It's Sunday night once again and so now the internet gets another wrap up on my experiences with ICT. The topic of the week was Web Based Courses. Though I have not taken or taught any WBC's in the past I have still been close enough to them from a number of angles to have something of an opinion. For starters, they're excellent. One of the greatest advantages to living in this digital age is the ability that we have to conduct such things as lessons online.
In my first year of university in Minot, ND I was fortunate to spend a day in Minot High School shadowing a teacher. One of the things that resonates in my memory of that day is watching the man I was shadowing conduct a lecture via correspondence with no more than a dozen rural students. Though I received only a brief overview of the online program, the fact that this was happening certainly exceeded my expectations of what I was going to see that day. I have also been exposed to the idea of distance education through my father who has taught more than a few over his years working at Assiniboine Community College. The third party that I have discussed WBC's is my cousins who live in a hamlet outside of Tulon Manitoba. In each of these cases, the main point was that WBC's are great for students who live in smaller schools. The best thing about WBC's is that they make all sorts of course content available to all students regardless of where they live (assuming there is internet.) Obviously I think this is great for most of Manitoba as the majority of schools are in rural communities.
I can not stress enough how much I am in favour of WBC's existing, however I am not sure that my calling is to create and moderate one myself. Though I do consider myself tech savvy in comparison to the baby boomers working in the educational system, I feel this type of work may be best left to a more organised individual. A huge part of why I want to teach has to do with the in person aspects. For instance I find that I excel with classroom management and my experience as a performer makes me much more adept at interacting with students in person. More than adhering to my strengths however, I find that I need human interaction throughout the day to stay sane. I am not sure that moderating a WBC would fulfil that need of mine.
Web Based Courses are an excellent resources to people all over the world...but someone else should teach them.
Sunday, 29 January 2017
Sunday, 22 January 2017
Week 2: Football makes me sad edition
I quite like the idea of updating this blog on Sunday evenings as a way of wrapping up my week. What I failed to consider however was how little I would feel like writing about ICT after watching my Pittsburgh Steelers embarrass themselves in the AFC Championship game. For that reason this post will be brief and to the point.
The first thing that stood out in my mind about everything we did in class this week was not any of the material itself but the method in which it was presented. I feel like teaching tech in the classroom is the best time to give the instruction "just play with it" and I love it. It seems to me that playing with it is the best way to learn most of these applications and google drive features and the attitude required to do so is very important for students to learn in my opinion. If it were possible to teach more material by telling students to play with it, school would not only be more fun but lessons may resonate in the memories of students.
As for the programs and applications we were using I must say this week brought a sigh of relief to me. I have been working with my partner Miranda on a presentation for Westcast over the last several months and she has been inviting me to edit google documents the whole time. I finally know what the heck she has been talking about. Thank you! Now that I know what I was supposed to have been doing I certainly see the potential that google docs has for collaboration.
Hopefully next week's blog will be a little easier to write as no millionaires will disappoint me (assuming the Jets don't play on Sunday.) Having the guest speaker on Tuesday will likely give me something to think about as well. Anyway, Go Falcons, I guess.
The first thing that stood out in my mind about everything we did in class this week was not any of the material itself but the method in which it was presented. I feel like teaching tech in the classroom is the best time to give the instruction "just play with it" and I love it. It seems to me that playing with it is the best way to learn most of these applications and google drive features and the attitude required to do so is very important for students to learn in my opinion. If it were possible to teach more material by telling students to play with it, school would not only be more fun but lessons may resonate in the memories of students.
As for the programs and applications we were using I must say this week brought a sigh of relief to me. I have been working with my partner Miranda on a presentation for Westcast over the last several months and she has been inviting me to edit google documents the whole time. I finally know what the heck she has been talking about. Thank you! Now that I know what I was supposed to have been doing I certainly see the potential that google docs has for collaboration.
Hopefully next week's blog will be a little easier to write as no millionaires will disappoint me (assuming the Jets don't play on Sunday.) Having the guest speaker on Tuesday will likely give me something to think about as well. Anyway, Go Falcons, I guess.
Sunday, 15 January 2017
You want a blog? You can't handle the blog!
I'm comfortable under many headings: athlete, performer, geek, or particularly educator. One such heading I have never felt particularly close to however was blogger. I've never been one to talk about myself. In fact, I've spent most of my life in some kind of spotlight so I have always believed that if you do a good enough job with what you're doing other people will talk about you more than enough. Perhaps this assignment to keep a blog throughout this Classroom ICT course is already doing its job then, by forcing me to shift my thinking and write about my own experience...here goes nothing!
Within this first post I am supposed to provide some of my personal insight as to why technology is important to use in the classroom so I will get right to it.
The initial question may be as simple as "should I make sure to incorporate technology into the classroom?" The answer however is not quite as straight forward as replying "yes." Obviously, making an effort to incorporate technology into the classroom is something you want to do in this digital age but the reason should never be so shallow as thinking it's a good idea for the sake of itself. There certainly is a push to develop computer literacy within the school system and I will not argue as this becomes a priority, although I believe the proper question should not be how to implement technological tasks into a lesson but how a particular program or method can be used to bolster understanding. - Effectively killing two birds with one stone!
My reasoning for this outlook is rooted in my experience as a student. When I entered high school they were just installing the first smart boards and by the time I exited nearly every classroom had one. This provided some varying levels of effective instruction but I was fortunate, at least, to take note of the successes and failures my teachers had as they implemented this new technology into the curriculum. The most common error I can recall is when a teacher would make the technology the centre of the lesson. Students can tell when a lesson plan is shallow and a teacher is using technology just for the sake of itself (not to mention the fact that they generally have a better grasp of technology from the onset!) It can be very easy to lose all credibility by doing this. I think it is important for a teacher to ask themselves the question "Would I be conducting this lesson without this technology?" If the answer is no, my way of thinking is to try something else.
Just because I don't believe technology should be the centre of most classes, it does not mean that I am arguing the importance of implementing technological aid when applicable. I view computer literacy similarly to how I view its less advanced predecessor. In a working classroom the development of these skills should be a byproduct as we cover the main ideas of the course. For example, by the time a student reaches high school they are working on essay structure and how to formulate an argument, but spelling and grammar are certainly being developed as they practice those skills. By the same token, while going through their assignments a student in the 2010's should be developing computer skills as they progress.
Finally, my philosophy as a teacher stresses the importance of teaching students how to find answers and solve problems rather than learning the answers themselves. If the answer to questions these days is so often "Google it", perhaps that is what we should be teaching them to do.
Within this first post I am supposed to provide some of my personal insight as to why technology is important to use in the classroom so I will get right to it.
The initial question may be as simple as "should I make sure to incorporate technology into the classroom?" The answer however is not quite as straight forward as replying "yes." Obviously, making an effort to incorporate technology into the classroom is something you want to do in this digital age but the reason should never be so shallow as thinking it's a good idea for the sake of itself. There certainly is a push to develop computer literacy within the school system and I will not argue as this becomes a priority, although I believe the proper question should not be how to implement technological tasks into a lesson but how a particular program or method can be used to bolster understanding. - Effectively killing two birds with one stone!
My reasoning for this outlook is rooted in my experience as a student. When I entered high school they were just installing the first smart boards and by the time I exited nearly every classroom had one. This provided some varying levels of effective instruction but I was fortunate, at least, to take note of the successes and failures my teachers had as they implemented this new technology into the curriculum. The most common error I can recall is when a teacher would make the technology the centre of the lesson. Students can tell when a lesson plan is shallow and a teacher is using technology just for the sake of itself (not to mention the fact that they generally have a better grasp of technology from the onset!) It can be very easy to lose all credibility by doing this. I think it is important for a teacher to ask themselves the question "Would I be conducting this lesson without this technology?" If the answer is no, my way of thinking is to try something else.
Just because I don't believe technology should be the centre of most classes, it does not mean that I am arguing the importance of implementing technological aid when applicable. I view computer literacy similarly to how I view its less advanced predecessor. In a working classroom the development of these skills should be a byproduct as we cover the main ideas of the course. For example, by the time a student reaches high school they are working on essay structure and how to formulate an argument, but spelling and grammar are certainly being developed as they practice those skills. By the same token, while going through their assignments a student in the 2010's should be developing computer skills as they progress.
Finally, my philosophy as a teacher stresses the importance of teaching students how to find answers and solve problems rather than learning the answers themselves. If the answer to questions these days is so often "Google it", perhaps that is what we should be teaching them to do.
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