Final Post

Thanks for teaching us, Dr. Larouche!

Please email my course grade to michaela.irene@gmail.com.

TPACK activity

Grade 7 Language Arts, Lesson Using Technology

Learning Outcomes from Alberta Education (flipbook above):

• Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to explore thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences.
• Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to comprehend and respond personally and critically to oral, print and other media texts.
• Explore surprising and playful uses of language and visuals in popular culture, such as cartoons, animated films and limericks; explain ways in which imagery and figurative language, such as simile, convey meaning.

Lesson:  Students will be divided into groups of 2-3 students.  In groups, they will read several limericks, choose their two favorites, and diagram the rhyme and meter of two limericks per group.  Once they understand what makes a limerick a limerick, they will each write three limericks of their own.  After writing their limericks and checking each other's poem for accuracy of rhyme and meter, they will create a final version of these poems to create a class book of poems.


Use of Technology:  Instead of  just writing the poems on paper and then writing a "final draft" and binding a book of their final poems, I will have the students do online searches for limericks, discover the rhyme scheme and meter for themselves, and then type their limericks.  Once the poems are typed, they will type their limericks into a "sticky note" and post it onto a class WallWisher I will create.  They will then take all three of the limericks they wrote, and 10 of the limericks their classmates wrote, and they will illustrate the poems using graphics.  They will then create an online flipbook using FlipSnack.com.  They will give their book a title, and all of their flipbooks will be put on my wiki in a place where they can go and read all the poems from all of their classmates.  Alternatively, they could work on a single Google Document to create a class document with all of their limericks on it.  Then I as the teacher could take the document and create a FlipBook for the whole class.

Day 8, Moodle and Forums

For the first half of class we talked about how to use a Moodle: How we can use it to record our students' voices and create online assignments to assess language students' pronunciations.  This could be a useful tool if the school allowed access to Moodle and hooked it up for each teacher.  I like that it's free, though I'm sure the ones you have to pay for are easier to use and have more features!

We then discussed forums and how we can use them facilitate discussion and communication among members of a course, especially an online course.  Personally, I find discussion boards annoying to use in a classroom setting.  I much prefer in-person communication.  Sometimes, though, there's no choice, so a discussion board does make it possible for people to post their thoughts and interact with the thoughts of others.

This is to be my final posting, as tomorrow and Friday we will be working on our final project (directions posted below).  I have learned a great deal in this class, and I have created an extremely useful list of online resources I hope to use if I get a position teaching in the fall!  Thank you, Dr. Larouche, for your patience in teaching us how to use technology and for sharing the masses of knowledge you have acquired over the years!

Day 7, Finished Video and SMART Technologies

Today's topic was SMART Technologies.  First we discussed the various uses of a SMARTBoard, including showing students how to access various websites, solving complicated word problems, creating charts and graphs, even rolling a dice using Notepad.  I was shocked to find out that most teachers in Alberta have a SMARTBoard, but teachers have received no PD on how to use it.  I have never used one, but I can see its usefulness and would like to spend an hour or two playing around with it so I could become profiecient.

Another technology Dr. Larouche mentioned were SMART clickers, which are useful for having students answer multiple choice questions as a class.  This would be fantastic for provincial testing practice as a class.  Students like to be involved and receive immediate feedback.  Another good idea is doing a learning styles profile at the beginning of the year.

A couple of useful websites we visited today were the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives site and the SMART resources site, where teachers can post lesson ideas for the SMARTBoard.  Both of these will be very useful websites when I am placed in a classroom with a SMARTBoard.

Andres Sanchez, Spanish Language Advisor, andres.sanchez@gov.ab.ca

Our Video - Draft Number One

Day 6, Using Video

Today we focused on how to use iMovie (an Apple product) to create a movie that teaches a lesson.  I worked with Brandee, and we decided to create a movie that teaches how to pronounce words in Spanish.  After creating a script, we filmed a few minutes of video with her camera and then began editing with iMovie.  The program took some getting used to, since neither of us own Macs nor have used iMovie in the past.  Dr. Larouche's explanation was thorough, though, so we were able to produce a very basic "movie" using the techniques he taught us.

Using iMovie (or Windows Movie Maker, or any similar program) in a classroom would present several challenges.  First, students would have to have access to a computer for at least two or three days.  In the school I taught at for the past two years, I was allowed one computer day every two weeks, so getting the lab time would be challenging.  Also challenging would be finding the technological accessories required to complete the project, including video cameras, adapter cables, and external hard drives/jump drives so students can save their work.  Working with thirty students on a project like this would also be very tiring, since things are bound to go wrong.

On the other hand, allowing students to create a movie is guaranteed to spark their interest and get them engaged in their learning.  Students who tune out in lectures would suddenly want to do their work.  At the end of the project, every student would have a final product to be proud of which they could easily share with parents or friends.

The pros outweigh the cons, so creating a movie would be a fun project to coordinate once or twice a year.  I wouldn't do a movie every week, though, or I might not make it through the year.

Day 5, TPAK

At the beginning of class, Dr. Larouche explained an important order for lesson planning: Content comes first, then pedagogy, then (and only then!) technology.  Many times school boards invest in the technology but do not bother to train teachers properly, so teachers are left floundering in a sea of digital devices they do not know how to use.  And heaven knows teachers do not have much time or energy left at the end of the day for self-training!  School administrators need to realize this and think about their learning objectives before purchasing technology they may not have any use for.  When they do buy a new classroom gadget, they need to make sure teachers receive training in order to maximize its use.

After Dr. Larouche's discussion, we covered what seemed like a thousand different online resources  (websites) that we can use to supplement our lessons and perhaps get kids more interested in learning through the use of technology.  I have linked many on the right, and the website with a fairly comprehensive list of these resources is CoolToolsforSchools.com.

Here is the online flipbook I made on FlipSnack today!