Using WIkiSpaces @ American Creativity Academy (Kuwait)

I have been teaching at American Creativity Academy for the past month and a bit, and have recently started a new unit on Ancient Greece. I wanted to go about the unit in a different and unique way, so I decided to do it through wikispaces (http://socialstudiesaca7.wikispaces.com/) I simply have posted notes, and all the formative assignments we are doing. The kids have responded well. One thing I really do enjoy about this school is that the kids all have their own personal computers and iPads. They also have these 3G wireless routers that are very useful, they bring them to class and we do online activities that definitely make things unique and exciting.


One thing that I feel has worked very well with the Wikispaces is using the discussion area in the wiki to have the students respond to questions that tie in with lessons covered in class. I am going to get the students to reflect on a few videos that we are to watch in class, and they are to have a dicussion in the Wikispace! I think this is a good way to get the kids to become critical thinkers and create their own personal opinions. We all know when we were in grade 7 how hard it was to come up with something "original".


Mr.Nathan

Summative Prezi!

http://prezi.com/5i-edkv0l6-x/internet-for-educators/

Casa de couros

Network literacy, plns, one of the big thing is that teachers need to learn just as much as students! This is a very important note! I think as an educator you really do need always keep learning, sometimes you learn alongside the students, sometimes you need to go out of your way to make yourself more knowledgable, and qualified to teach your classes. As an educator you want your students do their best, therefore you need to be your best as well.

Curriculum, colleagues, popular media, resources. Family community, teachers network! That is the most common! However we need to relize that there is so much more to "our" networks! There is so many applications/websites out there that are soooo useful for education! We need to make ourselves aware of these, and use them to share, and reflect with our students!

I thought it was pretty neat how all the photos got collected with flickr! Its quite amazing how ppl can come together, and share photographs so easily just by sending it to a specified email address!

Personally, since I have been using blogger, I really like the thought of using it for students to share and reflect their learnings! It would be a great way for students to learn from each other! ALSO, I think I will use my BLOG to keep a track record of what we have been doing throughout the year in class! If I were a parent I think it would be very neat to be able to track your childs classes activities, assignments from just following their teachers blog! You could also use it is a journal, and bring it up for parent/teacher conferences

Tech Task 12

I recently just tried out the new Mac application "facetime", its like skype, but is only able to be used on a macbook/apple computer. Its pretty neat. Originally I thought it was used just for iPhone, but you can facetime from mac to mac. You can also use facetime on the newly released iPod touch because it has the camera. All you have to do is simply download the application, and enter your email address. If you want to facetime your friends you simply enter their email, and it will call their computer.

Nate

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

I really enjoyed watching this video presentation in class this afternoon. It had really good humor, along with good music and editing. The best thing about it, was that it really covered alot of areas in with using internet in education. I think the part on "Copy and Paste" was really bang on. Thats exactly what students do now a days, and the worst part about that is that students really think the information is accurate.

its our job as educators to teach them the importance of how its not allowed to use people's ideas or get information from resources and not source them. Teaching them proper research ettiquette is very important, and something alot of university students  struggle with, yet along middle years/high school kids. The more we can teach them about developing original ideas, and if they use someone else's information to simply "source" it from where they got it. this way they taken the time to at least show the teacher they are not taking credit for some information, rather just sourcing the original creator.

WBC- Web Based Courses- Tech Task

I looked at a grade 11 Physical Education/Health Education course. It was really neat how "health" or P.E content was taught through the web. Physical activity is imporatant, but it is very important to have knowledge about active healthy lifestyles. The first part of the course was talking about active healthy lifestyles.

Some of the first lessons were 

• Lesson 1: Personal Physical Activity Inventory
• Lesson 2: Managing Risks Related to Physical Activity
• Lesson 3: Implementing the Safety and Physical Activity Plan

Alot of students growing up do not understand the term "healthy" and if they do, they dont know how to live a health lifestyle. Alot of children do not have "healthy" role models in their life, so as a P.E teacher we need give them as much information about what it takes to be healthy, and the importance of balance & maintenance. 

Physical activity will create an increase in energy and an overall "good" feeling. Therefore having web case courses full of content and very useful strategies is a very good idea! I could definitely use a web based course like this.

Tech Task-Internet making us DUMBER?

The whole internet making you dumber article, was really quiet interesting. And i totally can see their point of view. Today Blair, and I were talking about all the blogging and neat things we have been learning in the Internet for Educators class, and he replied, yah i agree its a good thing, however everytime i go on their to blog I keep getting distracted and side tracked as to what I was there in the first place.

The internet is a very useful tool, and I can really see how it makes us "dumber", but maybe dumber isn't the best word for it, maybe it should be called how internet makes us "lazy". We as a society expect everything quicker, faster and better. The internet has a HUGE role in that "motto". I know personally when im trying to download, or upload, if it takes longer than 2 minutes im cursing and totally frustrated. Just think back to dial up haha, we managed, but with high speed internet everything is a "blink" away, and i think its fair to say that society has become dependent on that speed of accessibility.

Thats how I can i relate to how we stopped thinking indepth, rather just kinda go with the flow. For example, some of the projects we need to in classes now a day take probably an 1/8th of the time, projects 10 years ago did. I know personally, i have become a little to much of a procastotantor mainly because I know once i get started on a task, its really not going to take me long, and to top it off, I will not think twice about it. Did I really use indepth adequate thinking, not at all.

Nate

Internet for Educators Presentation

Link-For google DOC

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zPrHlS78kVbJ9xA54i6yqIBOcyKMMwgMX5XIpJirSHE/edit?hl=en#

Handheld Devices in Education

The release of the iPad has really showed the education world a new way of learning. Not only is the iPad amazing with its mobility, accessibility, effeiciency and affordability, but THOUSANDS of useful applications that can make a teacher be in Heaven!

I really think mobile devices have a significant place in the classroom. I think it makes learning way more interactive and interesting for the students, and the teacher. If the school had enough funding, and could afford a few iPads, iPods, teachers could make interesting lessons and use unique applications to teach learning outcomes. iPad has numerous mathematical applications that would be very good for teaching math, exspecially at the early years level. With using the iPad for learning any subject matter, you incorporate so many different types of multiple intelligences that will allow the learner to get the most out of their learning.

However, with handheld devices being a unique and overall interesting way of learning, I think there are some draw backs. Obviously the first one that comes to mind is FUNDING. How would you be able to provide devices for 20 students? I think overtime educational funding will change, because they are going to realize just how important technology in the classroom is, but reality is thats going to take more than a few years. So as sweet as devices sound in the classroom, reality is you may only be able to have 2 or 3 right now. The next draw back i think would be children taking advantage of the devices and not really doing what they are supposed to do. it's easy for children who are not interested in the topic to use the device to play games, go online or not pay attention. Therefore, I think proper ettiquette of devices and respect of technology would need to be taught.

Sharing: The Moral Imperative

I like this presentation on the aspect of sharing.

Sharing to me is one of the most useful "strategies" or resources that a teacher could use. I feel that as Educators we need to allow other's to use our own ideas, and knowledge. If we can share information through technology with teacher's close and far, we better ourselves as people, teachers, and the children are learning alot more. If teacher's share resources, then I think its fair to say that students will share ideas and information as well. Sharing makes daily activities, tasks, and duties much easier to accomplish if you are able to generate your own thoughts and opinons but use someone else's ideas to create another viewpoint. I am not talking about copying other peoples work simply because you are to lazy to do it, but making an actual effort to provide information and using other's ideas to create your own thoughts and opinions.

That was a pretty interesting post by George in this video about sharing, where he talked about their "identity" assembly and how that little girl did her whole display board on Turettes and how George ended up blogging about it because he was really touched and had an emotional reaction to it. The neat thing about that was that a school in texas was insipired by it as well, because George decided to share this information through a BLOG.
This is very touching and interesting, you really never know who is looking at what you are posting online, but their is definitely alot of advantages that can come from it. You may be helping another teacher or classroom out by posting strategies or assignments/classroom activities on your blog.

Summer Job 2010

Summer Job 2010

George Couros Presentation-Unintended Benefits

The skype conference George gave us on tuesday, february 8th was very impressive. He is a very knowledgeable person and his passion for learning and technology is very recognizable.

I was blown away with how he was talking about students in his school in grade 3 were using blogs as a way of learning from each other and reflecting about what they had learned. That impressed me alot. Blogging is a very unique way of sharing information, thoughts and ideas, I think every classroom teacher should definitely include them in their classes.

What I thought was very interesting is that the world is a ever changing place, so why aren't the schools? He said he wanted his school to be the best school, and by the sounds of the way he incorporates technology in the classroom, he is well ahead of others. I really agree with that statement if the world is based around technology, then why aren't we doing this in schools? No wonder kids are getting bored by reading a text book, they go home in the evening and do everything online or on a computer, go to school and is forced to read a 15 year old book. We as teacher's need to get with the "times" and start using every possible resource of information possible to keep things interested. If you get comfortable in education thats definitely a bad thing, everything is always changing around us, so we need to adapt and get with it.

The use of technology always people to be closer and more efficient. This is in regards to george's comment with how talked to this one principal on twitter for 8 months and then did a presentation with a guy that he never ever talked to face to face but it felt like he knew him his whole life, if it wasn't for technology that would never be possible. I think its very interesting how we can learn from peopl from other countries through skype, blogs, any social media applications with the click of a mouse.

I feel if the funding and the technology is their in my classroom I will definitely be attempting to use all the stuff I have learned about ICT and use it for teaching my children, to keep them engaged, make learning FUN, and to make my job more interesting.

GET with the TIMES PPL!

Nathan Corrigal

Response to "Reinventing Physical Education"

After I watched the Ted Talk video on how schools in the united states were using technology to really narrow down target heart rates, calories burned during exercise, and just how long they were actually getting physical activity throughout the day, I thought to myself how great is that.

The school's obviously have a large amount of money to be able to afford such things, but still, the fact that they use heart rate monitors and track their rate heart while they are playing physical activity is a unique idea. The presenter opens the presentation up with a statement about how we have a childhood obesity problem in United States, well that can be said for Canada as well.

As a P.E major, I always come across students that are much larger than ever I was as a child, no offence but it is reality. As educators in the Physical Education world, we have to be aware of this. WE have to become more knowledgable about the whole nature of the epidimic, and try and make a difference. If technology will allow us to pin point specific critieria that will allow us to make changes in children's life then we better start using it.

It's important as P.E teachers to really make the importance of Physical Education known to students, right from a young age. However, we could tell them till were blue in the face about how important it is, and they still might not care.

WHAT DO WE DO? We as P.E teachers, make physical activity fun, this comes with alot of unique and diverse strategies. I know personally when I grew up P.E was based on competition and who could be the best. Now P.E is definitely turn around and we are making small changes, for instance- students do not get singled out regardless of athletic ability or skill level. Everyone is treated the same, for example if we were playing volleyball in the gym, you would not be able to pick out the best volleyball player, because drills and games that are set-up by a knowledgable P.E teacher would make skill and ability not a priority, their prioritiy is to make sure every student is engaged, even for that student that "hates" P.E, they will all be engaged and having FUN. Thats what it comes down to, P.E is almost like a life time skill, they have to informed and engaged at a early age to really care on with a healthy lifestyle in order to be healthy!

Just some thoughts to note.

Nate

TEDxPennQuarter - Jake Glover - Reinventing Physical Education

Education in a Network World

When it comes to teaching now a days information access is so much easier. Before we simply relied on sources such as books, articles, newspapers, stuff that was written years and years before, yet we continued to use it as a source of information. However, now a days with a simple click we can access UPDATED sources in a second. Like Glen said in his presentation, children are really aware of how available and easy for everyone to access. I think as teacher's we have to start updating our sources and information that we are teaching, really use every available piece of information we possibly can.


I know Glen was explaining his graduate course and how he strictly teaches everything through a Wiki! That just brought a really good idea for myself. I really would like to use wikispaces as a source for posting assignments for homework. I think it would be pretty neat, and at the same time it allows the teacher to be alot more organized more effectively.With using the wiki incorporates the ICT continum and ultimately hits the curriculum outcomes, which is our goal as teachers.

I like the aspect Glen talked about, filtering information. Its almost like its turned into a skill, determing what is of good quality, and what isnt. I think thats something that comes with time with use of information through technology. However as students searching to do a research paper, 9 times out of 10 says they use the first source that pops up in google. Our job as educators is to teach these kids whats good information and whats not accurate information.

The reality of the education world and WORLD in general is that technology/internet is there and it is something we depend on as professionals to get through our daily life routines. Is that a bad thing? I dont really think so, its just the way things, we are trully advanced in the way we spread information, the crazy thing about that is just HOW FAST we can do it. As educators we need to embrace it, and definitely take advantage of it for our educational experiences.

Video Blog-Twitter in Classroom

Twitter in the classroom?

Vision for technology in K-12 Education

JOHNS Presentation

I like the idea John had about students using facebook to study. It's pretty ironic how Pembina valleyschool divison has a facebook feed, but the division blocks facebook. Just shows you that it probably should be used. However, if facebook is being used or any social media for that matter, there needs to be some guidelines, and people need to be taught and informed about how to use it properly and have a good internet ettitiquette.

Social Media to me is using applications online to create a community amongst friends, peers, and co-workers, even people you have never met. Social media can connect people all across the world that have similar interests and view points, also it can be a place for people to voice their opinions on whether they agree or disagree with a topic. Facebook and twitter are two major social media applications. Personally I use both of them. I recently just started blogging for my Internet for educators class. Blogging is a form of social media. I personally like it because it allows me to reflect my learning and opinions.

Depending on the school division I work at, i would definitely use blogging as a form of formative assessment. This way students can all follow each other and all learn from each other's view points and learnings.

I think it would be so interesting for social media to be used in the class. All the years I have been involved in Education, being a student, and now a Pre-service teacher, I think social media would be so ENGAGING for the students and myself as an educator. I think it allows for more effeciency and effectiveness. Therefore students will learn alot more.

As teachers we have to realize that the world is based on these networks, so we need to start teaching students how to properly use it, and for them to be able to get the most out of it.

internet ED video Blog

New semester!

With my last semester of school under way, it brings alot of excitment and also fear of the unknown. I am glad that I will be finishing up my Education degree and moving on to working in the field. However, the thought of not knowing where I am going to end up is kind of a scary topic. Thats life I guess, I am just hoping I can get a job right here in Brandon, but who knows what will happen.

Its official, I will now be going to do my last student teaching placement overseas in Kuwait, I know a few people from the class internet for educators are going, alanna and dory. Also, a few from my middle years classes, so I am definitely excited to travel with these people, I think it will be a great experience.

I have been to europe before but never the middle east, so I look forward to not only teaching the students but taking part in their culture. We are also talking about travelling when we finish up our student teaching placement as well, maybe thinking about going to Greece or Turkey.

With 6 years of University almost finished, I really find it hard to dig down deep and pull out some motivation to really make a final push for this semester. However, I know I will pull through, I usually do.

Cheers, Nathan Corrigal

Internet for Educators Day 1

John Evans Presentation was very interesting. Professional Learning Network, he talked about how its all about getting connected by using all the very usefull tools like twitter, facebook etc.I like the thought of using these tools in our classroom, makes it a little more interesting.
5 W's of Professional Learning Network, these were things I never really realized the teacher was "responsible" for. I always looked at it like if the funding or school divisions policy were based on something, the teacher always had to go by that, not by trying to incorporate ICT in the classroom.

he gave good insight on ways to develop PLN. Its important to determine your goals, so you know what you are striving for. This is important. this way you can see your "tools" and resources to achieve these goals.
The thing with Twitter, like John was saying, its very useful. The one video he showed, and the guy said he learned more from his twitter friends than he did in Grad School, i can definitely see that. Becaue ppl world wide are sharing resources, information with their tweets, and its right there in front of us. As teachers we need to share our information and resources together, it will make education a better place. Also, as educators no matter what stage in our career its never to late to try out new things to make our job more interesting and challenging. Personally, I dont like the idea of teaching and using the same things over and over every year, thats why I like technology and the "changes" it brings. This way you will always constantly find yourself keeping up with it and learning as your students will be too.

Over all great insight and information about ICT in education.