1. What policies govern your uses of ICT in your school setting?
Our school doesn’t have any written policy, although most teachers do not allow students to use their cell phones during class. Some teachers have a box where students are required to put their cell phones in at the start of a class. Some teachers ask students to put their cell phones in a box when there is a test. In the library, we asked students not to use their phones if they are calling people. When using computers we ask students to use the computers for school related activities. It is a little bit of a problem when some students are on a site that is in a different language. We don’t want to be the internet police, but we have a limited number of computers for student use and sometimes we just don’t have enough available.
2. What digital technological resources do you have available for teaching and learning in your school setting? We have two permanently mounted smart boards in the Business Ed classrooms. We have one portable smartboard and about 35 LCD projects which were bought by individual departments and by the school Tech committee. The district had a matching fund program which enabled us to buy a number of projectors. We decided to spend our money buying projectors rather than Ipads or other devices because most teachers said that it would change their teaching practice and that sharing or booking a projector didn’t always work for some spontaneous work or presentations.
Every secondary teacher in the district has a mac laptop which is so locked down you cannot add anything on your own. Can’t buy apps and can’t update unless the techies deem it necessary. Everyone is on a different page when it comes to using the projectors. The science department worked as a group and they all had projectors about a year before anyone else had any. Our principal did mention that we needed to work together on acquiring the skills to use technology or the divide between teachers who embrace technology and those who do not will widen considerably.
In the library we have Ebsco, Gale virtual reference library, Biography in context, Student reference library, Global Issues in Context, World Book, CPI.Q. Orca Readers, Tumble Books, Stats Canada, QPlegalEze, Novelist
3. Please provide an example of an exemplary use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally.
I worked with a Spanish teacher who worked with the district Ipad lab and had help with an technology integration specialist to instruct students on how to use Book creator to create digital books on Spanish speaking countries. A nice result was the large number of students who discussed about social justice in their countries. I played a small part by organizing the class diigo accounts so that students could share their websites.
4. Please provide an example of a problematic use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally. Since we all have laptops the administrators think that the library does not need as much money. Wrong!! “Everybody has access to youtube”. Sometimes the quality isn’t there when projected onto a screen and sometimes it is there one year and the next it is not.
I wanted to start buying ebooks for the library, but we didn’t have an updated platform for the resources. We needed updates to our system that would allow us to put in digital collections and that didn’t help because our IT department thought that that they just needed to do the last update, but they assumed incorrectly. They needed to do all the updates. So by the time they got around to it, it was the end of the year. Book jobbers will try and sell you their ebooks stating that all you need is an 856. If you have central cataloging it means, at least where I am, you have to get the Marc records for them to upload. By the way we are on Destiny.
5. Please provide a brief history of how you learned to use digital technologies (personally and professionally). I’ve started using a digital day book because it was beginning to be difficult keeping a track of my classroom teaching and the classes that were coming into the library. It took a while to learn it, but I’m going to use it again next year. We have had some pro-d days on technology which has helped. I use Edmodo with my classes, but I’ve only used it as a one way communication tool. Me to students. I should use it help students with questions they may have with their assignments or homework. I signed up with Ipad Academy for some tutorials on the Ipad. They give you a year to finish their basic course and you can go back and revisit any of the tutorials for a year.
6. How would you rate your digital technological proficiency? 0 = low level of proficiency -> 10 = high level of proficiency?
I think I would have to give myself a 3-4 rating because this is the second time I’m writing this blog. I checked to see my post and it wasn’t there. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping this will be posted.
Why did you give yourself this rating?
It takes me along time to learn stuff like this and as I said, I thought I posted something on the blog in the afternoon and it wasn’t there.
7. What do you hope to accomplish in this course?
I’d like to know when and how technology can “intervene” to promote learning whether it is in the classroom or in the library.