Symbaloo

I think I have been very fortunate this semester with this ICT course. I feel like it (along with Science Methods) are two out of the four classes I actually learn something in. Although I often drift in class and distract other students, I really take everything I was taught and use it in everyday life. Something that was taught to my class (when I clearly was day dreaming) is a site called Symbaloo. Symbaloo is a free site that stores online bookmarks, keeping your favourite sites organized. For a person like me, who finds a site and never ever writes it down, this is a life saver! All you have to do to save the site, is copy and paste the link into a board you created. Sort of like Pinterest for organizing websites. Genius. I have only played around on this site for a little while so I do not have a plethora of stored bookmarks, but I intend to continuously add to it. As a future educator, but also as a pre-service teacher, Symbaloo has helped me begin to organize bookmarks by subject area. I think this is the easiest way to go about saving resources and having them so easily accessible. By organizing tabs into subject areas, I will have to do less work in the future when browsing for curriculum documents, finding educational resources and searching activities for lesson plans. I know I have previously said this bu I don't mind repeating. Work smarter not harder. As my school year is coming to an end, I am hoping to find some time to go through the resources I have, or just spend some time Google-ing sites for teachers and including them in my Symbaloo. Something I try to make sure of, is that the educational sites I am using are actually credited. I'm not saying a random parent doesn't have a good idea, but I don't need to be using stuff that is not top notch. I cannot wait to start building my online resources and am looking forward to keeping them all organized. Doube bonus!

Below I have included the link to the Symbaloo home page. I suggest that you check it out and begin to use it. That being said, I'm sure there are other sites that do this sort of thing. If Symbaloo isn't your thing, try and find something similar. It is great!

http://www.symbaloo.com/ 

e-portfolio

One of the final assignments in this class is to create an e-portfolio. Personally, I did not see a point in this as I have already created a hard-copy portfolio and many administrators have told me they do not even look at them. I chose a design for my portfolio early on and left it sitting for many weeks. When I finally got to working on my e-portfolio and learning about them I began to realize that they may actually prove to be useful. Rather than lugging around a binder with a bunch of papers that nobody really cares about, I can highlight some of my best works and information about myself that I would like employer prospects to see. In thinking about the future, I am planning on making business cards so when I graduate they will have my contact information and my e-portfolio address. I have not put a lot of thought into this yet, but I would like to have them accessible in case I meet important administrative people. Back to creating my portfolio,  I have been "almost done" my e-portfolio for a week now and I cannot for the life of me decide what to write in my About Me section, or what I want to say in my Educational Philosophy. Although both of those two things are continuously evolving, I just feel like whatever I say will not be accurate or I'll dislike it when I publish my portfolio.

Anyway, something I really like about e-portfolios is that students could use them to showcase their works during the year. I think this would put a new spin on parent-teacher conferences, but that students could continuously add to them each year. Students would also be able to share their portfolios with family members and friends woh may not live in the same city. With the e-portfolio, anybody could have access to the address if they were given it. Grandparents from around the world could be looking at the things their grandchildren did in a grade 1 class. I think that's pretty cool.  If a student continuously added pieces of work to a portfolio from Kindergarten to grade 12, they could watch their own growth and progression. Portfolios are a good habit to begin and work on often. It is much easier to collect and add documents as you go along rather than frantically at the end. All in all, I think if I had to look through a portfolio I would be more inclined to do so online. 

I have included the link to my e-portfolio. Please remember that it is a work in progress and will continue to change with the increase of experience and knowledge that I gain.

http://jordanaetkin.weebly.com/

Prezi

Presentations just got much more exciting! Every presentation I have ever done until now has been on boring power point. In class, one of my peers suggested to her group mates that they do a Prezi for an assignment, I overheard the conversation but just ignored it. A week or so later, my professor held a 'show and tell' in class and explained that it would be on Prezi's. A Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software. Prezi's are a mix between using a whiteboard (or SMART board) and slides. A Prezi's canvas is created so that it can zoom in on different slides within each presentation. There are so many different layouts on the Prezi site, and a variety of journeys and paths to use for the creation of the best Prezi possible. The first step in creating my Prezi was to choose a layout and journey. Once I decided to go with frames over circles, I was all set and ready to go. I'm not going to lie and pretend I did the whole thing from scratch on a Prezi, rather I created my entire presentation in power point first and transferred it into a Prezi through the 'power point' option. This was actually pretty easy, but very time consuming. Really, it was just tedious work and effort that I wasn't expecting, because I thought it would transfer in perfectly. How naive. I really do know better. After getting all of my information and pictures into the Prezi journey and playing around for many hours trying to perfect it, I completed my first ever online presentation.  The topic for my group presentation was the Benefits of Early Childhood Education. This is a topic that I personally am extremely interested in, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to create my first Prezi on something I feel strongly about. I have attached the link at the bottom of the page for you, my viewers to look at. I believe that with practice and experience, I will make many more Prezi's and that they will improve with time. Hopefully, they will also be less time consuming, because I now know what I am doing.

Below is the link to my first Prezi. 
http://prezi.com/u0zs9fqqrrm8/benefits-of-early-childhood-education/

My Very Own Website

Over the past few weeks I have been working on creating my very own class website! I had so much fun creating it that I just didn't want to stop adding to it. I spent many hours just sitting, re-arranging, adding and editing, and I still feel as though it is not complete. To create my classroom website, I used the site weebly.com. I was so impressed at how simple it was to start, edit and publish because everything is laid out in an easy format. I was just so overwhelmed with all of the things I could do and add. I remember thinking that was going to be so tedious of an assignment and that I didn't want to do it, but I am glad we did.

I think class websites are such a great way to keep parents involved in their childs' learning. They can provide insight as to what is going on in the classroom, pictures of students learning (with permission), and upcoming events or assignments. Classroom website may also host a teachers blog that parents can follow for day-to-day information. For busy parents, this may be an ideal way to stay involved and ensure they know what is going on at their child's school. Classroom websites are also a great place for teachers to post links to educational sites, fun games and activities, brain breaks or articles relevant to the students learning.

When I was creating my classroom website I tried to think as a parent, what I would like to see on my child's classroom site. I included an 'about me' page and a link for a contact to make it easy for parents (or students) to ask questions or leave comments. I included all of the curriculum areas with links to the Manitoba Education curricular documents, as well as examples of what my students could potentially be doing in a classroom. I attached links to educational sites and games, brain breaks for students and resources for parents. I also tried to make my classroom website as easy as possible to navigate. I myself am not the most resourceful when it comes to technology, so I wanted to ensure that others who may not be technologically savvy feel comfortable using my website.

All in all, creating a website that I know I will use in the future has been beneficial to my learning. When I have my own classroom, it will be easy to reorganize my website and tailor it to my new students and the grade(s) I am teaching.

 http://msetkinsclasswebsite.weebly.com/

Google Doc

Before I begin my post on Google Docs, I thought I would begin by explaining what ICT stands for. In my last post, I started to call my class by its real name, rather then computers. As many of you already know, ICT stands for Information Communication Technology. Which totally makes sense, and also makes me wonder how I couldn't figure that one out on my own.

Back to Google Docs... Google Docs are online documents (spreadsheets, presentations, etc) that are created for multiple people to work on and share simultaneously. I really like them. I think they are a great tool for working together on any sort of group project. In a faculty like Education, group work is very, very common and resources like this are quite beneficial. When using Google Docs, the people working on each document are able to do so at their own leisure. Group work can be difficult, especially when there are many people involved. Rather than planning a specific time to get together, people are able to add or edit information when it is convenient for them.

The Little Things

I've been falling slightly behind on posting about all the fun things I am learning in ICT. Yes I said it. ICT, not computers. It's an odd concept to me, but I do not actually know what the letters "ICT" stand for. I am taking a class and have no idea what it is called - how ridiculous is that? I'll look it up before my next post. As for today, I will be posting about some of the little things I have been doing in class over the past few weeks.

First of all, I learned how to search the internet for pictures I can actually use in my classroom or on assignments and they are obtained legally. Sites like Flickr.com or Compfight.com have a "creative commons" button for their pictures. This button allows anybody to use the image they find as long as they give credit where it is due. I never really understood the importance of using 'legal' photos until it was explained to me in a presentation. Technically it is against a copyright law and I could be fined for it. I doubt that would ever happen, but none-the-less I have been trying very hard to stay away from Google images.

The second thing I want to share is a site called Pixlr.com. I learned about Pixlr in a presentation from Winnipeg school employes and their site unplugd.ca. The two presenters taught us how to credit our pictures when we are using them on websites, in assignments or in presentations. They explained that when we don't credit the original photographer it is a lot like plagiarism in an essay. This Pixlr site has proven to be the most useful thing I have learned so far. I have used it for a poster presentation, a lesson plan and other ICT assignments. I will attach a picture at the bottom of this post that I have used by editing it with Pixlr. But first, I need help uploading it. Stay tuned for an update.

Lastly, I was taught how to use Wall Wisher, which is an online corkboard. This is such a great idea for teachers to put on the classroom website or onto their teaching blog. It is a place where parents and students can ask questions or post comments for all to see. If I were to use it for my website, I would create screen names to keep all of the posts anonymous. I think that would really help keep a trusting relationship with parents and students, and there would be no embarrassment when asking questions or posting comments. I will also attach an example of a Wall Wisher. Much like my Pixlr picture, this will be updated too.

It just boggles my mind that there is such a huge amount of resources I would have never thought existed. I think I need to be more like a kid and just jump right in. They are fearless when it comes to technology, and that's how I should be.


NB: In class just right now my professor asked if we knew what URL stands for... Uniform Resource Locator. Who knew?!

  

Creating a Blog

You would think that this post, Creating a Blog would have been earlier on this month. I didn't even think about the fact that I was learning something while I was writing my last two posts. I remember sitting in class when we were told our final assignment would be our choice. My professor gave us a list of ideas and I immediately chose to write a blog. A wonderful teacher in this faculty once told me "work smarter not harder". I definitely had this playing in the back of my mind when creating a blog. I figured, the more experience I gain now writing a blog, the easier it will be when I have my own classroom. My reason for blogging is simple. Blogs are such an important tool for education and are useful for teachers, parents and students. Blogs are great for creativity, reflection, learning from others and connecting with many people from all over the world. Teachers can use blogs to update information from the classroom so parents are always in the know of what their children are doing, homework assignments, or other classroom/ school events. They can link resources such as online articles, helpful tips, and educational sites to who ever follows the blog. Although this post is about writing a blog, I think that other aspects of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype are also beneficial in education. I know many teachers who have their students write weekly blogs and use 'kid friendly' twitter accounts as a way to monitor and observe what their students are learning. These various types of social media also help teachers, and parents, learn more about the interests, likes and dislikes or their students/children.

Back to writing this blog...  After choosing to create a blog for this class I logged on to a website thinking it would be really easy and guide me step-by-step through it. Wow, was I wrong. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to set up this stupid blog. All I could do was create a blogging address. After hours (literally, hours) of trying, I gave up. Story of my technological life. I went to class the next morning very frustrated and asked my professor for help. When I told him which site I was using, he suggested that I delete that blog immediately and try using Google Blogger. Right away I logged on to the classroom computer, and did as he suggested. I deleted the blog and opened a new one on blogger. Holy Batman was this much easier. As soon as I set up an account (name, password, etc...) there were directions neatly labelled on how to create a blog. I set up this blog within 10 minutes (that's probably exaggerating). It was so easy to find a design and format this blog, that I began my first post right away. As you may have read, the first post was all about my hatred for computers. Given time, and with every post, I become more confident in my blogging skills. That's something I never thought I would say. 

Creating a Wordle

During the first week of classes, first thing in the morning, my professor told the class that we would be doing our first technology assignment. At 8:30 AM I was less than enthused because I could only foresee trouble and frustration. The assignment given to us was to create a wordle. I was thinking "it's the second day, is this guy nuts"? For those of you who don't know what a wordle is, you should! Wordles are tools used to create word clouds, also known as a word splash. This tool is my new favourite thing. I have actually used it in a few assignments for other courses since I was taught in class. For this assignment we had to title our wordle Technology in Education. The first step in creating this wordle was to brainstorm a list of things I associate with technology in education. I won't lie, I 'borrowed' some from the girls who sit in front of and beside me in class. As I have mentioned, I do not use technology often so I was unaware of the things we can do. Moving on, it is important to remember to create your list in a word document because they don't save on the wordle website. Let me tell you, I have gained much experience in typing, retyping and then typing again my word lists because I consistently press the wrong button and lose my wordle. After you click 'go' and the wordle is created, you can randomize the design. There are so many different designs that sometimes I find myself continuously clicking to see what will come up next. Ultimately, I use the same design every time. Wordle lets you change the colour and fonts of the design but I haven't mastered that yet. I just always end up losing my wordle and have to start again. Story if my technological life. Anyway, I have attached my wordle from class for you to see. Enjoy.


 NB: This post should have been posted last week on January 17, 2013 but I am having difficulties uploading the picture of my wordle online. Stay posted for an update (hopefully later today)!

Here it is! I created this wordle in class using some words that I feel describe Technology in Education while others are just words associated with technology. If I had more time I would have added other words, but this is a good start.