Week 8 (February 23 - March 1, 2014)

This week's topic: Teaching Internet and Technology Skills to Young People.

In this day and age with all the rapidly advancing technology it is more and more important for children to learn skills and strategies to be competent and knowledgeable technology users in the most important ways.

Key understandings are: Using the Internet for research, using media like videos and PowerPoint effectively and keyboarding.

As for using the Internet for research, an emphasis on teaching about about plagiarism and finding reliable sources is important. It is so easy to plagiarise when doing a report or writing a research article because schools put pressure on kids to write long papers and we find ourselves obligated to grab a bunch of words from a encyclopedia definition or academic journal article and just plunk it down in the body of the paper to get to the length of paper or number of words the teacher said is a minimum without really understanding what we are doing. I think it is more important to teach kids about understanding what they are putting down rather than writing a paper that is 5 or 10 pages. Quality really is better than quantity in this situation. Teach kids to understand if they did not write something without copying it from another source then they need to give appropriate reference to it. As an extreme example, I would much rather see a student submit a two-page paper about lions in Africa and see a quotation mark at the beginning of the paragraph and not another end quotation until the last sentence but they had that whole quote referenced as opposed to seeing a five page paper with no quotations marks where it was clear the words were not from the student. Modelling correct sourcing habits would be my key to teaching this skill.

There are now many, many online resources and books to help people improve the quality and effectiveness of using videos and PowerPoint to communicate a message. Showing many exemplars would be a good strategy for learning and allowing students many opportunities to try it themselves would also be good.

Learning the skill of touch (no look!) typing is a very important one, I think. It is one that I would find opportunities to allow students to develop by perhaps giving them fun typing games to do when they have finished their other games or incorporating touch typing into ELA.

It is a great techno-age we are in and the best thing we can do it teach people how to make the most out of it all.

Week 7 (February 16 - February 22, 2014)

This week's topic: ePortfolios.

I'm kind of split on this notion. I understand it is likely the way of the future but I also am a little reserved about the idea that so many pieces of information about people are being put up on the Internet. I know that is kind of an ironic statement coming from someone who is currently writing a blog open to the public. But the way I see it, certain forms of information broadcasting are reasonable and others I'm not quite sold on.

The ePortfolio is one thing I am not quite sold on yet. I know they are a way to improve your Internet footprint in a positive way and promote yourself as a professional in ways that a paper resume or one-on-one interviews don't do the same. But that's where I still feel a little 'old school'. I have heard from various professors and principals that if you don't sell yourself well in an interview then no matter how flashy and impressive your ePortfolio is it won't make a difference. Playing the Devil's advocate a little more here, I also have heard a few instances where a portfolio actually lost someone a job because they found some information in the portfolio that wasn't properly credited. Now, of course, there is an easy way to avoid that - just make sure everything in your portfolio is your own or properly credited to someone else! Still, I feel like since the interview is by and large the most important part of getting a job that it is the most important thing to focus on.

I will say that I believe an ePortfolio would be especially useful for a person with a passion and skill in arts or music then a ePortfolio could really emphasize your talents and abilities and give you that edge in getting a job. I also realize that if you a person who has created some great lessons and projects then putting that stuff in your portfolio could be really advantageous.

For me, I'm not a arts or music major so to get a job I'll have to sell myself well in an interview and that is something I know is important and I can do. I don't want to be a big downer on this kind of technological revolution but I'm just being honest; I'm not sold on it ... yet!

Week 6 (February 9 - February 15, 2014)

This weeks topic: Creating Videos.

By far one of the most popular forms of media evident by the massive popularity of YouTube and other sites like it. I feel that video is an amazing teaching tool but like most things, it can't be overdone or it will lose its effectiveness. 

I think back to my childhood and shows that I used to voluntarily thoroughly enjoy watching were clearly educational videos and I loved them! Shows like Magic School Bus and Bill Nye The Science Guy were some of my favorite after school shows. It was the style that they were presented in that made me interested in them. With the 'magic' of video production, videos have an opportunity to display and show things that can't be done as well in person or in a classroom. For example the following video demonstrates the distance between planets in our solar system and it is done in a great visual way that would be hard to do as well in a classroom:

 

So this week, I was working with a small group to create our own videos. It isn't exactly educational but perhaps inspiring ... in a comical way. I enjoy the process of shooting video. All aspects of making a video such as shooting, adding sound, graphics, text and transitions have been made a lot easier these days with the advanced technology that comes common with most new computers. Programs such as iMovie and MovieMaker are very common and pretty easy-to-use. 

I honestly think people can learn a lot from making a video as well as viewing a video. In a classroom, there needs to be fairly specific guidelines in place because one of the hardest parts of making a video is a group deciding on what to do but I think that is a useful life learning experience and I think those involved in the group will learn more than just team work if the task is set up properly. The process can also involve a lot of laughs and I think people learn a lot when having fun.

Week 5 (February 2 - February 8, 2014)

Photo editing! Remember when you had to take pictures with a camera with actual film? And then you didn't even know how well the pictures turned out until you waited about a week to go down to the photo store and have them developed. I actually remember that time. I was only a kid then, however, and I didn't have any real need to edit my pictures so it wasn't that big of a deal that I couldn't edit them easily.

Those days are gone now. Taking and viewing pictures is INSTANT. Editing pictures is much easier and there are many, many free and paid programs you can use to edit pictures. One very good one is called Pixlr and it is free. I tried it out the other day and it is better than I thought a free program would be. I had become used to the very limited free Paint program that comes with Windows and it wasn't very good. I was pleased to see that Pixlr gives you many of the options such as resizing, rasturizing, and texturing that you can get in a pay program like Photoshop. I played around with Pixlr and used a photo to add text. Very simple but important in order to add things like photo credit.

Later, I tried editing an image with more than just text. I added some blur effects, some colour to a specific spot on the picture and some texturizing. I still wish I knew more about what do to to get the outcomes I want but there are numerous help features that can get me where I want to be.

As for where I got the picture, there are a number of sites on the Internet where you can get pictures that are called CREATIVE COMMONS. That means they are available for use in your own way but some of them require you to include photo credit. None the less, it is great to see that there are a lot of pictures available through creative commons. Some sites that can be used for this are: Creative Commons, Compfight and Diigo.

I am excited about the opportunities that are present now for taking pictures and editing them and the new opportunities that are sure to be developed!