Meet CBC Saskatchewan Future 40 winner Joanna Sanders

It has been a very exciting week. I am truly humbled to have been named one of CBC Saskatchewan's 2016 Future 40 for my leadership on digital literacy and digital citizenship in the province.  

As part of the prize for this honour, I got the privilege of attending a reception with all of the winners in Saskatoon. To get to spend a few hours meeting and talking with the 39 other amazing young leaders in our province was truly inspiring. Thank you to my nominator and to the CBC for selecting me for this honour. 

Please check out the other 2016 Future 40 winners on CBC Saskatchewan's website. 

Sanders Bobiash keeps passion for technology in perspective, Saskatchewan Bulletin, December 2011

A recent article was published about me in the December issue of the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation's newsletter, The Saskatchewan Bulletin after I received the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence, Certificate of Excellence this fall. You can read the article on page 2.

Saskatchewan Bulletin, December 2011

View more documents from Joanna Sanders Bobiash.

Globe readers nominate innovators - teachers leading classrooms of the future - Globe and Mail, December 2, 2011

To read the full story, please follow this link to the Globe and Mail's website: Globe and Mail, 02/12/2011

Excerpt from the Globe and Mail, December 2, 2011

IT Summit - Dean Shareski Keynote - Saskatchewan's Unsung Heroes of Educational Technology

My notes from Dean's keynote. Dean's blog is called Ideas and Thoughts

Heroes don't call themselves heroes. Heroes are people who are passionate about trying new things. In the end, they really want to make a difference in the lives in kids. Those are real heroes.

Tinkering and Play- Story #1
Connaught School in North Battleford - Leslie and Jim
How can we get the kids to take control and get them to where they want to go? Demonstrated use of 1:1 laptops and the integration of a SMART Board in Grade 1. They created a new sense of play and of wonder. What are the things that our students really do need.

Gever Tulley "You can figure out things by fooling around" - Ted Talk to check out.

Collaboration - Story #2
Shannon Auramenko and Stacey Monet - John Diefenbaker School in the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division
The Grade 2 Teacher working with the Tech specialist for the division in a co-teaching role. Integrating new technologies and ways of learning.

Reputation Management - Story #3
Ken Sogge, Horrizon School Division
Communications Manager for the School Division. Working to develop a network of school websites that connects schools over a large geographical expanse. Creating a transparent view into classrooms. They are letting people know what they are doing in their different schools.

"It is no longer enough to do powerful work if no one sees it." Chris Lehman.

2.0 Objectives for information officers: Create, Transform, Listen, Co-create, Provide, Accept.

Social Glue - Story #4
Glen Munro from Prairie South School Division, Network Administrator
Glen has a real online presence and has a passion for photography. When a school division is spread out, you don't get to know people the way you do when you all work in the same building. Online tools like Facebook, Twitter and Four Square can build relationships online between people who don't get to work together under the same roof. Getting to know your coworkers is important to being able to do a good job.

Social Learning and Inquiry - Story #5
Joanna Sanders Bobiash from Regina Public Schools
Demonstration of social learning in the classroom. Students working together to create a website that taught others about the disaster in Japan.

How did you contribute to the learning of others? What did you learn from others?

Teacher Librarians - Story #6
Carlene Walters - Saskatoon Public
Talking about good digital citizenship and what makes a good question. Carlene's role is to help students get to those deeper questions so that the synthesis and real deep understanding is there.

We have moved beyond a narrow version of "who to trust" from the news to developing our own "trust network" to know that the information we are getting is accurate.

Rethinking Learning - Story #7
Shelly Wright - Prairie South School Division
Shelly's blog - Has transformed her classroom to create a new role for herself as a mentor and leader. Her blog documents in detail the transformation of her teaching. We need to rethink the way things are done today to teach the students of tomorrow.

Personal Learning Networks - Story #8
Powerful Learning Practice - taking networked learning and bringing it into an in-school approach. Teachers from Saskatchewan and other Canadian provinces working together to talk about strategies and teaching online. Providing collaborative professional development. Creates opportunities to create openness and sharing amongst educators.

Technology will never replace teachers. However teachers who know hot to use technology effectively to help students to connect and learn will replace those who don't.

We need to become connectors and not just dispensers of information.

Become a narrative champion - tell others about the work of other teachers. Start sharing because they are too humble to do it themselves.

Using Google Sites in Second Language Instruction (Guest Blog Post)

This post is cross-posted from Free Technology for Teachers where I appeared as a guest blogger this weekend.

I am a Canadian French Immersion Educator at École Wilfrid Walker School in Regina, Saskatchewan. That means that I teach students whose first language is English, in French. Students in a French Immersion program are taught all subjects in French starting in Kindergarten. By the time they reach middle years, they have strong oral, reading and writting skills in both languages.

As a second language instructor, I often find it a challenge to find relevant resources for my students that are both at their reading level and at their interest level. I teach Social Studies and Science to students in Grades 6/7/8. These subject areas are often a challenge at this grade level in French Immersion as most resources for middle years in French are written for first language readers in Quebec which means that the vocabulary and verb tense can be difficult to understand. Having students read a text and fully comprehend it can be a frustrating experience. Being a small market, publishers who create fantastic materials in English to support our provincial curriculum often ignore the Saskatchewan French Immersion market, as it is not profitable for them to produce the same resources in French. As a result, I have come to rely on online resources to support my instruction of our curriculum. How to present, share and utilise these online resources with my students is always a challenge.

As an avid user of technology in my classroom, my students and I have experimented with numerous sites and applications over the years to enhance our learning experience and to showcase our deeper understanding of curricular outcomes.

Our school division uses Google Apps for Education. All of my students have their own accounts that I can control. This has revolutionized how I teach and interact with my students. Through one platform, my students can access their work at school or at home. I can share documents and presentations and decide if they are public or private. They can email me their questions and comments and I can reply anytime I choose from my computer or even my phone. They can also build collaborative documents and presentations with their classmates. We have also cut back on printing costs because my students simply share their assignments with me for evaluation. No need to waste paper in my classroom.

Google Sites has become an easy way for me to share links and resources with my students. This year we have used this platform in numerous ways in both Social Studies and Science. Being able to easily create a site and have numerous editors has empowered my students to become responsible authors who are excited to learn about the world around them and share their knowledge in a second language. Knowing their site has the potential to reach a global audience adds an extra level of engagement.

My first experiment with Google Sites was to create a site to frame a project my Grade 8 students were working on about the ownership of water. Le GRAND Débat  linked resources and presented the steps each group had to follow to prepare for our class debate. It was easy for me to embed video tutorials and explanations into the site. Groups also created podcasts using their iPod Touch and Sonic Pics to introduce their arguments. Using Google sites for this project was very well received by my students. It was easy for me to create a site, use a template and add resources.

Other ways I have used Google Sites in my classroom include:

• Building sites to showcase student projects: Grade 7 Mining project and Grade 6 First Nations Legends and Constellations project. 
• Coordinating virtual literacy and numeracy centres where Grade 6 and 7 students work with Grade 1 and 2 students on different skills: Centres 1 and Centres 2
• Students building their own sites to present their Science projects (modelled after Google Virtual Science Fair): La Foire de sciences virtuelle
• Building collaborative inquiry driven projects. My students wanted to learn more about the recent disaster in Japan. We built this site in groups (Une catastrophe au Japon) based on questions we had about the disaster in Japan and making connections to our lives in Canada. We then used the site to promote our student council's efforts to raise money for the relief effort in Japan and to educate other students in the school about the disaster. They were rewarded by raising over $1000 for their charities of choice in a school with less than 250 students in two weeks. 

The more I use Google Sites in my classroom, the more I love it. I would be interested to learn how other educators are using this tool in their classroom with their students.

Joanna Sanders Bobiash is a French Immersion Middle Years Educator and Teacher Librarian in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Joanna maintains a blog entitled My Adventures in Educational Technology. Joanna is also on Twitter.

Presentation to DMTH Class at the University of Regina

Today, I was invited as a special guest to make a presentaion about the integration of technology into the teaching of Math. Here is my presentation that I made (in French) to the 3rd year undergrad students in DMTH class at the University of Regina. Hopefully the students found it useful and discovered some new tools or ideas to add to their tool kits.

 The links for this presentation are located here: http://fur.ly/4dog 
 
Here are the slides from my presentation:

DMTH Presentation - Maths et Technologie

View more presentations from Joanna Sanders Bobiash.

Here is the poll we started out the presentation with:

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere

Please leave a comment with your ideas, tools or resources for integrating technology into math instruction.

iPod Touch and iPads in the Classroom - List of Resources and Ideas - Part 2

photo © 2007 DerkT | more info (via: Wylio)
It has been almost a year since I have had these powerful devices in my classroom and boy has life changed for all of us. Here's an update to my previous post about iPods in the classroom.

I should also add that I purchased an iPad in June and it has really influenced how I interact with my iPods. I now have a control centre for running all of the apps my students have on their iPods, but with a bigger screen. Much easier to show groups of students how to use an app as everyone in the group can see it in action. I even use an app called Planbook to access my lesson plans. I simply sync it using my Dropbox from the fabulous desktop program I was already using on my Mac to the app on my iPad. Genius! It has increased my productivity immensely.

I am a fan of Google Apps and use the Google Mobile app to access my docs, forms and presentations. My students all have Google accounts through Google Apps for education and we have essentially eliminated the need to print in my classroom. I get instant feedback or collect assignments from my students using Google Forms that they can complete on the iPods.

I discoverred that I can use my iPods as clickers using the eClicker Host on my iPad and eClicker on their iPods. They work like the SMART Response system you can purchase for your classroom, but instead of purchasing and storing more devices, you are using tools you already have in your classroom. I make up quizzes or feedback forms online before class and then activate them during class. I can check for understanding and get feedback during instruction or have students complete quick quizzes to see what they already know before starting new concepts.

A must have for any set of class iPods are little microphones that plug into the headphone jack of the iPod. You can find them for next to nothing on Amazon for about $2.00.

We have used them for voice recording in a number of different ways. From recording the Grade 1 and 2 students reading their books to practice fluency, to Grade 6, 7 and 8 students recording podcasts, conducting interviews and creating videos, these little microphones are an invaluable tool when paired with the iPod Touch. The best app I have found for voice recording and being able to use the audio elsewhere is called iPro Recorder because you can download the recording over a wireless network onto a computer and re-edit it in a program like Garage Band or Audacity. I found that Audioboo is a great site to host podcasts and share them with others. You can also easily embed them on your blog, wiki or website.

After watching Tony Vincent's Learning in Hand video on the K12 Online Conference, I had my Grade 8 students used Sonic Pics to create videos to introduce their team's position for the debate they held about the sale of Canadian water to the US. Using screen shots of photos they located from websites I had linked on our class website, they edited and narrated short videos. They also used PS Express, Comic Touch and Doodle Buddy to re-work their images to fit their argument. (You can watch the final product of their videos by following this link.) I also used Sonic Pics to create "how-to" instructional videos using screen shots from my  iPod to explain how to use the apps for this project. They were referred to often by the students during the project.


One project I would like to try before the end of the year is an iPod/iPad band or musical performance after being inspired by the North Point iBand. I saw their video over the holidays and I have started downloading instrument apps and will share what works best once we've successfully set-up our "band".

Some of the other resources I have come across since my last post that you might find useful are:

• Apptivities - A great website with reviews and activity ideas for the use of apps by educators organized by grade level.
• Math  Apps - Top 10 Apps to use in Math class on the iPod Touch.
• Apps for Educators - Top 200 iPad Apps in the United States for Educators
• Digital Storytelling with the iPad
• 38 Interesting ways to use the iPad in the Classroom
• 28 Interesting ways to use  the iPod Touch in the Classroom
• iPods, iPhones and iPads in Education
• Teach with your iPad
• The Best iPhone apps for Kids, 2010
• 50 Must Have Educational Apps
• iPod and iPad Usergroup Wiki

Please leave a comment with your favourite resource, website or story about how you are using these devices in education. I would love to hear from you!

Cell Phones in the Classroom? The Classic 21st Century Debate

Photo: Dru Bloomfield, Flickr

How do you feel about the use of cellphones in the classroom? Should these devices be banned? How can they be effectively used in education? In the ever-evolving world of technology and its place in the classroom, this debate is still quite heated.

At my school, cellphones are turned in by our senior (Grade 6-8) students every morning to the office and picked up at the end of the day. This practice was put into place when students were caught texting inappropriate messages to each other and also phoning parents without the teacher's knowledge. This in turn caused a problem when a student was being picked up at recess by their parent (without informing the office or the teacher) and the student then being thought of as missing. This extreme case might make one question the need to collect all the phones on an on-going basis, but the measure was put into place to prevent future problems.

I would be interested in finding out more about how these devices are used "for good" in schools. Do educators use sites like Poll Everywhere and Wiffiti to gauge student interest or to get feedback on lessons? Do you let students phone into their online persona such as a Voki to leave feedback or leave thoughts. How can these powerful devices be used effectively in education?

I was busy marking and doing other report card related tasks Saturday morning, and missed the Classroom 2.0 live session. Thanks to my PLN on Twitter, Lisa Nielsen, the Innovative Educator's blog was shared with me. (Thanks @parentella for the link.) On her blog, I found an interesting article from November 3, 2010 about the use of cell phones in the classroom that was co-written using Google Docs by George Engel, Rob Griffith, Scott Newcomb, Lisa Nielsen, Jason Sutter and Willyn Webb. In their article "10 Proven Strategies to Break the Ban and Build Opportunities for Student Learning with Cell Phones", a comprehensive guide is shared outlining the steps to use cellular devices in the classroom. I also appreciate the number of research articles that this group has shared in their article and will be checking out their list. If you are interested in the use of these devices in your classroom, you should check it out.

Some Reading and Viewing to add to your To Do List

I have had these tabs open in my Firefox for awhile (actually since the summer - yikes!) and have been meaning to post them on my blog for others to check out. Here are some interesting blogs and videos to check out when you have a spare moment. If you have others to share, please do!! Post your links in my comments.

8 Must Read Ed Tech Posts from SimpleK12:

• Elizabeth talks about Jing, PLN's, Classroom Blogs, Firefox, Evernote, Empowering Students, Learning Styles and Online Communities. What more could you want?? Take a minute to check out her list.

Top 10 TED Videos for Educators (via Parentella):

• I love TED videos. I could watch them all day if I had the time. Here are a few any educator can appreciate. Maybe you will be inspired too. This list was generated by the blog Parentella. If you have other suggestions or ideas for a Top 10 TED video list for educators, please comment. Maybe we can make our own list!

7 Videos all Educators should watch (via Free Tech for Teachers):

• Some of these videos I've posted about before but I had to include this in my list of things to watch when you have time. Richard Byrne has done a great job compiling videos that I've seen in different venues or on different blogs around the web. Here they all are in a handy collection. Do you have one you would like to add to the mix?

Saskatchewan IT Summit 2010 - Keynote Will Richardson - A Web of Connections - Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything

Will Richardson
http://weblogg-ed.com/
http://willrichardson.wikispaces.com/

The students today are grown up in a world where you can connect with anyone, anywhere in the world. This is a big shift from where we were when we were being trained as educators.

Example of children in South Carolina who helped a blind boy be able to beat the game Zelda.
Demonstrated how your notes on a Kindle are all logged onto your own Kindle page. (I own a kindle myself and this is one of my favourite parts of owning a Kindle.) Definitely a game changer!

What kinds of technologies are game changers? The future of education is not dependent on changing learning environments. (Knowledge Works Foundation). The conversation online is making us smarter because of our ability to share and discuss information.

The understanding of the power of social networking and its possibilities is important to the leaders of today or tomorrow. (Examples of YouTube (Justin Beiber) and Surfthechannel (copyright issues))
Questions about copyright and who owns what information.
Businesses (Allstate & Twitter), politics (Obama election) and media (CNN & newspapers) have shifted to incorporate social media. Education has not responded to the change in the world and the impact of social media.

Students are not waiting for us to change. They are already using them.

• Friend ways - texting, facebook, twitter, etc. (They don't need our help with this - they figure it out on their own and with the help of their friends)
• Interest ways - forming groups to discuss topics of interest (need our help to make good connections and understand the information we are receiving through these groups.)
• Private vs Public - photos and information online - control over what you post but not over what others post (we need to teach how to manage your online personal in a safe, effective and ethical ways.)
• Clustermaps on your school blog: What do your dots (map) look like? What are the quality of your dots?
• Fan fiction: Write a story and post them online - write your own stories and put them online. You can form a group with people who love the same things you do.
• Google searched - students need help to make sure that when they are being googled by future colleges, mates and employers that they are well represented.
• Information is everywhere: MIT Open course online, Khan Academy
• Self directed learning - you need to make yourself learn something on your own and make sure you students have the same abilities: Lynda.com (online training videos)
• Wikipedia - teach wikipedia (example of sources and checking facts) participatory event instead of just consuming information.
• Diigo: Add comments and analysis of articles online through your PLC. (example of an article in Science Daily) - promotes critical thinking and analysis.
•  Google Fast Flip, Google Reader, Evernote, GoodGuide: transparency is the ability to educate people we've never ever met.
• Teach how to read and write using hyperlinks - different way of reading and writing that is totally different than reading a book. This is a skill we need to teach.
• We need to develop problem solvers using inquiry skills to solve the world's problem now and in the future.

• Radio Willow (Willowdale Elementary School): Example of first graders podcasting about what they learn in their classroom.

We can't be doing things the same way we have always been doing them. We need to model these new practices by being participants. It is not easy but we need to change to ensure our students are learning what they need to learn for the future. It is an amazing time to be a learning right now. Take advantage of this opportunity to be a learner yourself.

 How are we changing ourselves so that we can guide our students into the future?

Saskatchewan IT Summit 2010 - Dean Shareski - The Ten Worst Practices in Educational Technology

Dean Shareski's Blog: http://ideasandthoughts.org/

Intro: Curse of the default homepage (default settings on the computer) - Why don't ask what we can do with something? What could we do differently?
It's not what the software does. It's what the user does with them.(Hugh MacLeod)

1.  Interactive Whiteboards: Easy? Transformative? Should easy always be the goal of technology? What are some of the ways we can use IWBs to transform learning?
2. Power Point: Why do we see so many bad Power Points? What strategies have been successful in eliminating bad PPTs? Our table says that images are most powerful. Teaching presentation skills are key and having students talk without reading a screen. The point of a presentation is that you have to be there to give a presentation, telling a story - if you don't need to be there to read out the presentation, then it is a bad use of power point.
3. Digital Cameras: What are your favourite uses for digital cameras? How to go beyond printing out photos for display in the classroom? Our table says: Cameras can be used for documentation of student learning with dialogue to go with it. Reflective learning such as a Voice Thread. Creation: iMovie of Geometry in my environment
4. Walled Gardens: Access Denied (protected websites) - Good discussion about security settings and teaching students how to use the web safely.
5. Computer Class: Do we need them? Access poses a challenge but the need for formal classes (keyboarding, etc.) are not considered necessary.
6. Cell phones: How are we using cellphones in class? Computer power sitting in their pockets that could be used for good. 
7. Keyboarding: Should it be taught? In the world of texting, etc. Do we want to spend our time with computers teaching keyboarding when we could be doing something more creative?
8. Games: Drill and Kill exercises have a place in Education? Check out Sylvia Martinez for more info on useful games.
9. Searching: How to do proper searching to find information properly and the info that we need to find
10. Viewer's Choice: Word processing and excessive printing

Great Session Dean! Thank you!

Saskatchewan IT Summit - Bernajean Porter - Turning Up the Heat - Learning, Thinking and Communicating in a Digital Age

http://coachingheat.wikispaces.com/ 

Traditionally school was about being good consumers - "Tell me about..."

Demonstrating Understanding
Meaning Makers and Media Makers: Stop the go forth and make something using technology push and stop and ensure that there is a demonstration of understanding in the project. Compare and Contrast would be a higher level of thinking (demonstration) then a simple fact telling video.

Heat:

• Higher Order of Thinking: Rigor, Questionning.org, Types of Communication
• Engaged Learners: Choices, Curiosity, Affinity, Student Centered (Owned or Driven)
• Authenticity:Useful & Beneficial, Context, Collaborative, Real World Challenges (Drawing Conclusions)
• Technology: Modes & Tools, Added-Value, Transforming Uses

 Used H.E.A.T.ing UP (TM) Student Performance Tasks for Transformational Learning Rubric to evaluate scenarios in groups.

It's a process!

Pre-Producation Phase:

• Writing a narrative Script
• Planning the Project
• Organizing Project Folders

Production Phase:

• Making the Voiceover
• Gathering and Preparing Media Resources

Post Production Phase:

• Putting it all together

Distribution Phase:

• Applause, Applause

 "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

-Albert Einstein

Digital Scoring Guide for scoring digital products: Data base to make up rubrics for digital projects: http://www.digitales.us/evaluating/scoring_guide.php

About What?: Asking Questions

• So What: Decision
• Now What: Action Plan
• What IF: Invention

wallwisher.com - website to make a url wall with sticky notes for collaborative questioning, thinking and generating ideas on a topic.

iPod Touch in the Classroom - List of Resources & Ideas - Part 1

I've had a number of requests to share some of the resources and experiences I've had using the iPod Touch in the classroom. I have accumulated quite a few links in my Delicious account, but I thought that I would list some of them here for easy reference. As this is an ongoing project, this is only an initial list with more to come. I hope to include more first hand experience in the next couple of weeks once my students have produced some content that I can post here to showcase some of the things that we are doing.

General Reference and Ideas (Apps, etc):

• Learning in Hand: http://learninginhand.com/ - This is a great site with lots of information from how to manage iPods in a classroom, to resources for using them, to what apps to consider. A huge number of ideas and insights.
• Apple: Getting Started with the iTouch - a .pdf you can download and a great guide for getting started.
• iNtouch School: http://intouchschool.org/index.html - This site is good for basic information about getting started with iPods in the classroom and personalizing the device to the student. It also reviews apps for both elementary and highschool level use
• I Education Apps Review - http://www.iear.org/ - This is a great site that reviews apps for use in education. It contains a mixture of free and low cost apps to consider.
• Chris Webb's Space - Why an iPod Touch in the Classroom - A great list of apps to consider listed by subject.
• Apple Learning Interchange: iPod Touch in the Classroom - The best part of this page is the list of resources on the right hand side of the page for different subject areas.
• Learning Continuity with iPod Touches: A sortable list of apps by subject that have been evaluated by educators.

iPod Lesson examples:

• Paula White - Grade Three Math centres using iPods: A series of three blog posts by Paula White who talks about student generated math centres to showcase using iPods in their classroom: Station 1, Station 2, Station 3
• iPod Touch Project - a site set up to document an iPod Touch project in Epsom Primary School in Australia that includes numerous lesson examples of ways to use these devices in the classroom. The blog on this site is the best part.
• Lesson Planet: iPod Touch lessons : Example lessons incorporating the ipod touch in a variety of subjects and grade levels.

Accessories:

• Mini Microphones - I purchased one of these for each of my ipods and they have proven to be one of the most useful accessories so far. My students can record their thoughts while doing research or brainstorming. They read books for their reading buddies to listen to. They record the audio for their podcasts. They can conduct interviews to gather information. They are easy to use and simply plug into the earphone jack of the iPod and are ready to go. There are a number of apps that use a microphone and in a classroom, the purchase of an inexpensive microphone is essential.

New School Structure

I've had to take a break from blogging over the past month or so due to my involvement in my school's restructuring for next year. Our school board has undergone a renewal process and launched the opportunity for schools to propose a new innovative school structure that involves teacher collaboration, project and inquiry based learning opportunities for students, flexible time tabling, mixed groupings and a focus on literacy and numeracy skills. Our school decided to take the board up on its challenge and submitted a proposal. In the end, we are one of ten elementary schools and four high schools to be chosen. We are very excited about next year.

I'm most excited to be moving into a classroom with a SMART Board. I will be moving into a larger classroom that will have room for students to work on project-based learning opportunities in the afternoon. I will also get to use the SMART Board for my literacy and numeracy blocks in the morning.

The structure we proposed is outlined in a Power Point presentation I created to present to our staff and parent council. I have posted it to Slide Share to include it in this post. I have also included the draft of the handout we produced to distribute at our Board's Annual General Meeting last week. I don't have a digital version of the final draft.

WW SIWG Presentation

View more presentations from bobiashj.

WWAGM Brochure

View more documents from bobiashj.

As we embark on this new structural innovation, I would love to hear from others regarding our plan. Have you implemented similar plans in your school or division? How have you used SMART Boards in your classroom? Do you have other ideas or suggestions after reviewing our plan?

10 Disruptions that Could Transform Your Classroom by Dean Shareski at IT Summit 2009

My notes on the session:

Dean did his presentation using Cooliris. Definately something I want to check into.

Links to videos and items presented at this session:
http://delicious.com/shareski/disruptions

Inspiration for the presentation:

• Disrupting Class by Clayton M. Christensen
• Horizon report 2009 edition from the new media consortium
• "Experiment of anarchy" Eric Schmidt
• "The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet." William Gibson
• Microsoft commercial "How they see the future" video

1. Smart Phones and other mobile devices - video "iphoneu" "tonchidot" "poll everywhere"
   
2. Low cost computing - netbooks (what do you spend on textbooks?, kindle on Amazon
3. Cloud Computing - everything is housed on the web, Google Apps
   
4. Live Streaming - ustream, Brian Crosby: Sparks Nevada teacher to include students using Skype, qik video, Mr. C's Class Blog
   
5. Back Channels and Micro-Blogging - Sharing, public chat, K12 Conference.org for video, Twitter, social networking
   
6. Immersive Environments - video games, teen second life environment, applying new knowledge and allow for collaboration, online engaging environment
   
7. Privacy - idea of privacy is changing (outside interaction between teachers and students)
8. Time Shifting - What is Face to Face good for? - taking lectures out of school time and spending the time working together at school.
   
9. Open and Connected - free stuff online - MIT Open Courseware, online courses how to offer distance learning.
10. Outsourced Instruction - Differentiated instruction and grouping students based on need and interest (ex. Clarence Fisher teaching with a school in L.A.)
    
    

La Géométrie - Grade 6 Math iMovie Projects

My Grade 6 French Immersion Math class spent the past two weeks researching definitions, writing scripts, taking photos and making movies all about geometry. Everyone did a fantastic job. The best part is that all the students in the class can now easily define, identify, create and find examples of different triangles, shapes and other geometric terms. Here are the top three iMovies for your enjoyment. (narrated in French):

La géométrie est intéressante
par Meghan et Molly

Le monde géométrique

par Jordan et Serena

La géométrie: le filme!

par Aaron et Kyle

Fun with Wordle

Another web 2.0 app that I find intriguing is from Wordle. This webiste lets you represent your writing in a visual sense by organizing the words you use in a piece of writing or post to a website into a word cloud with the emphasis on the words you use the most.

Like my previous blog post where I analyzed my writing using typealyzer, I wanted to see what one month of writing looks like. Here is my blog in a visual sense. (Thanks to fellow educational blogger, Neil Stephenson for giving me the idea! Neil did the same thing after blogging for a month.)

I like that the biggest word in my Wordle is "students" and that if you read across the Wordle, it says "students learning things". I think that this is another website I will definitely be using with my students in the future.

Time Well Spent?

Sometimes I question all the extra hours I put into making things possible in my classroom. Is it really worth it? Does the extra time actually make a difference?

If you read this blog, you are likely an educator and can relate to the hours required after school to get the job done. Likely you spend even more hours than that to do your job well. Because I enjoy most of the things I do for my job, I don't really notice the extra time I put in. I have spent a lot of extra hours lately setting up a number of cyber projects for my students; Classblogmeister, Google Docs, 1001 Flat World Tales and an email exchange with a class in Australia.

My goal in participating in all of these projects was to get my students excited about learning and to give them the opportunity to collaborate and to learn online with others around the world. Being the person I am, I can't just do one project at a time, I have to do a number of things at once. Does anyone else have this problem? You start one project and then you see the connection and possibility in another, and it snowballs from there. After many sleepless nights as of late, I was questionning if it was all worth it.

Today, after finally getting everyone set-up on their accounts over the past few days, I couldn't help but get caught up in the excitement of my students as they showed each other how to navigate their way through the programs and applications we were using. They were so excited to try new things and to show each other what they had learned. Their enthusiasm was contagious and I left the school later feeling rewarded for the time I spent setting up our "Cyber School".

Tonight, when I logged into my school Google account to share a document with my students, I noticed that over half my class was online using the chat feature offered through their school Google accounts. Now I know that they would likely be doing this through MSN if they didn't have these accounts, but to see them actually using something school related after hours when they had other options, was very rewarding.

What made my night was when one of my students noticed that I was online and sent me a message that said: "ok.......you are the best teacher on earth!!! Thank you for getting us all connected and stuff."

Funny how you can put so much effort into connecting your students with others around the world, and in the end, they are just as happy to have the chance to be able to connect with each other. After receiving a 'virtual thank you hug' from a student, I guess it really was time well invested.

Thinking Past the Mouse and Outside the Box

In reading other's blogs, I frequently relate to their "rants" or expressions of frustration over what others are doing, or not doing in the world of technology. I didn't think I would start to "rant" after having my own blog for only a few weeks, but now that I see that it can become common on other educators' blogs to vent a little when something is bugging them, I will get a few things off of my chest...

My first "rant" was left as a comment after I read Dean Shareski's post Control is a Worthless Pursuit about limiting the use of Facebook by educators by a Wisconsin school district. The district seems to think that they can avoid legal problems by controlling their teachers in cyberspace. I think that they will end up with more legal problems in the long run. In response to Shareski's post, I left this comment:

"This sounds like another case of a school district not considering their teachers to be professionals. I think it is important to allow educators to connect with their students on whatever level they feel is professionally appropriate. I personally won’t accept friend requests from my students on Facebook because I don’t feel comfortable doing that. I will, however, interact with them by exchanging emails, commenting on their blogs, visiting with them after school in my classroom, by coaching a team or by facilitating a club. The web has added another level to connect with others. It should be up to the teacher to be professional in their contact with students and decide what is appropriate and necessary to foster the relationship required to have that student learn and grow as a person."

My second "rant" is on here after reading Clarence Fisher's post I'm Done with EdTech. After reading his post, I can't help but agree with his point that we need to think past the "mouse" or outside the "box" as educators. I'm not sure what word we need to use to replace the term "EdTech" but after watching the video on Fisher's post about "Shiftables" from TED, I'd like to think that the power of technology in education is the collaboration that takes place from networking and talking to others using the technology, whether that takes place online or in a classroom. Here's the video:

Yes, it would be fun to play with these cubes all day and I can see many applications to using them in my own teaching. But what takes place after the exploration or playing phase with these cubes or any kind of technology for that matter? I like to think that the discussion and analysis of what took place during the exploration phase is where the real learning takes place. It is the role of the educator to facilitate this discussion and learning.

After these two "rants", I leave you with this, my third and final "rant" for the weekend about those who are not ready to change the way they teach. We need to grow as educators and change the way we teach or the 21st century learner will leave us in the dust. Yes, technology can be scary and it takes time and work to reinvent the way we teach. But, if we as educators don't make the effort to change the way we do things in our classrooms and make ourselves relevant to educating the 21st century learner, the real learning will take place outside of our buildings and we as educators will become irrelevant as a 21st century profession. Taking the opportunity to explore new technology and the ability to integrate it into our teaching enables us to become collaborators and mentors. We need to be master learners and be willing to learn with our students in the ever evolving 21st century.

Redesigning The Way We Teach

Our school board is in the middle of a renewal process and has asked its schools to rethink how it delivers curriculum in its buildings. It is encouraging administrators and educators to think out of the box and redesign the way we teach in order to increase literacy and numeracy achievement amongst its students. It is encouraging us to break away from traditional models of education (ex. the one teacher-one classroom model) and it is looking for new models to educate the 21st century learner.

For me, I think that this is a very exciting idea. Our province is currently implementing new curriculum that requires educators to use enganging questions to teach learning outcomes. The redesigned curriculum is perfect for embarking on a project based inquiry learning approach to our instruction. Using technology as a tool, we need to redesign how we collaborate as educators and how we facilitate learning in our classrooms.

I'm looking for ideas and examples from others on how other schools use team teaching models to educate using project based learning and collaboration amongst teachers and students to deliver curriculum. I have come across two models: the Calgary Science School (Grades 4-9) and the Philadephia Science Learning Academy (Grades 9-12). These schools use collaborative teaching and inquiry learning to deliver their curriculum. There must be other examples out there. Please share!

Image: Question!
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