LwICT

Yesterday we had John Finch come and visit our class to talk about Literacy with ICT. We first discussed what technology used to look like when we were in school. We found that technology in schools have changed drastically. When I was in school we used to have a typing class and that was when we got to use the computers. When we need to find information we needed to look it up in an encyclopaedic or dictionary for a word spelt wrong. Now students use technology with every class; Math, Science, History and English to "google" any questions they have.

We talked about allowing cellphones in school. I believe that it depends on the age, I do not feel like every child age 12 has a cellphone. Allowing every child to bring in a cellphone is punishment for the child who does not have one and embarrassing not bringing one when everyone else is. I believe that once they reach high school they can bring their cell phones but need to be respectful to the teacher and others around them. I believe that in my classroom, depending on where I am, we will have a cell phone policy made up at the start of the year and discuss the rules and what is fair and what is not.

John talked about the 5 stages used to incorporate ICT in any class. These stages were called: Plan and Question, Gather and Make sense, Produce to show Understanding, Communicate, and Reflect. I can use these stages in any class for instance; in Math we can use these stages for problem solving. We can plan the question and find the information we need to solve this problem and show an understanding of what to do to solve the this. We could find different ways of how other people solved the solution and reflect on how I would solve this problem. We could use this in Science in the same way but solving an experiment. These stages can also be used to collect research for a History class. I found that this was very appealing to me on all the different subjects that use these stages and I now have a better understanding on using the ICT program not just in English but in every subject!

With dealing with middle years I believe that we need to develop critical thinkers and we need to teach the children how to learn and create a forever track for them. I can do this by having the children always ask questions and everyone share answers and take part of discussions. I need to challenge students all the time to make sure information they gather from the internet is valid (correct information), reliable (who all agrees), and current (up to date information is given). The students need to know that not everything is true on the internet and how to incorporate their on thoughts and ideas on topics as well.

A great thing John said in his presentation was, "We have to learn, unlearn, and relearn". I found this so interesting because as a teacher I need to stay current on technology and always reteaching myself new information that has raised in technology to stay up to date with my students. I found this presentation to be very helpful and give me tones of knowledge on how to incorporate technology in every class that I teach!

I also just wanted to add the "Seven Things Everyone Needs to Know about Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum". This is on here for me to remember and always have.

1.It is a continuum, not a curriculum
2.It is infused into all learning

3.It is likely already happening in your classroom and school

4.It is not necessary for teachers (or students) to be ICT 'experts'

5.It is an on-going process – all students can be observed demonstrating their learning on the continuum

6.Its assessment is triangular: balancing Conversations, Observations, and Portfolios

7.It's the learning you assess, not the technology

  

 

Google Drive

This week about creating your own websites has helped me so much! I feel great and confident with it all and now I know how to uplaod videos to my website and pictures! This week was a working week and we completed a presentation on google drive.
In our presentation we talk about social media. We found many pros and cons about social media. Many positives we found on socail media were that it improves the communication amoung students and teachers, the students are able to connect internationally, it is easy to access, helps students out with group projects, helps with differentiated instructions, and much more. A few cons that we found were high increase of cyberbullying, big distractions for students, there are risks of viruses, discourages face to face communication, privacy conerns, and a few more are also on our presentation. We found some solutions to all these pros and cons such as you can limit the access a student has to certain sites, hand out a list of appropriate sites previously to the students, establish trust with your students, inform students on cyberbullying with open discussions on the topic and to create imitaion sites for your class.
Everyone in our group was for bringing social media into classrooms and schools. We all believe that social media has a huge impact on learning students and we need to stay current on this topic and teach it to the interest of our students. We believed that instead of banning socail media we need to teach how to incorperate it so that our students use it wisely and not to miss treat it.
There were a few resources that we found for our p1resentation that we enjoyed and I would like to share them on my blog. Hope you enjoy these sites, just click on them and the link will take you straight to their page!
http://www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom
http://edudemic.com/2012/09/100-ways-to-use-facebook-in-your-classroom/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQzsQkMFgHE

Feeling better about this........

We have strated to make a website in this class, SCARY!!! I first had no idea how to do anything! After the first day though, I knew how to uplaod pictures, create URLs, and put in new buttons where they are needed. I cannot wait to use weebly with my students to create class websites and to engage the students in things that interest them!
I found using weebly was very easy and anyone can figure it out if they try. Having a classroom website would help in interaction with each student and here I can watch to make sure we are using proper communication and that everyone is involved.
Our students are so evolved with computers and networks that teachers need to be up to date and find the topics that interest their students. I want to be one of these teachers that is always learning new things and wanting to get every student involved!!

Blog???? Not for me??

I feel a little uncomfortable putting my thoughts and ideas out on the internet but sometimes you need to try new things that scare you. This is my first blog or first time ever doing anything like this, so bare with me!
When I came into the class on the first day back to school I was nervous after hearing all the different tools that a computer has and the different social networks you can be apart of I was terrified!!!!! I thought I knew a few things about social networking and knew how to maneuver my way around it but did not realize that I knew so little and was very far behind.
I have created this blog to get out of my comfort zone, try something new, be able to take this teaching with me, and to get up to date with new social networks!
I cannot wait to learn new things and create new websites and take in all the information and use them in my classrooms with my students! Welcome to my blog for ICT and enjoy!!! :)