Tech Task #10 Best Ideas

Description of Task:

• Choose your favourite idea from the three presenters and describe and share how you might incorporate them into your classroom. Use links from their blogs as reference

Let me start by saying how much I appreciated yesterdays session. I have found that middle years is not talked about enough and often gets grouped in with all elementary, when in reality it is it’s own unique world. The lessons about teaching are totally different for teaching middle years, because of what is going on with their hormones and bodies in these stages of their lives. Some days it will make you want to pull your hair out but I decided to major in these years because of the adventures that middle years students can take you on. 

I appreciated Heather, Royan, and Clarences talks about their experiences in these years and how they used technology with them.

Although all three speakers were fantastic, I think I connected with what Clarence was talking about the most. I loved his perspective on technology in middle years classrooms, in particular, when he said “for middle years students, technology is not new to them, they cannot imagine a world without technology”. Our students that we will be teaching have grown up in communities where having a cellphone, although in my opinion it’s ridiculous, in grade 4 is not uncommon. When you teach Pre-K to Five for the most part it is pretty easy to “WOW” your students, everything is becoming so new to them and it’s exciting. By the time students reach middle years, these “WOW” factors have become outgrown. This is where real creativity needs to be kicked in. Teachers need to take these technologies that they know and put challenges and spin offs on them. 

My favourite idea from Clarence was his Stalking In English, I thought this idea (as well as many others, 24 comments from this page) was BRILLIANT! What better way to talk about internet safety and digital footprints then to get students to use their skills they already know and “stalk” information about people. I thought this would even be interesting to have them pick a student in the class they did not know and see what they can find out about them based on their digital identity. It brings up great discussion about the positive things to have on the internet and what not to post (almost like not what to wear haha). This would be a great middle years level learning because in the younger grades they are too young to deal with having a digital identity, yet, and although this would work in high school I think it matches up with the interests of middle years much better.

Check it out here: http://www.evenfromhere.org/2010/10/13/stalking-in-english-class

The other part about this task that I loved was Clarences approach, he simply told them their names and to find information. Open tasks like this worked really well for me in internship as students don’t want to be spoon fed the information, they wanna explore and learn on their own. This also allows for the lesson to be flexible, sometimes it was scary, but looking back the open ended lessons I taught turned out better then what I could have spoon fed them information about.

I love clarences blog and will use it as a referral as I begin my middle years teaching career, http://www.evenfromhere.org/.

Tech Task #9 Are You Well Googled?

Description of Task:

Tech Task #9 Are you Well Googled?

• Google yourself take a screen shot and write about those resuts
• Do you like what you find?
• What might you like to see in the future?

Well back to the topic of digital footprints, I guess since this is an online computer course it MIGHT be a popular topic haha. As I have expressed before my ideas of digital footprints have been not very positive in the past. The idea of anyone in the world being able to learn about me was something I never thought of positively. I only ever thought of the negatives. I shall express some of the “what if’s” that would go through my mind:

WHAT IF….

-someone searches me and then twists things I say and makes me sound horrible which will prevent me from ever being hired

-someone creeps on me and steals my online identity, like in identity thief the movie, and people think it is really me and this person portrays me horribly

-someone finds me and hunts me down and kills me

-someone finds my twitter address and adds me as a follower AND I DON’T KNOW THEM

-someone emails me, asking more about who I am and my relations to education!!!

As I went down my list there were some ones I exaggerated but these are real thoughts that went through my head and looking back now and after learning about the positives of digital foot printing I can only now see my silliness in these thoughts.

I have many times since starting university and beginning my professional career “googled” myself. Actually when Dean tweeted not too long ago about finding other sites to “google” yourself I did so immediately.

Ever since entering university we have been given “stern” lectures on how we need to be cautious of what we put on the internet, and the university was not wrong we do need to be cautious, but cautious does not mean fearful and that was always the message and feeling I left with after hearing those talks.

So I was very aware what my “googled” identity looked like and although some things made me be like “really, THAT’S on there” (refer to picture below of earring that I bought/favourited on esty) there were no shocks. Now before I post the picture of my screen shotted “googled” self I want to tell people kind of a funny story.

In the world you live in today there is not one BUT TWO Allison Gottselig’s. No people I do not have a split personality but what I say is true. I have a distant third or maybe fourth or maybe it’s my twenty second cousin (really after second cousin I stop keeping track of how we are related) that has the same name as me. She is now married but does hyphenate her name. This has caused funny stories in the past. My favourite being the one where my mom was at work (she is a dental hygienist/therapist) and we had been living in Moose Jaw probably a year and in her chair walks in a nice twenty two ish woman. My mom begins working and a little while into it the lady asks my mom if she knows Allison Gottselig. My mom replies, “Well yes, she is my daughter”… the lady gets all excited and responds “Oh that’s neat, her and I go drinking all the time together!!!” My mom then informed this woman that HER Allison was only 11 and probably was not the Allison she was referring to. Clearly this lady had not been close with Allison because, and mom you better love me for saying this, my mom did not look at the time like she could be the mother to a 22 year old… now she does… but only cause I am 22… almost.

The point of my long winded but funny (or at least I think it is) is that when you google my name some of her stuff comes up. Luckily we are both classy ladies and nothing horrid comes up from her end and gets mistaken for me 🙂

So after googling myself I like that my blog is the first thing that comes up because there is nothing written in here that I am ashamed of and I actually hope people do read it. As I expressed in the chat tonight the one thing I don’t like or didn’t like that comes up is my phone number and email address. It was for a wiki that a group of middle years had. HOWEVER it also depends which computer you search me on because I have done it on others computers and that wiki doesn’t come up and so I think google factors in sites you have bookmarked/visited when bringing up these results. The reason I say that I didn’t like this is because Dean made a good point. With Sasktel 411 or sask phone book online, you can easily find out a person’s phone number and address and nothing has ever happened with that to my family so it is interesting that I thought that way. Thanks for the realization Dean.

The last question is what we might like to see in the future when we are googled. I don’t know where my future digital footprint will take me but I hope/ can’t wait to see when you search my name in the future is Allison Gottselig under some school in the Holy Trinity Catholic School Division. Now that will be an exciting day 🙂

Ta Ta for now people and as always your comments are appreciated, enjoyed and accepted 🙂

-Allison

Tech Task 8 part 2- QR Code/Reader

Description of Task:

• Puruse this QR resource. Create a QR code print it out and do something with it. Then blog about it. (Hint: if you’re stuck for an idea, link it to a funny youtube video and leave it out for someone to find)
• Blog about it.

Let me first start this post by notifying you that QR readers and I have not had the best history! Its similar to one of those bad break up stories you hear about. I will shortly explain it, I really hope ya’ll are sensing my sarcasm but let me make one thing clear QR Readers can be very malicious if they wanna be! I downloaded a QR Reader after the Ed Career Fair as one of the booths had one on their pamphlet and the person I spoke with mentioned that any job postings will go straight to the QR Code once posted on the website. I thought this was brilliant! Get a head start on my competition and learn about these postings ASAP. I have never had a blackberry so the exchanging QR Codes has never been something I have done and so I had to download a QR Reader, I figured why pay for one when I can get one free, so I get one free… well long story short and 3 hours of allison’s time later, I realized the QR Reader was not doing what I needed it to do!!!!

Now that I have ranted and taken a deep breathe I went into this tech task with a open mind. I had difficulty thinking about what I wanted to make my QR Code about and Dean suggested if we are stuck making it about a funny video and leaving it somewhere.

 

I decided to make my code on an Ellen video called apPARENTly confused. This is where people send in text messages from parents who just don’t understand technology very well. I found this very humours and could relate a lot as I had to explain all the LOL’s and ROFL’s to my mom when she started texting.

My plan is to print a couple of these images off and leave them in bathroom stalls that I go to, I figure it would be a funny place to leave it. So this is as Barney Stinson would say “Challenge ACCEPTED!”

Tech Task #8 part 1 cont. Blogging by Email

Well… I sure feel silly. This will teach me to read before completing things more! When I looked at the tech task 8 part 1 I of course thought it was referring to using an app…. whoops!!!

This is so cool! I don’t know if I would use email by blogging often purely because I do have the WordPress APP on my phone but if I had a phone that did not allow apps but allowed internet then this would be a very neat way to post to my blog!

The connections in technology are still ceasing to amaze me, there really is anything that technology can do 🙂

Tech Task #8 part 1

Hello out there!
I have decided that since my phone allows me to use a record button and then from the recorded message turn into text that is how I am going to make this blog post so you can hear me speak without me having to edit it, although I’ll probably still go back and edit it afterwards.
I have the WordPress app on my phone for a while now but haven’t really used it other than for games and some on other things. I don’t really use the apps on my phone, other than games and the often check Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. I really never thought to use it as a blogging thing even though I had the WordPress app on here for awhile.

I am quite enjoying talking and having the phone then turn my talking into a message although I do find I have to go back and reread it to make sure that the phone has correctly entered things properly and not said some maybe not so appropriate words I think it’s beneficial. I like just being able to talk and speak my words and not really have to think about it just use what’s in my head rather than use what’s in my head process it and then type.

I’m interested to see with the iPhone there’s of course emoticons on it, like most smart phones these days, im curious if it puts emoticons up on my blog. I am going to test this out now and see if this works… I might make some cool emoticon stories if I can do this…
EMOTICON TEST-🐍🙊🐷🐱🐶🐧

I have enjoyed blogging on my phone and as I was reading some other peoples blogs I realize how beneficial this can be. I forget who was but somebody mentioned how they liked it because on the go they could just blog wherever, I think they were in between classes and blogging. I should probably use my WordPress app more maybe then I will get some blogs topics that I would’ve forgotten about by the time I got home my computer. Food for thought 🙂

Update on My Life

I feel as though I have not blogged in awhile, sorry blog <3. 

I thought I would provide a quick little update on my life. (pause to let people who are just realizing this is not a tech task or mentorship update to applaud me).

Yes, I finally feel as though there may be more purpose to a blog then to complete a requirement for a education course!!! SAY WHHHAATTT, this realization sort of dawned on me when a friend and I were talking and she was speaking highly about a course she is taking and turned to me and said “if you ever need an elective you should take it”. This simple statement took me back and made me realize HOLY POOP I may never need to take another elective again! In literally a month and nineteen days from now I am done… conditional on me passing but still… I am done! In realizing that I may never need to attend school as a student I have been trying to look at my life beyond a student and that made me think about how after this course I will have a blog, and it will be my choice (even though the blog is named allisonsecomp355) to decide if this is a tool I want to keep using. I have not come up with the answer but thought it was something I should maybe start thinking about.

In other news in my schooling, that classroom management project… ya haha… been neglecting that too. Well it has been changed to a Home Schooling Investigation. SO MESSAGE TO ALL HOME SCHOOLED PEOPLE (think of telegram music playing as I say that) , I would appreciate any resources, life stories, anything home school related to help me out here. I think this is a real moral debate and I am eager to look into it.

There was something else I was going to write about but I forgot, so I guess that’s my life update. Thanks to all for reading and I hope I entertain your thoughts 🙂

As always, any feedback or resources for home schooling will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks folks!

Tech Task #7 IFTTT

Description of Task:

• Set up an account on IFTTT
• Activate at least 2 channels
• Browse the recipes and copy one or create your own
• Blog about the recipe you created

Well IFTTT I would first like to say THANK YOU! I think this app is really neat and once they get more channels on board I think their potential will only grow. I am grateful for this site for many reasons. Technology comes in many shapes and sizes and it is sometimes frustrating flipping from one to another and back again and remembering usernames and URLs, and all the joys of having technology. I know that sounded like a bad thing and I don’t mean it that way but it does get annoying having so many pages to visit. What IFTT is trying to do is connect those pages, well two of them.

The recipes I created are (and I didn’t realize you could really browse until after, I got a little excited haha):

Recipe #1- YouTube to WordPress: This is where most of my thank you to IFTTT stemmed from. I think I am going to love having this connected. There are a few times now I have shared a video on my blog and had to have both URLs open and copy and paste and embed and although that is fine this is a nice way to add anything I favourite on YouTube to my blog. Maybe it will get me blogging about what I like more and so hopefully I will find great use for it.

Recipe #2- Esty to Gmail: If none of you have ever checked out esty before you really should! There are so many cute things on there and I am constantly browsing it. I like it because it has a vintage store vibe with a online shopping site twist! This link between my gmail and my esty account is purely fun! I like adding my favourites but when I do I will often forget to go back and treat myself on getting a favourite or even better using it to remind parents or boyfriends things I like haha. As I stated this link had no educational use, I think it was important that for once I do something that is for fun and not have much of a reason for it.

I hope to create more IFTTT’s and maybe even add a wordpress to phone recipe so it notifies me when someone comments on a post. I also hope that, as I said, they add more channels, I saw someone mention wanting a Pinterest channel on their blog and that would be neat. I am not much of a Pinterest fan but a TeachersPayTeachers fan and if they came out with a TPT channel I might freak out!! SOOO addicted! As I said to a friend of mine it is like crack for teachers without the trippy side effects haha

I don’t know if I would use this in a classroom, maybe introduce the idea to them but right now with the channels they have I don’t know if there are direct educational links other then the twitter to blog or vice versa.

Thanks for another interesting tool Dean and technology world!

-Ally

Mentorship Visit #1

Well I got to go visit my mentorship classroom today. It was exciting not only to be back in the school but to see how the school division I am going to be working with runs things and what programs they use.

Today I learned about discovery education, it is quite cool actually and helps teachers lots as it basically plans there lessons. The students really enjoyed it and were able to pick out how it helped them in their learning. Smart group of grade 8’s if you ask me 🙂 

I also showed them the google forum results I made and how to use google docs, presentation and forums, they thought it was pretty cool and my mentor teacher liked the idea to use with exit slips.

I also got a chance to play pecha flicker with them, and although some students were better than others they really enjoyed the idea of it and my mentor and I talked about how you could use this in drama.

I had lots of fun today and look forward to next friday, I get to teach a lesson on grade 8 science optics and vision so if anyone has resources for that it would be greatly appreciated, just comment on here with your ideas.

 

Well that is all for now, 

Keep Calm and Learn On 🙂