No Clue This Week...

So this week we talked more about digital literacy and how the definition of literacy is changing. We discussed that our future students need to know so much more than just how to read and write or they may fall behind.

The reason why I titled this post "No Clue This Week...." is because it seems as though we have talked about literacy a lot this term, not just in our internet for educators course but in others as well so I don't really feel like writing about that again and after brainstorming for awhile I was struggling to figure out what to write about.

One moment worth mentioning from class is when Cara made the comment that previous generations may not be as technology savvy as our generation but then we came to realize that Mike and and our guest speaker Dean knew more about technology than the whole room combined! So that kinda put us in our spot. After all, Mike is the one showing us all these new apps, widgets and websites that make us feel smart in the world of technology.

Also, thanks to Mike I don't feel as lost as some others when it comes to completing some of the weekly tech tasks, like organizing our blog list. I wouldn't call me a technology nut just yet because it feels like I have to make an effort to use everything he has taught us. Not all of the efficient, time-saving apps have made it into my daily routine, although I notice that I am using them more than not.

I am starting to like this blogging thing too.

Creating Wikis and Resources....

Well this post marks the end of another week full of new experiences, new tools, valuable information and good snacks in our Internet for Educators class. 

We started the class with an asynchronous class where we were suppose to contribute to a wikispace that acts as a learning and resource site for teachers who are dealing with digital literacy, identity, dualism and citizenship. With technology going the way that it is, it is important that educators fully understand these terms so they are able to prepare and protect their students when they go online for inquiry projects, socializing, or just for fun. 

Also, that this was my first time taking part in creating a wikispace and I must say this was a great tool for everybody to work together and build a resourceful site where we are able to see what everybody was able to offer. Being over the internet we were able to instantly see other peoples information that they had posted and we were able to do it from the comfort of our own home (I chose to do it at the school though because their couches are comfier). My first impression of wikis are that they are a great way to share information when it comes to group work. I feel like that last statement should be in caps because it really was so easy, although I did not create the wiki. 

We were also suppose to have a conversation with guest speaker John Finch but had to cancel due to the weather. He has been rescheduled to come Monday January 27th. His absence allowed us to have class time to work on our blogs, about.me sites and organize our feedly home pages. 

Looking forward to posting some more interesting and cool projects that we come up with in our future classes!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back! This week marked the beginning of a new and final semester at Brandon University. When picking which courses I wanted to take in my final semester of school I naturally chose Internet for Educators, which is a follow up course to ICT in Education. I learned so much last year and I believe there is so much more out there to learn that I did not hesitate signing up for this course. Part of the requirements for this course is to create a blog that reflects on what we covered in the past week, as well any speakers we had come to our class. That being said, ICT as seen by Steven is officially back in business.

As mentioned, it was the first week of classes so we mainly went over course objectives and expectations but we were also given a couple ideas to promote ourselves using the  internet by using sites like about.me and twitter. If you are interested in viewing my online business card or following me on twitter they will be posted at the bottom of the blog. 

We also took some time to talk about a couple terms that were related to class. These terms were Digital Identity, Digital Dualism, and Technological Determinism. These terms covered how we are described online by the data that is available, the belief that on and offline worlds are separate and distinct, and finally that technology drives the social structure and cultural values of a society. I think that this was a great start to discussions because it seems as though some people do not take into account how they are viewed online and they may not believe that their online actions will have real consequences. This can lead to an even deeper discussion such as cyber bullying but I won’t get into that here.

That pretty much sums up our first week back in Internet for Educators. Hope you enjoyed, and as promised here is my about.me business card and twitter handle.

http://about.me/stevenkaskiw/

@MrSkaskiw

The Final Chapter.....For Now

This post marks the final blog post I will be making in our ICT class in the education program at Brandon University.

This class has been great and I found it extremely beneficial and have been able to take a lot of useful applications out of it and hopefully incorporate them into my own classroom.

We spent most of the last week watching other groups video projects and final projects. Obviously, ours was the best but I will let you be the judge of that!

Also, as promised last week here is a link to my e-portfolio.

www.stevenkaskiw.weebly.com.

Hope you have enjoyed my blog thus far!

See ya sooner than later

Week 7, The End is Near

Well this marks the end of another week in our awesome ICT class.

Week 7 was a short one in ICT with us having Monday off thanks to Louis Riel Day. On Tuesday we started our movie project. I was grouped with Bryce, Sam, Carly, and Nicole. After much deliberation we came to the conclusion to make our movie about day dreaming in class. After many shots and some great editing by Sam I think it turned out really well. Everything was shot with Sams's Iphone 5 (held horizontally for better picture), and she used IMovie to edit it.

We intend to put a directors cut version on Youtube once the original airs in class.

I also started to work on my eportfolio this week. I chose to use www.weebly.com to create it because after using it for my website, I found that it came a lot easier the second time around and it still looks sharp and professional. I also like how that you can literally look at it whenever, wherever as long as you have internet access.

I will post the finished products of both the video and eportfolio in posts to come!

See ya next week!

Week 6 Come and Gone

Well this marks the end of another week in ICT class.

We mostly covered digital story telling this week with Mike showing us different programs that we could use. I used photostory for mine because this was the first one he showed me but others used a program call animoto. Had I payed attention just a little longer I would have used animoto as well. The effects in animoto were so much better than photostory's and after asking a couple of my friends they said it seemed just as easy. Photostory was good because you were able to pick your own music for each of your pictures but the music wasn't so great and overall animoto was just more flashy and entertaining.

We then created a google docs where we brought in a picture and edited using a program of our choice.  I chose www.pixlr.com just because it is the one that I am the most familiar with and I find it easy to use.

We then went over our video project and formed groups. I am really looking forward to this project as it seems like a lot of fun!

Below is a link to a video I made using Animoto. Enjoy!

Friends and Family

ICT Education, Week 5

Well we just finished week 5 so we are over half done our term!

Week 5 went good as we covered lots of different topics and different programs.

We looked at bookmark organizers like diigo and pearltree. Pearltree isthe one that I would prefere to use. It looked more user friendly to me. On Tuesday Mike showed us his prezi's presentation. I thought that was really neat and interesting. When making my next presentation I intend to use a prezi because I found that a lot more entertaining then a regular powerpoint presentation so I am assuming my future students would appreciate it more as well! We also talked about a great program called audacity for finding creative commons music that we can add to our presentations. This is great because music makes a presentation that much more intereseting.

We also looked at the SMARTboard. We talked about;

·         Calibration
·         SMART Ink
·         Shapes on screen; rotation, size, copies (ctrl + D)
·         Using markers.
·         Useful for presentations.
·         Word recognition.

Mike also showed us this little guy doing some sweet trick shots!