April 7 Lecture

Tonight was the final lecture of this course. It was interesting to hear about my classmates' technological journeys. All of their digital projects sound interesting and I look forward to seeing them in the future. Finding time to dedicate to exploring technology seemed to be a common issue amongst us. I know that I have only started to discover the amazing things I can accomplish with technology. I enjoyed this class more than any other taken during our Masters program and my only regret is that it was not offered earlier. I have learned to use so many on-line tools that will help me be a more engaging and effective instructor and individual. It has been a slice. Good luck to everyone as they finish up their Masters.

My Digital Project

Here is the link to my digital project: http://gradefivenutrition.wikispaces.com/.

I designed a wiki for my grade five health unit about nutrition. This wiki includes course assessments, assignments, homework, a participant directory, student games and resources, and teacher resources. Since I am currently on maternity leave this is a "mock"course wiki that I plan to use when I return to teaching next year.

I have highlighted some of my successes and failures while designing this wiki in previous blog entries (specifically those titled My Adventures in Technology).

I had no previous experience designing a wiki so every item I added to it symbolized new learning. I learned how to design a variety of pages and add links to other pages on the wiki or to outside websites. I learned how to post pictures and format text.

I posted an assessment table on the wiki so that students and their parents could see how the marks were allotted. I reviewed a paper copy of a nutrition unit that I had previously taught and found ways that I could incorporate technology into my lessons. I posted two assignments that students could complete using on-line resources and then they could document their knowledge on their personal blogs. I made a demo blog to demonstrate how to complete the assignments. I posted some examples of homework that students were asked to complete. I also made a sample directory were students could write a mini-biography about themselves. I researched on-line to find student and teacher resources that I could link to my wiki. I learned about the Discovery Education website that had a wealth of information that I will use across all subject areas.
The wiki will be an excellent addition to my nutrition unit because it gives the students opportunity to use technology and it allows them and their parents to access course information on-line.

There were several road blocks I encountered while completing this wiki. My inexperience using a wiki, and with technology in general, made the process of designing it a long one. I made many mistakes along the way but I persevered and figured out how to accomplish what I had set out to do. I spent many hours designing a fairly simplistic wiki. My wiki is not sophisticated, but nevertheless, it is an accomplishment that I am proud of.

Overall designing this wiki was a positive experience. I learned a new skill that will make my instruction more effective. The on-line tool wikispaces is very user friendly and I will design more course wikis in the future.

My Adventures in Technology

This class is quickly coming to a close and as I am doing the final edits on my blog and wiki it is clear how much I have learned. The acquisition of this knowledge can be attributed to both spending time exploring sites on my own and the help from the on-line community that I now belong to. In the middle of this class I felt that I was not making the connections with my classmates that I hoped. As I have recently had more time to dedicate to this class, and spent more time reading and commenting on classmates' blogs, I am feeling the sense of community that I had been searching for.

I have explored so may new web tools that I will use in my classroom. There are still so many I want to explore such as Google Docs, Flickr and Wordle. The beauty of this type of learning is that I can continue exploring technology in the future. After completing my digital project I now have an on-line unit that I can use in my health class. Wikispaces is so easy to use that I will continue to design units using it.

I believe that incorporating technology will be of utmost importance in engaging students now and in years to come. This class has been one of the best of my masters program. The knowledge I have acquired has helped me on both a professional and personal level. I no longer consider myself technologically illiterate.

***All of the entries titled "My Adventures in Technology" are where I documented how I developed personal learning environments and networks during this course. ***

April 5 - Media Part 2

I had the opportunity to watch Larry Lessig's video How Creativity is Being Stifled by the Law on TED. Here is the link to the video: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.htmlBoth Trevor and Todd had great blog postings about it so I decided that it would be worth watching. Lessig is a very entertaining and passionate lecturer. I like how he described that we have come full circle back to the read-write society of long ago because of the capabilities of modern technology. The remixed videos he showed of Jesus and George Bush were hilarious. They showed how everything old can be new again, and even better than the first time. He made an excellent point at the end of the video when he talked about how different we are than today's kids all because they have access to so much more technology than we did growing up. He talked about how we made mixed tapes while they remix music. We watched television while they make television. Modern technology is not going anywhere so by having strict copyright laws we are not going to discourage kids from using copyrighted information, they are just going to go underground with it.

April 5 - Media Part 1

I watched The Essay on YouTube. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2Slxp0TkM . It was a Nokia advertisement that Dr. Couros included on the media page of our wikispace site. It was about a little girl from the past writing an essay about the future. She writes about the capabilities of a cell phone similar to one we would use today. Everyone, from her classmates to psychiatrists, thinks she is crazy. 100 years ago no one could have imagined the technology we currently use so it is impossible for us to imagine the technology we will have 100 years from now. We need to incorporate modern day technology into our classroom so we can prepare our students for the technology of the future.

P.S. I tried to view Did You Know 2.0 and found that the video was no longer available to watch on YouTube.

My Adventures in Technology - del.icio.us

I have mixed feelings about del.icio.us. I had no problem signing up to this site. I became confused when I tried to download my bookmarks. I eventually decided to skip this step and went on to searching other people's bookmarks. I was amazed at how much information I could find on each topic I searched. I looked for information on Flip Video cameras, nutrition, and post-modernism in education. I found a massive amount of information on each of these topics. I will use the sight in the future and will hopefully discover how to share my own sites with others. Here is a link to del.icio.us:https://secure.delicious.com/login?v=5&jump=http%3A%2F%2Fdelicious.com%2Fsave%3Ftitle%3D%26notes%3D%26tags%3D%26noui%3Dno%26share%3Dyes%26time%3D1238957630 .

P.S. This is the second time I have signed up for del.icio.us but this time I have a greater understanding of its capability so I am more likely to continue using it.

My Adventures in Technology - Picnik

I had the opportunity to try out the photo editing program Picnik. My first attempt to make a photo collage was unsuccessful, when I saved it to my computer the pictures were completely black. I decided to edit a single image and had more success. The image I designed is included with this blog. I was very impressed with the amount of effects you could apply to a picture for free. You had the option of buying a subscription and getting additional effects. I also liked that you did not have to register to use Picnik, although you could if you wanted to store your photo on their page. I have used the photo program Picasa but I think I like Picnik better. Here is a link to Picnik: http://www.picnik.com/.

My Adventures in Technology - Skype

I had the opportunity to check out Skype last night. I downloaded it with little trouble. I tested out my sound by adding the "demo girl" to my list and having a practice phone call with her. The only trouble I had was finding contacts. There was a place that you could check if any of your email contacts were on Skype but it did not have the capability to check hotmail or gmail, which are my only two email accounts. I could not think of anyone I knew on Skype so I did not check for anyone in the directory. My only contact is "demo girl". I am glad that I signed up because in the future I may find some contacts and I think it will be an awesome way to communicate with them.

Here is a link to Skype: http://www.skype.com/.

P.S. My husband and I were talking about Skype and thinking how awesome it would have been if it was around when I interned in England and he stayed in Canada. It would have saved us a lot of money.

My Adventures in Technology - Flip Video Camera

My friend just purchased a Flip Video Camera which we decided to try out today. We made a few short videos of our kids and then downloaded them to her computer. I was very impressed with how easy it was to use. The camera had very few buttons and the USB connection was built right into it. I am considering getting one for personal use and I will be recommending that my school purchase a few for use in the classroom. I think they could be a very cool educational tool and I know many schools are currently using them.

P.S. My friend also recommended that I watch Dr. Randy Pausch's video called Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. It was very powerful and if you have time it is worth watching. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo .

My Adventures in Technology - Animoto

I read about Animoto on Kim's blog. I love it. I downloaded 5 images (2 of my own and 3 from the site) and a song. The site was very user friendly although it took a long time to finaluze the video (probably because I have highspeed light). Even though it is a really simple video it is great. I will definitely try to make a more sophisticated one in the future. I may even make a video for my final presentation using this tool. Here is a link to my video: http://animoto.com/play/XjTTqw4JbIjIXGAf5b1H7g. Here is a link to the Animoto: http://animoto.com/

My Adventures in Technology - United Streaming

I signed up for United Streaming (Discovery Education). It looks like an amazing site. It has great videos that will be awesome to show my students on my SMARTBoard. I tried to link some videos to my wiki under my teacher resources section but I was not successful. My link kept going to the sign in page. My husband claims that he has linked videos to his wiki so who knows? I tried to find some resources today on the sight and was again unsuccessful because they were experiencing an unexpected error. I will try again later. Here is the link to United Streaming: http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/.

My Adventures in Technology - Moodle

I was just exploring the Moodle website and I really do not get what it is. I signed up as a guest which allowed me to explore the tool without signing up. Does a person use Moodle so they can design an online course or is it so they can access lessons and units that other people have designed or both? I searched for different courses in the search bar and really could not find anything. I only spent 15 minutes on the site because I found it too confusing. Here is the link to Moodle: http://moodle.org/ .

March 31 Lecture

Dr. Couros showed us many interesting websites last night. I will definitely have to check some of them out. The Post Secret sight interested me - I am a terrible snoop. The YouTube video where all of the individual musicians were synced together to make music was also very cool. The surveys that showed how connected to technology a group of students were was interesting. We talked about the importance of incorporating that connectivity into schools so we do not lose students. During this lecture it struck me, as it has repeatedly during the course of this class, that we as educators have to incorporate the use of technology in schools or these institutions are going to become obsolete. My "old" way of teaching needs to change to incorporate a "new" way that engages modern learners.

P.S. I checked out Post Secret. It is quite entertaining and suprisingly artistic. I signed up to follow the site on Twitter so I should never miss a secret again ;). Here is the link to Post Secret: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/.