The Caboose

 

 

The above image was created using a wordle I created with ICT words and then adjusting the brightness of it so that the text could be seen on top of it. I hope everyone took something away from my blog and I would like to thank my professor for a great semester!!
I leave you with a photo of me, edited with anymaking, and my favourite quote. Happy Holidays!!

Station Stop #8

Hold on folks we are rounding the final corner of this ride!!

This week in ICT we looked at a variety of useful apps. One great example is evernote. It allows you to make recordings of yourself talking or a teacher. It also will dictate what you are saying and allow you to edit for any mistakes it may make. The best part is that you can organize all your notes for your classes on it and they can be accessed on any device that has the evernote app!

Most of this week was spent on our final group projects. My group did a presentation on Socrative! It is a great tool that you can use for assessing your students understanding in all topics. It allows you to create a teacher account and you are given a classroom number. From there you can give your students the classroom number and get them to do quizzes you made or ones that were shared. It is really cool because it is not an app, so your students just need to be able to access the internet. This can be done on school computers or even a cell phone.

In socrative you can create just the normal quiz, with multiple choice, true and false and short answer questions. You can also make what is called a space race!! This cool option splits the students up into however many teams you would like and then they can do the quiz as fast as they can to reach the end of the race track by answering questions correctly. One last option you have is called an exit slip. It is a premade quiz that just asks the students if they learned the material? what they learned? and can they answer the question you have made up on the board?. This type of quiz is great for formative assessment.

Station Stop #7

Hello Hello!!

After a visit from John Finch in our ICT class we learned a lot about LwICT. For those who don't know LwICT means learning with ICT. It is just what it sounds like, how can we help our students learn using technology as a resource.
It was really interesting and we got a very informative booklet and poster to help us try and apply it in our next placement. For me I feel like I will be able to apply some of the ideas John talked about, as I am teaching physics. Whereas in my previous placement I may have struggled because I was teaching math in a room with only one computer and smart board. If I was in a computer lab for my math class I understand how I could help students learn using technology but with just one computer I am still having troubles wrapping my head around it. Just something I look forward to learning more about!!
Also we had a discussion about LwICT and John's visit, below is what I posted.
"I really enjoyed this presentation, though it was very fast and there was lots of information in a short period of time. This being said I was wondering if there is a PD on this or do we have to try figure the rest of it out on our own?
 
Another question I have is, we are constantly trying to introduce technology into a variety of "textbook" classes, but in "computer" classes I don't recall having to use a pencil and paper from time to time. Has this changed over time because just as technology is important, so is writing?"
Go ahead and leave a comment if you have anything to add.

Last but not least go ahead and try this quiz that is linked below on technology.

http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/information-literacy-resources/1-information-literacy-quiz/

I got a score of 5/13. Good Luck!
 

Station Stop #6

On Wednesday we had a presentation on different tech tools and looked at ones that allow you to put quotes with pictures. Our challenge was to find a quote that meant something to us and a picture as well. We were encouraged to get a selfie and my cat did just that :)

Enjoy the ride!

Station Stop #5

I am back!! Finished up my pre-serviced teaching and now we are back in the books ourselves. My five week teaching experience was fantastic. I was back at my old stomping grounds with one of my favourite teachers. He had two calculus classes, one grade 11 precalculus and one grade 12 precalculus class. Since I am very strong in math and my cooperating teacher knows this, I got to jump in right away teaching the grade 11s on my first day. By the second week I was teaching both his grade 11 and grade 12 classes. Because calculus is a course rarely offered in schools and when it is it is taken by an experienced teacher, we did not see me teaching it to be helpful. Luckily instead of sitting through both calculus classes I was able to jump over a room and teach a grade 10 precalculus class.

The students were awesome as well. Because I have been coaching grade nine volleyball since I left high school, I already had a good rapport with the students. My cooperating teacher warned me about the student that gave him the hardest time and since I coached him in grade nine he gave me less problems and stayed involved in the class.

The most used piece of technology in my class was the smart board and computer pair. During the summer the math department got together and made a set of printed notes for all math grade 9-12. Doing this on notebook it allowed them to use the smart board for class. Also they were able to print off and copy the notes to make packages for each chapter to give to the students so they were not writing all class.

One thing I learned about technology while I was there was that from their photocopy machine in the staff room you can scan an image and email it directly to the computer in the classroom you are in. I found this really helpful while teaching a few units because I added some notes and images to the already made packages. The copy machine allowed me to copy these pages but then they were still not on the smart board for me to teach with. By being able to scan my pages and email them to my computer made it easy for me to add them to the smart board notes.

I am really thankful for all the people that I got to work with. I got lots of tips, criticism, and resources that will be very useful in the future.

Back to the grind. Stay posted!!

Station stop #4

On the rails again! We have been looking at some image editing tools and web sites. My favourite one that I found is called "Any Making". Below is an example I made and it is just one of the many cool effects that this website can do. Check it out!!!

 

We also discussed smart technology, specifically the smart board! We look at notebook which is really useful for making smart board presentations. We also just got to play with the smart board. We found it has a virtual deck of cards and virtual dice and many more. All types of virtual fields that coaches or gym teachers could use for describing plays. A key thing to remember is that you must put the marker down before you try to do things haha!! Going into student teaching this will be very useful for me as my classroom has a smart board and all of the students notes are created using notebook.

 

One last thing we looked at was good old powerpoint. A very useful and common tool for students to use. The key things we pointed out were common mistakes made when using powerpoint. For example too small of print, weird and distracting backgrounds and ect. Below is a you tube video about some more common mistakes made when using powerpoint.

 

 

Well that is this ride for now. See you soon again!

 

Thomas

Station Stop #3

 

Hello All!!!! Sorry I have been on such a long journey and have missed you for a while! Above is an example of a Prezi presentation. Prezi is just one of the many digital storytelling tools we discussed in ICT class. The demo above also shows how this can be used in math, as I hope to become a math teacher and really want to use technology to teach this is a great tool. In class we also look at some other programs for digital storytelling. There is animoto, which we used to create a presentation about six similar pictures in class, storybird, smilebox, slidestory, and powerpoint as well. Using these tools as part of a project for students is a great alternative to the traditional poster. These not only make learning fun but as students are learning about a specific subject they are also expanding their knowledge in technology. I am really excited to use some of these in my classes and hope you check some of them out. Below is a link to some of the top FREE digital storytelling sites. Check them out and hold on cause this train is rolling again!

Station Stop #2

Hello everybody! I hope you are enjoying the trip as much as I am. This last week things got really busy. Completing a group project with Darlene about learning styles we now have to complete a write up about our teaching ability. Another exciting part of the week was thursday when I got to miss classes unfortunately, but got to attend a full day volleyball PD. I learnt a lot about different coaching strategies and ideas. In ICT we discussed google drives, e-portfolios, and created a website that I can use for my future classes but currently I plan to use it for my volleyball team.

Station Stop #1

Well beginning of another week after a work filled weekend. Rock the block was a fanatastic time and other than that I spent my days working on the farm or at good old TSC. Looking forward to the week ahead. Going to start my own website and also a group presentation about learning styles! I also inclueded a picture with things about me to begin the week. Check out the caboose of the week to see how things went!

I can do it, Thomas

"All a Board!!"

Well first week of my journey in the Education Program is nearly complete. Classes sound exciting and the 30 other people in the seniors year stream are awesome! Can't wait to get into more intresting topics. Stay on board to see what future adventures I face in the future.

I can do it, Thomas