IT Summit 2013 - Presentation by the Thom Tech Catalyst Team

Today, I had the honour of presenting with some of my former colleagues from Thom Collegiate at the IT Summit 2013 in Saskatoon.

We spoke about how we learn, connect, collaborate and inspire each other as a professional learning community. We shared our experiences and numerous resources and tools about how we connect and inspire our students to achieve their very best.

Building an interactive WWI timeline as a collaborative for History 20

During our study of World War I, my Grade 11 History students were intrigued by a number of the stories and battles that we were reading about. Out of this grew a project where each student picked an event that took place during the war and then produced a video or presentation to tell its story. The best place to collect these stories seemed to be a timeline. Students independently researched, wrote about and produced a video or presentation in the format of their choice and then we assembled them together on an interactive timeline, using Time Toast. Some of the tools that the students used to create their videos or presentations included Prezi, YouTube Video Editor, Wideo and the trailer feature on the iMovie App for the iPad.

Students were also asked to create multiple choice questions that their classmates could answer while watching their video that we assembled into Socrative. Students then presented their projects and while we were viewing the videos, we responded to their multiple choice quizzes.  A great way for students to stay engaged while watching numerous presentations.

Please check out our interactive timeline: Histoire 20 Collaborative WW1 Timeline

B.Y.O.D. - Yes or No?

At Thom Collegitate, students are allowed to bring their own devices to use in the classroom. These powerful tools allow students to extend their learning beyond the classroom. Planning to use these devices as learning tools can be challenging as not all students have a device, or it may not be a device that enables students to browse the web, etc. Exploring how to best make use of these devices is one of my goals this year, as the fact that most students in my classroom are carrying some sort of smart device in their pocket, it is a tool I can't ignore.

This class is one of a kind in Canada...Find out why tomorrow on #skcbc twitter.com/JamieCBCweathe…
— Jamie Mauracher (@JamieCBCweather) September 19, 2012

Recently I was asked by CBC English and French TV if they could come into my classroom and see how I integrate technology into my classroom to engage and extend student learning. I decided to demonstrate one way to use student devices to engage students in a class discussion by using Poll Everywhere. During this class, my Grade 9 students were working on their understanding of world view and were responding to and discussing a number of questions of self-reflection that I needed them to consider before we could explore other civilizations around the world.

Here are the two videos (first one with English CBC TV reporter Jamie Mauracher, second one with French CBC TV reporter Genvieve Tardif):

A New Year - A New School - A New Role

I have now official completed my first week of school as high school teacher. Wow! Is my life different, or has really changed immensely from this time last year. I am now a secondary school French Immersion educator at Thom Collegiate with an interesting teaching load full of content heavy classes. This year, I will be teaching, History, Social Studies, Francophonie, Science and Visual Arts to students in grades 9-12. The joy of teaching in French is that you always get a hodgepodge of subjects to teach. This should be interesting!

As I leap into this new role with both feet, I know I have a lot to learn and a lot to discover. But just like my students, I like to learn hands-on and I like to get my hands dirty with learning. My challenges will be many, but I have never been scared off of a new adventure. It just means I get to work with new material, new curriculum and bigger kids.

So far, my first experience with Thom Collegiate has been overwhelming but wonderful all at the same time. Most staff are friendly and very welcoming. My students are bigger, but really just bigger boddies filling the desks in my classroom waiting to learn something new.

This year, I want to not only focus on new curriculum and content, but I want to focus on how to make my secondary classroom an inquiry driven, project-based environment, supported through integrated technology whenever possible. Is this possible in content heavy high school classes? I guess I will find out! My goals include an effort to make my lessons more engaging and relevant to students, by not allowing them to be simply be direct-teacher instruction, but to eventually build the learning environment necessary that allows for student-directed learning to dominate my classroom. I want to experiment with Project Based Learning and engage my students through inquiry journeys of discovery. I also want to explore new ways to allow students to incorporate their hand held devices into my planned learning activities. Here's hoping a content heavy load of curriculum can still be taught through project based learning!

I wish all of my fellow teachers the best of luck as they embark on a new school year.