Pecha Kucha

Here is my final project, which is an overview of what I have learned throughout my Internet for Educators course. I really enjoyed this course and believe that it is extremely beneficial for all.

Hope you enjoy! 

The Future in Education

It's crazy to think how much has changed over the past couple years in terms of technology and in our educational system. We've gone from cellphones the size of kleenex boxes to phones that possess all the powers of the internet and somehow still fits in the palm of your hand. We have gone from teacher led lectures in the classroom to student led research/inquiry projects.

After reading the K-12 Horizon Report it is even crazier to think of where the future is going. The report talked about using social media in the classroom, kids using cellphones in the classrooms, using google hangouts to talk to people countless miles away and using dropbox as the new way of handing in assignments.

We have already heard of some schools using these practices in their classroom but there are others that are still catching up. In fact, there are schools a full five years ahead of others in terms of incorporating technology. These schools have been using 1:1 computing or a BYOD policy so what I find more wondrous is seeing where these schools who have already incorporated these new ideas are going to go.

As long as our teachers are always willing to learn and are committed to learning, the possibilities are endless. For our classrooms to grow the teachers have to be willing to grow and they must be provided with opportunities on learning how to grow.

Is the Internet Making us Smarter?

Is the internet making us smarter? I think the internet may not be making us smarter but it is making us more efficient. Instead of memorizing raw facts and details, we are memorizing how to find these raw facts and details using our devices. One would think that it would be more beneficial to just memorize the fact and move on but it takes less effort to memorize where to find the information and having the internet in the palm of our hand gives us instant access to that information.  Yes, there are some people who rely on technology to much like using a calculator for simple addition or having to use google maps to get a carton of milk but I think that the benefits definitely outweigh the downfalls. 

The internet gives us access to information that we may never be exposed to otherwise so it a great learning tool, especially for those who always like to push themselves, dig deeper or step outside the boundaries. The biggest downfall of the internet is that anyone is able to post or create their own websites so cyphering through the various websites till you find a credible one or one with reliable sources.  

The internet is here and it is here to stay. We should add this great learning tool to our teaching tool box and use it to it's full potential! 

Show and Tell Time!

There are a lot of great apps out there that you can use in all aspects of learning but the one app that stands out for me is called Appsgonefree. This app provides it's users with other apps that have recently became free from the app store. 

This blog post was suppose to be about an educational app. Appsgonefree itself isn't educational but it provides its users with access to apps that maybe educational and if they are on the site, that means that they originally costed money which means that they are usually better than average. 

I have used this app for roughly a year now and it has given me a bunch of great apps that I intend to use in my own classroom. Since my teachables are math and phys ed, those are the apps that I have downloaded but I have seen apps that are applicable to other subjects. Here are a some apps that I have found:

• All-in Yoga
• Calculus Pro
• Madagascar Math Ops
• Zumba Dance 
• Geometry and Fractions

I suggest to anyone that doesn't have this app to download it because it provides us (future teachers) with affordable educational apps!

Classroom Blogging

I checked out Kirsten Thompson's classroom blog because she is a first year teacher so I thought it would be cool to see what kind of blog she has been running. I thought it was great because she has posted science experiments that she has been doing with the class, some of the sweet Bill Nye videos they have showed, have expanded the blog using Facebook or twitter and talked about their PLN networks (something we have recently talked about). Her blog acts as a resource for other teachers and is a way for teachers to help keep up to date with her classroom activities. 

You can find her blog at http://mrstsclassroom.blogspot.ca

Online Video in the Classroom

Thought i'd share these two great channels that I subscribe to on my YouTube account.

One is PhysEdGames. A channel that is split into 4 categories. One is dealing with major sports like football and basketball. Another is dealing with low organized games, classroom curricular content and cross-curricular content such as math and literacy. The last two are dealing with warm ups, dodgeball and random games.

Here is an example video from the PhsyEdGames channel. 

The other channel I wanted to share is called Sick Science!

It is not one of my teachables but they have some very quick and interesting science experiments that you could show to a class as a way of getting students settled at the beginning of class. It also gives students an idea of something they can try at home. One of my ct's used this strategy and it worked great. Here is an example video 

Reinventing the Encyclopedia Game <-- Take a Listen

I can't believe how many interesting facts I just heard in 10 minutes after listening to a podcast by TED talks.

I opened up my iTunes, searched TED talks under the podcasts tab, found the education category and began my search. Turns out there are over 100 different podcasts in the education category alone so I filtered my search by looking at the popularity of the posts. After clicking a couple at random I stumbled across a podcast titled "Reinventing the Encyclopedia Game" by Rives.

"Reinventing the Encyclopedia Game" starts out by talking about the Britannica ending its print editions. The speaker used to play a game where he would flip open a page, find a fact on that page and from that fact go to a new page and start the game over until the string of facts leads you back to your original topic. The game has changed from print version to online version so the speed of the game has almost become instant (depending on the strength of your internet).

I think this would be a great podcast to show students because it shows students the power of the internet, it exposes them to information and interesting facts (obviously would have to check reliability or validity) and also because this can be a lead in presentation to a teaching strategy called hyperlinked writing.

Hyperlinked writing is where students research a topic and create a document. In the document they hyperlink key words or ideas to the websites where they found the information, from that they can find other information that is related to the original topic.

I am really glad I watched it and I suggest anyone who is remotely interested to do the same!