5 Years has come and gone!

Well the final day has come and gone and I can finally say I am done university classes! Where has the last five years gone! During my undergrad degree time seemed to go by slower and the last two years of my after degree here in education has seemed to fly by! It’s definitely a weird feeling of not being able to see my classmate’s everyday like we have for the last two years, and I will definitely miss that! Student teaching begins on Monday which I am super excited to work with the children and towards the end of March start applying for jobs in hope of finding one! I have learned so much over the last two years, especially in ICT. The endless amount of apps, that I never knew existed, blogging (which I found difficult at first), as well as creating our e-portfolios. I definitely will take a lot of what I have learned over the past two years with me into my own classroom and will help students use technology effectively and appropriately. 

Week 8- Free resource for teaching digital citezenship

EverFi is a free resource that is partnered up with different organizations such as NHL, singers such as Pharrell Williams that allows these courses to be a free resource for education and teachers! EverFi has 10 + years experience, 8000 schools, 180 employees, 9 million students, 1000 partners and innovative investors. I think that is it really neat that the NHL is involved and they have created courses such as math and science of hockey for grades 5-7- focusing on science/ technology/ engineering/ math and integrating these areas together, as well as alchoholedu, etc.. I think that students would be extremely engaged in this type of course work if they are interested in hockey or sports and would help them understand it in a way that works for them. Being someone who struggled with math a lot, and science a little bit in school I think that this would have put it into terms that I would have understood and would have enjoyed math more. I think that these courses are an amazing resource for teachers to use to teach students and have I mentioned it's FREE! That's awesome, especially when your first starting out teaching! This was a great presentation!

Tech Task #6- Connected Student

My connected world is fairly minimal compared to most. I only use the basic technology tools to listen to music, connect with family, and watch videos on. I find that the tools that I used are the ones that work best for me because I like to have a minimal of tools to have to check on daily and to continuously update, as I am not one that shares a whole lot on the internets or Facebook.

I think that students in todays world are a lot more connected and have signed up for every possible social media site possible. I think that the more tools that the students are able to use the more learning that we as teachers can provide them. It allows for the opportunity for us as teachers to allow students to create amazing assignments using technology like never before and allows students to explore with that creativity. I think that students growing up in our technology driven world are more comfortable and do not think twice about posting something online because they feel like it will not harm them- I think that we as teachers need to take the tools that they are so vigorously engaged in and make sure that we are teaching them to be smart digital citizens and to make responsible choices!

Tech Task # 8- Rethinking Classroom Cell Phones- Podcast

This podcast had talked about how cell phones are being used for cheating, and the response was well don't ask questions that are able to be answered by Google. Using technology as a tool of engagement will help reduce management problems in the classroom and allow students to enjoy school and technology. When I was in high school we were not allowed to use our cellphones at all in class and they would be taken away if they were seen out in the classroom at all. But I think in todays classrooms that is not at all how it is anymore. Teachers are really experimenting with various uses of bring your own device to allow students to use them for educational purposes (not texting) while in the classroom. I think that the ideas of this podcast are somewhat dated in the fact that some believe that students should not have their devices in the classroom. Using podcasts in the classroom is a great way to create a discussion or a debate in the classroom. You could have students take one side or the other of the podcast and engage in pros and cons of the topic at hand. Cheating and chatting is the topic of this podcast- I also do not believe that cheating is possible with cellphones, because if you are asking questions that students can easily answer than that is not an effective question. Students need to be able to access technology during assessment, to access the tools of technology and to use it at any time during their learning and not just some of the time. The podcast had talked about the fact that devices will be pencils and papers of the future- yes I agree that they will be the main way that students take notes and create assignments, but I also think that pen and paper skills are also critical for students to still know. Cellphones being forbidden in poor schools? I do not know if that is a fair question- why should all students suffer in that school if some students cant afford devices but some can. I think that with the school divisions headed towards providing devices for students this will eliminate this problem somewhat!
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Week 7- Almost Student teaching time!!!

This week I was able to go and visit my class that I will be student teaching in, and will be teaching science ( soils) as well as focusing on earth day, ELA (poetry), and math (measurement). I am super excited to work with the children that are in Grade 3 and teaching grade 3 science will be a new experience that I am excited for! While I was there for my visit the students were on the carpet area when I entered and were using a toilet paper roll with popsicle sticks on it.... they were using them to knit with!!!! What a cool idea, they all have time to work on knitting but by March they measure whose is the longest and they then put them all end to end to see if they can reach from the classroom to the gym. I can't wait to get to work with this awesome class of students!
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Week 6- Brandon School Division Technology

This week we had a guest speaker from Brandon School division who discussed the technology within the division. Kelly had talked about the fact that Brandon School division is Microsoft based and if there is a form of a Microsoft program available teachers use that instead of something else. I was amazed at this because of the fact that although programs are similar, they do differ and some that are not Microsoft based are often programs that offer more. The fact that teachers are stuck using mostly Microsoft based programs could be seen as a downfall. I think that teacher are fully capable of using the internet and the programs on it, effectively and responsibly, so therefore I think that they should be able to explore with what programs that they would like to use to teach and engage students. I think that limiting this is harming the students in the end because of the opportunities that they may be missing out on.
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Week 5- 1:1 teaching in the classroom

Bryce had a lot of great positives about using technology in the classroom. Having a teacher like Bryce that is knowledgeable in the area of technology and willing to try new things with students allows 1:1 teaching to be successful in his classroom. I really like the idea of using different website to allow students to explore and really have the opportunity to use creativity at a deeper level than ever before! A lot of the students work that was shown to us was absolutely amazing on the time, effort and thought that was put into creating various forms as such. We were asked in class this week if we would use social media in our classroom during teaching, and I think that if used properly it can be a great resource. However, with someone like myself who is interested in teaching elementary I think that it makes it a little more difficult with the legality with the students being under age. I think that I would use a classroom website for my main resource of social media and communicating with parents and students online. I also think that if students are in grade 3 or higher that they than can start experimenting with using various programs to really create neat projects and portray their ideas and creativity in a unique way.  I think that some teachers are scared to explore with the students the different website tools that are available and allow students to have class time to create some amazing work. I really look forward to exploring and helping students use their creativity, because this is something I really enjoy myself. I am the type of learner that prefers to create something new rather than follow in the footsteps of everyone else!