I am happy to begin this sixth course in my MET program. I look forward at continuing my learning journey and collaborating with you over the spring and summer (even if it is snowing here!). I live in Hearst Ontario, hometown of the Hearst Lumberjacks (Junior A hockey team) and Claude Giroux (Captain of the Philadelphia Flyers). I am a bit of a hockey fan, as you can probably tell now. My first language is French, it is what I speak at work and at home.
I am a single mom of 2 girls, 13 and 9. I love to do fun activities with my kids, skiing, snowshoeing, swimming and skating. Being a single mom has helped me become a lot more efficient with my time. I enjoy the format of this program as it supports asynchronous learning which is convenient for my busy schedule.
I have been working in the education field for the past 15 years now. After graduating from a bachelor degree in history and a Bachelor in education, I was hired as a high school teacher. This was the first 5 years of my teaching career. For the next five years, I worked as an online course developer and project manager for the ministry of education, here in Ontario. I always l had an interest in technology and how it can enhance and improve learning, but this work experience really made me see how far we could take it, in the context of online learning. For the past six years, I have had the role of being the Technology Enabled Learning and Teaching contact (TELTC) for CSCDGR (a French catholic school board in northern Ontario). My main role is to support teachers and students in their use of our virtual learning environment (D2L) in the context of blended learning. I provide both technical and pedagogical support as I am the administrator for our VLE and also a teacher consultant/coach. I am responsible for training teachers (from Kindergarden to grade 12) in integrating a variety of technologies in their pedagogy to enhance student learning. This means I am implicated in a variety of projects, from the deployment of the Office 365 suite in our board to robotics, maker spaces or 3D printing.
When I started this journey, I had, and still have, an interest in online and blended learning and how it can help teachers in multiple grades classrooms (we have a lot of those in my school board). I have recently been researching and learning board about digital citizenship and on parenting digital citizens/kids. As a parent and as a teacher consultant in technology, I have found that there is a lack of knowledge is how to educate our students/children on using technology efficiently and becoming good digital citizens.
Regards,
Véro (that is what my friends and family call me)
Bonjour Véro,
It’s nice to meet you. Hearst looks beautiful, visiting more of Northern Ontario has been on my bucket list for a while. My husband and I are avid campers and know there’s plenty of parks we need to explore! The furthest we’ve gone in Ontario is Thunder Bay (on one of our road trips).
I’m interested to hear what you discover about digital citizenship and kids as well. In ETEC 512, there was a shared resource on cyberbullying that was developed by PREVnet, Primus and UBC, which I found informative.
PARENTING IN A DIGITAL AGE: Understanding Kids and Technology
http://cyberbullying.primus.ca/
As I work at a hospital for kids with disabilities, I already have some ideas about how we can incorporate digital citizenship and safety into our online resources, advocacy campaign and communications. Thanks for the inspiring intro!
Aiann
I work at a hospital for kids with disabilities, and I find the need to teach socially responsible, digital activity is
Hello Véro,
Your role as a TELTC sounds exciting because you are responsible for a lot of different technology aspects, and I can imagine how busy you are. Because of how difficult I initially found it to break into the secondary school system here in Ontario over moving here from Texas, I haven’t explored career opportunities since, but your sharing has inspired me to do more research. Thank you, and I look forward to working with you in this course!
Hi Véro,
As a girl raised by a single mother, I can say that I am sure it comes with challenges but it is very empowering! I find I have a really strong outlook on the world and belief in my own capabilities… The purely matriarchal touch was a good one, for me. I am sure your girls feel the same.
Being a TELTC sounds very interesting. What does your day to day look like? Is it a case of being on call or is there a lot of consistent admin to work through? There are so many jobs in Ed Tech in Canada that I’ve never seen anywhere else in the world and it is really exciting for me to learn more about them all!
Digital Citizenship is of real interest to me, so I look forward to exploring some related ideas over the next few weeks with you.
J