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Well It's been a few weeks since my last reflection. A lot has happened in course life.
Reports are done! woo hoo! (just gotta sign them!) Our course is almost complete...double woo hoo! ...and the school year is coming to an end! JUNE...how fast you fly by!
We had our last face to face session, which was great. I really loved hearing about everyone's educators they were following, and learning about some new and am now following myself! it's always great to widen your professional network! I had some frustrations when making my project, I had originally started it in a POWTOON, but then as I kept working, I realized that I couldn't insert a video, I decided that wouldn't work for me, so I went back to my trusty padlet, and created my project in there. I liked my final product. It was also great how even though, Beth and I both followed Brian, we focused our presentation on different parts of his message, so our presentations weren't too repetitive. I loved (LOVED!) Beth's carpool karaoke, and thought it was hilarious! I wish I had thought to do the same. I might get kids to do a "car" pool karaoke to show their understanding of a concept...it would be fun and a different way for them to present their ideas.
We also got to participate in  cool sampling to tech tools by Kendra & Beth. I loved the different ipad apps we tried out. It was my first time using any of the apps, and my first time using the fancy pencil writing ipad! :) I loved explain everything, and the green screen app. I know my school is buying explain everything for our ipads, and we have some green screen apps, but I haven't used them...I don't really understand all the hype over green screens, but I suppose the kids would love to make movies this way, and it makes them more realistic, so I guess that's what it's all about. I'll have to try them out next year, see what the kids think!
I think that at the beginning of the course I was pretty clueless about problem based learning, and how to even begin to implement that in to a classroom, and now after all the exposure we've had to it, and the research I've done, I feel like I've almost done a course in problem based learning...so I am so ready to start the year next year, with authentic tasks, real life projects, with real audiences that will help my students feel like they are really doing something meaningful and authentic! I am excited to see how the transfer of learning is, with these kinds of tasks. :)
Thank you Brenda & everyone in the course, I have really taken away some great ideas, some already in action, many waiting on September to get rolling!
I am so glad I took this course! :) HAPPY SUMMER EVERYONE! :)

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Week 10! We made it! The home stretch!! woo hoo!

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How I`m feeling going into week five...tired, and I feel the deadlines of reports, and course work looming...got to POWER THROUGH!! :) Time to make another tea! ;)

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Helloooo
Well, we are really chugging along with this course, which is exciting, and stressful all at once! I am excited that we are more than half done, but I am stressed thinking about all that I have left to do, and with report cards, and just life it seems like there aren`t enough hours in the days to get it all done...but I know it will get done...somehow it always does! :]
So this week I was excited to get to spend the $1000 I got approved last week, so I bought some of the things that Mary kay had suggested in her talk - and some of the things we got to play with, I got 4 Ozobots, and 2 spheros, a little robot building kid, a lego set, and a k`nex set. ...I also found that $1000 doesn`t go far!! :) I am excited to get this up and running in our school next year. And I will be for sure asking for more money next year!! :)
Also this week we had a webinar with  Leigh Cassell about digital literacies, and she made some really excellent points about digital literacies, that I hadn`t considered before...like how are we teaching kids about the internet, and the non-fiction text features of websites, and search engines! What an interesting lesson to teach, that I had never even thought about!!
Also she shared the idea of Kids chat - where she has a twitter feed with a question that is asked and answered by kids, and then reviewed once a month, I think. I`d like to start something like this next year...also using a blog like kidblog where you can have a teacher blog, with kid blogs built in too! I am excited to go further than I have this year, with my class blog, we have a makeshift `blog` this year, but it`s not really authentic, as it doesn`t have outside audience, besides the students & their families, but we are having fun with it. It`s a cool starting point, even teaching kids how to post something, the difference between titles, posts, comments, and how to go about posting...what to post & what not to post...it`s been great for this level I think.  Here is a link to the `blog` https://padlet.com/caronv/nvjvq7u1wrxc
I have to say this course is getting me really excited to start up next year, with some great (and dare I say innovative) ideas! I think the kids will be excited too!
Another idea I got out of the webinar was having the kids create their own memes! OMG! My kids will love this! I can`t wait to do this project!! :)
We listened to an OTF webinar this week, and I was excited to see that there were some by Brian Aspinall, my follow an educator guy! ...however I could not get my computer to download the blackboard collaborate launcher, so after many many failed attempts, I am going to try at school tomorrow, and hopefully my school laptop will cooperate.
I am going to go read Brian`s latest blog post! :)

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So this week was a bit of a struggle, I had some really sad news at school, that a former student, who I had grown very close to had lost his long battle with cancer.  Thankfully he is at peace now.
That being said, it was also a great week for learning, and cool ideas! We had our second face to face session, and had some great guests! I was really inspired by the speaker who talked about using scratch in the classroom, as a kind of math world. I think this is a great idea, and I have already shared this thinking with a colleague who is a math guy, and teaches intermediate. I didn't know there were ready to go scratch lessons so to speak, so I think those will be a great way to get using scratch in the classroom, without feeling too intimidating.
I was really inspired by Mary Kay who spoke about maker spaces. She is a part time teacher librarian, and she has made a maker-space in her school's library! It sounds like so much fun, and such a better use of the teacher librarian, and library space...and resources! Our school is currently running a different SERT model, where we have a learning zone, that is has a SERT in it, and teachers can send students down who need extra support, anyone IEP or not. I think it would be a great start to have the learning zone and maker space merged! A lot of the time the learning zone is unused, and how amazing would it be to having it being used by kids as a maker space. I suggested this to my principal, and she was of course on board...she loves the idea of maker spaces, and anything really new and innovative! So, with her blessing, and as luck would have it, our student council meeting was tonight, so I put in an item of $1000 to start a maker space up, and they have approved it! YAY!  So, some definite ups & downs this week...and I'm pretty excited to look into buying some of the materials for this maker space!! :)
small victories! :)
v

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So, this week we focused on different ways of implementing Problem Based Learning (PBL) and real life problem solving into the classroom.
We looked at high tech high, and I was happy to learn that they have expanded this project to include more schools. It was a good reminder of the movie `the most likely to succeed` that i had seen earlier this year at a school pd. There was also another video of a similar, although much smaller program running where kids are learning history by researching and cataloging artifacts from the war.
Both of these projects are for high school and I am pretty excited to learn more about teachers who have done similar things in primary!
I am really interested in this, and may think about something along these lines for my big inquiry project. I really believe this is the best way to engage kids in their learning, they really feel they are making a difference in the world. The students feel like they are doing something meaningful and that`s worth their time/effort...the struggle for me is thinking about what to focus on with younger kids. I am hopeful for next year with a 4/5 split, I will be better able to focus in on tasks like this, but I am still struggling how I will be able to integrate all the strands into this type of project. (i.e., math...gah! )
I am thinking of starting the year next year with a genus hour project, or even setting this up as an ongoing project, to help the students to learn more about their passions, and help me to get to know them better. I am hoping that maybe these passion projects will spark some other PBL projects we can expand on.

I also was looking more into my educator - Brian Aspinall, and found some cool web resources he has made that I `d like to try this year -
http://www.hourofcuriosity.com/
- a resource with free lessons for 21c & stem! Looks really interesting, even some minecraft lessons, which my class will LOVE!

Anyway, I am excited with all the new things I`m finding out about, and excited to be sharing them with colleagues, also my cousin, also a teacher is visiting this weekend, and I have shared with her some great resources for her own use. OOOH! that just reminded me about iEARN, I am so excited to start one of these projects with my classes!!
I think this is the best part of taking AQs, all the great tools, tips and fun tech you learn about, and get to share with others!!!
:)
v

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how I'm feeling finishing week 2...

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So, this week we read about the ISTE standards for tech education, SAMR, and started following an educator.
Big week. I felt like there was a lot going on this week, and I had to keep checking back in to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything. It was also a very busy week at school, we had the first set of g-suite training, which I am involved with facilitating, and the ministry and a bunch of superintendents from my school board were at school! What a week! :)
I am glad to continue to come back to SAMR, because I still don't feel I am in the MR part enough, or as much as I'd like to be...I find it's a bit of a struggle to really think of how to get there. But I really liked the analogy of a swimming pool, how you can't really visit the deep end until you have learned to swim in the shallow end...and once you can swim, you don't have to spend all your time there! Great idea! :)
I also liked thinking about sharing work globally as the way to get further down the model, I want to try to do a class blog, that is really shared with the world next year, and maybe even have students creating their own blogs, with their writing on there, even if it's just parents and family members reading, what a great idea and it's authentic too! :)
Doing the Iste quiz really showed me I have a long way to go to be truly teaching tech to my true potential in the classroom...so that's great to note & great to set some goals to try and use those standards to move my tech practice further.
:) Great week! Lots of reflection & I know where I want to be at this time next year!

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http://brianaspinall.com/

So, this is who I have chosen for my follow an educator project. I was struggling to know who to pick...and I asked a colleague for any suggestions, he suggested a few different people...So I checked them out, and I feel that this guy...Brian Aspinall is a great fit for me. 1- he's in Ontario...which means what he's talking about will be relevant to my teaching practice & there is a chance I might get to see him talk one day! :)
2-he's tech centered, and seem to be CS focused, which is something I hope to focus on for the end of this year (once reports are in...all coding all the time...lol! ;) )
3-I was inspired by a TEDx talk he did, which made me want to learn more about him.
So, stay tuned ... I can't wait to find out more about him & be further inspired! :)

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After doing the quiz, I really noticed several areas my teaching practice is lacking, and I will be able to use that information to do some goal setting, and planning forward for next year. I know that I need my kids to be more in the creators column, rather than the consumers column. I know that I have done a pretty good job with digital citizenship, and will continue with this next year, building on what they already know. I know that I want to be able to use tech in a more meaningful way, to give students the opportunity to work with students from other classes, other schools, in different cities, even different countries, and I did a better job of this last year, we did a lot more over skype, because I had a student who was sick last year, and we skyped him almost weekly, into our classroom, and the kids did a lot of communicating online with him, to make him still feel a part of the classroom. We also did a skype field trip last year, and I haven't done one yet this year. This year we didn't have that opportunity, but I could have fostered it, by creating tech-pals. I have already made a plan with a teacher who is leaving my school to work in another city, teaching the same grade as me next year, we have agreed to connect our classes up online as tech-pals.
I might even meet someone in this course, that I could connect with, to do  mystery skype (one of my goals also, but I haven't had luck with online sign up sheets for this). I'd love to try doing a mystery skype...
I want to also give more opportunities to solve some real world problems using tech as the means to an end. I want to do a genius hour project, and have kids use web based tools, for brainstorming, planning, problem solving and reflecting about their process.
I hope if I was to do this quiz again at this time next year, my scores would be much much higher. I have high hopes that because I have been thinking about this, and planning on using more tech tools this will be the case...teaching older kids might help too! :)
v

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this week I really was reflective of my teaching practice, and aware of what changes I want to make going forward in my career.
Right now I teach a 1/2 split, and (sadly) I wouldn't say I am very good at teaching very authentically. I am good at teaching based on the curriculum expectations, and the LRP I've made with fellow colleagues. That being said, I do try to incorporate inquiry into my program when & where possible. I do believe in small group centers, and providing choice for learning activities...I think I'm pretty good at doing student inspired writing tasks...but we aren't solving any social issues in my classroom.
I'd love to be teaching more like this, but it scares me to think about going outside of the box. I'm worried about how I will cover all that curriculum. BUT I know I really want to give this a try...I just need a jumping off point.
My assignment for next year is a 4/5, so I feel a bit more able to (hopefully) explore this kind of teaching & learning.
I'd like to start the year off in a different way, maybe starting with a passion project, to really get to know my students...and hopefully inspire some other avenues for the year. It would be really interesting to teach some more life skills in the classroom, moving beyond what the curriculum expectations are (because everyone always says, you cover more teaching this way anyway!!) and just facilitating or guiding the kids in the right direction....not really even being a 'teacher' in the traditional sense of the word...
I wonder what a classroom like that would be like.
I hope I get to find out! :)

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I was really inspired by Jennifer`s video. I think what she is doing is really great...I also think it`s challenging to come up with something so authentic. I would LOVE to use this style of teaching in practice, where you are really working with students to solve a real life problem...what could be better? However, in practice I struggle to find something I can use to teach like this...maybe because I teach the English half of FI (responsible for numeracy & literacy, and art...) I find it a real struggle to find something that isn't social studies or science based...THIS is how I want to be teaching, this is how to really engage students. Authentic tasks.
This is my goal for next year, I want to figure out how to do something like this with my students...
How could student's not be engaged...they are really doing something & seeing exactly how they are impacting their community!
I wonder if anyone in our course is teaching in this way? If so, what social issues are you solving/attempting to solve?
way to go Jennifer!!!