Making my PLE/PLN

Hello everybody,

Throughout my ICT course, we have been discussing the use of PLEs and PLNs for teachers. PLE stand for "Personal Learning Environment," while PLN stands for "Personal Learning Network." Its all about staying connected with other teachers and educators, as well as using as many online resources to obtain and share information and ideas for educational purposes. Throughout the course, we have been shown a large variety of sources that we can use to share information with other people. Many of us have signed on to new accounts and online systems that we have never used before.

As teachers, we always strive to obtain new strategies and ideas for teaching our classes. In creating my PLN, I have used many different sources to share information with other educators. I have started to create my very own websites that will be used for educational purposes when I am a teacher. It will be used as a classroom website where students can locate information, videos, comments and emails and can connect with the teacher's resources. Within my website, I have created a Symbaloo account which allows me to organize a large variety of sites into one page. Students can view this page and find educational sites that will benefit them greatly. It is an awesome organization application to use! I have also created an E-portfolio by creating a website, in which I have shared my experiences and samples of work and lessons.

Other sources that I have used to connect with teachers include, Maple; where teachers can share ideas and lessons with others and they can converse about what strategies worked and which ones did not. I use Teachers Pay Teachers, to find interesting lessons regarding any subject. I am also involved in Skype and Facebook. Here, I can connect with people face to face or send messages about educational ideas. I use Ning to connect with other education students in my courses and we discuss such things as book reviews and critiques.

One of the most beneficial ways to communicate ideas with other people is by what I am doing right now, blogging. I have been blogging for the past 7 weeks. Amazingly, I have had tons of views from all around the world including the United Kingdom, Israel, and South Africa. People have commented on my different blogs that I have written as well.

I have learned so much from this course and it really has made me more involved with the world through the internet. I have become more connected with fellow educators and I will continue to be. It is clear that learning is in fact a lifelong process as teachers strive to learn all they can from fellow educators and those around them.

I for one will never stop learning,
That's all for now,

Jordan Dyck

"Connected from the Start"- Review

Recently, I just finished the book "Connected from the Start: Global Learning in the Primary Grades," written by Kathy Cassidy. Our ICT class was required to read this text throughout the term and to comment on a community page about our opinions and thoughts. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as it demonstrated different technologies and applications that could be utilized throughout the classroom.

Kathy discussed using Skype to connect her classroom to the outside world. She gave an example of how her class used Skype to interact with a school that was 2500 km away from theirs'. Her class was able to develop questions for the other class, discuss climate patterns for graphing purposes, and make connections with other students. I have never thought of using Skype in the classroom, but now I can really see how it is beneficial. It can be used to connect to those who are not there. Children can read to other students over the internet or show their work to a relative who lives far away. Students could connect to other school communities all around the world.

Another favorite concept that Kathy used was using blogs within her class. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant on letting my students use them as the internet can be a dangerous place for small children, but Kathy's book assured me that protective measures can be taken. Such measures include, proofreading of every post by the teacher, not using any last names of students, and not connecting photos to the names of students. I think blogs are a great idea for the use of student reflection and portfolios. Parents can be connected to their child's learning by reading their blogs and seeing what they are doing in school. People often comment on these students' blogs, which really excites the students. It also has been observed, that students will produce higher qualities of work when they know that there will be an audience.

Kathy discusses using applications such as Twitter to share ideas and thoughts with other classes. Her class had lots of experience using videos to make presentations She introduces the idea of using Wikis, Google Docs, Wordle, and other simple applications for her classroom.

Wow! What a great book! I suggest that all teachers should read this book and start integrating technology into their classrooms.

Bye, for now.

Jordan

Movie Madness!

Hey everybody,

So this week was pretty awesome! The class was assigned to create videos using any video making app that we wanted, including Imovie or Windows Movie Maker. We were allowed to make any kind of movie that we wanted. Our group tried to think of what kind of movie we were going to make, but it was rather difficult as there were endless possibilities. We thought of music videos and different themed videos, but we decided on making a spoof of a horror movie.

I have had a lot of experience making movies using Windows Movie Maker, as I sometimes create drum covers in my spare time.  Editing the video is not an issue for me and I can help lead my group in making a decent quality video.

I found that the most difficult part of filming was trying to make quality videos without the effects of Hollywood. Our group would have awesome ideas in their minds but to fulfill these ideas, we would need quality cameras and effects. However, we managed to create some excellent scenes using a camera on an Iphone. It was both interesting and amusing to see the acting skills of our group members.

Creating videos is an excellent way for students to use media in projects. Students in school can use videos to demonstrate ideas to their classrooms. Creating videos can be a lot of fun and I feel that students would enjoy school more when they can do fun and exciting projects. Students enjoy creating projects when they know that it will be presented to an audience; just as I will enjoy showing our group's video to our class.

That's all for now,

Jordan.

Animoto vs. Powtoon

Hey everybody!

Kinda had an exciting week this week in ICT class. In class we were shown new applications for multimedia and digital storytelling. The class was asked to pick some photos that could be placed into a story. Then we were shown a site called Animoto, which is a free site that allows you to take your photos and put them into a movie based template. You can choose the music that you want to place into your movie and create captions that tell the story for you. This site is great for use in schools as students can tell stories of life events and do class projects for school. I personally think that this site is great for students as it is easy for them create movies, however I think that Windows Movie Maker is a better application as it contains more options for creating movies and editing them. I have a lot of experience using Movie Maker as I create many movies in my spare time.

In another class, my classmate was searching YouTube for a class project, She came across a video that was made by a website called Powtoon. I decided to research this site and I found that it was a free site that allowed you to create animated videos that could be used for classroom presentations. The site has many options for animation tools. The site should be used to create short presentations as each slide can only be a maximum of 20 seconds long. One can also add background music to the movie. Sadly, only one voice over can be played over the entire movie instead of different voice overs per slide. For a demonstration on Powtoon, I have created a short demonstration video on how the movies look and what they contain.

Powtoon (click here)

So what's better? Animoto or Powtoon?
I'll leave it up to you.

Take care,

Jordan