Week+9+Monday+March+22



Dear Diary:

Today we are watching the multimedia presentations, and also discussing articles.


 * Multimedia Presentations: a couple of notes**

My notes are not good. I cannot watch the presentations and take notes on them at the same time' --need to focus.

Some of these were just fantastic. I think my favourite was Luca's, with the time travelling bitstrips renditions of Luca and his presentation partner.

Presentation: With Ferris Bueller teacher as boring teacher. Hey, lots of 20th c style teachers were exciting and inspiring! But this is a great parody of the worst of "chalk and talk."

I love the way people used Bitstrips or Comic Life to GIVE their actual presentation. --bitstrips of students talking about how boring their class is --Comic Life to present basic ideas

I am going to use that when I make powerpoint demostrations! That would be so cool!

Gabcast: a podcast using one's cellular phone.

I was very pleased at how my presentation with Jenny turned out!


 * Multitasking**

For the first time, I'm taking notes during the class because this week, every minute counts as I try to get everything done. Normally I don't like to because I'm not good at multitasking and also I like to be polite and listen with all my attention to whomever is speaking.


 * Article: Literacy is not Enough**

Ian Jukes talks about the need for 21st century literacy, which includes technological literacy.

he writes that these are the new literacies: Solution, Information, Creativity, Media and Collaboration Fluency.

Thinking about myself, I have quite a lot of collaboration fluency, as I use Facebook and IM, email and blogs.

There is so much more out there, though! I loved the class presentation which showed two students collaborating over an essay, using IM and googledocs.


 * "What if? technology" Key document**

Students need to take charge of their own learning.

(This is my big struggle with my kids! How to do this?)

Most teachers graduated in an era where technology was a frill, a bell and whistle; many still don't integrate technology into their classrooms. B.Ed. programs still have technology as an optional course. --thank goodness I took it! --I am still shaky at moviemaker, but I've improved in that, and I've fully embraced bitstrips and Comic Life. I can incorporate these into my teaching. I am going to learn how to do photostory and use that for teaching, too.

Question: if we use limewire, can we ask our kids to do that?

But what if we don't? I am glad that we learned in this class about not taking images that are proprietary. Now I take images from flickr, but there's a cost...gettyimages are a lot better.

Flickr images do not seem to save properly. I am not able to save them as jpgs. Alas!


 * How My Ideas of Technology In the Classroom Have Changed**

--biggest change is that before I was mostly intimidated, now I'm mostly excited.

--I look forward to using Bitstrips and Comic Life in the classroom. Am ready!

--I want to practice Moviemaker and Audacity so that I can eventually have students do podcasts and movies.

--I still don't like cell phones or "multitasking" in the classroom, but I'm more relaxed about it.

--I would probably let students listen to ipods during free reading time, or something like that

--I was impressed by how engaging Luca and partner's movie was, and it would be huge fun to take a couple of simple comic characters like that and make them "go back in time"; you cld superimpose them on photos of The Globe and Stratford on Avon in a photostory about Shakespeare's world...or on photos of just about anything! The sky's the limit!

--I feel very grateful to have had this class. One of the questions in our interviews for the OCDSB was: how will you use technology in the classroom? That was one of two main questions!!!! I had a lot to say.

--I want to take all kinds of technology workshops. I'll be first in line on PD days!

I still think Ian Jukes and others totally discount the value of 20th c skills. Again and again my writing skills have achieved great things in my courses, as has my ability to concentrate on one thing at a time. I understood, for example, that you wanted the lesson plan presentations to be like a real class, and maybe it's because I listened carefully and did not multitask.

Anyway, I'm lucky. I can use my 20th c skills and learn new technological ones as well.

Goodbye and goodnight!


 * Digital Portfolio**

Bruce recommends a DP for when we are job hunting. I think it's a great idea. --at the moment I'm not quite there. Will focus on making my physical portfolio very flash, with lots of high tech refs, professional graphics, etc.

Here is what should be in a DP when I do make one: a. resume b. philosophy of education c. references d. images of teaching, with an explanation of what they are looking at e. scanned or photographed student work f. anything else that shows you in a positive light

I wanted to do more readings and write more in this wiki, but I'm out of time. Thanks, Bruce, for all we've learned!