at a young age still need hands on learning experiences and activities that do not involve technology. This is a point she strongly emphasized. In trying to create a classroom where students become technology literate, it is important to remember that using technology for activities is not always the most effective method of teaching.  Especially at younger ages, students still need to write using pencils and paper, need social interaction, various hands-on activities, and like all other classrooms-daily routines.  I want to teach in a classroom and have students become ‘technologically savvy’, but this does not mean that all or even the majority of activities should incorporate technology. This is the central point I have been reflecting on, as it is so easy to perceive technology as the focal point of learning when teachers strive to incorporate it, even though the learning should be the focal point, with technology as a learning tool.

During internship I purchased several stories that were accompanied with audio CDs, with the author reading their story. I purchased these and ordered several from media services because I had two students on Personal Program Plans who needed this slight adaptation to help meet their learning needs. For the one student who could not read, it was a way to get her to work independently during D.E.A.R time as she used the pictures as her guide and was still able to enjoy quality literature. They were also useful when our Educational Assistant would work with the individual students, helping them follow the text along with the audio.

Recording literature and having students follow the text along with the audio is an activity that works on their listening skills, their ability to read the written text, and is an activity that allows them to hear the pronunciations of the written text modeled in an appropriate way. Often when students read they are excellent at decoding words, but often struggle with the proper pronunciation and comprehension. Allowing students to listen to stories (with or without the written text) can be a very valuable learning experience which can be tailored to various learning needs. I used them in a grade 2/3 classroom, and feel I could use them for older grades as well.

I have created a podcast demonstrating how simple it can be for educators to create podcasts of children’s literature for use in their classroom. I chose my favourite picture book “Oh, The Places You’ll Go by: Dr. Seuss“, a gift I received for my high school graduation. (It could be a gift for any level of graduation-even at the end of Kindergarten) I used the program Audacity to create my podcast, which is simple to use. In my classroom I would have have my audio storage site saved onto our class website for students to easily access, would burn them on a portable disk, or if our class had an MP3 player or IPod (each student having different headset). These are some devices I could have students use to listen to the stories. The audio storage site I used was podcastpeople.

The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini is a novel I highly recommend. I have created a book talk on “The Kite Runner”using VoiceThread. I hope you enjoy it and become inspired to read this engaging book. I honestly had a hard time putting it down, and it’s been awhile since I’ve read a book that has had such a profound effect on me.

 

After many struggles, I finally managed to get my Mastercard video onto YouTube and embedded the code! Thank you Darin for all of your help in making 2 screen casts to assist me. Once I got my Photostory onto YouTube, your Screencasts were very helpful!

If you have ever explored Google Earth or Google Maps, you will understand my fascination with this technology! There are so many ways ones can incorporate these programs into teaching.

In class we were playing with Google Maps, and I have created my own map, marking places I identify as playing a significant role on my learning…being personal or institutionalized. This is just an example of the many ways this program can be used.

Using ITunes, I have explored various topics of podcasts, but my personal favourite topic to listen to on my MP3 player are French Podcasts. I lived and worked in Johnville, Quebec the summer of 2003, where I lived in an entirely french-speaking community with a family who did not know any English words besides “hello” and “friend”, and obviously the words that are the same in English as they are French. During my time spent there I worked at a L’OTJ day camp where I was a day camp leader to about 50 young French children. It was embarrassing that 4 year olds spoke better French than I did (after all, I had taken core French since grade 1). It is one aspect to know verb conjugates and how words look on paper, but I had limited oral exposure to the language and felt completely lost once I arrived in Quebec. After 2 months of being completely immersed in that community I picked up the oral aspect of the language and was able to communicate fluently with my host family and those in the community.

Once I arrived back in Regina I maintained a relationship with my host family for about 6 months over the telephone. After about 6 months I did not feel I was able to communicate with them anymore because my French was getting poor and I had a difficult time understanding them. The saying is true, “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. It wasn’t until about 8 months ago that I decided I needed to work on my French again because it is a skill I really wanted to have again. This is when I was introduced to podcasts and ultimately the language-learning programs offered by them. Although the written component of learning the French language is important, I have chosen to focus on the oral component of it using podcasts as they provided the opportunity for me to regain my oral comprehension.

I used to listen to them quite frequently when I commute to school a half hour each way everyday, but after awhile I became annoyed with having ear phones in my ears while driving. For those who can hook their IPods into their car system that would be ideal. I now usually listen to them when I’m in the bath or just before going to bed. Whenever you choose to listen is dependent on your lifestyle and preference.

Here are some of my preferred podcasts…

French For Beginners -This is obviously a podcast for beginners, but I used this to start from the basics and work from there. I haven’t listened to all of them as I felt I needed something more challenging, but I recommend this to those who do not have any French experience. I haven’t been able to find one that is as effective as this one that provides a visual of the words. (Remember to start at lesson 1 and work form there!)

Learn French By Podcast-This one is really good for intermediate beginners, as it provides the explanations in English and uses lots of repetition. It is phrased more in sentences than it is words in the beginner podcast. Remember to start at the 1st podcast in the series, as they progressively get more difficult.

The French PodClass- This podcast series provide for lots of listening between sound pronunciations and encourages you to practice, orally repeating what the instructor says. If you do not have a French foundation you will not understand what it is being said, as it is based more on practicing listening and speaking, not on basic understanding.

All of these podcasts are still active, which is a good quality to look for. Good luck learning French! I know mine is getting better

It is difficult to captivate all of my interests, qualities, knowledge and skills into such a simplistic format as there is so much more to who I am. Creating a resume is very similar to this activity, as a person must limit themselves to small amounts of information while trying to “sell themselves”, portraying themselves as someone you would want to get to know or employ. This activity would be excellent for high school students in creating a resume, or for anyone needing to reflect on their qualities in the area they wish to “sell themselves”. I have taken a personal approach to this activity.

This website outlines a contest that was conducted using this activity and provides some excellent examples of how others portray themselves.

As of yesterday morning, I am now engaged to a wonderful man. Chance Rogers and I will be getting married May 16, 2009. We are thrilled!

On one of my mentorship sites from New York, I went through the related links to find links to a variety of other elementary classrooms all over the world. It was fascinating. There were a few from Australia, New Zealand, California, Marlyland, Wisconsin, Long Island, Connecticut, Northern Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and even from Switzerland, most of which were classrooms from grades 4-6. When I went onto those sites I left a few comments, but then found myself venturing through those networks to discover more connections to classrooms around the world, at wide variety of grade levels. Too cool.

It is exciting to think of all the ways I could incorporate those connections into my own classroom. Having my own students collaborate with students from other parts of the world who are in their grade or not to work on projects together via the internet, talk about the similarities and differences between the communities, etc. The sky is the limit, and I am beaming with excitement over the valuable learning that is possible by having and using the unique connections with other learners from around the world. The amount of exposure I am receiving to a wealth of student activities teachers are having students perform is also phenomenal, as I am already generating tons of ideas and resources I will be able to take into my own classroom.

With the internet and social networks available, not teacher should feel alone in their classroom.

Until today uploading digital pictures, editing them, resizing them and further publishing them was such a daunting task for me. I used to use the photo editing program Picnik to upload photos already saved on my computer, but then would transfer those to a program called RockYou (which is awesome for creating slide shows and publishing pictures) to get a code that I could use to embed in my blogs to publish my pictures. It was quite the extensive, time consuming process.

With some time spent on experimentation with Flickr (photo editing/sharing site), I discovered that you can edit your photos on there but it directly take those pictures to Picnik for editing. What’s even more convenient, which I can’t believe I haven’t discovered until now, is that you can right click on a picture and choose the “Copy Image Location” that will copy the embedded code for that particular picture for publishing! So now I don’t have to go to RockYou to publish my pictures!

It’s sometimes learning simple things that make me go “WOW” and love technology even more.