Author: carlyheemskerk

Welcome back Carly’s Crew! 

Today in Tech we dove into the topic of Open Educational Resources. We began by watching a documentary called “RiP! Remix Manifesto Documentary”. The documentary followed a DJ who created mash-ups which brought up many copyright questions and issues. The documentary was pretty intense and really made me think about what is considered copyright infringement…I had never thought about the fact that scientific ideas, such as the cure to cancer, fall under copyright laws as well.

After the documentary we debriefed in small groups and then as a whole class. We learned how to search for creative commons images on Google and it was super easy! After quickly changing the settings on Google Images we were able to see what photos we can reuse without getting into legal troubles. Don’t worry though…all the photos on my blog are allowed to be reused! In fact, some of them are my own photos. 😛

Following along with the topic of Open Educational Resources, we were introduced to a new website that provides teachers with a plethora of educational resources. The website was a little tricky to navigate at first and I think it was partially because we were just playing around. If I were a teacher looking for something specific to share with my class, I feel like it would be super easy due to the specific search options. One thing I noticed was that the curriculum was only linked to the American standards so as a Canadian teacher it makes it a little tricky. Beggars can’t be choosers though and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to pull up the BC Curriculum and find what fits! Personally, I think that OER would be a super cool research tool to help students work on personalized inquiry projects. For example, if a student was interested in learning about the weather in different biomes, this would be a great activity to physicalize the weather! I chose this topic because I love learning about different habitats and ecosystems but in my elementary school all we ever did was create dioramas and that gets boring pretty quickly. I definitely will look into OER in depth before I begin my practicum this spring. 

See you next week! 🙂

Hi again everyone!

Today in class we set up Trello boards to document our inquiry process. I had an easy time setting up my board in comparison to my experience with setting up this blog. It is easily customizable and the website is pretty easy to navigate. Go check my board out! It isn’t perfect yet because I am still working to figure out all the small details. I have never used Trello before but I think it will be a great resource as I work through my inquiry into baking and as I research my EdTech topic. So far I only have good things to say about Trello but I will have to keep you updated as I use it more. One thing that I love is the setting to create a checklist because it is such an easy way to track your progress. Throughout both of my inquiry projects it will be crucial to stay organized and on top of it. The projects will require me to spend time researching or doing hands-on work every week so it definitely will be tricky to not fall behind. With that being said, I am excited and interested in both of these topics so I am ready to work hard and learn lots!

See you next week!

Hi everyone!

Today in technology class I learned how to start a blog. We followed step-by-step instructions to get our blogs set up and I was surprised at how quickly it all happened. It was interesting to see how long the confirmation emails took to be sent out; our whole class had to wait about ten minutes before we were able to finish setting up our sites! I am still in the process of setting up my site and making it look pretty with pictures, videos and other extra links but it is definitely trickier than I anticipated. There is lots of little things to sort it out and I am perfectionist so I am having some troubles. I will keep you updated on how the remainder of my set up goes.

I am guessing you’re probably wondering what this blog will be about! So here it goes.. I will be using this blog to reflect on different educational technologies and to share various inquiry projects with you! For example, in my music class I will be teaching myself how to play the piano and using this blog to share my progress through videos. It will definitely be an interesting experience so please stay tuned!

Blogs are a great tool in school classrooms, however, I think blogs would be most effectively used in a middle years classroom. This is because it can be quite challenging to set up and use the blog. Students need to have strong self regulation and problem solving skills and they need to be confident working individually without direct supervision of the teacher Blogs could be used in classrooms to facilitate personalized inquiry projects. Blogging is a fun and unique way for students to share their thoughts and research with their classmates. One thing that is important to remember is that here are many privacy considerations that need to be talked about before introducing it to students. On the other hand, blogs allow students to work at their own pace, students can write as much or as little as needed and then they have the opportunity to use secondary resources to support their research and share their knowledge.

I’ve always wanted to create a blog and I am so excited to go on this blogging journey with all of you. Talk to you next week!

Cheers!

Carly