Major Project: Option A - A Comprehensive Online Unit

I decided for my major project to do a thematic unit on the Story of Stuff through Google Drive while integrating technologies. The goal was to have a mostly paperless thematic unit that covered a number of subject areas.

   

 A link to my Thematic Unit can also be found here.

Summary of Personal Learning

I played with some different presentation options for my Summary of Personal Learning. I downloaded Camtasia on my laptop, but even with the recommendations of having a script when recording the presentation, I found the lag that would sometimes occur with uploading and my script of what I wanted to say about my learning, created awkward pauses in my presentation. After several takes and attempts at editing, I decided to instead use Voicethread to present my work.

I took some screen captures of each of the three parts to my presentation: my Twitter page, this blog, and pictures of different apps or websites I would like to integrate once I start my teaching career. I found that after I made a script for my Voicethread, it was much easier for me to talk in a consistent manner about each part of my learning from this semester.

I attempted to embed this Voicethread, but for whatever reason when I did so it caused my widgets, previous blogs and some display items on the blog to be removed. See this link to view the project.

It is recommended you listen to this with headphones, as the audio at times can be variable.

Using Voicethread as a Presentation Tool: Growing up in Prince Albert

ECMP 355 Podcast - CFL Week 18 Predictions

Brady Aulie and I did a podcast for our ECMP 355 class. Using Apple software, we recorded our podcast with Garage Band, saved it to iTunes, and uploaded it on Sound Cloud.

If you are a CFL fan, or have feedback on how to best use podcasts for educational purposes, let me what you think.

Making "The Door Scene" with iMovie

This past week in my ECMP 355 class, we recreated "The Door Scene" (p. 17) using iMovie.

iMovie is a fantastic tool that can be used as a summative project for learning for a number of different subject units. It is fun to learn how the different tools can be used to edit scenes into movie-esque quality.

For middle years students, it would be best to get students familiar with this technology first with a simple project such as "The Door Scene" (p. 17). Once familiar with some of the nuances of this program, students would be able to create fantastic projects that display their learning.

Solving my Personal Mystery of Pinterest as an Education Tool

Last year early my during internship, I heard my co-op teacher speak about ideas that she had and shared on Pinterest. I was curious, so I set up an account , however as you can see I did not initially understand how to use Pinterest, and how to get "Pins" to share with others.

Once an account is set up, in the top left hand corner there is a search bar, along with a drop down menu with a variety of categories, including education. Here, there seems to be infinite resources available, however because of how general the topic of 'education', searching a more specific search in within education is helpful.

For example, one area where I have observed teachers use ideas from Pinterest is for use is for classroom set-up. By typing in the search bar classroom, other searches are prompted, including classroom organizing. My search eventually became specific to classroom organizing middle school . From here, you will see a large variety of innovative ideas that can be used for classroom organization and set-up. From this page, I found the 'pin' at the end of this article that I would consider using in my classroom one day.

Pinterest is a form of social media, and as such, its power is in sharing ideas. I decided to 'pin' this on a board I titled: "Education ideas". It is also encouraged to follow other Pinterest users with similar interests. It is also possible to share pins through Twitter and Facebook.

I think Pinterest is a valuable tool for teachers, since it provides valuable visual images of ideas that teachers can use in their own practice. From what I hear, Pinterest can also be quite the procrastination tool, so be sure to utilize it for a specific purpose in planning as a teacher.