The road to a paperless classroom begins on Monday

...Like Oxygen
Originally uploaded by colemama

I'm lucky enough to have gone on a $20,000 shopping spree at Best Buy on Friday and was able to purchase many new tools for my classroom. As a recent winner of the Best in Class Fund, my students and I are now the proud owners of a class set of iPod touches, a class set of netbooks, a number of headset microphones, a few Kodak Zi6 cameras, a Nikon SLR camera and two new 21" iMacs.

What are we going to do with all of these new tools you ask? Well, you will just have to wait and see. I can't wait to see the excitement on my students faces on Monday morning when they find out I finally got to go shopping and was able to buy all of the things that we have been talking about buying for the last few months. I also can't wait to see how they will use these carefully chosen tools to enhance their learning experiences in my classroom.

Our goal in our choices, was to have the ability to effectively integrate technology into our classroom so that it becomes a normal part of our learning day. We will no longer have to think twice about using a tool that we want to use to explore, document or demonstrate our learning. All of these wonderful tools will be at our fingertips and part of our everyday school experience.

I find it fitting to see a number of wonderful educators posting their thoughts and experiences from this year's Educon this weekend. Dean Shareski posted a link to the photo included in this post from colemama that includes a quote from a leading administrator in the integration of technology, Chris Lehmann and the founder of Educon about the need for tech to become like oxygen: 

"We should use the technology to create whole new schools. Technology needs to be ubiquitous, necessary and invisible." - Chris Lehmann, Principal, Science Leadership Academy

As I strive to effectively integrate this new technology into my classroom, my hope is that you check back to read about our journey. I also hope that you will see a learning journey that is supported by these new tools and not just a log about how to use these tools in the classroom. Please wish us luck in our new adventure. I can't wait to share it with you.

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

With only 30 days to go, Olympic fever has been spreading rapidly through my classroom. We have been counting down the days to the openning ceremony since the first day of school. Students come to school on a regular basis and tell me about a story they heard about this athlete or that venu. We also adopted a former student who was named to the Canadian Olympic Long Track Speed Skating Team yesterday, Lucas Makowsky. We can't wait to follow his progress and cheer him on during the games. We have set-up a page on our website to track Lucas and to showcase some of the things we have done to support him thus far. Check it out at: http://wilfridwalker.rbe.sk.ca/makowsky

For the students that weren't as excited as the others, they have come on board and joined the band wagon. It helps that the Olympic Torch Relay passed through our city during the weekend giving most of us a more direct connection to the games. I made a video to document the torch's visit to our city over the weekend. You can check it out below. My appologies in advance for some of the shaky cinematography. I need to invest in a tripod. Here it is:

It also helps that my class started working on their online collaborative project on Monday.You can check out our progress over the next 6 weeks on the collaborative project wiki: http://2010olympics.wikispaces.com/

For us, it is a big deal that we are the host country for the Winter Olympic Games. It has been 22 years since we have last hosted such an event. I'm wondering if other people that aren't Canadians are as excited as we are about the start of the games? Or, if you are a Canadian Teacher, are you working on a special project? What are you doing to study the Olympics in your classroom?

K12 Conference: Options for Building Your Teacher Website and Why YOU Should

On Tuesday, I will be giving an in-service to some of the teachers at my school to help improve and build their websites. With that in mind, I came across this 20 minute presentation by Cyndi Danner-Kuhn that was made last week as part of the 2009 K12 Online Conference. Cyndi's presentation offers a quick overview of what to include in a website and what free tools are available on the web for teachers who are interested in building their own websites. For more information about the presentation, visit Cyndi's supporting links on her webisite.

Here's the presentation:

We won the Best Buy "Best in Class" Contest

Today, my Grade 7 class and I were happy to accept a gift card from Best Buy worth $20,000 for our video and technology proposal we submitted to the Best Buy "Best in Class" Fund. I wrote about our submission in October on my blog: My Life, our Future - Ma vie, notre futur. If you haven't already checked out our video, please do! My students are very proud of our collective writing project. We were one of 15 classes to be awarded with this prize from across Canada.

We are planning on making our classroom virtually paperless with the purchase of a class set of ipod touches, netbooks for all of the students to use and recording equipment so that we can have our own weekly podcast show. Stay tuned to see what we will create with all of our new technology. We are very excited to go shopping and to get started on our new learning adventure in 2010.

KI2 Online conference 2009 - The iPod Touch in Education

I have noticed lately that the information that I have posted about using the iPod Touch in the classroom is quite popular. For those of you who have been searching for more information about how to use these devices in an educational setting, you're in luck. Today, while viewing presentations in the KI2 Online conference 2009, I came across a short presentation by Kern Kelley on how to get started with the iPod Touch and the different educational applications that are available.

You can view the presentation here:


You can visit the links to the information in the presentation here:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgkxbfp9_92spf6m9dt

KI2 Online conference 2009 - Getting Started Keynote - The Wizard of Apps

I didn't have time this morning to attend the live session of the K12 Online conference. Fortunately, you can watch the presentations online when it is convenient for you.

The keynote this morning was very well done. It was presented by Joyce Kasman Valenza and was entitled "The Wizard of Apps". This presentation featured "a sing-a-long" portion where high school drama students sang songs about the importance of web 2.0 applications to the tune of songs from the Wizard of Oz. The presentation itself is full of great Web 2.0 apps available for teachers to use in their classroom and Joyce does a great job explaining how these apps have been used in an educational setting.

The presentation can be seen here:


The slides can be found here:

Wizard of Apps

View more presentations from joycevalenza.

For more information and links mentioned in this presentation, visit: newtoolsworkshop.wikispaces.com

For more information on the K12 Online Conference 2009, visit: http://k12onlineconference.org/

2009 K12 Online Conference Begins

A fascinating and exciting learning opportunity is available now online all month during the K12 Online Conference. You can find out more by visiting the conference's NING or by checking out the schedule on the conference wiki. There are also announcements and news on the conference's blog: K12 Blog Whether you are an educator just starting out with technology integration or a veteran user, there is something for you. You can even check out archived sessions if the broadcast time is not conducive to your schedule.

I just finished watching Kim Cofino's pre-conference keynote: "Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence and the Future of Education" which you can watch here or in the embedded video below:



Kim's 10 years of experience teaching at 3 different International Schools around the world. Her exploration of culture shock as well as her inclusion of perspectives of educators and students from around the world at other International Schools is a great way to start off this online conference. Well done Kim!

Check out the sessions over the month. There is something for everyone.

Real-time and living statistical counters and simulators used in the classroom

One way to introduce my students to the use statics in real life is to show them real-time counters or simulators that are created to count a variety of things the moment you view the page. These living statistics are different than the page counters and other more common counters located on websites and blogs. Those are more static and only change the next time you visit the site. The ones they find most fascinating are the live or real-time counters because they see the numbers grow and change before their eyes.

In viewing and interacting with these gadgets and websites, students start asking numerous questions. I find that these types of counters always generate good discussions and inquiry opportunities. We tend to question the creators and their purpose for creating such a counter. We question motive and point of view such as: How are these counters used to illustrate the author's point of view? Can we believe the sources of their statistics? How have the statistics been manipulated to create certain results?

One of our favourites to leave up on the SMART Board while students are working on other things is the Breathing Earth which simulates the birth rate, death rate and C02 emissions around the world and displays current world and country populations. Students always generate interesting questions about the human impact on limited world resources while viewing this website. They are also fascinated when they start to compare their country's population and CO2 emissions with other countries that are smaller in geographical size but have much larger populations.

Another interesting tool to look at the impact of Social Media is from Gary Hayes' blog Personalize Media. One of his latest is this Mobile Industry counter:


He also has a Social Media counter:


Another interesting live statistics website depicts Real Time World Statistics on Reeko's Mad Sciencest Lab. This site has a number of different types of statistics from the general interest "How many McChicken sandwiches have been sold since you began viewing this site?" to the more detailed Science and Energy Consumption statistics.

One website I've found that illustrates the use of real-time counters for a lesson or discussion on the author's point of view is the website Immigration Counters.com. This website shows how statistics can be used, displayed or interpreted to illustrate one point of view on immigration.

Do you have other gadgets or websites that you like to use with students to demonstrate live statistics? I'm always looking for new and interesting websites and gadgets with live statistics. I would love to hear about the ones that you use or that you have come across.

C'est l'Halloween

My Grade 7 class works every week with a Grade 1/2 French Immersion class doing paired reading and tutoring. This week is our last session before Halloween so I made up a SMART Board activity for the students to learn a simple Halloween song in French. It is a favourite amongst French Immersion students; "Ces't l'Halloween" by Matt Maxwell. I also used the slides that I made for the SMART Board to make a video. If someone else would like to use this activity, feel free.

Here's the video:


Here's a link to the SMART Notebook file I created to make my video in my Dropbox: C'est l'Halloween

What Teachers Do After School

I found this video really cute. It is perfect for this weeks Friday Funny. Enjoy!

Reasons to contribute to Creative Commons on Flickr

When uploading some photos to Flickr today, I noticed that I had a message. As someone who is not necessarily known for my photography skills, I was thrilled to read this message:

_________________________________________________
From: Emma J. Williams Emma Williams
Subject: Schmap: Washington DC Photo Inclusion

Hi Joanna,

I am delighted to let you know that one of your photos with a Creative Commons license has been selected for inclusion in the newly released ninth edition of our Schmap Washington DC Guide:

12th Street & Pennsylvania Avenue
www.schmap.com/washingtondc/activities_allwashingtondc/p=374272/i=374272.jpg

If you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link will take you directly to your photo in the iPhone version of our guide. On a desktop computer, you can still see exactly how your photo is displayed and credited in the iPhone version of our guide at:

12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue
www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=washingtondc&sid=activities_allwashingtondc&p=374272&i=374272

Finally, if you have a blog, you might also like to check out the customizable widgetized version of our Schmap Washington DC Guide, complete with your published photo:
www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=35093198N06/c=SM20051091

Please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,
Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/emma.williams
________________________________________________

Even if I'm not the world's best photographer, it is always exciting to have something published, even if it was unintentional. I also think that it is funny that a Canadian can take a photo that later appears in a map program for the US Capitol.

Storytelling through Social Media: The Modern Narrative Defined

Check out this SlideShare Presentation. It is aimed toward business but could easily be adapted to teach about modern storytelling in the classroom. I thought that some people might find it interesting.

Storytelling through Social Media: The Modern Narrative Defined

View more documents from Ed Schipul.

A vision of students about learning in the 21st century

After showing my class a number of videos about learning in the 21st Century, I asked my Grade 7 students to come up with their vision of learning in the 21st Century. They came up with some fantastic ideas related to a changing world, using technology and becoming life-long learners. They decided we should produce our video in a bilingual format so that they can showcase their English and French skills. We wrote a collective script in French and then translated it into English. Here's their video. They are so proud of their group effort! Please let us know what you think.

Friday Funny - Seniors Twittering

I thought that this segment on the Jay Leno Show last night was funny. I thought that it would also be a good video clip to show when giving a workshop on Social Media. I told some of my co-workers about it at lunch and I promised to post the link. Thanks to one of my friends on Twitter (ChavesH), I was able to get the clip. Here it is! You can follow this link if the embeded version doesn't work: Jay Leno

iPod Touch in the Classroom

I love my iPod Touch and always find it fascinating how many applications there are for it. I wish I could have some for my classroom because of the number of applications that are available for eduational purposes.

Earlier this week, I was jealous to hear that the University of Saskatchewan was offering a course in creating an "app" for Smart phones. Now why couldn't I take a cool course like that when I was in University? Even if it wasn't for money making purposes, I think it would be interesting to design applications to enhance your lessons to use on your class set of iPod Touches. You can listen to the story on the CBC Saskatchewan's Morning Edition Podcast that aired on September 14th here.

While reading my Twitter Feed today, I came across this video about the use of the iPod Touch in a classroom in England on the Learn 4 Life blog. I had to share because I found it quite interesting.



Maybe one of my future projects will be to invest in some iPod touches for my classroom. I think that with the number of applications that they have available now for the iPod Touch, it would be an interesting investment in student learning, especially given the new approach we are using in our school right now based on cooperative, inquiry based learning.

I'm looking for other educators who are using iPod touches in their classrooms. How do you use them and why do you find them useful to enhance students' learning? If you have any experiences or insights to share, I would love to hear from you.