It’s been quite the journey! I’ve been thinking about where I started at the beginning of this course. When we visually formed a line to show how comfortable we were with technology, I stood in the section that I considered to be a 7.5 out of 10, but then the line kept getting pushed down as people stood on the lower end of the scale and I accidentally ended up looking like I was at the forefront of technological knowledge. Your level of technological comfort really seems to depend on who’s in the room with you. I’m reminded of the Flight of the Conchords love song to a girl who is the most beautiful girl in the room “depending on the room”. And so it is with me – so often at work, I feel like a computer genius as I demonstrate my cut and paste moves for amazed colleagues. And yet, here in this room, I’m constantly humbled in my knowledge.

Every day has been an incredible learning journey, and I’m left with a host of things to try out and discover. I’m reminded again that no matter how proficient we feel, there are always going to be endless new applications and online resources to discover. The vast amount of information out there and the seemingly endless opportunities for education and collaboration can be completely overwhelming. The first week, I could barely keep track of all the different things we signed up for. For me, the trick to staying afloat on this ocean of information is to simply narrow down what it is that best suits my needs as an educator.

In future, I plan to seek out greater collaboration opportunities with like-minded colleagues. I’ve been inspired to start following blogs and Twitter feeds to stay current and connected. I also want to make sure that I employ technology in a meaningful way in my classroom. Looking at the new Bloom’s Taxonomy, I want to move away from the many exercises that simply ask students to “remember” information. I want to focus more on having my students work at the higher orders of creating, evaluating, analyzing, and applying.

Thanks, Christine! I’m super excited about using Padlet in the classroom. I could instantly see all sorts of uses for it with my class. The best part? It’s user-friendly and requires no sign up for students to participate.

After doing a bit of research when I got home this afternoon, I stumbled upon this informative blog at www.blog.padlet.com which was full of tips for how to use Padlet in the classroom. The blog proposes that it is possible to run an entire lesson using Padlet.

1) The lesson – all content can be easily organized on a wall and is easily presented by clicking on any content
2) Group discussion – questions can be posted on a wall and students can participate in real-time without the need to refresh the screen
3) Exit tickets – by using the “Moderate” option, students can’t see each other’s posts and you can get a feel for how well students understood the lesson
4) Assignments/Projects – the ease of Padlet makes it ideal for student use

I really appreciate the fact that Padlet appears to do it all. The variety of apps out there is endless and you can drive yourself crazy learning all the different features of different apps. I think Padlet will be particularly useful because it can be used in so many different ways.

In the sample Christine showed us, students were using the wall to post sentences using a particular vocabulary word. I think this would be a great beginning of the day activity. And I really like the idea of using it for exit tickets. Before students can leave the room, they have to post one question or thought about the day’s lesson. It could also be used for test review – each student could post important points or questions to consider. The possibilities are endless…

The 10 Minutes of Fame segments have been the highlight of the course for me because I love to see what others are using in their classrooms. I was also inspired to begin adding to my Shelfari collection – I had intended to share it with my students as a “Ms. Mason Recommends…” but after adding 4 books, I must have run out of steam. I should definitely go back in and add to my personal collection considering I’ve read so many young adult books and my students are always asking me what I think they should read next.

Finally! Something I can understand! Linguistic cognitive domains refers to how we link to each other and ourselves through language. Through language, we explain things to ourselves and others. Everything we say has an impact on others. If we are conscious of this, we can be more aware of how our words will influence others.

This plays out all the time in my marriage. My husband will often respond to me by saying “I don’t like your tone”. To which I reply, “What tone? I wasn’t using a tone. You’re the one using a tone.” Moments later, we are both annoyed and confused, watching TV in separate rooms. We go through the same song and dance with misinterpreted text messages to each other. If he is having a bad day, the most mundane “When are you coming home?” text message can be completely misunderstood. Clearly, the ability to communicate effectively is extremely important in all of our relationships.

At work, I find myself becoming annoyed not so much by what people are saying, but how they are saying it. If something is said in a condescending tone, I am not likely to respond positively to it. My principal deserves a medal for always saying the wrong things or in the wrong way. This creates a very uncomfortable atmosphere of “us vs them” at work. As a “young” teacher, I don’t think I am often taken very seriously by older teachers and today’s discussion made me think about being careful how I phrase things if I want to be make a serious point or create lasting change.

This reminds me of a TED Talks clip we watched just this morning in a different class. A wannabe slam poet, Lemon Andersen, recounted how he stalked his hero relentlessly until he was finally told that the problem with his poetry was with the way he was saying the words. “My hunger and thirst was, and still remains: How do I get people who hate poetry to love me?…I learned how to pull the mic away and attack the poetry with my body.” It wasn’t until he changed the way he was delivering his poems, that he became a successful poet.

Today’s class was interesting, to say the least. Christine and I had some time to narrow down our inquiry focus and we were frantically adding ideas to our mindmeister map. We decided to focus more on how iPads can be used to improve literacy in the classroom and mindmeister was the perfect way for us to organize our thoughts and share our thinking with each other.

And then we got to learn a lot of big words. Really big words. Adrienne Gear would refer to them as “triple-scoop” words and while I don’t see myself dropping them often in conversation, some of the ideas made a lot of sense. I see a lot of institutional isomorphism at work at my new school. I’m a teacher with 10 years of experience, but I’m the “new kid” at my new school. There is definitely a tendency towards the mimetic and normative. I can’t tell you how many times this year I’ve heard the phrase, “Here at Fleming, we do things this way…” No matter how stupid some of the traditions are, there is such a strong reluctance to change. I am one of the only teachers who is using a report card program to write my reports. Everyone else is still using Microsoft Word to type them up and some even write them by hand! It’s ridiculous, really.

Rather than rock the boat my first year, I chose to just quietly do my thing. I sometimes try to get my colleagues excited about something new in the world of technology, but the seasoned teachers have the mindset that everything is cyclical. They feel that they’ve seen “fads” come and go and no longer get excited about anything. I find this troubling. As educators, we have a responsibility to be on the forefront of technology and change in the classrooms. At what point do teachers give up and just begin to do things the way they’ve always been done or do things the way everyone else does?

Christine and I were both interested in exploring the use of iPads in the classroom. I have access to a set of 10 iPads, which in itself is a bit problematic in a class of 30, but I don’t want that to stop me from using them next year. Christine made an interesting point that she didn’t just want to compile a list of “neat” apps, but rather wanted to learn to use the iPads in meaningful ways. So often, the iPads become just another word processing tool or Google search tool. I don’t think that is really using the technology to its full potential. We began investigating deeper uses of iPads in the classroom where students are using the iPads to create and publish online.

Jenny spoke about the importance of teaching our colleagues why the use of technology is so important but quite frankly, I can’t imagine many of my work colleagues will care. There is a strong resistance to change at my school. But I do know from experience that they will become intrigued if I can show them the some of the possibilities. This past year, a new teacher constantly had the iPad “lab” signed out and his kids created some really interesting stop-motion videos. These videos were then played on a loop, projected into the hallway outside his classroom for our school’s Centennial Celebration. Everyone was blown away at what the kids had created.

For my inquiry project, I would like to look further into engaging and meaningful uses of the iPad for me in my classroom. Just from the small amount of research I was able to do in class today, I was blown away at how many new ideas turned up compared to the last time I did a similar search. I found a really interesting slideshare presentation that even broke down various iPad apps according to Bloom’s Taxonomy which I listed on our Mindmeister (posted below).

I am genuinely interested in pursuing this topic and I’m really excited to see what the final outcome will be. Best of all, I hope to have something that I can use this coming September with my class of grade 6/7s.