Enhance curriculum with virtual field trips:The
Royal Ontario Museum offers live web conferences with an experienced
educator. During the conference, students virtually view, discuss and ask
questions about ROM’s top-notch collections. I had the pleasure of sitting in
on one of these conferences while completing my teaching practicum (Grade 4 Medieval
unit).
Bring experts to the classroom—virtually:Interview authors, scientists,
doctors, astronauts and other amazing individuals from around the world. Watch
the video clip below of students interviewing Chris
Hadfield, Canada’s
first astronaut to walk in space, operate Canadarm, and command the
International Space Station.
Connect classrooms in different countries and
expand students’ worldview:Making international connections can provide students from different
cultures the chance to discuss and debate common issues and current events. Students
can brainstorm ideas on how to solve world issues.
Record and archive sessions for future
playback:If a student is sick, or misses the day of a special video conference
they still have the opportunity to review what the class has experienced.
Conduct parent/teacher conferences remotely:Teachers are able to
connect with the parents that are unavailable to attend after school
conferences.
PowerPoint is a powerful
presentation software program that is part of the Microsoft
Office package. It is not a free program, an Office 365
personal account starts at $60 a year. PowerPoint tools provide you with
everything you need to produce a professional-looking presentation. It is an
excellent program for personal and/or official use. With PowerPoint you can
create individual slides that produce a slideshow, the end product. Creating
slides is easy, as PowerPoint provides you with sample themes and you are able
to add text, tables, charts, pictures, animations, and even sounds.
Apache OpenOffice Impress is a multimedia presentation
program, very similar to PowerPoint. Impress enables users to create individual
slides that produce a slideshow presentation (the end goal). It is available
in many languages and works on all common computers. It saves
and stores all of your data in an international open standard format and
can also read and write files from other common office software packages. The
best part about OpenOffice is that it can be downloaded and used completely for free!
Google Slides is a tool within the Google Drive
productivity suite. It is a free
program, the only thing that users need to have is a Gmail account. Creating a
presentation on Google Slides is fairly similar to that of PowerPoint. Google
Slides provides you with a variety of presentation themes, hundreds of fonts,
embedded videos, and animations. Users are also able to choose from a wide
variety of pre-made presentations and portfolios. “Access, create, and edit
your presentations wherever you go — from your phone, tablet, or computer —
even when there’s no connection”. With Google Slides you area able to
collaborate on presentations with other people at the same time. By sharing
your presentation with your friends, classmates, coworkers, and/or family they
can view, comment on and edit your presentation. You also will never have to hit
the “save” button again. All of your
changes are automatically saved as you type. Google Slides provides the option
to view “revision history”. Teachers and/or people working on the presentation
have access to see old versions of the same presentation, sorted by date and
who made the change. Another bonus
is that Google Slides works with PowerPoint, you are able to convert
PowerPoint files to Google Slides and vice versa.
Prezi is a presentation tool that can be
used as an alternative to traditional slide making programs such as PowerPoint.
Instead of slides, Prezi provides you with one large canvas. You are
able to pan and zoom to various parts of the canvas and emphasize the ideas you
want to present. With a Prezi presentation, you are able to group concepts
together and then zoom out to show the big picture. In a visually engaging way,
your audience will be able to easily follow along and understand the
connections between your points. Prezi offers free public accounts to users with options to upgrade services for
a monthly subscriptions.
There
are so many amazing uses for a green screen in the classroom! Green screens and
the appropriate apps allow you to transport yourself and your students to
anywhere in the world as part of a video.
Some great classroom
project ideas include:
News
Broadcast (Local School news and events)
Weather
Broadcast (local / international weather)
History
Topic / Time Travel (Travel to a specific day or time in history)
Music
Video (could involve school band)
Holiday
Video (add seasonal backgrounds to videos – Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving,
etc.)
Become
a SuperHero (add green materials to chairs /desks and make them invisible)
Green Screen by Do Inkis an app that makes it very easy to
create incredible green screen videos and images right on your iPad. The app
currently costs $3.99. Green Screen by Do Ink was featured
in "Best New Apps in Education" in iTunes and is classroom-tested by
students and teachers. The app allows students to creatively and uniquely tell
a story, explain an idea, and express themselves.
GIMP – GIMPis an acronym forGNUImage Manipulation Program. It is a
free program you can install for tasks such as photo retouching, image
composition and image authoring. GIMP
has all the necessary tools needed for high quality image manipulation. The
program provides artists with the power and flexibility to transform images
into unique creations.
Photoscape - PhotoScape is an easy and fun photo editing software
that enables you to fix and enhance photos. It provides tools such as resizing,
brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames,
balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red
eye removal, blooming, paint brush, clone stamping, and brush
effects.
Pinta – Pinta is a
drawing and painting program for editing photos. The programs goal is to
provide users with a simple yet powerful way to draw and manipulate images. It
provides users with easy drawing tools to draw freehand, lines, rectangles,
ellipses, and more. Pinta
includes over 35 adjustments and effects for manipulating your images.
Photo Editor
by Aviary– Photo Editor by
Aviary is a comprehensive photo editing app you can use on any handheld device.
It manipulates your photos in seconds
with stunning filters, frames, stickers, touch-up tools and more.
AgingBooth – Don’t
forget about the fun and entertaining apps that are available. AgingBooth is a
very easy to use face aging machine. For the past 2 years I have used the app with
kindergarten students on their 100th day of school. Students loved
getting their picture taken and then waiting a few seconds to see it transform
to what they will look like when they are “100” years old.
Explain Everything is an interactive
screencasting whiteboard app that allows users record their voice as they write
on the screen. The app is being used by over 2 million students, teachers,
leaders, and learners around the world. Explain Everything includes many
features that lets teachers to easily add text and animation to their screen.
The final videos can be shared in different ways, including direct upload to a
teacher YouTube channel. Students are able to use the app in MANY ways. The
video below shares some possibilities.
Literably is a free app and
website that teachers use to monitor the progress that students are making in
reading. Students read the passages on the app or website aloud and then
Literably will complete and score a running record for the student. It is a
great app to track targeted students. Teachers can implement it as part of
their Daily 5 program.
Dragon
Dictation is a
voice recognition app that allows you to use your voice to dictate messages. It
is “up to five times faster than typing on the keyboard”. It is an ideal tool
for students who struggle with writing (especially those with dyslexia).
It allows students to express themselves simply by talking. This is an
excellent app for teachers to use when differentiating instruction as it works
fast and is easy to use.
Online social bookmarking
websites are an excellent way for students to discover, and organize
information.
Websites such as Delicious and
Diigo encourage group collaboration and enhance student learning by allowing students
to share web resources quickly and with ease.
Online “bookmarking services
offer greater scope for research, integration, and
collaboration compared to the more traditional bookmarking
applications such as browsers, which offer limited functionality” (read more here).
By having secure logins,
students are able to access their lists of resources on any computer and/or
device.
Students are able to share
what they find online with their peers and teachers.
Teachers are able to direct
students towards scholarly sources and reputable articles.
“Tags”
allow students to find resources and information on topics they are searching
for.
As a 21st century teacher, social
bookmarking websites will help me to organize articles and resources I find
online into one area. By having the option to create “bundles” I hope to develop
extensive lists for different areas of interest in my Delicious account. I
would love to eventually have bundles of math, language, science, play-based, inquiry,
special education, and blended learning resources (and many, many more!). I
currently use Pinterest to organize class projects and activities that I would
like to implement into my future classrooms, Delicious will now help me to
organize the resources I find. I wish I had an account while I was completing my
previous Additional Qualification courses.
Students in the province of
Ontario have many online resources available that they can access at school and
at home. Every student in grades 7-10
has access to “Homework Help”,
which provides access to free math
tutors, math specific tools and resources. The tutors are available every
Sunday-Thursday 5:30pm – 9:30pm ET.
The Provincial e-Learning
Strategy provides Ontario school boards, schools and students with access to
valuable software, resources, tools and support. Every student from
Kindergarten to Grade 12 is able to benefit from blended learning in
a safe and customized environment. “With today’s competitive economy and ever
changing technology, it is more important than ever that students have
unlimited opportunities to learn and achieve”.
An overview of the technical
components that make up the Provincial e-Learning Strategy:
In addition to the
provincial strategy, each school board offers their own library of digital
resources. The London District Catholic School Board (LDCSB), for example, offers unlimited
access to Infobase
– Learn360. Learn360 provides access to more than 150,000 multimedia assets.
The reliable, authoritative resources support
the K–12 academic curriculum and provide flexible options for accessing
educational content whether in school, at the library, or at home. Students and
teachers can access full videos, video clips, audio books, speeches, music
tracks, images, encyclopedia articles, historical timelines, science
experiments, historical maps, math activities, and science diagrams. LDCSB
students also have access to the following databases:
EBSCO provides an
online research solution consisting of databases, ebooks and ejournals
to enhance the physical collections of our school libraries. It
best supports the English, Science and Social Science courses.
CANSIM is Statistics Canada's key socioeconomic database.
Updated daily, CANSIM provides fast and easy access to a large range of the
latest statistics available in Canada.
GALE(CENGAGE Learning) features
full text articles from over 30 online periodical databases including CPI.Q
(Canadian periodicals) and Chilton's library, as well
as numerous ebooks, crossing the curriculum.
Teen Health & Wellnessprovides
intermediate and senior students with nonjudgmental and straightforward
self-help support. It includes topics on diseases, drugs, alcohol,
nutrition, mental health, suicide, bullying, green living, and financial
literacy, all of which are covered in the curriculum.
The list of resources made available
to students is endless. I find that students enjoy using BookFLIX, Raz-Kids, Learning A-Z, Career Cruising,
and Mindomo. If a student or parent does
not know the appropriate login information they should contact their child’s
teacher and/or school.
Blended
Learning is a combination of face-to-face instruction and online
instruction. With the continuous support of a classroom teacher, blended
Learning provides students with the opportunity to develop skills essential for
success in the 21st century. Blended learning in Ontario will look
very different from classroom to classroom. It can be said that blended
learning falls on a spectrum because of the many factors it depends on (e.g. access to and comfort with technology, professional development).
When I worked in a Kindergarten classroom, the students
loved using the Explain Everything app. They loved
using the app to create stories. As each student was developmentally at
different stages, each story format was different (based on their comfort and
abilities). Some of the Senior Kindergarten students would create their stories
by taking pictures and writing/typing words, while others opted to record
themselves telling the story. Either way they were creating “books”, and were
very proud to share them with the class.
In her blog, Mrs. Wideen explains how she uses the Explain
Everything app in her classroom. In her split grade 1/2 class students complete
various tasks using the app.
1.Students
explain their thinking after completing pencil to paper work. They take a
picture of what they completed and then record themselves explaining why they
chose to complete it the way they did.
2.During
the procedural writing unit, students have the opportunity to take step by step
pictures, create a video and record themselves discussing the procedures.
3.Students
have the opportunity to show their learning by creating videos as a culminating
task. In Mrs. Wildeen’s class students created videos explaining the water
cycle.
More information regarding Mrs. Wideen’s approach to using
Explain Everything, including student videos can be found on:
Sesameis an
app that allows students to create online portfolios. Teachers and students are
able to document observations, conversations and student products. Teachers
provide ongoing feedback with anecdotal notes, rubrics, checklists, and rating
scales. Sesame has Ontario’s curriculum embedded so it is very easy for
teachers to create these assessment tools. The app is very simple to use and each
student's portfolio updates instantly and can be shared with families.
Ms. Bullock, a fourth grade teacher in Waterloo, Ontario
used Sesame to help make their project-based environment on ancient
civilizations a success. Her students recorded video explanations of each
feature on their landmark. They took pictures to show how they made it. “Sesame
saved them time by automatically organizing everything into each student's
portfolio”. Ms. Bullock was able to provide instant feedback to students using
her phone (at school or home). Parents were invited to a museum presentation to
see all of the final creations but they were also able to witness the learning
that their child gained behind the scenes – “they were grateful for the
opportunity to witness the progress as it happened”.
Blended learning is a core part of P.K. Yonge Developmental
Research School in Florida. A math teacher in Florida creates math podcasts and
lessons using the ShowMe app. She creates podcasts of her
lesson and assigns questions for students to work on independently. Each
student has access to his/her assignments online. The students have unlimited
access to the podcasts, while one student might have to watch the video once to
understand the content, another student might have to watch the same video five
times. She often has students create their own podcasts to show and explain
their thinking/learning. While students are working independently, the teacher
has the opportunity to work with students in small groups or on one-one-one.
The best part is that the teacher can differentiate instruction easily by
assigning modified work or simplifying her podcasts/lessons.
When
teaching students about Copyright laws and Fair Use Acts, it is important for
students to learn how to appropriately share the work they find online (e.g.
avoiding plagiarism). It is also important for students to learn how to protect
their own images, writing, and multimedia creations. Teachers need to demonstrate,
guide, and help students practice appropriate and professional behavior while using
blogs, wiki spaces, google, online research, and much
more. While researching this topic I came across an informative blog post by Ronnie Burt, titled “The
Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons” (2012). Ronnie Burt discusses two simple rules:
Rule #1: You Can’t Use Everything You Find On
the Web
Rule #2: There Are Resources You CAN Use
One
of the resources that Burt discusses is “Creative Commons”. Creative Commons
can be used to display a licensing mark on a blog, image and/or piece of
writing to authorize sharing, reusing, and/or building on the creative works.
Modeling and teaching how to easily use appropriate tools/resources such as
Creative Commons in your own classroom will help prepare students to become
responsible and ethical digital citizens.
Ontario’s Standards of Practice for the
Teaching Profession provide a framework of principles that describes
the knowledge, skills, and values inherent in the teaching profession. Members
of the Ontario College of Teachers use these standards to complement and
reinforce the work they already do on a daily basis. I definitely believe these
standards are relevant to 21st century teaching and learning, they
encourage innovation, collaboration, risk taking and lifelong learning.
Ontario’s Standards of Practice for
the Teaching Profession:
Relating
the standards to my own values and beliefs about education:
Commitment to Students and Student
Learning
·Being fair does not always mean to be equal.
·Teachers need to be sensitive to the
needs of their students.
·The classroom should be a positive,
and safe learning environment where all students feel respected and valued.
·Every student is unique and should be
treated as the individual he/she is.
·Teachers should be committed to differentiating
their instruction and doing all that they can to make sure ALL of their students
are successful.
·Teachers need to encourage students to
become active, critical thinkers, problem-solvers and socially conscious
global citizens.
Professional Knowledge
·Teachers must understand and reflect
on the Ontario curriculum.
·Teachers should plan for
cross-curricular integration.
- According to a recent Ontario case study:
“Connecting curriculum to
real-world issues led to
·Teachers need to know and understand
their students. Read OSRs, talk to previous teachers, know about their individual
learning styles, collect data (PM Benchmarks, CASI, DIBELS, PRIME), and monitor
growth and progress.
Professional Practice
·Teachers must integrate a variety of
teaching and learning strategies, activities, technology and resources to
enhance student learning.
·Teachers should clearly share with
students what the learning goals are. Students should always know what is expected
of them (e.g. success criteria checklists, rubrics, posted learning goals in
the classroom).
·It is very important for teachers to
provide ongoing descriptive feedback to students.
·Teachers should strive to make
learning meaningful.
·Teachers should provide many opportunities
for students to collaborate and problem solve with their peers.
·Teachers themselves should collaborate
with grade partners, divisional teams and other professions to support
student learning.
Leadership in Learning Communities
·All teachers should be able to build
professional relationships based on trust and respect with students, parents
and the community.
·There should be always be ongoing
two-way communication between the teacher and parents.
·Communicate openly and regularly with
members of the learning community through newsletters and/or available
technology (e.g. classroom websites, social media, apps).
Ongoing Professional Learning
·Teachers should adopt a lifelong
learning mindset and recognize that continuous professional growth is an
integral part of professional practice
·Teachers should engage in professional
learning to enhance effective practice (e.g. participating in “Collaborative
Inquiry of Learning” within the school, participating in interested workshops
and professional development).
·Teachers should register for
Additional Qualification courses. Most are available online and provide
teachers with the opportunity to network with other teachers throughout the
province.
