Greetings to my followers

As we continue on the path of life, remember that God loves us and is guiding us to the right direction. Continue to inspire people, especially the young ones to find the right path to the "LIGHT". Have a Good Day!

More Reflection on this course

Learning how the internet can make an impact on the way we "can" deliver curriculum, has had a major implication on how I deliver concepts, as a result of what I have learned in this class. I think that I have certainly gained quite an enormous amount of information that will be quite useful for the students I work with.

In this day and age, the young people are more technologically prepared as they grew up with the development of the computer age. They are more willing to take risks and are intriqued by the activities they can do on-line. Tools that they can use to communicate with their peers is one of the major tools that the youth have used. Messenger and Bebo are the two most common programs that have been used by our students in our school. Although these communication programs are useful in assisting youth, there comes another problem.

This problem is the issue of cyberbullying, this matter, although not taken seriously by staff in my school, it has had a negative impact with the students. As well students are not aware of the serious legal issues that they can face. Another matter that's important to for students to understand is the deragatory terms they use for their user name. How can a program allow negativity like this?

Critical Literacy is the skill that students need to carefully evaluate any program's validity and it's usefulness in accomplishing their objective. Students need to be taught these skills so that they are well informed in the way they choose to use the internet and it's tools.

The Web 2.0 tools will make a significant impact on the way the students can be more successful in their learning. It provides a tool for the educator to use in the delivery of education. Students are already interested in the computer and the internet. Getting them ready for the future implications of how the internet is developing and the many ways they can utilize it is of most importance.

What Have I Learned?

Well one thing for sure, if not a few! I have learned a whole new way of utilizing the computer with the help of Web 2.0 tools. I have created wikis, blogs, twitter, & voicethreads to enhance my delivery of educational concepts in the most motivating, if not in a captivating way! This is the way of learning! I just found out on Friday that I will be teaching the grade nine's computer skills. I can't wait! With what I have learned in this short span of time, I can truly say that I can utilize the skills that I have learned in this class with the grade nines.

One of the most frustrating things that I encountered in this class is not being able to fully put 100% of my potential into what I could have done. Now that this class is over I can find the time to do work. I have been alone for the passed couple of days and I have had the opportunity to thoroughly go over the final project of one of the other participants in the class. I guess I like to see other peoples work and enjoy what they have created.

I will have to be more of a risk taker, as I became afraid to download stuff when my computer crashed or perhaps purchase a better software to get rid of viruses. My computer is still in the computer hospital, hopefully my pictures can at least be saved. I guess that was one terrible experience for me during this course.

I am going to try out the PD with the staff and see who's interested: 23 things. I like to get everybody on board as I can see that there is alot of potential to deliver courses to students who can't come to school due to personal circumstances.

It would be another way to keep in touch with those students who have left the community to be with family away at university. Lots and lots of things that can be done to make learning fun, interesting, and meaningful. Those are the things that I have learned in this class.

Critical Friend Review

Wow! Although I haven't had a chance to look at everybodies final projects, I had an opportunity to be a critical friend for one of the other Master-to-be's project. I was so mesmerized by what she did in her project. Her project certainly fits in with what she's doing right now. I could sense the passion she has to teach these students and the enormous research she probably did to find resources befitting for the learning capabilities of her students. I can't comment her enough other than say to her: "Excellent job! If I were the instructor in this course, you'd totally get a "you knocked my socks off, mark" (Dr. Friesen).

Reflection, reflection, reflection....

I am just so strapped for time! I am trying my best to do what is expected of me but I can no longer keep up. I have had no time to create those wonderful projects that I so wished I could. I am just reminscing about last Spring when Dr. Herman Michel said that there will be obstacles and challenges to overcome while in this program (Masters). I really believe it now! Just got back from 3 busy days in Skt'n with my four high school boys who went to compete at the Science Fair. The seniors won second and the Intermediate level got 1st! Now am awaiting to go to Skt'n again for my baby boy's potential surgery on Wednesday. My boy is 15 but he's still a baby to me. I am just trying to relay some of my hardships so that people understand why I simply don't have the time to respond to your blogs and other projects you have posted, unlike myself I am glad that other students are on track and doing well (just a general statement for everybody out there) I promise that when things are a bit peaceful in my life that I will catch up with you someday and maybe a bit more of a collaborator.

My presentation on-line is abit short but otherwise a presentation. My major project is not what I expected, there's a lot of static in my voice and not a whole lot of resources that I wished I could have included. Now I am just trying to figure out how to invite respondents to comment on the questions I asked. I did one English version and one Cree version, in hopes that maybe an Elder could just comment on how he/she understands the translation of the Medicine Wheel.
I am currently still trying to record my voice in the other slides but I am having technical problems, somebody ruined my ear and mike set,hopefully I can get a set tomorrow.

Well everybody wish me luck on my assignments.

Block Seven Reflection

I was going through the 23 things PD options and was amazed how this would be effective for my colleagues or anybody else for that matter. I was trying some out with my 17 year old son and he was very interested I had to drag him away from the computer so I could continue with what I was doing. The blog I am following is in the Fischbowl, and funny thing was he had a post in 23 things.

I was truly amazed by the speed of technology, I could never had fathom that this would happen. While on that same topic I evaluated where my school was in this technology speed and I was truly disappointed at the stage we are in. We have very little access to computers for our students at the school, only those high school students who are taking Info Pro, Journalism are the ones only allowed to use the computers. None of the classrooms have a computer, never mind an internet connection. Even I don't have an internet connection in my office and I'm supposed to be a Career and Guidance Counsellor. You can see where we are at in my school. Three of the staff members have brand new computers and guess what? they have no idea how to use it! They also have an internet connection, with absolutely no use for it. I guess you can tell I'm frustrated with this topic, but what can I do?

Well, no matter I'll get around the obstacles that are thrown my way.

Getting back to my reflection I think that alot of staff are willing to learn about the uses of the computer, but are not given that chance, I am sure that I can provide a PD for them utilizing '23 things' it simple and they can work at their own speed. I have confidence that they'll be willing to learn and that they could in turn utilize these tools for the students benefit.

There will need to be alot of negotiating done though to get those bosses to understand that we are shortchanging our students by not providring them with the technological skills that they need. I am beginning to wonder if they realize that most of our students don't succeed in post-secondary because they might be shortskilled in the technology area.

Block Six Reflection

My goodness! I am just worried now about my prior work, did I use authentic sites to quote my sources?

I was just discussing this concept with the vice-principal who thinks that it is important to teach the students critical literacy. I can attest to that since I see alot of students come through my Info Pro classes with very limited skills. This might be due to the fact that there is very little time for computers in the middle years.

I am just so amazed at the extensiveness of computer knowledge. "How do we determine authority and relevancy on the Internet?"(B.Ricketts, 2001). Students must be taught to carefully scrutinize the sites they are accessing on-line. I never gave this much thought, so I guess this was my "aha" moment.

As the article: Developing Critical Literacy Skills for the Internet, we must equip students students with a wide range of skills; locating, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing the vast amounts of information available. Traditionally, teachers had to do this for the student by selecting relevant materials for their classes, now that is impossible as there are a multitude of sites that will appear once you begin your search. Knowing the 'know-how' of how to do a research is very important as one doesn't want thousands of infornmation to go through in the search engine.

Block Five Reflection

All I can say is: "WOW!" all these tools have so much possibilities to make learning interesting and fun for students. It's a way to motivate them to be more creative. Of course the 3 C's (communication, collaboration, & creating) are what we want sudents to develop. When I introduced the voicethread to my students they were so scared, once I demonstrated the process and what they were to do they were more relaxed. They are preparing right now before they record what they want to say though and they will be recording one by one so that they don't have to feel self conscience about the others in the class. I have to work around their schedules though as they are now in their work placements and we have to do this in the evenings. Yet they are more than willing to learn more about how they can be a part of a learning process that will also assist them in evaluating their lives. I have also went ahead and created a wikispace to educate and provide awareness to the community as a whole. I will be making these public very soon.

Some of the tools that I have been using already and have accounts are: Delicous, Blog (2), Wikispaces (3), Twitter, Facebook, Google (most of all the components). I trust that the other tools in the Web 2.0 can be used in the classroom, this would make learning very interesting for students. Also my 2 Science groups are making a video of the projects they are doing and also taking pictures with a digital camera, I am thinking of doing a digital story of the 'Traditonal Knowledge' experiences they are recieving from our Elder who we are collaborating with and who is also our advisor. The students will tell the story and will present it at the Science Fair in Saskatoon. Isn't that exciting to use technology to share our culture! Simply Amazing!

I see these tools to be very useful. I have discussed this with my administrators and have requested that each classroom have a computer with an Internet connection. I have also been asked to create a school website which I'll probably do during the Easter Break. I am assembling all my information and storing it in my google account.

Using the tools that I have been exploring doesn't mean that we get rid of the traditional teaching but one thing is for sure it will be very hard to get the student to get up while doing something on-line! Traditional teaching and learning requires the student to sit in a desk for quite a period of time (3 hours in my school's Block sytem). I can't sit still for that long! Why should I expect my students to sit there and listen, read, and do work for that period of time! Whereas if they do a bit of work on the computer using the tools that have been introduce during this block I think that students would have a pretty hard time to stop what they are doing simply because learning is more motivating, interesting, and downright FUN!

Block Four Reflection

In block four we were introduced to two more theories: Contructivism and Connectivism. I am more knowledgable about constructivism as I believe that I have been doing this in my own delivery of knowledge. I believe that the students that come to me in the specific class I am teaching have 'Prior Knowledge' so therefore they need to tap into what thay know already. I also see alot of students that were "programmed" into a very specific way of learning. These students I have a hard time getting through to the potential they have to unleash (self-esteem issues), however I teach in a very unique way as you will see when we publish our projects. I begin with a journey of each of the students I work with and share my own journey so they can see where I have been and how I have evolved as a learner and a deliverer of knowledge. Yes, I believe that students are NOT vessels to be filled, they are their own knowledge seekers we just have to guide them through this process, as we are being guided by our professors in this journey of ours right now. Sure it would be nice if everything was laid out step by step and a specific time to meet for our weekly meetings or classes, but we are at a stage where we are responsible for own learning, we take what we need and also what will help others.

Connectivism is a theory based on the ever changing aspects of our world, namely the technology age. A very interesting insight on this: The brain is a very unique organ, like the computer it is very complex, but there are untapped sources or unused components in our brain. If you could access one of these it makes you much more open to comprehend the many unexplainable aspects of our world.

For example: many, many years ago people were able to predict what it would be like in the future, they didn't provide the specific wording until it actually happened and they would say "My grandfather told me that a long time ago, his grandfather told him that also". Because the First Nations are an Oral People stories and/or prophecies were passed on from generation to generation. I will tell you a couple of stories:

Once long ago a Medicine man said that the journey of healing amongst First Nations would begin when the Eagle landed on the moon. Now this was very hard to believe, especially a long time ago, but was it possible? You'll have to wait and see until I get to the end of this contribution.

Another one was that an Elder said that there was a spider weaving it's web all over the world and it has been going on for quite awhile and when the spider was done Mother Earth would whisper and everybody in the world would hear her. Now how could this be possible you say? Having Aboriginal Knowledge is quite remarkable and once you understand it, you begin to see the world in whole different way.

Last week during the Winter Break I had promised myself that I would coop myself to get caught up in my assignments for this class, but ended up at a conference in Prince Albert. While there I met some amazing people who were knowledgable about the complexities of First Nations epistemology. An Elder I met was from Colorado and these stories I am sharing with you are from him. It seems that Don Coyhis (the name of the Elder who did the workshop) was an Engineer at Nasa, from Apollo 6 to Apollo 14. When the mission to the moon took place he had planted two eagle feathers in the spaceship/rocket. When the spaceship landed on the moon the first words ever spoken were: "The Eagle Has Landed". Wow!!!

Then he talked about the spider and when Mother Earth whispered everybody would hear her, it is what we know has the "World Wide Web". I literally felt goose bumps all over!

Now everybody has these untapped sources within themselves, we just have to find them and explore.

Hope you enjoyed these stories.

Reflection Block Three

This reflection and the next ones are all contributions from my prograstinating self. Lol! Well I am finally back on track and thus will do a series of reflective contributions based on each of the blocks that I have been trailing.

Block three is basically where I stopped, so I will begin here in hopes that I will indeed fulfill my mission.

Back in block two, we were asked to follow an educational blog. I chose the Fischbowl. I wanted to start with this since it requires a way of thinking and contributing to our way of handling our technology side of our professional self. Some of us are technology savy, while some of us are awestruck by the capabilities we can use to improve our way of teaching or deliver knowledge.
I am a bit of both I would like to believe, the teaching staff at school view me as an expert in computers, while I am a bit apprehensive in exploring new tools. I believe that this is in part of being afraid that I will mess up, but I know too that we learn from mistakes and if we want our students to take risks then we should too, don't you think? One of the thought provoking questions that Fisch asks is: What's the Purpose of Schools? Perhaps you can answer that and view his blog. Fisch has posted two answers the earlier one was: "... to appropriately prepare our children for their future." Then later on he posted another answer: "... to make the world a better place." I share in Fisch's answers, but I also believe that education is about assisting students find their mission in life.

I like experimenting, this is the way I taught myself how to use the computer and all that it has to offer. The contributing factor from this class is that it has exposed me to a wide variety of other tools that I could use to improve learning in the students that I work with. I do take every opportunity to expose my students to technology. I have taught my students to utilize the Google components in our Information Processing classes. Because we couldn't save our work into the hard drive and the Floppy Disk has become obsolete in the newer versions of the computers, they needed a way to save their work and so they used the 'google documents' to save their work on-line. Rather than hand me a hard copy of their work they e-mailed me their assignments, this way I would have their work on hand.

Because the school's computers are firewalled very strictly we could only access a very limited exposure to what is available out there. There is a reason for this though, students were accessing sites that would potentially harm the computers (viruses) and thus is the case. However some students were able to access other sites by 'tunneling' and therefore more strict rules were enforced. I couldn't believe students had this knowledge, it is funny though that they are more knowledgable about technology than we are. Take for example my eight year old taught me something on the computer the other week, she showed me how to open another tab so I wouldn't lose my web page that I was working on. Truly, truly amazing! I asked her how she learned that and she said I tried it (she was experimenting)! I felt kind of dumb that I was being out performed by an eight year old and here I was a Master in the Making!

Reflection for today

I have been falling behind in these weekly commentaries and really need to motivate myself to get at it. I've quickly scanned the blocks that I need to cover and have become overwhelmed by what I need to do to catch up with the rest of the class.

I'll get there eventually, just need to get to a computer that's connected to the internet and total quiet. I can't do anything if there is constant distruptions. I'll probably be catching up all week next week during the Mid-Winter Break, it won't be much of a break for me, but I need to do this for myself.

I have become pre-occupied with personal issues surrounding family. How can I accomplish this class without neglecting them? I am sending them away for the week to go and visit their sisters in Prince Albert. Perhaps I'll get a bit closer to where everybody else is by the time they get back home.

Hope it works!

Reflection

I have been really busy and haven't had that much time to devote myself to my studies. I did however accomplish organizing the AR project report and hoping to be done by the end of February.

I have been involved in many community planning meetings and have finally sewt-up a date for my 'Parent Conference' in April. This is very exciting as we, the community agencies, will be hosting this event. This has been an idea of mine in which I had wanted to provide information for our parents not only to promote parental involvement but give them othe skills to assist their children.

I have been sitting at my computer, both at home and in my office, coming up with wonderful plans and ideas to utilize technology for the upcoming events. I have spent countless hours researching the best possible activities to utilize during this event.

I am also excited to deliver the next group of on-line students, starting Tuesday, Feb. 3/09. The grade 12's that just finished this course are somewhat baffled at themselves for what they were able to accomplish during this class. I am hoping that the grade 10's will have the same insights.

The best thing about this on-line class is they won't need a sub if I'm not there! lol

Learning is amazing!!

I have a difficult time approaching this assignment. I'll have to get my techi son to help me through this portion this weekend. Perhaps he'll be able to assist me in inserting the things I want to put in my blog. I have finally figured out what to do for my project for this class, I just hope that students will help their parents through the process of utilizing the computer. Another problem that might arise is that not everybody will have access to the Internet.

My project is create a blog for students, parents, teachers, and community agencies. I will be utilizing the Medicine Wheel concept where a person using the blog will choose either from any of the four aspects of life. But first I have to organize my resources and then post the links.

My, this does take alot of your time, doesn't it? But it's actually interesting.

I am currently involved in a first ever First Nations themed Science Fair and the two groups of high school students are so excited in taking part in this. They will actually be taking their projects to Skt'n in March. I have chosen four high school students who have 'Traditonal Knowledge' and teamed them up with our in-school elder and Cultural personnel. They will also be earning 3 credits while doing this: ELA A10, Science10, & Native Studies 10 & ELA B30, Bio 20 & Native Studies 30. They will be working on this project for 2 months. Finally, the students have something that is culturally relevant and get credit for it! They will be utilizing several kinds resources to gather and record their information and technology is one of them!

My project will model the 'Medicine Wheel' concept where a person seeking assistance can choose either of the following: Spiritual, Physical, Mental, or Emotional. From there there will be several links that they can choose from to get to the site that will assist them in addressing a certain problem or issue.

Hi Everybody in Blog-Land!

Finally able to set-up my very own blog, truly amazing!