Reflections on what I learned

It has been a very enjoyable and frustrating experience for me. I have always been open to challenges and I must say, that this class has been one where I have ventured out in rapid waters equipped with only my common sense and positive attitude towards learning. Before taking this class, I had been introduced to wikis and blogging, but not to the extent that this class took me. I found myself sitting at my computer desk reading, viewing, smiling, laughing, conversing, eating, and almost sleeping most nights as I clicked away at my keyboard. Some nights I sat and wondered if any of my fellow students were going through the same motions too. It was almost like sitting in a classroom with the computer screen as the teacher. I looked forward to reading blog posts and I became mesmerized at the immensity of information that was available online and became a word hog. I love words and the more I read, the more I wanted to know. On most nights, I was focused and I diligently took notes from the readings into my notebook and took time to re-read them hoping to make sense of what I had read. But, like I said earlier, I became more excited when I hit a curve or a slight slant on this road I had ventured on and my notes became a blur while I watched a wordle take shape. It was an amazing experience. I wish someone had been here beside me most nights to hear my yahoos and my wallops and my not so many nice words that little old ladies like me should not have in their vocabulary. But if there is one thing that I will take with me from taking this class, it's this. Even though I have never met half of the students enrolled in this class personally, I feel that through their posts and comments and their final projects all taking shape, I feel connected to them; Internetically speaking!

P.D. Presentation

I have published my P.D. presentation and you can now view it.

P.D. Reflections

I hope the information I posted on my presentation was sufficient. I had an awesome time viewing videos and because I am a visual learner I loved the video format on itunesU. I would like to use this type of P.D. for teachers who are not so savvy with Web 2.0 tools and make them aware that it is not so bad. I would like to see more teachers take the initiative to learn how to use Web 2.0 in their classrooms. Having said that, I would like to see administrators step up to the plate and begin to see the many ways that the Internet can be used in their schools. I am still having problems with the Internet in my classroom and in the computer lab. We still do not have a computer teacher or any type of tech person. I am still experiencing frustrations as my students and I spend valuable time still staring at blank computer screens.

I would also like to mention that when I hear someone say that the Web 2.0 is slowly going to become a useful tool in our classrooms, it makes me more aware of the inability of most schools to upgrade their equipment and hire tech people to monitor that equipment.

I have become somewhat savvy with Web 2.0 tools and I am becoming better by the risks I have taken and the many hours I have spent reading material and doing everything by trial and error.

P.D. Presentation reflections

I have viewed approximately 3 hours of video from itunesU and I am quite impressed. I was able to connect to most of the sites that were recommended by Marnie and I think that it would be easy to use them as a P. D. tool to enrich teachers' minds about the integration of technology into the classroom. I was able to pause the video and take notes and then come back to it later. I noticed that there are many videos to choose from and they are all free. I am going to share more on it in my presentation on google docs.

Just having some fun with pictures....

I created a picture using piZap and totally thought it would be ideal for my students who are blogging. I will attach a link here if you want to see the picture. The picture was taken at our first cultural camp with the high school students. They are laying down spruce boughs on the ground inside the wall tent. Some of the girls did sleep on the spruce boughs that night, including me.

http://www.pizap.com/gallery_display_page.php?imagename=pizap.com0.5332438158802688.jpg

itunes university

I am listening to Smithsonian Global Sound on itunes. All the recordings are free and it's quick to download as well. I picked the ballads in poetry and I pasted the site here if you are interested in using this as part of your lessons in English in high school. They seem to be user friendly and as most high school students have access to ipods and itouch, these videos and sound recordings can be downloaded for free. I will explore more on this portion of PD and go from there.

http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/archives_05.aspx

Start of new blog for my students....

Here is the link to my new class blog that I have started with my students for Communication Studies 20 class. Please feel free to comment on it at any time.
http://www.communicationstudiesclassblog.blogspot.com/

Wow! Looking forward to Block 7.

I just finished viewing and reading some of Block 7 activities for our class and I was amazed at how easy it is to get lost in selecting reading material. I lost track of time since I was so busy testing out google docs. I watched a few of the videos and I was again amazed at how simple English can transform frustrations into creations. I am looking forward to sharing as well as finding collaborators. I look forward to using some of the suggestions like the online conferences that can viewed by educators at any time. I am hoping that as northerners and educators we will expand our horizons to include podcasts and video conferencing to further enhance our teaching methods for the betterment of our students.

Lego Lady?

I thought it was rather amusing for me to try to find the answers in under five minutes, but I was able to find the first one without a hitch. But, as for the second lego lady, I was stumped. I kept going back to the same site and I was not sure if the answer was what I thought it was, until I ran out of patience and tested the answer. Sure enough, it was the right answer.

I also like the soccer challenges. I was able to find the right words and its' matches. I enjoyed that activity.

As for my own learning, I was not surprised to read that there are many hoaxs or bogus sites on the net and that we should make our students aware of them. I am finding that the school filtering system does it itself anyway. There are so many sites that our school computers block. I can't view any utube videos unless a certain flash player is downloaded and I can't download anything to the school computers because I am not the administrator. So much for teaching my students about internet fallacy!

Standstill...

I seem to have brought my blog to a standstill. I was having so much fun and now that fun has turned into frustration at the highest degree. I am able to post but I can't see my own posts. Web 2.0 is still awesome!

I was thinking about this the other day. In our co-hort, one of our students wanted to know if we could do our final assignment using one of the many Web 2.0 tools available to us. This student was told that as we are in an advanced program, the university still wanted to see paper. In this case, the paper was to be twenty pages long. Do you think our universities will ever advance their evaluation standards to include Web 2.0 tools? Can you visualize a university where papers were no longer necessary as long as there was evidence through one of the Web 2.0 tools? Just a thought.

I am now also a twitter!

http://twitter.com/home

This is my twitter homepage. I think I will give this one a try too. I am like Rosalena said in her blog, I am having a blast and becoming a computer addict. I just have to get some work done on my AR paper as I sit her every night blogging.

Dene and Proud Wordle

I have tried attaching this word wordle as a link but it wouldn't let me, so I did a Print Screen, saved it to my picture file and added it here as an image.

Having fun playing in the sandbox...

I've had so much fun playing in the sandbox, I forgot that it was work for my masters! Just a thought; how much time do we as teachers, especially high school teacher, have on any given day to give our students the opportunity to play? Should we give them as much time as possible to create and recreate web 2.0 tools during their allotted school time without the classroom teachers feeling guilty? Would you like to think that our schools would allow teachers to make those decisions on their own without feeling any amount of guilt as long as they are following the curriculum?

What do you think of this?

I found this amazing calendar from an English teacher who plans on a calendar exactly like we are doing in this class, but, the teacher also included reading from text by including the text (somehow, maybe by taking a picture of it) so that the students can read. There are also questions following the reading that one would normally find in an English textbook. I can't paste the link here because it says it is scripted? If you want to view it, go to the resource page and find the link for wordle, click on Aristotle Experiment and view student pages.

My views......

Are your uses of these tools going to maintain traditional “teaching and classroom models” as these authors have observed, or will they help you transform teaching and learning and if so how and why?


I can honestly say that I have transformed my teaching practises to include web 2.0 tools. I have started blogging with my Communication Studies 20 students. I think that I want to include some form of a web tool to show them that there are many ways of communicating. They seem to enjoy the fact that I can respond and make comments on their blogs as well as view my blog. I have moved a great distance in my use of Web 2.0 from just barely turning on the computer to helping others in my school with their own Internet/computer problems and dilemmas. The distance can be measured by looking at my teaching day plans and at my student evaluation. I haven't had the opportunity to "play" in the sandbox with the many tools that are available, but what I have used so far are both amazing and frustrating. I want my students to experience success as well as feel the exhilaration as they venture into the unknown. That is my ultimate goal. Isn't this what every teacher wants for their students? Shouldn't students feel that they are somewhat 'in control' of their learning? What do think would happen if all teachers today decided to swish their practises to include Web 2.0 tools in their teaching practises?

Two Hours of Nothingness....

I have been sitting at my post (literally) for the last two hours, trying to post a link to my wordle, that I was so proud of when I completed it. But for some reason beyong my control, it would not let me post it to my blog. My computer froze and I was left sitting, looking at my wordle freeze and then disappear. It was quite funny. So if you see a wandering wordle somewhere in outer cyberspace, send it back to me, please.

Dene and Proud wordle

My Wordle Experience once again.....

This was actually fun to make. I think I would like to try this with my Communications Studies students. Their wordles can consist of words relating to communicating and each of them will look different. I only wish that I could print them out when they are done. Our computers in the lab are not hooked up to any printers. Their work cannot be saved on the computers too.

It is amazing how I have gotten over my fear of mouse clicking. I am not the expert, but as a teacher, I will find new approaches, new tools to support the learning in a different way as Marnie says in her podcast. Why deprive students of the opportunity to learn something new?

Still from Lucy Gray's blog

http://www.infinitethinking.org/

This site has numerous videos on how to implement the many web 2.0 tools that is available for educators to use in their classrooms with their students. As I was viewing some of the videos I was hit with this thought. Why is it that I, as an educator always thought that I was not 'smart' enough to do any kind of computer teaching in my classroom? I always thought that the 'experts' like the computer teachers were the only ones who were 'smart' enough to teach a lesson using computers or about computers. I have certainly debauched that thinking as I sit here at my laptop 'cruising' the Internet. I can honestly say that this is one teacher who is not scared to click a mouse and view the world at my fingertips. Thanks to all the teachers out there who are willing to step out of their comfort zone for the betterment of our students.

Lost Generation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA&eurl=http://passionatelycurious.typepad.com/passionately_curious/&feature=player_embedded

I thought that this video was pretty neat. I enjoyed the poem in reverse more than I did reading it from the top. As educators, we have to be so careful what we tell our students about their future. We seem to believe that our future generation will become self-destructive,but I have heard Aboriginal say that we, the present generation are the ones who are not thinking of our children's future. They say, that there is a generation in the future who will be the most powerful generation of all. They will save this earth from destruction. I do not have any problems with technology as it is today. I use it daily and so do many other people in this generation today. There are more and more improvements in every way possible. We are curing diseases that were once thought to be incurable. The only question I have is this; With all the technology we have in this world today, why is it we cannot save our DENE language from distinction? What is it that we have to do today so that my great grand children will be speaking it fluently? What types of technology can be 'invented' so that our Aboriginal language will not become obsolete?

In moving from theory to practice, what does the use of technology look like as teachers enact a provincial curriculum that promotes a constructivist

“Technology is a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its environment.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

It has always been my belief that students learn best when they engaged and using manipulatives or moving from theory to practice. My students have always remembered the times they either travelled to Saskatoon to see a play written by a playwright that they studied in their English Language Arts 20 class or made a fire in the forest behind the school to cook bannock on a stick in Food Studies 30 after studying the best way to cook bannock. The use of technology is going to be a great asset in our schools. Teachers have to realize the importance in their classroom as well as the school boards and all funding agencies that may be called upon for financial assistance. The biggest gain for the students will be the fact that they will be given opportunities to make choices and hopefully take interest in their own learning and their abilities.

How do theories of learning such as constructivism and/or connectivism help you better understand how to use/integrate technology into teaching and le

I understand how important it is today to use and integrate technology in our teaching and learning as I stated in one of my earlier postings. My views have not changed nor have they altered. I started asking my students to email me their written assignments before Christmas and it has carried on today. They did some internet research in Food Studies and some of them emailed me the links that they researched on and it was easier for them. Constructivism and connectivism theories of learning have definitely helped me to understand this importance of technology inclusiveness in our teaching. I understand constructivism to mean my students’ behavior towards new concepts as being a scaffold. They begin to use this new knowledge with prior knowledge and make connections between the two to include way that this new knowledge can help them in their present situations. As for connectivism, it’s all about half knowledge and the chaos theory. What we know today was not known to us ten or so years ago and therefore what we know today will be obsolete ten or so years from. We have to provide a network learning process for our students. The word is “integrate”. It seems that as teachers we need to find ways of integrating this knowledge to real life in the practical sense. I like the fact that as teachers we need to let go of our authoritarian roles and become less dictorial. We should instead foster learning where we allow students to find connections and network learning as they see fit.

What beliefs about teaching and learning are most conducive to the viable use of technology in education?

This is my third try at this post....Where did the other two go? Is there a crematorium somewhere in cyberspace that has cremated my postings?

What beliefs about teaching and learning are most conducive to the viable use of technology in education?

I just posted a whole page of my beliefs and I lost it. Now that gives me an opportunity to say with supporting evidence, "Why is it that we hate and love technology at the same time?"

Social constructivism today...does it accommodate our First Nations students?

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ABktWm0yFPg

This short video clip clearly states what life is like for First Nations students who feel a connection to the land yet the Federally run schools do not see importance in implementing programs in these small communities that could "save" one or two from "falling through the cracks". Social contructivism means .."knowledge contructed by learners as they attempt to make sense of their experiences" and..."it is their socio-culture environment in which people live which is really important in terms of deriving the way the group derives meaning from learning and the individuals within the group..." and..."Aboriginal people....they seem to have a very strong group culture...which is different from the westerners..." Would one say then that as First Nations learners, we are meeting their needs?

What connections did I make personally to these learning theories?

After listening to Ian Robertson's and Seimens' recording on contructivism, and reading about Lev Vygotsky's social contructivism, my connections to these learning theories is two-fold. I am currently a student, taking this computer class and a teacher teaching high school. As a student, I believe that we extend ourselves beyond existing understanding so that we can continue to grow and develop and that is a vital tool according to Lev Vygotsky in his theory of contructivisim. For example; we were asked to put our names besides two of our fellow students so that we can become their critical friend and follow their blogs and I went back to check today and I found an interesting pattern occuring. If you can see the pattern, ask yourself this question..."Are we extending ourself beyond existing understanding so that we can grow and develop"? "Do we sometimes fall into a routine that we do not want to break"? and finally, "Are we following a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the way we understand things"?

Learning to Change video

http://globaleducation.ning.com/video/717180:Video:26065

I found this through one of the blogs I was following from Lucy Gray. I agree that we have entered a global world in our classrooms without some of the teachers realizing it fully. It seems that students are going to use their ipods, iphones, etc. outside of our classroom regardless of our interference with school rules for usage.