So this is how it ends.

Here is is, my final project for the term. Everything I have learned condensed down into just over five minutes. It was almost impossible to do, at least for me, since I have a habit of talking to much.

I feel like I have learned a lot this term, since I am now more confident with technology, am more likely to try some of the new ideas in class and I got new ideas to try once I get my own classroom.

Coming quickly to a close...

Today in class we had a guest speaker who brought up a variety of points for us.

• You should be easy to find on Google, but what can be found should be all appropriate. You don't want the principal to think you will a headache. "Whatever you have online you should be able to say in front of a classroom."
• Include your digital portfolio URL on your resume.
• We live in a world, where if you don't exist online, you might not be considered for jobs, further education or many opportunities. You just should not be posting everything online.
• Anything online should be considered public, so make sure it is appropriate.
• Classroom teacher vs. school teacher, do you see a difference?
• As teachers we need to share things, so that we can better our school, our division, our province, our country, our world and our presentation. Don't be an isolated educator.
• PLN's are really looked at, who knew, at least prior to this class.
• As educator's we have to be able to show growth and willingness to learn.
• Relationships are crucial both with students and with staff. You cannot expect students to adapt to you, you must adapt to them.
• You have to look beyond just teaching the curriculum, all of the other stuff is in many cases even more important.
• Look at learner profiles, to match the curriculum to your students, not trying to stuff your students into the curriculum. That is as effective as a round peg in a square whole.
• Rubrics are just telling students the minimum they need to do to get the mark that they want. This is not actually encouraging learning, it is really limiting our students. They will not become passionate learners, which should be our goal.
• Planning should be flexible, since you need to be responsive to the needs of the students.
• Embody life long learning...as teachers we should be constantly learning and expanding our skills. We need to be reflective of our own teaching, looking into our own teaching growth.
• Learning goals vs. performance goals. We need to move away from rewards/awards, instead we should see what students are actually learning.
• We should get our students looking beyond the classroom, looking at how they can benefit and change the world.
• As teachers, we should enjoy our subjects that we are teaching, since students will know if we hate the subject we are teaching.
• Supervision is an opportunity to get to know students, so that you can build a better connection with all students.
• You need to have good communication skills to be a teacher. And never deliver bad news in a written format, it should be a phone call or face to face.
• More communication is better than less, so that there are no bombshells for parents.

Today for show and tell...

I must admit I have not had the most time lately to go look at a lot of new apps to share. However, there are a couple I have tried that are new to me, so I figure those count, right Mike?

The first is Mindmeister, which allows you create what I call "webs" and other people call concept maps. These webs are very effective for many things, including planning essays, brainstorming as a class or a group or for just creating a unique, and visual way to display information. My PLN's were made through mindmeister, and I just tried out the basics.

Infogr.am is an online app that allows you to make infographics. This is a fun app that gives you the chance to use different designs and insert a lot of different features on to you graphics. I tried it out, and after a few false starts was very successful. 

So give either of these a try, or comment on fun new apps you have tried.

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Now today's title doesn't seem like it is related to technology but it really is. "Stuff you missed in history class" is a podcast that I found and have been listening to for the past several weeks. The podcast looks at major historical figures and moments, and brings up points and information that is not a part of the standard history curriculum.

I really enjoy this podcast for several reasons. First, I am a history major, and I have always been fascinated with the more obscure pieces of history. This podcast brings up a lot of these obscure facts, as well as more common facts. Second, the podcast looks at a lot of different topics, like Casanova, the real Indiana Jones and the full history of Rosa Parks. This podcast would be very useful for getting students interested in a topic, as the little rarely talked about facts are a great way to hook students on a subject.

I think it would be a lot of fun to get students to make a podcast similar to this one, as students would have fun looking up really obscure facts along with the regular history facts when they are researching a topic. Students would also like to try finding different topics to research, giving them more responsibilities in class.

Well this blogging thing is more popular than I thought

One of our tasks for class this year was to follow an Edublogger, reading their posts and hopefully learning a thing or two from them. I decided to follow Joe Bower and his blog "for the love of learning". Joe is a teacher in Red Deer, Alberta, who is looking at challenging the traditional views of schools and education. Hos blog provides the reader with an interesting look at different parts of education, everything from class size to professional development.

I feel like the best part of this blog is that Joe is putting up a lot of different information from all over the world, but at the same time, it is all stuff that we have talked about here at University. I feel like this really shows just how universal education is, and also how universal all of the issues facing education are. Also, a lot of Joe's comments and ideas go against what is considered the traditional model of education, something the world is really moving away from. This is really what drew me to the blog, and has kept me reading it.

Finally, my favorite blog post from Joe is "Here is what Education Hell looks like," for several reasons. First, the video looks like a prank video, just because it is hard to imagine anyone actually thinking this is an effective way to teach teachers at a professional development workship. Secondly, the presenter clearly believes that practice makes perfect, when really practice makes permanent. If the person using repetion is not doing something properly, they will simply learn the incorrect method. Finally, teaching and learning is aobut more than just parrotting something back to a teacher or instructor, you need to look beyond what the teacher is saying, to take the information and actually make something new.

Getting Organized

Online curration and organization is a huge piece of working effectively online, and I am not afraid to admit that this is an area that I am very behind in. I have had very little experience with any type of online curration, most likely because I do not do a whole lot online. However, I have tried out and enjoy using feedly and Pinterest. I feel like I should be more involved with organizing myself online, and moving forward this is definitely something I will be looking at. 

I feel like online curration is an important organizational skill to teach our students. As teachers we want to provide our students with lifeskills and relevant information, and online curration does both. Students can store all their sources for research papers/projects, find websites that show science experiments, or blogs from other schools. Currating online sources will help those sources that have a habit of losing "that piece of paper they wrote the website down on."

Online curration can also help make teaching easier, since students can access the teacher's online curration, find commonly used websites there. This would be very helpful with younger classes, since you only have to have the students type one web address and then just have them click on pictures.

Picture this...

Infographic - prior to class, not a hot clue what this term actually meant.
Now spend two and a half months in a technology class.
Infographic - A digital image or video used to share information in a short format, with minimal reading required. 
Here is my sample infographic. It is nothing fancy, especially since I cite wikipedia, but it is a great start for me to figure out how to use the technology to create one. 

I think that it would be awesome to use these in my classroom, having students make them would be a great way to review information or summarize a chapter. I think that students would enjoy making these, as opposed to always making things like posters by hand. The biggest piece would be showing students how to actually make the infographics. However, this is just another learning experience, so embrace it and take inforgraphics for a test drive.