My blog and where to see it

Your email formative

Nom:________________________ Groupe: 8-__

Writing an E-mail – Formative

1. Read the following e-mail.

To: lucillestormweather@yahoo.ca

Cc:

Subject: Questions about the babysitting job for your 2 children

Hello, My name is Stacey Cord and I am the new baby sitter you hired. I am writing to you because I have a couple of questions. Firstly, I was wondering what date you would like me to start on? I am available any day after Friday, June 21st. Secondly, I would like to know if you would be against the idea of me taking your kids to the park when weather is permitting. Finally, I would like to know if you will be paying me weekly or biweekly. This will help me organise my spending allowance. Thank you very much for your time. Best, Stacey Cord Babysitter, ages 3-10

2. Identify 2 starts (2 elements which respect the e-mail structure) and 2 wishes (2 things the person should have done).

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Identify the 4 elements of a paragraph.

1. _____________________________
2. _____________________________
3. _____________________________
4. _____________________________

4. Using the computer, write an e-mail:

1. Context: you are very ill and unable to attend your after school activity (ex: sport practice, music lesson, art class, etc…). You must advise the coordinator of your absence.
2. Recipient: your coach or teacher.
3. E-mail of the recipient: beaulam@ecolecatholique.ca
4. Remember to respect ALL the elements of the e-mail.
5. Once you have reviewed your email, send it.

A bit of technology in Gym Class

Thinking about a colleague who teaches Gym. She was recently considering incorporating Youth Crossfit classes into her schedule. Programming a physical conditioning curriculum is much the same as programming a math course, but the EdTech resources seem to be relatively limited. This got me thinking about the Wodify website and how it helps Crossfit coaches plan their training schedules, and helps athletes log their progress. I believe this technology would be very useful for high school students involved in Youth Crossfit as it has many of the key aspects of Gamification, freedom to fail, a map of progression, healthy competition between members, etc. 

This app would also enable students in a weight training class to be more autonomous with their goals, nutrition and physical progress. Think of it as a fitness blog, meets a leader board, meets fitness data collection. 

Another application that might interest Gym teachers who run weight lifting classes is the Stronglifts 5x5 app. This app has an available calendar with all of the 5x5 programming available. It shows you a progression of your results in each of the 5 key lifts and enables you to add other activities that you want to improve upon. Much like Wodify, there are certain aspects of Gamification, but the concentration here is more on the Freedom to Fail. When you fail a repetition of a movement, Stronglifts encourages you to take a longer break, a sends you an encouraging message to explain to the user that failure is part of the process. 

Understandably, both of these applications are for older students, capable of logging their progress independently. But it is a good start! 

Blogs as Lab Reports!!!

This Friday I had a super beneficial conversation with a colleague who works with the 9th graders at my school. He was saying that he uses blogs, specifically on this platform (Blogger) to digitize his students laboratory process. At the beginning of each year he gets each student to set up a blog on which to publish their lab reports. This might seem like a small feat, but considering the lack of digital literacies in our school systems, it does take a lot of work. 

He then sets community requirements, where each student must comment on 5 other lab reports, giving constructive criticism so that the students can modify their labs to gain better grades. This type of interactive community reminded me of what we have been doing in our Emerging Technologies for Education class when we comment on each others posts.

My colleague told me that it would help him a lot if I could go over blogging with my students in 8th grade so that they could help the other students once they get to his class. I really wish I had known about this earlier this year, but even with only 3 months left I believe it is worth the time investment so that they can get started on the right foot! 

If you are interested in his blog, it is in French but here it is http://monsieurgravel.blogspot.ca/

Final Reflections on Emerging Technologies in Education

Finishing my final project for my Emerging Technologies in Education, I am very excited to have a place to share it because I am proud of what I did! (Blogs!) 

Here is a PDF version of my work, I hope it helps others reflect on their educational practices relative to digital literacies as much as it has for me. Click the digital literacies button for a full version, introduction follows.  

Introduction

The information revolution is currently in full force and consequently the growth of EdTech and other forms of digital technology during this generation has been staggering. In communication alone, we have graduated from reliance on landlines, the postal service and newsprint to mobile devices, e-mail and mass publication on internet platforms. We now interact at greater speeds, on multiple platforms and with more people than we could ever hope to meet face to face. Extending beyond the wildest dreams of generations past, we even receive tweets from the International Space Station and photographs from beyond Pluto. The globalization of society through the means of technology can be a great boon to all industries and is particularly valuable for those employed in education; collaborative thinking and sharing strategies is only the beginning of the advantages to be exploited. As with any new technology, digital, industrial or otherwise, there is a steepening learning curve as the sector reaches maturity. Successfully embracing this information revolution demands that we become digitally literate and that we pass on the best practices to our students. 

 As Wheeler (2012) explains, “Our comfortable practices are being disrupted by new technologies, and it is expedient that the teaching profession responds positively to this disruption by developing and mastering new ways to cope with the changes and challenges to which it is exposed.” (p.15) I find the use of the words comfortable and disruptive specifically meaningful in this case, as many teachers tend to develop skills in the beginning of their careers and are very adverse to change as it would mean redeveloping our entire course plan to suit a new practice. The benefits of technology in the classroom are however quite clear; consider that using e-learning tools can facilitate differentiated educational practices and thus accommodate all learning styles (Tsai 2011). As teachers, we must come to recognize that flexibility and adaptability to new technology and pedagogy are paramount to a successful and meaningful career. Although seen by some educators as a cumbersome addition to our overwhelming breadth of responsibility, digital citizenship can, and should be used to lighten and brighten the pedagogical load. As with the development of many new skills, it is hard to know where to start; the volume information available, the public yet pseudo-anonymous nature, the challenges of creating content and the multitude of possible platforms all pose potential obstacles for the development of an online education presence. Digital literacy in these domains is necessary to the flexibility and connectivity demanded of the 21st century teacher (Faiella 2013). The nine facets of digital literacy in education as seen by Wheeler (2012) are social networking, transliteracy, maintaining privacy, managing identity, creating content, organizing and sharing content, reusing or repurposing content, filtering and selecting content, and self broadcasting.

TechTalks - Google Forms

This week I used Google Forms in order to teach others in my Emerging Technologies class about ... Google Forms. Here is the prompt for my activities and I'll follow up with some responses from the learners that participated: 

Hello there, 

If you have signed up for the activities on Google Forms you have arrived at the correct cyber location. 

To begin your voyage please click here. 

**Small disclaimer**

If needed, you will have the option to change your answers or submit a new form from the same link provided above. If you experience any technical difficulties or would like some support, please submit the form accordingly or message me on the discussion board and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Academic information of a scholarly nature: 

The article I chose to review: 

Using Online Surveys to Promote and Assess Learning

Summary: The authors discuss the increasing use of online survey tools for various tasks and discuss which uses were advantageous while giving concrete examples. Tasks included: collection of data for class activities, project preferences, self and peer evaluations, class preferences, and general feedback. The authors state that the potential advantages of using online tools to collect data are evident and can greatly reduce the time and external organisation necessary for classroom data collection and management. Student access and preservation of data are also greatly advantageous. 

Further information on how to use Google Forms is included and the Advantages and Disadvantages of this tool are discussed: 

Advantages: 

- Spreadsheets are updated in real time 

- Unlimited in terms of number of questions 

- Data is available in multiple formats 

- More rapid and organized data collection 

- Shallow learning curve** 

Disadvantages: 

- Difficulties in analyzing quantitative data 

- Different coding syntax from Microsoft Excel (user unfriendly) 

- Frequent updates to Google Forms make the shallow learning curve a bit ambiguous** 

Response: 

Hi, Amanda 

Thanks for this amazing presentation, as I really learn this new technology. I previous had no access even to Google in may country, but here I am totally amazed by this whole google world. I even created one google form by myself. It was really easy to do that. 

I also finished the activity which is quite well organized. 

And a few answers from the activity:

Would you use Google Forms in your classroom or workplace? Which potential uses seem the most pertinent in that respect?	How would the use of frequent polling, formative evaluation and data collection affect the modern classroom? Is this a positive, negative or neutral effect on pedagogical practices?
I would do use Google Forms in my study. It is very good way to explore the ideas from the colleague and peers. People finally have some spot to express their thoughts and ideas.	It is good way to monitor the thoughts of the students as teacher may get some ideas on what the students think difficult to understand. Teacher may also know what to do to improve the learning outcomes. This is definite positive effect. The students may sometime feel shy to express their ideas face to face with the teachers, while by use google form, they may freely express their idea.

Thank you so much for your positive feedback and I'm happy that you are now able to explore Google. It really is a great set of tools for the classroom and for educators on all levels. Going to GAFE (Google applications for education) summits has had a very positive influence on my pedagogical applications. I feel like sometimes technology can be daunting, but exposure to technology through summits like GAFE and through our TechTalks can be very beneficial. 

You are right in noticing that Google would be a great way to explore the opinions and preferences of your colleagues and peers. Facilitating this integration of thought from far and wide, as our community becomes more and more global, is beneficial to the learning environment and professional development in all domains. 

Thank you again for your input :) 

Amanda 

Digital Immigrants vs Apps for Brains

A few quick thoughts in response to our online course. 

I feel that we have many different positions and view points relating to technology. Reading other posts I've noticed that a substantial number of the learners are what Michael Harris might call "Digital Immigrants" or people born before 1985 (which of course makes sense as many people born after 1985 (Mark Prensky had earlier said 1980) would not be in a MEd class.) This is the last generation that will remember our society without internet connectivity. That is quite an interesting position to be in! I myself am one in a transitory generation, I remember the beginnings of the internet and that horrible sound... but it's always been there. I watched Seinfeld and I know what an answering machine is. 

Reading a post by D today, I thought about the three, possibly four groups of people currently alive (grouped according to their birth relative to the current technological revolution) I've adjusted Marc Prensky's 2001 article to better suit my (somewhat limited and biassed) understanding of the situation:

0) Digital Hermits: People of my grandparents age ... but more stubborn or plain just happy without all this hullabaloo. My own personal grandparents are immigrating constantly into the technological era. They have always had a computer and now have a digital photo frame ... it has been a disaster in some parts but the computer itself has always gone relatively well with the help of my aunts and uncles. 

1) Digital Immigrants: People like my parents, many of my coworkers, my bosses, Jerry Seinfeld, D, the presidents and PMs the world over, and possibly our professor though he seems to have completely immigrated from my understanding of the situation... Hi Doug!  

2) Digital Native generation 1: People like me who remember the birth of this technology and were born to older Digital Immigrants. 

3) Digital Native generation 2: People like my students who were born online with highspeed internet and often have fairly technologically competent parents. 

What kind of kindergarten doesn't have Wi-Fi ... 

Click here for a short discussion of digital natives vs digital immigrants. Do you agree? 

In communication with D: 

I somewhat envy your first trip through university. Not because I think it was easy or more peaceful or anything like that, but because I have no idea what that would be like!

My high school experience was relatively low tech... our teachers wheeled around tvs with integrated VCRs, we read from paper books with cracked corners and missing pages, we did have a computer lab but the mouses had balls in them instead of lasers... But by the time I left high school, everybody had cellphones (not fancy ones but a good solid brick of a Nokia that could make calls and text on a black and white screen) and was constantly connected. I have no idea what it was like to sign up for courses on paper, to try to rendez-vous with somebody without the backup of a cellphone, to check my balance and pay bills on the phone or GASP in person! 

I sometimes wonder what my work life, my classroom, my house, my life and my navigation skills would be without technology. I like to think that I have prepared my classroom for everything up to an including the zombie apocalypse; I have white boards and markers and the students work standing up and in direct face to face communication with each other the majority of the time, but I still do have days when I rent the laptops from the library and we geek out on TedTV. 

Your entry gave me pause... as a child of the technological transition I already have a hard time imagining a world without internet or power. I wonder, if people like my parents, you, and all the other functional adults born before me could adapt to this technology, how would my students and the new generation born with apps for brains adjust to a tech-free world. 

Waiting for the zombie apocalypse, 

Amanda