iPhone 4S- My “new” tech tool
I splurged last week on a new iPhone. It was last Friday, the day that Apple began shipping, amongst all the hype I might add, it’s “New iPad.” I ‘happened’ to be driving through Pittsburg and, as I am wont to do, detoured to the Apple store to see if the product lived up to the hype. The screen alone made me eager to buy an iPad (surprisingly there were some still available) but my pragmatism got the better of me. I use my iPhone a lot and I have seen just how useful they can be and I’d been struggling with my iPhone 3G still running iOS 3! I grabbed a new 4S and I am thrilled I did.
So here’s an idea I think is pretty cool for using mobile technology in your classroom and its been tested on my new iPhone and works very well. I created a writing activity from a template shared with me through my Twitter PLN. The activity comes from this tweet Writing 25 Word Stories that I edited for my class, converted it to Google Docs and shared it to my students. They made copies and started working on it. Through Google Docs they shared their copies back to me and now I can see all their work in progress, as they think through and type their rough drafts and final copies. Of course, I can see all the revisions they make, and suggest edits, all from my iPhone 4S, at lightning speeds. Yep, mobile technology at its best. They posted their products on their Blogs, and I can see what they’ve posted, and all the comments their peers have added, including constructive criticism, all from my iPhone 4S, as well!
By the way, I am blogging this using the WordPress App on my iPhone. Pretty pleased with my purchase I am!
QUIZ: Tech Savvy Teaching: How Do You Rank? | Edutopia
Feb29th.net – It’s Blogging Day
It’s Blogging Day around the World! What will you Blog about today?
Visit Feb29th.net and post a Blog Yourself!
What will you write about?
ETFO AQ Winter 2012: PLN -Are you ready to learn?
Are you ready PLN? Are you ready to learn? Are you ready to learn one from another?
So what’s a PLN? Personal. Learning. Network. I added periods after each word because separately, they each mean one thing, and together, they represent one of the goals of this course. You have chosen to take this course, and are therefore making a personal decision to develop professionally. Your challenge over the next few months is to learn as much as you can about the integration of technology into classrooms and schools. Or you may be required to help someone else learn about what you are doing to engage your students using technology. The network that you have entered includes those in the class, the instructor (me!), along with people you know who are experts in your place of work, your school district, and beyond. Also, my PLN is connected to this course because I learn from them, and share that knowledge with you. Together, we are a Personal Learning Network that will collaboratively build and construct knowledge, share resources and best practices and challenge beliefs and current practices.
Recently, my school district held a 21st Century Teaching and Learning Symposium. Our guest speaker, Dean Shareski (@shareski) suggested that the 21st century learning model includes some major paradigm shifts. Shareski’s Blog is worth following, by the way. His points were quite challenging for the audience.
Two new paradigms to consider:
- You are what you SHARE! As teachers, we should share everything we know and resources we have for the betterment of ourselves, our students, our colleagues, our school.
- Who’s YOUR Teacher? Everyone with whom you come in contact is someone that can teach you something. Students teach adults, adults challenge each other. Teachers help students. Principals learn from their staff. An interesting Blogger, Joe Bower, keeps a chart of thought provoking challenges on the wall in his classroom and on his For the Love of Learning Blog. “Think for yourself- your teacher might be wrong!” and “Learning, after all, depends not on what students do so much as on how they regard and construe what they do.”
So, let’s learn from one another! What will you share with the class?
Let’s start today!
Thinking about Blogging… on my Blog
Next week I am leading a workshop on Blogging in the Classroom at the Peel District School Board’s 21st Century Teaching and Learning Symposium. So I have been thinking about blogging a lot the last few weeks. This blog. The fact that I don’t seem to have enough time to write on it. And how good it is just to stop, think, and write something down. You know- reflect. So, I intend to write a lot about Blogging this week, to model what it can do for me as a teacher and also for my students, as writers.
Here are some important reasons to Blog, as a teacher professional:
- Blogging is a deep form of reflection on our teaching practices and results in being a better teacher
- Blogging involves engagement in a wider professional community of teachers with similar interests
- Blogging challenges our beliefs and practices as teachers and creates a Personal Learning Network
- Student Bloggers become better critical thinkers, by sharing their ideas, supporting their ideas and defending their ideas
- Student Bloggers share their writing with a wider authentic audience, beyond their own teacher, and are likely to feel more accountable
- Student Bloggers learn how to be 21st century communicators, by embedding images, audio, and video into their text
There are many Blogs out there that are about Blogging and here’s one that explained 7 Reasons Why Teachers Should Blog!
One of the most important aspects to blogging is linking your blog to another blog, like I just did. It so happens that another Grade 7 teacher I know has written about his students and their blogs this week. I’ll discuss this connection between Blogs in the next post.
Teacher- Be a learner first!
If there was one powerful message that Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beech wanted the hundreds of teachers at last week’s Educational Computing Organization (ECOO) of Ontario conference to depart with, it was a new resolve to be a learner first.
Using the Twitter hashtag #changegame, attendees had to come up with a great new tagline for their new motto. Here are some of the best from my Twitter Personal Learning Network:
@zbpipe (Zoe Branigan-Pipe) #changegame Open Door Policy – to the world. #ecoo11
@SafinaN (Safina Noorani) Ok classworld. Let’s live learning together. #changegame #ecoo11
@royanlee (Royan Lee) Let’s be learning ninjas. #changegame #ecoo11
@taniasterling (Tania Sterling) My new personal tag line: “I am what I share” #changegame
@brendasherry (Brenda Sherry) Leading is learning, learning is leading #changegame #ecoo11
My personal favourite comes from an unknown source: “What happens at ECOO Leaves ECOO!”
And my own clever attempt, considering that I could retire one month from now:
mrmuzzdog (Rod Murray) #changegame #ecoo11 @mrmuzzdog ‘s new tagline- “2011/10/20 Starting a new learning career ’cause you can never retire from it”
And the winner was (no relation by the way): cool_mip (Melissa Murray) My tagline: iAsk, iLearn, iShare #changegame
So, what will you do to make a change in your learning, and teaching?
The Bring Your Own Device Debate
Earlier this week, well known educational technology researcher and writer, Gary Stager, published a Blog post that has the Ed tech world chattering. In his post ‘”BYOD- the worst idea of the 21st century,” he challenges the notion that we can get to a student to technology ratio of 1:1 by simply having students bring their own “devices.” Which side of fence are you on? Read and decide for yourself.
http://stager.tv/blog/?p=2397
Just how much can Google do for your classroom?
I pulled out of the school parking lot, already late for a meeting. Heading north I had to give a large SUV parked next to the curb a wide birth. I was surprised to notice the Google logo on it, and when I slowed to look at the odd antenna, I realized that this was none other than the Google Streetview Camera Vehicle.
I jumped out of my car, with my iPhone in hand and asked the driver if I could take a picture. “Sure!” he said. And as I did, I had the proverbial lightbulb flicker in my head.
“That’s the school where I teach,” I explained, pointing back at Ruth Thompson Middle School. “would you mind parking in front of the school so I can take a better photo? By the way, our school uses Google Apps for Education,” I added proudly.
“Sure!” he said, this time more emphatically. You could tell he was thrilled to be working for Google. He told me about driving the vehicle, which sported California plates, all the way from Google headquarters to Mississauga, Ontario.
He offered to take my picture in front of the school, and I invited him to go inside and look around after I thanked him for taking my picture. I headed off to my meeting and he headed inside, as I had suggested. Apparently the Google Guy was coerced into allowing more photos to be taken by other staff members (read “geeks like me”).
There’s a little allegory in this true story. What if you invited Google into your school? What would that mean for student learning, collaboration and engagement?
The Google Apps for Education tools are an excellent way to begin the technology journey with your class. You can teach paperless, deliver documents, share and collaborate, blog, create video, presentations… the list is limited only by your creatvity.
The bonus is- it’s all free!
So why not invite Google into your school?
Observations on Year 31, Day 1 of my teaching career
So, to start off, I slept through two alarms, waking with a start at 7 am, and while I intended to be out of the house by then, I managed to get to school around 7:45, just in time to fire up the PC, hook up the Mac, and get all my stuff I’d created, up on the LCD screen, just in time to met my new students outside!
You’d think after 30 years one would see this as old hat, but I could not believe the panic that set in with my initial setback. There is a built in anxiety that comes with the first day of school, no matter how many times you’ve done it.
The the day settled in nicely. Great class! Keen learners. More relaxed teacher by now. And before I knew it, we were taking notes in our Agendas, and Day 1 was over. And I can’t wait for Day 2 to begin.
With retirement on the horizon, I asked myself two weeks ago, while attending the Abel Summer Institute at York University, “Why would I leave this job now? It’s just really getting interesting!”
And by gosh, today just proved I was right!
The Rodcast 
