For my final reflection I wanted to show some of the tools I have learned to use this semester. I created a glog and linked videos to each of the pictures that I edited on Windows Movie Maker. I uploaded these videos to Youtube and also gave them shorter URLs by using the website MooURL.
So here it is… My final reflection but not my final blog!
View my glog here.
I came across this today and thought it might be something others would be interested in subscribing to. It is a blog discussing free technology for teachers. To check it out click here.
Growing up I was a huge barbie fan. My sisters and I would play barbies all the time and turn my parent’s furniture into our barbie mansions. As I got older barbie started to receive a negative connotation among many different groups. Barbie has been said to give off a ” I have to look beautiful for my husband and be a stay at home mom” look. Barbie has also been under public scrutiny because she has been said to fail at representing the female gender as anything but beautiful and she fails to equally represent different races. While I always listened to these complaints and the several other complaints that came up I always loved Barbie and always have said that I can’t wait to pass my barbies on to different girls in my family. I would say the view I have held has often been called wrong and people have said it will put barriers on the females in my family if they grow up with the same attitudes that I had. Those views were shared by many until recently. Barbie is changing her image! Mattel Canada has been helping to promote barbies differently with the “I Can Be” campaign which is all about female empowerment. In Toronto, they held the campaign where preteen girls could come to the show and choose out of the 125 different careers Barbie has had since her debut in 1959. Once they chose their career they got their picture taken and then got to strut down the pink carpet to Barbie herself who handed the girls a diploma. This event was very well perceived and I think was a very good marketing plan. While I don’t believe that Barbie affected me negatively I think campaigns like this will help Barbie impact and influence young girls dreams in a positive manner. To read more about the campaign click here. If you want to see some of the new female empowerment barbies click here
I continue to be working with a class in Nelson, New Zealand for my collaborative project. It has been a great experience and I have learned a lot from the students and I think they have been getting the same from me. I have created a wiki for their classroom with various videos and activities as to how we connect and my next activity I will be doing with the teacher is a global flashmeeting that will take place next Friday. I hope to provide a recording to my blog as I think it would be a great thing for everyone to listen in on!
After completing my “interview a learner” post I was really inspired by Diana Laufenberg’s thoughts but was also reminded of one thing that really bothered me. Many school divisions have put a ban on youtube, facebook and other networking sites like this. I know in my highschool it became a game to try and “outsmart” the teachers to find a way to get on these sites. As Diana said it ends up wasting so much valuable learning time as it causes teachers to have to do more patrolling the teaching.
Another problem I personally have with these bans is the fact that the students may miss out on a lot of great resources. I understand there is a lot of garbage out there but the school divisions can block all these sites should there not be a way to only block the garbage? Teachers in these school divisions do have access to these sites but do you think it is enough? I believe that the teacher can show a video or help a student collaborate but why shouldn’t the student get the opportunity to explore and make connections?
Here is my question: What are your thoughts on the bans? Do you think they are the right thing to do or do they cause a loss of learning? Can you pose any solutions?
I don’t know the answers to these questions nor do I know what is right. I do however believe some sort of change should be imposed.The video below is one that I found of a class implementing twitter and other networking sites that could be greatly beneficial to a wide variety of age groups if permitted!
For my interview I talked to Diana Laufenberg who teaches in Pennsylvania. She answered the questions in really great detail and I she brought up some extremely interesting points. If you would like to listen to the recording you can click here. Below I also have a point form version of what she had to say in our interview.
1.What are your thoughts on the use of cell phones in the classroom? Do you think they are beneficial in the learning process? Why or why not?
Diana said that cellphones can be beneficial but do have some limitations. Some ways they can be used are outside the classroom to collect audio or still pictures that can be brought into class. Diana was also involved in a project surrounding the 2008 election to view this click here.
2.Have you ever had difficulties with parents, admin (etc) when trying to integrate any types of technology into the classroom?When she began trying to integrate technology into her classroom back in 2002-2003 she had some difficulty as some parents were a bit skeptical as to how it could be used and for privacy issues but she quickly won them over and now works in a fairly tech savvy school where technology is heavily integrated into the students day.
3. Where can you see technology taking your classroom in the next five to ten years?
Diana said that she doesn’t look where technology is going to go and what it can do for her classroom because as she told me her school allows for every student to have a MAC book( I think that is pretty awesome!) So for her she wants to see technology be able to blur the boundaries between school and home and allow for more learning to be able to happen elsewhere.
4. When introducing new technologies into an activity how do you share time between the actual task and the learning of technology?
In Diana’s current setting she says she spends almost no time teaching technology as the kids have a pretty good feel for it due to their setting. In her old setting, she did find herself teaching it a bit more but she would give them whatever they needed to get going and then allowed her students to collaborate together to keep discovering technology.
5. a lot of parents, teachers, principals, and school boards are hesitant to embrace technology in all of its forms (such as facebook, you tube, and cell phones) due to privacy issues and the lack of control they could have by allowing these technologies to exist in classrooms. Do you think these are reasonable concerns and do you believe the authorities are reacting correctly by banning the uses of these particular technologies in schools/classrooms?
Diana believes banning anything is generally a bad idea especially when speaking in terms of sites. She believes banning such sites just makes it a game for kids to get into them and as a teacher you end up spending more time trying to catch them or stop them from doing it.
6.Has there been any challenge for you in implementing technology in your classroom?
One of Diana’s biggest challenges was in her old setting and that was getting the devices she needed in her classroom and finding the tools required that would be best suited for the children. In her new setting she doesn’t believe she has any challenges with technology because they typically have the kids working on their own lap top whenever they want them to.
7. How has twitter allowed for you to collaborate with other teachers?
Diana said that Twitter has absolutely allowed for her to collaborate with teachers. It got her a job at her current setting, put her in contact with people all over the place for ideas regarding her teaching and has also allowed her to connect with people to help her class that she normally would have no idea how to get in contact with. Click here to see a blog post about why her class loves twitter!
My thoughts..
After talking with Diana I have really be reinspired to explore and implement technology into my future classroom. I have also been re convinced that twitter can be a really great tool for collaboration in education. I think her passion for technology and teaching is very evident and I hope to implement some of her ideas and values into my future classrooms!
This morning as I work towards ending this semester and see a very long to do list that I feel will never end I wonder why I put myself through this? I was in great need of some inspiration this morning so while going through some of my ECMP 455 work I decided to visit Dean Shareski’s Flickr group called “Great quotes about Learning and Change.” After reading many of the visual quotes I was feeling a little more reminded as to why I choose to spend hours working on assignments, pulling all nighters and doing what sometimes feels like never ending assignments. When I was in grade eight I had a wonderful teacher. Mr. Shewchuk taught me everything in the curriculum that was required but he did what I feel every great teacher should do, he taught me a whole separate curriculum that has brought me to where I am today. Mr. Shewchuk taught me about responsibility, he encouraged me to have dreams, he transformed me into a talented athlete and most of all he treated me as an equal and a friend. He was a teacher that would go that extra mile to make sure you were feeling confident and comfortable at school and in life. So what is the connection between Dean’s group and Mr.Shewchuk? Well, let me tell you! Mr.Shewchuk sat me down one afternoon in June and told me that although I am young I need to realize I have a bright future with children and that I needed to continue to work with them all through highschool so I can get into the Faculty of Education in Regina and become the teacher I have the potential to be. Well, I was only in grade eight and university was lightyears away for me. So while he was giving me this speech all I kept staring at was a poster he had hanging in our classroom that read ” Shoot for the moon; even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.” I am now in university and hold that conversation and that quote very close to me. So after feeling rather uninspired I read many of the quotes from the Flickr group and was brought back to that warm June day sitting in my grade eight classroom in Bethune, Saskatchewan thinking this guy was crazy for telling me what I should do for a career! So, I decided to create my own visual poster with that quote on it that I printed out this morning and stuck on the wall beside my desk. Have a look at it Becky’s visual quote
On April 14th a Canadian organization will host its 3rd annual ” Bullying Stops Here” campaign. For this the organization asks people to wear something pink to school, work, while your at the gym or wherever you may go. This campaign has grown quite large from how it began. It began when two highschool boys from Nova Scotia witnessed another classmate being bullied. They were both deeply disgusted by this and decided to take a stand against bullying in their school. The boys went to a discount clothing store and bought fifty pink coloured tank tops, sent a message out to their friends and the next day their school was “tickled pink” by the stand against bullying. This stand was said to make the children being bullied feel so much safer and more confident to walk the halls in their school as they felt as though they had a support system and were no longer backed against a wall all alone.
Since the boys started this the campaign has grown astronomically. It has now become a national event that receives a great deal of media attention. There is also a facebook group, a website, twitter and even t-shirts that can be purchased. I think this speaks volumes as to waht can be a major solution to stopping bullying. All it took was two highschool boys to take a stand and spread the word in their highschool and now the entire country. If every school had two kids who so to say, “wore their pink everyday,” I think bullying could be diminished a great deal because whether or not you want to admit it or not peer pressure and peer influences go a long way for many young people. I realize my opinion is a longshot and probably would not completely diminsh bullying but I think it would help to go a long way.
As a future educator, I think it is important to have a school policy as well as a personal policy. I know all schools have implemented a zero tolerence towards bullying but it still is happening because teachers and administrators are turning a blind eye towards bullying as my fellow classmate Tammy Flaman witnessed first hand. Zero tolerence is a great idea; however it needs to be taken seriously and implemented in every situation to prevent the worst from happening. So while bullying is decreasing and becoming more noticed I think as a society we still have a long way to go. I hope everyone who reads this remembers to speak up towards bullying of any kind and on April 14th wear your pink to help stop bullying now!
