Kristina's EC&I 833 Learning

  Assistive Technologies in the Classroom When I first started thinking about what assistive technologies I use in the classroom, not many came to mind.  I thought of the magnifying sheet and iPad that was for a student who has diminished sight, the highlighter strips that single out and highlight a sentence in a book or the visual schedule I have for students that need more than the classroom schedule at the front of the room.  It wasn't until the class presentation and reading "Where It's At: Mrs. DiChiara's Assistive Technology Blog ", I realized that I have implemented and currently implement many assistive technologies in my classroom.  Below is a list of some of the assistive technologies that have been used in my classroom in the past or that I currently use now.  Magnifying sheet This simple device was helpful when working with a student that had diminished eye sight.  It enabled the student to enlarge a picture or piece of text from a book that they were

  Kahoot! - For Fun or For Assessment      For this week's blog post I have decided to talk about Kahoot!  I first learned about Kahoot! in the first course that I took for my masters degree.  As an adult student, I found Kahoot! to be anxiety inducing due the timed responses.  I have enjoyed using Kahoot! and have even had it as part of group presentations for my courses.  I thought it would be a great tool to try in the classroom, but have yet to built it into our day.  However, last school year, my students did get the opportunity to use Kahoot! as part of a culminating activity after an Elder visit.      There are a few reasons why I have not used Kahoot! in the classroom as of yet: 1. The questions are timed.  I feel that if I become anxious as an adult on timed questions, students would too.  I do not like the feeling of the pressure to not make an error or to not be the first one to answer the question.  Only recently I have learned that the time students have to answer the

My Thoughts on the Evolution of Education I found the article "Schools are doing Education 1.0; talking about doing Education 2.0; when they should be planning Education 3.0" by Jackie Gerstein, Ed D. intriguing.  Gerstein gives great insight into the connection between Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 to Education 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 and stated that 'the evolution of the web...can be used as a metaphor of how education should also be evolving'.  There is no doubt that as the world of information delivery and technological innovations grow, education has to evolve along with it in order to develop citizens that can thrive within their communities.  What I don't agree with is Education being too much of 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0.  I believe that there has to be a balance of all three. Education 1.0 , as depicted in this image from Gerstein's article shows that the teacher is the holder of all knowledge and passes that knowledge to the learner.  Teachers use resources such as textbooks

 My Journey in Distance and Online Learning      My experience with distance learning goes back to my high school years in the early to mid '90's.  I decided to take a few of my grade 10, 11, and 12 courses via correspondence instead of in-person in the classroom.  The choice of assignments to complete and the flexibility in time of completion is what drew me to taking courses via correspondence.  The classes were not online, rather the material was sent via Canada Post.  In university for both my undergrad degrees, I did not take any classes online, all were face-to-face in the classroom.      About 4 years ago I started using Seesaw in my classroom.  My purpose for using it was so that students could create a digital portfolio.  I am not a fan of the pizza box portfolio and found binders to be a bit cumbersome during the student-led conference so I wanted something that required very little storage space and more engaging for students to add their work to.  I cannot remember

Productivity: Multi-tasking vs Single-tasking I have never really liked the term multi-tasking.  I have never been able to do multiple things at one time successfully.  I often listen to audio books as I am cleaning, sometimes when I am planning, and mostly when I am cross-stitching but I often tune out the audio book and focus on the actual job that I am working on, causing me to miss large chunks of the story.  I can have multiple activities on the go, but I focus on each one at a time.  So basically, switching from one activity to the next and back again, but not really doing two or more things at once.  On the flip-side, single-tasking is hard for me to do too.  I often will have my phone near by when I am planning, writing a paper, or working on a project just so that I can take breaks.  I will go on social media, text people, and generally look up answers to random questions that pop into my mind. In the video for today's post, James Hamblin talks about how easy it is to get

Technology for Entertainment vs Technology for Education I read Neil Postman's  The Disappearance of Childhood for a course I took for my education degree about 12 years ago.  Other than reading that book and reading a few articles that either reference Postman or have been written by him, I have not really dug into his theories of education too deeply.  From what I gather in the quote for our blog responses this week: "...We know that "Sesame Street" encourages children to love school only if school is like "Sesame Street." Which is to say, we now know that "Sesame Street" undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents", is that using television programs for educational purposes may not have been something that he would have supported. I did read on http://neilpostman.org/ that his book Amusing Ourselves to Death  is "a screed against television and how it turns everything into banal entertainment - including education a