Being clickable….

So I have had some time to think about last class and more specifically, about being clickable/googleable. I am having a tough time with this idea. To be quite frank, I couldn’t care less about what comes up if I google myself (I hope I am not sounding rude here, this is not what I hope to sound like). I have mentioned this many times so far and I am sure that you are all tired of hearing me say this, but believe it or not, I am a little old fashioned. This being said, I feel strongly that if someone wants to learn about me, they should call me up and talk to me personaly.

It seems that learning about someone online lacks the personal touch. There is so much more to a person than what can be written about online. I think there is a stat out there saying that 90% of communication is body language. We miss out on this in an online setting. I agree that it would be good to have something positive come up when your name is googled, but I don’t think that it needs to be a priority. If we live our lives to the best of our ability, then I can’t see why being googled would be a negative. Unless we have something to hide. I know we all have something that we would like to keep hidden from the world, but I think that we can worry about things that are more worth our while.

I guess I am having trouble seeing how our digital footprints are so valuable. I invite input here, to help me make up my mind about this topic, so please don’t be shy.

Later.

P.S. Sorry if I sounded rude, this really was not my intention.

Google Survey

Ahan this is long ovedue, and as you may have guessed I am taking care of some house keeping. This is a quick post of the reults that I got from the survey that i sent out in September. I asked 7 questions: What is your name?,  What is your most common nickname if you have one?, What year of study are you in?,  If you could teach anywhere in the world where would you teach? Why?,  What month were you born in?,  What is your Major? and, What is your minor?

The question that I was really concerned with was If you could teach anywhere in the world where would you teach? Why? This is something that I have thought about often. I would love to teach anywhere in Saskatchewan first of all, preferably in a smaller city. I would alos like to travel and teach over seas for a few years, but I don’t know how realistic that is. It was good to see that many other people feel the same way as I do. Saskatchewan is a great place to teach especially small towns according to some people. But there was also those people who would like to travle to teach in Africa and Japan as two examples from the survey.

Finally, just a quick word on using this in the classroom. I think that this is great to use for giving quizes, but I think that this is best used on the first day of classes as a way to get to know your students. It makes it easier on the teacher and the students to do the survey on linebecause the students can do it at their leasiure, and the teacher has the information they need about thier students in a neat spread sheet form, with little effort from the teacher. I could see myself useing this in my classroom especially on the first day of classes.

Creative commons

This is a little late (actually alot late) but it is because it is something that I have strugged with. This is a review of creative commons from the list of wiki tools. There are so many different tool out there that are useful, that aren’t useful, that could be useful, and frankly, I am struggling with what is worth while. I chose to look at this particullarily because of what it entails. The just of creative commons is that people all over the world share their work with each other without the hassle of copyright. Now with this site people can copyright thier work, and at the same time allow other people to use all of thier work or bits and pieces of it in thier own work.

So why did I look at this? Simpy because of this fact. Once I am a teacher it will be good to know that there is a place where I can find useful infromation, that I don’t have to worry about copyright infringment. This is also a way to allow my students to share thier work with others as well as find useful ideas and work from others that is a learning aid. I must make it clear here that this is something that I am still not sure on, and it will take alot of gettting used to, but it has potential to be a great tool for the classroom.

It’s been a while…..

Well, I haven’t blogged for quite sometime. Partly because I, like everone else I am sure, am extremely busy and am a little stressed. But oh well, that’s what the student life is all about. another reason that I haven’t blogged for a while is that I had writer’s block. I didn’t want to get too personal, and I didn’t want to get “not personal enough”, and as such I was racking my brain thinking of what to write. Then one day in class, a fellow classmate and myself were discussing why we were becoming teachers, and how we knew that, teaching is what we want to be doing. After I told my story I thought, this is something that I could blog about. It is not too unique or too interesting, but it is something that I have a lot of passion for.

       My grade twelve year was flying past, and as it was, there was this question hovering over my head “what am I going to do with my life?” I was already accepted into the Faculty of Engineering in both Calgary and Saskatoon, and was planning on getting two degrees, one in civil engineering and one in arcitecture. Needless to say, if I pulled it off, I would have been set for life. But I had also applied to the Faculty of Education in Regina and had not heard abck from them for quite some time. When the time comes for me to make my decision, I still haven’t heard anything so I make up my mind that I want to be a teacher. I’ve always kind of known that teaching is what I want to do.

       Wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t get accepted into education. I was crushed. Turns out that I made a mistake on my application form, and would have to try again the next year. I decided that I might as well take some classes while I am waiting to get in, so I picked an area that I thought was interesting, and somewhat easy to complete, Religious Studies. This was only to be a temporary thing so I didn’t care too much about my classes. When I didn’t get accepted again I thought to myself, I better get this degree and then see where it leads me. I finally got into the faculty and could not be happier.

       While I was debating what to do with my life during the time when I was trying to get into Education, I took EPS 100. I didn’t care much for the lectures, but i enjoyed the labs. I especially loved the feild placements. I found out that I was to go to Sacred Heart School and observe the classroom there. At first I thought “What did I do to deserve this? Sacred Heart is an Inner City School, the students are going to hate my guts, and I don’t want to be there”. Looking back on it now, I was so close-minded and scared that I wasn’t willing to give it a chance.

       The first day I got there I was so scared to walk in the school, but I built up enough courage to drag myself in there. To my surprise, the school on the inside, was totally different from the school on the outside. This school was a safe environment for all of the students, and the students liked being there. From that day on I was excited to go back each week and see the students, and what they did the previous week.

       One day in math class, I was asked to go and sit with a grade six boy who was having trouble with multiplication. So I hopped up and was ready to help this student with everything I had. Turns out though, that this student didn’t want to try too hard because he thought he was never going to get it. Seeing this, I was knocked down a couple knotches. So I thought “lets just try and help the guy out”. So I showed him one way to do multiplication…….. didn’t work. So I tried another way, again……… didn’t work. So I tried a third way………didn’t work. At this point this young boy was getting quite frustrated and angry at the person who invented math. So I tried a fourth way……….and he got it. The look on his face made me think right then and there, “yeah, i want to be a teacher!” He let his guard down and was laughing and was so relieved to know that he could finally multiply.

       I will never forget that look on the boys face, sheer happiness. If I teach everyday of my life and only see that face on one other student, then I can proudly say that I have made the correct life decision. I hope that I will have many of these stories to tell when I am old and grey, because then I’ll know that by being a teacher, I was able to teach my students something that they can use in thier own lives. I will have given them the tools to shape thier own lives and futures as I am continuing to do today.

Mentoring Project

Here is the video I created for the classrooms that I am involved with for the mentoring project. I cannot take credit for the idea of creating an introduction video. One of the teachers that I am working with suggested that I do this, and she got the idea from someone in our class. Good on you! So without further ado, here it is.

MasterCard Comercial

. Here is my MasterCard commercial (this is the link if it doesn’t want to work for you).These pictures are from this summer when a friend of mine, and myself went to Quebec City to see Paul McCartney put on a free concert for Quebec City’s 300th Anniversary. Needless to say it was spectacular! Being a huge Beatles fan, this was a dream come true.

The Parable of the Medicine Herbs

This is a voice thread that I did to get familiar with the site. I have a degree in Religious Studies, and in my time spent in that program I came upon many cool things. This story is a simple childrens story for Buddhists. The moral is simple and the story is simple as well, but has a deep meaning for the practicioners of Buddhism and for people in general. So without further ado, here is The Parable of the Medicine Herbs, and I welcome any comments on it (it is a bit corny I know but it was a learning experience).

Something I can use….

       So here I was sitting in one of my classes watching a group presentation on using excel in the classroom, (specifically math). The presentation was very well done and it got me thinking about using it in the classroom, (once I get there). The group gave all of us a website to look at with all of this information on it. Naturally, I bookmarked it on Delicious, but I would like to share it with you right here. There is alot of stuff here that can be extremely useful in the classroom. Allow me to give you an example. Say you are teaching trig function in class, and you are getting really tired of having to draw all of the graphs over and over again for different values. Well, search no more, because on this site simply go down to trig function and open it up and it will allow you to place values in the spreadsheet for all sine, cosine, tangent, as well as secant, cosecant, and cotangent, and just like magic the graph appears with little effort on you the teacher. I would like to stress that this is a good tool to aid the learning and should not be substituted with the lesson on trig functions.

       Well that is really all I wanted to say, just thought I would let you all know about it.

Who am I as a learner?

       The easiest way to describe myself as a learner is as a visual-kinesthetic learner. I find that I learn best when can hold something in my hands and figure out how it works that way. When i was young, I was always facinated with how things work. Even now, one of my favorite shows to watch is “How It’s Made” on the discovery channel. I also like to see how things are done. So that is why I would classify myself as a visual-kinesthetic learner. When learning I like to see how things are done, and then I like to explore it further with hands-on activities.

       As to what i like to learn about, it is tough to say. I enjoy history and learning about cultures in history (I know what you are thinking, this guy is a weirdo), but I find it interesting. I especially like to learn about myths in the certain cultures such as greek mythology. I like to learn a about music as well, be it: bands, artists, interesting stories about genres, as well as sheet music, guitar tab, and music theory. But I suppose the thing I like to learn about most is science. I think that this goes back to how things work and are made.

       My learning network is very large. It includes professors and teachers, fellow students, family members, the internet, and media (just to name a few). I suppose I am a little old fashioned when it comes to my learning network, simply because it is made up largely of people that I know personally. I am still a little shell-shocked when it comes to finding information on the internet. I will admit however that this is where a large part of my learning takes place, but at the same time I feel as though I could be using this technology in a far superior manner than I use it already. But since staring this class, I have already seen a number of things that are getting more familar with the technology available to me. It will take me some time though, but I am looking forward to exploring and trying things out.

Using Google tools in the classroom

       I am still very new to all of this, but using google tools in the classroom makes sense to me. Especially something such as notebook. With notebook, students can share ideas an information that they found online with each other and keep it all in one safe place on the internet. This is a very valuable thing for group projects insomuch as each student has 24 hour access to the group project and the infromation that is needed. Each student can contribute to the project when they see fit.

       The teacher also has the ability to monitor the students’ progress and can add comments or ideas to aid in the students learning.

      From the teacher’s point of view this tool is useful as a lesson plan maker. The teacher can put all of the information need on notebook, and can place information and plans for things like the adaptive dimension, or learning aids.

       Using Google notebook in the classroom has many uses. It also provides a common ground where the students can work together. If I were to use this in the classroom I think that a class project would be very neat to do with the students. I would let them pick what they want to research and let them go to it. Along the way I would guide them if needed and look at the progress they made. The students could them make a final draft in Google Document and the resulting document will aid in the assessment of learning. Since the program allows the teacher to view the information posted as well as the time that it was posted, this allows for the ongoing assessment to be monitored all in one place. I would feel that it is necessary to share this information with the students so that they become aware of their thinking process, and become aware of where they are now in their learning with respect to where they were.

       I think that this is someehting that I would love to use in my classroom, but in order to do so, i need to become more familiar with it first. I do look forward to exploring Google notebook as well as the other tools that are availble on Google.