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!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
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.
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!
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!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
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!
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!
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