Social Media

I was exploring the Prezi website today as I was working on an assignment and I found this little presentation and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. It does a really great job of presenting the basics of social media. So, check it out!

 

 

http://prezi.com/yb_rjdx1rgij/social-media-101/?kw=view-yb_rjdx1rgij&rc=ref-33666309

Mimio

Today I went to a workshop on the new interactive classroom technology they’re installing into our schools called Mimio. The Mimio is a small devices (that sort of looks like something used with a Wii) that magnetically attaches to a white board and when used with a data projector creates an interactive board right on the white board in a classroom. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of the equipment going in because I couldn’t understand why they would get rid of the smartboard technology in the schools. However, I soon understood why. The Mimio allows for all the teachers in the school to have their own device rather than sharing one SmartBoard throughout an entire school. A teacher’s device is their device and they can take it with them wherever they go throughout the day and use it at anytime they need.

Mimio has some AMAZING interactive features that are all accomplished using a “stylus” pen sort of thing that sends a signal to the Mimio that converts the whiteboard into an interactive surface. Mimio provides opportunity for writing practice, math games, science activities and much more. There are many “pre-made” templates and images available as well as the option to upload personal files from the computer. Users can annotate webpages and access online features through the Mimio technology. Mimio has also created an online community for it’s users that allows them to upload lessons and other things for fellow educators to access… FOR FREE!

This only moderately touches on the many things a teacher can do using the Mimio but I can hardly wait to have ours set up in my internship classroom and test out some of the activities with my students! I would love to hear if others have used this technology and have any suggestions, tips, ideas, etc. to make this experience even more cool!

First Days of School

Well, it’s the end of Day 2 of the first week of school and I have to say – it’s going to be a spectacular semester. We’ve already started developing great relationships and worked on a lot of routines and procedures in the classroom and I’m sure it will only get even better as the months go on.

I have to admit that I sort of forgot what it was like to have a “first day of school” again (other than University). It was amazing to see all the kids so excited to be back at the school and able to see their friends, teachers and support staff. The joy that I saw in some of the smiles of the children was unbelievable. However, there was one part of the day that I could completely relate to – the fact that SUMMER IS OVER and our brains have to get used to “school mode” again. It was quite entertaining to watch the students as they transferred from summer mode to school mode. It’s no longer as easy as simply getting up and going to the washroom whenever they need to, or getting a drink of water at any time of the day. However, the class I am working with has been EXCEPTIONAL with their procedures and routines thus far and have really been able to get back into “school mode”.

Today was the first time I had an opportunity to sit and think about some of the activities I want to do with the students and this brought me back to thinking about technology. The schools are investing in some new technology (I believe it’s similar to smartboards but I’m not even 100% sure what it is) and I really hope that I get an opportunity to test it out in this semester of internship. Our classroom is smaller than we’d hoped and we have 27 students and 2 teachers in it mostly all the time, so, it is going to be harder for me to use a lot of the technology based learning that I was hoping to incorporate into the classroom. Luckily our school does have a “laptop cart” that we have access to so I am for sure hoping to do some activities using Voice Thread and maybe even a little blogging. I’m excited to start planning a little further so I can actually try some of my ideas out on the kids.

The first two days, as mentioned, have been great and I can hardly wait until I have more opportunities to teach the students lessons that I have worked on and planned. It’s going to be a busy semester for sure, but I’m very excited to get into it!

– Miss Brown

Goodbye to Summer…

Well, in typical “summer” fashion, the time has gone too quickly, the mornings are getting darker, the heat is slowly leaving us and the small amount of time we have until school starts again is dwindling as the days go by… Can it be that time went by this quickly? Summer is already over? School, internship, LIFE is starting again! I guess it’s inevitable in this beautiful country of ours that the summer only last a few precious months until winter comes again and in true Canadian fashion I’m slightly looking forward to the chilly days and snow fall again…

I’ve had an amazing summer full of friendship, lake time, faith, camps, traveling, and sunshine and am sad to see it go…

BUT

I’ve also began counting down the days until my Internship starts. There are only a few short days until next Monday comes around and I’m walking through those Elementary School doors to start “Prep-Week” before the students come back on September 4th. The excitement is growing and I can hardly wait to trade in my steel-toed boots and weed whacker for my dress clothes and stationary products. I can hardly wait to meet my students and get set up in the classroom to start planning and sorting out the subjects and units I will be teaching in the upcoming semester. So, with that, I hope to keep a slightly more consistent “updating schedule” on my blog here to pose questions, post ideas, and seek advice from all of you out there.

Thanks for reading,

Miss. Brown

Welcome to Summer

Well, classes are finally over, marks are coming in and the weather is starting to cooperate! Isn’t summer just lovely? I can hardly wait to get started on some much needed tanning and relaxing on a beach. However, I’m very excited as well to start planning for my upcoming internship semester. I’ll be teaching either a Grade 1/2 class or 2/3 in the fall and can hardly wait to get started (but not too soon because I’m definitely going to enjoy a nice long summer).

I just thought I’d see if anyone has begun their planning yet and how they’re going about it? Any tips? I don’t actually know what subjects I’m teaching for sure yet, but once I do it will be “crunch” time. I’m hoping to at least have the subject that I’ll be teaching for the full semester planned out as well as maybe a few introductory activities and “routines” to use in the classroom for the first day.

Hopefully I’ll be keeping you all updated on things as the summer goes along and can continue my blogging in this beautiful weather. Stay tuned!

Happy Summer Everyone!

– Shayna

TED-Ed

I decided to be adventurous and check out the “#edchat” hashtag on Twitter. As I began reading, only a few tweets down I saw a post about  TED-Ed.

Great resource! – "TED-Ed: The New Way to Video in the Classroom" – http://t.co/cPPa2Ja5 #edchat

— We Are Teachers (@WeAreTeachers) June 18, 2012

The article from USA Today Education: TED-Ed: The New Way to Video in the Classroom introduces TED’s new Ed resource that captures the essence of educational video in one site. So, after reading the article I decided to look around on TED-Ed to see what I could find. I LOVED IT!  Exploring the four categories – featured, series, subject and YouTube, I found many different videos on many different topics. I really appreciated the “subjects” category because it allowed me to focus in on one specific subject. I feel that this would be especially useful for a classroom teacher looking to find videos for specific subjects in the classroom.

As I explored I came across this video… One is one… Or is it? I decided to watch it and LEARNED! What a great math lesson to teach students the importance of units and value.

If you click here and watch the video on the TED-Ed website, you see that on the side there are a few links to click with each lesson. Watch. Quick Quiz. Think. Dig Deeper. If the amazing video wasn’t enough, the extra lessons to go along with it just added to the awesomeness of this site. The QUICK QUIZ was a great tool to help reiterate what I had learned in the video and would be a great tool for students in a classroom as well. The THINK section provides excellent continuing lesson ideas for teachers to use to help students work with inquiry learning! And the DIG DEEPER section provides the teacher with an opportunity to make cross curricular connections with the learning from the video.

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I’m not sure if others have found this site and blogged about it before but I just had to anyway because it’s so awesome. I actually couldn’t be more excited about a website and I can hardly wait to explore deeper into this website and find ways to use it in my classroom. I HIGHLY recommend that you all check it out because it’s definitely worth it. If you do take a chance to explore, please comment to let me know what you think and what you find during your exploring.

– Shayna

It’s Been a While…

I just wanted to write this as a quick apology for my absence in blogging for the past few days. We’ve been dealing with a sickness in our family so I’ve been a little absent from technology. However, I figure I might as well turn the situation into a learning/observational experience if I can.

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This past weekend I spent quite a bit of time in St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon and as I watched the nurses work with the machines I couldn’t help but ask myself how different it would be if this technology didn’t exist. If they didn’t have the ability to run blood tests to give a diagnosis, or take ultrasounds to check out the parts of a patient that we cannot see from the outside. It’s incredible to think about how illness would have been handled without the technology we have today. It makes me think about all those people who are scared of technology and the advances that are being made in society today… Sure… Cell phones are taking over the world… But that technology is also helping Doctors and Nurses to treat our loved one everyday.

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Just a thought that I had and wanted to share… I think that too often I think of technology for “entertainment” or “business” use, but forget that we use technology for much much more in society today and the more we can explore and use it, the more we can learn about it and advance ourselves.

– Shayna

Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy!

Well, I am so overwhelmed with happiness/joy right now that I figured I should let all my feelings out into a quick blog post. A friend of mine has been traveling in Thailand since May and was supposed to be coming home on Saturday. Turns out she got an earlier flight and is coming home TONIGHT! Today, for a few reasons, hasn’t been the best of days and when I got the text from her mom asking if I wanted to come to the airport, my heart was so happy it almost made up for the other things that had happened today. It’s funny how we can feel two emotions at once, isn’t it?

Regardless, I’m so very happy to say that I’m going to sleep now so I can wake up at 12:30 to be at the airport for 1:00 to greet this friend at the gate upon her arrival back to Regina. So, alas, I’m off to sleep for a few hours but am glad that I could share my joy with you all 🙂

– Shayna

Some Nights

So for the second part of Tech Task 5b I decided to follow in the footsteps
of Megan (because I liked hers so much) and do the “Lyric Typography Poster” assignment from MISSION DS106 website. I chose a song that has become a recent favourite of mine (it was the “anthem” for road trip some friends and I took at the end of the school year) called “Some Nights” by Fun. I simply used paint to create my poster and found it to be pretty complicated because Paint is a brutal program… However, it served my needs and let me create (what I think is) a pretty cool picture.

A Message

Well, a few days ago I saw a fellow “teacher friend” post this on Facebook. Naturally I watched the video and literally laughed out loud. I’m sure many of you have seen the video, but I wanted to share it for those who hadn’t because it’s definitely worth the laugh (in my opinion). Obviously the video is NOT meant to be taken seriously and I think it gives us teachers an opportunity to laugh at ourselves and the thoughts that I’m sure will cross some of our minds (maybe in a less “harsh” way). I love teaching and I love the kids I teach but I’m sure we will all have those frustrating days where we’ll want to say this. I plan on watching this video to make myself laugh on those days.

Enjoy!

– Shayna