Tech Task #7 - Infographics

I think infographics could be very useful in the classroom. I never really thought about using them in the classroom before this tech task, but I think they are something that I will use for sure. I think it would be cool to print off a couple every week and place them in the classroom for the students to read. They don't have to relate to what we are doing during class that day, but could be something motivational or something interesting. I think they also could be very useful to use in lessons. It is a different way to show information and they typically don't require much reading which the students probably would like. 

I think Piktochart is really cool. I definitely need some practice with it, but it is something I could see myself using in the future.

Tech Task #10 - Comment of a Blog Post

I have comment on a blog from Ms. Cassidy's Blog.

Tech Task #12 - The Future!!

When talking about the future of education I barely know where to begin (I haven't even begun teaching yet and you want me to talk about the future!). The obvious answer will be that it will be more tech based and the traditional classroom will be no more. We were actually talking about this in Shelley's Student Literacy class last week. Shelley asked us what we think the classroom will look like in 25-30 years near the end of our careers. Shelley mentioned somewhere along the lines of (not a direct quote) that she wouldn't be surprised if there were any permanent classrooms left by that time. What she meant was, that she thinks a lot of the learning might take place on the internet through online based learning. Obviously there will still be school, but not how they look now. Next she asked us what about something like libraries in the school, what will happen to those? There is no doubt that by the end of our careers everything you need in a library will be online and everyone will have a device to access these resources. As a class we came to the conclusion that libraries will probably still be there because they are already there so they probably won't just get rid of them, but the amount of use they get will drop dramatically.

In the Horizon Report it talks about coding becoming a literacy. It mentions that this is part of the short-term plan. I think this is something that will be in high-schools in the next 3-5 years probably. As technology grows being able to code becomes more and more important. Also being able to code will open the doors to many future employment opportunities. It also talks about Virtual Reality in the next 3-5 years. This is something that I can foresee happening as well. Daniel already talked about how he is using it in his classroom and I think it will be used more and more as the years go on.

Overall, I am super excited about the future of education and I am even more excited that I get to play a vital role in it.

Tech Tasks #9

The video that I have decided to show you is one called "If the World Were a Village". I assume most of you have probably seen a video like these or seen pictures that represent "If a World Were a Village", but I have always thought these were really cool. Also this video or idea fits really well with the Grade 7 Social Studies curriculum. It fits well with the first three clusters: World Geography, Global Quality of Life, Ways of Life in Asia Africa or Australasia. After watching the video I was thinking that you could adapt this type of video and get the students to make their own videos about different countries or continents. I think that I would allow the students to put their videos on YouTube or a website. I think that if the students knew that their videos were going to go public they would put more effort in and their final project has a better chance of being something that they are proud of!

Tech Task #8 - Podcasts

I frequently listen to three podcasts for my personal enjoyment. I probably started listening to them about 2 years ago and I love them. They are something that I listen to while doing homework or instead of listening to the same boring radio. None of these podcasts really apply to this assignment, so I had to do some research and find some that I would use in my teachings. If you are wondering which ones  I listen to for your own personal enjoyment they are: The Joe Rogan Experience - He is a frequent podcastor and puts of 2-3 a week and they vary in topics but i find them entertaining. I also listen to the Jay & Dan podcast which comes out weekly and they talk mostly about sports. The last one I listen to is the Monday Morning Podcast by Bill Burr. This is a comedy based podcast. I find all of these podcasts very enjoyable and very funny. Give them a listen if you are interested.

Now to the Podcast for this assignment. The Podcast that I am going to talk about is called "Today in Canadian History". These Podcasts come out almost daily and are hosted by professors, journalists, authors, or everyday historians. Each Podcast talks about something that happened in Canadian history on this day. A couple examples are: March 8th - International Women's Day Edition. This one talks about the history of women in Canada. March 3rd- First Official Indoor Game of Hockey. This talks about the first indoor hockey game in Canada. March 1st - The Great Winnipeg Gold Robbery of 1966. This talks about a gold heist in Winnipeg.

As you can see the Podcasts have a wide variety of what they are talking about, but they all deal with Canadian History. All of these Podcasts are around 10 minutes long. I think this something really cool that you could incorporate into your Social Studies or History classes.

Tech Task #4 - Follow an EduBlogger

I have been following Kirsten Foti who is an Grade 7 and 8 from Texas. Her blog name is Crazy Lady Teacher and she blogs about the different things that she does in her classroom. Lately she has been blogging about how she has been incorporating the AVID principle in her classroom. AVID is  a philosophy that trains students to use practices in order to prepare students for success in high school, college/university, and a career. Basically it teaches skills and behaviours for academic success. Kirsten blogs about twice a month. She has slowed down a bit recently, but I hope she starts to pick it up again because she has a lot of great ideas in her blogs.

The reason that I started following Kirsten is because her blog talks a lot of new teaching ideas and goes against the traditional way of teaching. This is something that this course has really made me think about with all of our guest speakers that have been doing this.

One of her blog posts that caught my eye was the one called "Stop stopping the violence: boys and violence". She talks about how she had a student write about violence acts in a short story and how this really concerned her. This happened many years ago and when she saw it she got the administrations attention. She talked about how the written wasn't a foreshadow of what was going to happen, but the student was just writing about what they knew. The student learnt this from video games which is something they had an interest in. She talks about how being able to write about something you know is huge and can be difficult for young writers. Kirsten mentioned that if she could go back she would have talked to the student about it and helped them with their writing. Obviously you have to be careful in situations like this, but if you don't think what the student is writing about is going to be a problem you should encourage it.

Another post that she talked about was a writing project called "Exploring our futures through our head, heart, hands, and feet". This was a writing assignment that had students writing about their future careers. This assignment allows students to write about something that interests them and it can also get them thinking about their future.

Tech Task #11 - Show and Tell

For my show and tell I am going to show you an application that a friend of my recommended to me called Scrumy. After taking a look at it I realized that it could be a great tool to use to manage your students projects. It also is a great way for the students to manage there own projects. If you follow this link to my Scrumy you can see an example of how it works.

How it works is each of your students will have to create their own page. This is a very easy process and your students will be able to do this by themselves with limited assistance. All they have to done is choose a username. After they have chosen their username all they have to do is in the search bar and type in www.scrumy.com/whatevertheirusernameis. After the / on the url the student puts in their username and it will create a page for them. Once there you can add multiple subjects which are called stories on this website. Then in the To Do list they can add all of the assignments that they currently have. Once they have started working on the assignment they can slide that assignment to the In Progress section. Then when the student has completed the assignment they slide it over to the Verify section. After putting it in the verify section the student can inform the teacher that they are done the assignment for the teacher to check. The teacher can then check the assignment and after they have determined that it is acceptable they can slide it into the Done section.

I think this is a great way for your students to keep track of what they are doing and it also gives them a sense of responsibility. Also if your students keep this up to date they have to be more accountable with their assignments because all they have to do is look at their website and everything that is due will be right there.

Hopefully you enjoyed my show and tell and maybe in your future teachings you can use it!