For the first presentation, I watched Traveling through the Dark by Steven Kimmi.  This presentation was about teachers being afraid to use technology in the classroom.  He started by explaining how this was related to a poem called Traveling through the dark by William Stafford, in the poem a man is faced with a difficult decision, he was confused about what to do, he had lots of questions and doubts.  Steven connected this with how teachers feel about technology, they are overwhelmed with all the possibilities, they are afraid of change, they don’t know how to use it.

Steven went on to say that you need to take time to learn how to use technology for yourself before you bring it into the classroom so that you can use it effectively.  I agree with him that this is very important, you do this with everything else you teach, so why wouldn’t you with technology.  It is okay to learn how to do something together as a class and figure out things together, but its good to learn some things on your own to teach the class, especially if its a tool that assists you with teaching.

Another point Steven made was how its important to find a support group.  This group doesn’t have to be people in your community, you can find lots of people online.  There are many places were teachers go to share learning experiences and help each other out. One site he mentioned was http://www.edtechtalk.com/.  You can find almost anything online if your just patient enough, and if you needed to find other teachers to connect with, there are many places you can go.

One reason he mentioned why teachers are sometimes reluctant to use technology in the classroom is because they are moving out into the unknown, its change, its something new/different.  Teachers like to stick with what they know, they like to stay on the familiar path, but if you take a chance with technology, you will benefit from it.

The last point he made was to take others along with you.  I think that is a really good point, find other people who want to learn how to do these things in their classroom.  Having that support will not only help you learn faster, but you will also have someone who is experienceing the same things and you can help eachother out.  This presentation made really good points about integrating technology into the classroom.  I definitely don’t know a lot about technology but have been learning a lot in my ECMP 355 class.  I enjoyed this presentation, the poem that he related to, and the quotes that he used.

Today, Amy and I met to have a skype call with one of the classes we have been mentoring with.  The class is a kindergarten class from New Hampshire known as the kinderkids.  I went to the university and borrowed a mac pro book and downloaded skype onto it.  A little bit after Amy arrived, we were called up by Maria Knee and the kinderkids!  We got our video to work but they were having some difficulties with theirs, so they were going to call us back and try again.  However, as soon as they left our computer froze!  So I frantically went looking for someone who would have a key to let me get into the room with the laptops so I could grab another one.  I found someone who let me in and quickly returned and started to download skype again. It seemed to take forever, especially since the kinderkids were almost ready to go home for the day.  Once it loaded we called them up and were connected with them again, and this time the video worked for both of us!  The kinderkids went around and introduced themselves to us, and then we talked about the differences in our weather right now, and they showed us around their class, and some of things that they had made.  It was a lot of fun skyping with them, especially since I haven’t had much experience with it!  I definitely hope that we can have another skype chat with them again very soon!

Maria took some pictures for us too, so as soon as I get them I will put them on here so you can see what it looked like!

So today, Amy and I met to work on our final project.  We are making and a video on how to write three different kinds of poems, a haiku, a limerick and a shape poem.  We wrote the poems we are going to be using and to find rhyming words, we used this site called RhymeZone.  On this site all you have to do is type in the word that you want to rhyme and it will list a bunch of ideas for you, it was very useful!  After we wrote all our poems, we found pictures to go with each poem.  As we are reading the poem, we are going to show a picture that matches what the poem is saying, then at the end of the poem we will show the whole poem.  We searched creative commons under the flickr tab to find the pictures we are going to use.  We are also going to have some music playing in the background and decided to have instrumental music but we haven’t picked out the songs we want to use yet.  We are meeting again next friday to work on it again.

here is one of the pictures we are going to use….doesn’t it make you want a cookie!

photo: cookie, anyone by scubadive67 

another picture we are going to use…

photo: Come on baby, kiss that frog by marmota

Yesterday my dad and sister put up our Christmas lights! I was so excited to see them up because this means that Christmas is getting closer, and I absolutely love Christmas!! I know many people have those newer Christmas light styles, like the icicle lights or choose to use one or two colours, but we have the multi-colour lights which I love! Although my dad bought this new strand for above the garage door a few years ago and on each bulb it either fades from green to red or red to green. You would think this would look really cool but from far away you can’t even tell. So those ones will probably get replaced soon, especially since the colour is starting to wear off! We also have a light up plastic snowman, and a little deer, whose head no longer lights up! haha! So we will have to try and repair him, although someone told me that once those stop working you can’t fix them, but we will see.

All this talk about Christmas lights reminded me of a video I was sent in an email a few years ago, which I found on youtube and thought I would share. The Christmas lights on this house light up and move to the beat of a song!!

So right now, like most university students, I am extremly busy! In exactly one month today I will be writing my last final! That seems crazy because I have so much work to do from now until then!! This weekend my cousin came to visit from calgary and we all went to moose jaw to visit me great aunt. While we were here we also had tons of stuff planned to do, so I had to get all my homework done before she got here, and today I have a lot to do as well! Also this weekend we are going to calgary for a few days because my grandpa is not doing so well. So this means that in the next two days I have a ton of stuff I need to do! Trying to be organized and not freak out at the amount of work I have to do I’ve made myself a to-do list. Posting my two non-tech task blogs is one of them! So now I can check that off!!!

For my final project I am making an educational video with Amy. We are going to make a video on how to write poems. We explain how to write 4 different poems, a haku, a limerick, an auto-bio and a shape poem. We are going to have music plaing in the background while we are explaining how to write the poems. We are going to make it for a grade 5 level. We will be posting it on Nextvista. We will use pictures when we are showing our examples for the different poems.

photo: Haikus are cool – http://www.flickr.com/photos/61057813@N00/2585554060

For this tech task I read Clarence Fisher’s post on Great Classrooms. I thought that he made many interesting points.  I agree that it is very important that teachers engage students in thier learning.  Refering to feedback he got from his students, the main comments made that would make a great classroom were fun, leave and reality.

Fun, in that students will learn without even realizing it.  I agree that classrooms where the students are not engaged just end up having students who sit there, learn little to nothing and are bored out of their minds. Unfortunatly I have experience way to may classes that were like that…very unengaging.

Leave, in that students will have the oppurtunity to leave the classroom to go on field trips and visit people in different jobs to see what their work is like. I know that as a student one of my favorite things to do was to go on field trips.  It was so fun to learn in someplace other then the classroom. I also really enjoyed the “take your kids to work” day when I went with my mom to the bank. I wish that I would have had more opportunities to go out and see people in the workplace.

Reality, in that you actually get to engage in reality, instead of just practicing for it. We’ve all had those teachers who seemed to think that we took forever to grasp a concept before they actually let us try it. I think that if they would have just given us a chance, we might have been able to do some figuring out for ourselves. And if we did need help, well thats what they are their for.

He also had a link to a video that we watched in this class before which I really enjoyed seeing again. The main points from the video that were drawn on were engaging the students “heads, hearts and minds”.

I think that as pre-service teachers, we need to keep all of these thoughts in mind as we are coming up with ideas for how we want our classrooms to be. I think that we need to remember what we wished would have happened in our classes as students, what we didn’t like, but more importantly talk to and see what your students want to get out of learning and out of the classroom.

I know some may think its a little early to be thinking about Christmas but I love it and my Aunt sent me an email with a link to this website because I love to do christmas baking! So while looking over the 100+ recipies…I thought I would share the link for anyone else who might want to do some christmas baking! The link takes you too the fudge and candy section…perfect for Christmas baking! If you go to the home page there are 5 other sections you can find tons of other christmas recipies too! (like cookies, breads, pies, cakes and an other section!) Anyways, I hope someone will find this site useful for a new recipie, or to find an old lost one. Happy baking!

photo: Red Green White

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98214568@N00/75793086

So here is my map that I made for my class. It has some of the places that I’ve lived, like to go to, have been to and would love to go back to some day!

View Larger Map

Tonight I carved my pumpkin! It had lots of seeds in it (which we are going to bake) and not that much gunk so it didn’t take long to clean out!

Here is my pumpkin with my sisters…