Excitement over #DCMOOC - Kicking off a Massive Open Online Course on Digital Citizenship

As part of my work on Saskatchewan's Action Plan to Address Bullying and Cyberbullying, I have been charged with leading the implementation of the recommendations related to the digital side of bullying, specifically how to ensure our students learn how to behave appropriately and responsibly online. The following slides from a recent presentation outline the sections of the action plan that pertain to this:

 

One part of this work is helping to ensure all educators in the province are supported with the professional development they need to teach digital citizenship.  As part of this plan, I have been lucky enough to work with Dr. Alec Couros and Katia Hildebrandt from the University of Regina in the development and delivery of #DCMOOC. 

This Massive Open Online Course on Digital Citizenship helps to ensure equal access to all educators in the province. Being limited in time and budget, delivering this professional development opportunity online allows anyone who is interested in this topic the opportunity to learn on this own time, to the degree and depth that interests them the most. Participants either have the chance to participate in a synchronous scenario by attending the sessions "live" at their scheduled time or at a time that is convenient for them through an a-synchronous version where they watch archived sessions.

To better understand what a MOOC is, watch this video by Dave Cormier: What is a MOOC?



We first shared publicly that this professional opportunity would be offered during a presentation  on April 1st. By the time DCMOOC started on May 11th, we had over 800 people registered. Here is an infographic to learn more about who has signed up so far to participate in #DCMOOC:

over 850 participants | Create Infographics

As we kick off the first week of #DCMOOC, I am excited to learn from the community that has gathered to discuss this important topic. Thanks to everyone who signed up and who are taking the time to contribute to the learning community. Everyone's contribution is important.

IT Summit 2014 - Cool Tool Duel

The 2014 IT Summit in Saskatoon was capped off with a "Cool Tools Duel" between Rushton Hurley and Scott St. Pierre.

Scott's link:
http://bit.ly/itsummit2014

The theme is to make students creators of content!

Who will the winner be this year?

Tool #1:

Scott: YouTube Capture: https://www.youtube.com/capture
Rushton: Newsela: https://www.newsela.com/

Winner of Round #1 - Newsela!

Tool #2:

Scott: Google Hangouts on Air: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/onair.html
Rushton: What if? : https://what-if.xkcd.com/

Winner of Round #2 -Google Hangouts on Air!

Tool #3:

Scott: Skype Add-on Recorder for Mac (http://download.cnet.com/Call-Recorder-for-Skype/3000-2349_4-95407.html) or Super Tintin for Windows (http://download.cnet.com/SuperTintin-Skype-Recorder/3000-2150_4-10656468.html)
Rushton: Google Maps Gallery: https://maps.google.com/gallery/

Winner of Round #3 - Google Maps Gallery!

Tool #4:
Scott: Screencastify Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screencastify-screen-vide/mmeijimgabbpbgpdklnllpncmdofkcpn?hl=en or Screencastomatic: http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/
Rushton: Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/


Winner of Round #4 -Tie!

Tool #5:
Scott: Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotation Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/awesome-screenshot-captur/alelhddbbhepgpmgidjdcjakblofbmce?hl=en
Rushton: tiki-toki Timeline: http://www.tiki-toki.com/
Winner of Round #5 -tiki-toki timeline!

Rushton is the winner of this year's Cool Tool Duel.

Digital Citizenship in Saskatchewan Schools

Over the past year, I have been working at the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education as the Digital Fluency Consultant. As part of my role, I have been working to help support the implementation of Saskatchewan's Action Plan to Address Bullying and Cyberbullying.  This week, I had the great pleasure of presenting with my colleague, Andrea Hnatiuk and Matthew Johnson from MediaSmarts at the Saskatchewan IT Summit.

Here is our presentation on Digital Citizenship in Saskatchewan Schools:

13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics

This interactive infographic from neomam.com really speaks to me, not only as a visual learner, but also as an educator. Here are a few reasons why infographics have grown in popularity. I think it also gives us a few reasons why we need to present and review information in text and visual forms as well.

Make sure to check out the interactive version in your browser by clicking on this link: 13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics [HTML 5]

IT Summit 2013 - Cool Tools Duel - Dean Shareski and Ewan McIntosh

The 2013 IT Summit in Saskatoon was capped off with a "Cool Tools Duel" between Dean Shareski and Ewan McIntosh.

Who will the winner be this year?

Tool #1:

Dean: Popcorn Maker - Create your own pop-up videos - https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

Ewan: P Clock (Presentation Clock App) - allows  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/presentation-clock/id391324914?mt=8 



Tool #2:

Dean: Haiku Deck - great presentation creation app using photos searchable from creative commons - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/haiku-deck/id536328724?mt=8

Ewan: My Script Calculator - helps students play with algebra and math https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/myscript-calculator/id578979413?mt=8 - WolframAlpha - look up historical data and data to get comparisons: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/wolframalpha/id334989259?mt=8 



Tool #3:

Dean: Twitter Archive of your tweets that is searchable - you can go in your settings and request your archive - twitter.com

Ewan: Earthlapse - lets you explore the universe as if you were in space - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/earthlapse/id522003167?mt=8



Tool #4:

Dean: Aurasma - let's you attach virtual reality overlay to your photo - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/aurasma/id432526396?mt=8

Ewan: 360 Panorama App - Create an tour of a room - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/360-panorama/id377342622?mt=8



Tool #5:

Dean: Glympse - http://www.glympse.com/

Ewan: Paper Fifty-Three App - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003812?mt=8



Tool #6:

Dean: instaGrok - http://www.instagrok.com/

Ewan: Story Cube app - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/rorys-story-cubes/id342808551?mt=8 Street Museum - http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Resources/app/you-are-here-app/noflash/no-flash.html Apps Gone Free - http://appchronicles.com/category/apps-gone-free/

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.

IT Summit 2013 - Ewan McIntosh - Design Thinking: Developing a Generation of Problem Finders

Monday Morning Keynote - IT Summit 2013, Saskatoon

Ewan's blog: http://edu.blogs.com

Creativity... is it something we are born with or is it something we can learn?

Asked everyone to sketch their partner as a warm up. So much fun! There are some very talented wanna be artists at this conference this morning.

How to sketch a human head:

What defines quality teaching? What qualifies as quality learning? Wanted to find the perfect algorithm by trying to blend the best of the creative industry and the best from the classroom and blending them together to create perfect learning.

Students like respect when they take up the challenge and responsibility to collaborate and come up with common learning problems. Making learning real and relatable for them. That way they can take their learning and transfer them into their own learning and relate them to their own world and their own experiences.

In terms of real things, we can tap into our students' own creativity - use a I Wonder Wall where students and teachers can ask questions.

Curriculum mapping allows teachers to map out the curriculum and see where students are at and what they already learned and where they are going. Students can see why they are learning something and where they are going. It organizes thinking, allows for deeper understanding and really allows students to understand the why.

Problem Finders - you need to find a problem that no one has solved and try to solve it.

Making provocative titles - Seven Days to Save the Mill, Playtime is Cancelled, You are not on the list so you can't come in. These are then taken and mapped out with the curriculum to showcase thinking.

Students have difficulty asking higher order questions because they are rarely challenged to ask these questions - Googleable/Non Googleable (an unGoogleable curriculum)

What can we do to make learning relevant to students? The Why We are Learning This.

What is your process? design thinking - immersion - synthesis - ideation - prototyping - feedback

Can we make learning joyful?

John Hattie - "Know thy impact"

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

Integrating Technology into the Classroom

On March 13th, 2013, I had the pleasure of presenting to the University of Regina Education Student Society about the integration of technology into the classroom. A variety of topics were covered during the two hour session.

Here is my presentation:

Integrating Technology Into the Classroom from Joanna Sanders

Skype and BYOD - Thom Tech Tool Showdown

On March 7, 2013, Krista Gates and I presented a session to our fellow teachers at Thom Collegiate about how to use Skype in the classroom and how to integrate student owned devices into your practice. Here is our slidedeck from the presentation:

Sharing as a Professional in a Social World

Participating in a professional discussion with other teachers is important to have others understand what you do as a teacher and what you think as a professional. From sharing news, to resources, to ideas, connecting online can make all the difference in your growth and success as an educator.

Here are the slides I presented to the RPSTA Assembly on February 3rd about how to use Twitter and other social media to participate in the online discussion about education.

Orientation for #ETMOOC

I was excited to get started with #ETMOOC this week. I love exploring, discussing, sharing and learning new things with my colleauges. One of the most exciting things about participating in this massive open online course is being able to participate along side my colleagues, not only online, but in my school too. We did the orientation together during our lunch break yesterday.

To get the learning started, I decided to try a new tool I saw someone share this week called Haiku Deck. It is an easy way to add some visuals to any blog post or presentation. I downloaded the app for free on my iPad and easily created this short presentation to try it out. Great way to put words and pictures together! How do you think you could use this tool in your classroom? I think the possibilities are endless!

Haiku Deck: #ETMOOC

Haiku Deck is the best application for creating presentations on iPad

Introduction to #ETMOOC

I am very excited to be participating in #ETMOOC. If you want to know more about this massive open online course about education technology and media, please check it out and sign up! etmooc.org

Here is my introduction so that other participants can have a glimpse into who I am. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Joanna Sanders and I am a French Immersion History, Social Studies and Science teacher in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I teach students in grades 9-12 at Thom Collegiate. I look forward to connecting with everyone through this course!

Apple Learning Tour 2012 - Engage students. Explore apps, interactive books, and Multi‑Touch textbooks

Today, I had the opportunity to spend a day at the Apple Learning Tour 2012 in Regina.

The first workshop I attended was all about apps and multi-touch textbooks. The description of the morning session was:

Engage students. Explore apps, interactive books, and Multi‑Touch textbooks.

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Discover amazing interactive iBooks. Immerse yourself in the world’s largest online catalog of free education content in iTunes U. And experience some of the thousands of education apps for iPad. Learn how to create your own interactive Multi-Touch books with Mac and iBooks Author. Discover how a course is built with iTunes U Course Manager using interactive learning materials. Then see how it all comes together with an overview of ownership and deployment models for content.

The second session I attended was all about creating my own course for the iPad using iTunes U. The description of the afternoon session was:

Learn by doing. Create courses with iTunes U Course Manager.1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
In this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to build a course by exploring all the capabilities iTunes U Course Manager has to offer. Experience the ease of pulling together content such as audio, video, iBooks textbooks, and over 500,000 resources in iTunes U into an organized syllabus. Make available all the assignments, quizzes, and materials for your students or anyone who’s interested in the topic — whether in your class or anywhere in the world.

Resources that teachers might want to check out can be found on the Apple website for education: Resources

My notes from the session:

Demonstration of products:

• Apple TV to turn your projector into a sharing screen where students can use airplay to share what they are working on from wherever they are working in the classroom.
• Exploration of accessibility features on an iPad such as speaking, guided access, mono audio to make the device meet the needs of students and their different learning requirements.

Apps we explored on iPad and Mac:

• Explain Everything: (iPad) Allows students to record a voice over, edit photos, write text. Project idea is to give the students a slide deck (or have them create a slide deck) and each record their understanding of a concept or explanation in 60 seconds or less. Interesting demonstrating of learning idea.
• Doceri: (iPad) Allows you to use an interactive whiteboard similar to Explain Everything recommended by another participant.
• Book Creator: (iPad) Allows you to create your own book with photos, text, voice over and drawings. Students could even create their own book for their demonstration of learning.
• iBook Author (Mac) We then spent some time exploring how to create books on iBooks Author which is a Mac app that allows you to create your own book using video, links and interactive features. For more detailed instructions, I encourage you to visit the education resource section of the Apple website as it has instructions to help you create your own iBooks. Apple Education Resources
• CloudOn: (iPad) (Thanks to Jim Swan for this one) Awesome app that allows you to use the Office Suite of products to create and use documents but save them to your Google Drive or Dropbox. 

iBooks we explored:

• Life on Earth (Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University)- Saw features like including video and interactive maps and materials. Also saw how highlight parts of the text and allow students to create their own study notes and cards based on their highlighted information. There are also accessibility features that allow the student to have content read to them.

iTunesU:

You can create your own account (using Safari browser on Mac or PC) in the iTunesU. Once your school or division signs up, then you can be linked to an institution, which I understand has extra features or benefits. Using their course management system, you can design your own courses to be delivered through the iTunesU app. More resources and instructions are included in the Apple Education Resources

Using Twitter to Connect and Learn as a Professional

Lately I haven't had a lot of time to write a lot of formal blog posts about what I'm doing in my classroom or to share new ideas and resources with others. I've simply been too busy to sit here and write a post and ensure that it is well written before I post it. (The perfectionist in me sure slows down actually posting all the stuff I have in my drafts folder!)

As I read new and interesting content online, I tend to use Twitter on a more regular basis to share new and interesting articles and media that I find online. I know I have written about this before on my blog, but there seems to be a new uptake in using Twitter by my colleagues lately and I hope it continues to be a growing trend. It is one of the easiest ways to connect and grow as a professional online and isn't complicated to learn. Plus, there are lots of us on Twitter already and we are always happy to help you out if you have questions or need help getting started!

There are numerous articles online already written about how to use Twitter to connect and learn online. I'm continuing to explore this tool as a way to incorporate Twitter into my classroom to further engage my students. But before I suggest you use it with your students, start using it yourself. If you are a teacher trying to embark on Twitter for the first time, or you haven't used it much in awhile, I encourage you to start by reading this post about Twitter chats for educators on Edumatic: The Top 50 Education Twitter Chats (And How to Use Them). Other good reads are The 7 Habbits of Highly Effective Teachers Who Use Technology and 100 of the Best Twitter Tools for Teachers by Category

I also found this article interesting on Edumatic: The Teacher's Quick Guide to Educational Twitter Hashtags, most likely because of my new obsession with infographics as it contained a good one.

Source: Edumatic

And don't forget to follow me @MmeSanders (and I will do my best to follow you back) so we can share and learn from each other. It is one of the best places or online tools that has let me grow and connect as a professional and has impacted my practice immensely.

Incorporating Video into the Classroom

Since becoming a YouTube Star Teacher in 2011, I have worked to incorporate more video into my classroom and I use my YouTube Channel to share and organize videos that I use in my classroom through playlists.

I use a lot of videos to help my students discover and better understand the content they need to know. My favourite way to engage my students is to allow them to demonstrate their understanding of a concept or topic that we are studying by making a video. Working at a new school with new students can be a challenge and I have experienced mixed success with this tool in my classroom. Most students have embraced the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding through video rather than simply writing a paper or a test. But there are always students who don't put as much effort into their projects as others and that is something we are working on. I find that they haven't had much opportunity to create masterpiece videos and we are all working together to become better videographers. Here are some of the projects my students and I have been working on over the past few months based on small or large inquiry group projects:

Francophonie 30 - Qu'est-ce que c'est la Francophonie?


Sciences Humaines 9 - Explorateurs vs Premiers Nations (Our understanding of World View)


Sciences 10 - Explorer 3 cycles en Biologie - l'azote, carbone ou nutritif