Before taking EDUC-431 at the University of Northern British Columbia, I would have thought that attempting technology in the classroom was just another obstacle that teachers are facing. This course transformed my mindset and approach to technology both in the classroom and as a professional learning tool. I learned an enormous amount about networking through twitter as a professional, ePortfolios as a reflection tool, and technology integrated into the classroom.
Twitter is something that I have often considered but was nervous to encompass into my life. I am already very connected to the social media realm and was hesitant to add onto this social load with yet another social media platform. It turns out that this social media platform ended up being a huge part of me becoming a modern educator as I could get ideas from others and discuss hot topics in the educational world. One of the best parts of twitter that I discovered was #bcedchat which is an educator mediated twitter chat that occurs every Sunday at 7 pm pst. The chat can involve anyone in the province as long as they have a twitter account. Anyone using the hashtag #bcedchat could join in on the conversation and respond to the question topics that were sent out every few minutes by the mediators. I enjoyed this way of learning because I could use my phone or computer and participate in professional learning from the comfort of my own home. I also enjoyed the ability to learn and connect to all the different educators province wide. I believe that by participating in this chat I will be a better educator moving forward.
ePortfolios are the one part of EdTech that I was the most excited about. Anyone who knows me knows I love to talk about myself and my education. The ePortfolios provided the perfect opportunity for me to blog, record, and reflect about my journey as a new educator. If I am being completely honest I probably spent more time perfecting my ePortfolio than anything else during the entire semester. I enjoyed blogging because I was able to sit down at the end of every presentation we had and reflect on what went on and what all we learnt about. This is so important to me because I lose information fast if I don’t take the time to reflect. By recognizing my need for reflection I also learned a lot about how students’ learning works. I have become very intentional during my practicum time with reflection time for students. I think it’s important to always review what you know and connect it to where you are going.
Technology in the classroom is another thing I was nervous about at first when I heard that this was going to be something we were learning about. Our presentation from Sandra McAulay was the first presentation that really spoke to me. I learned about how technology should be used as an aid to providing access to success in the classroom. Sandra gave our classs several resources to use as educators and walked us through programs and using them for educational aids as well as assessing students’ progress through tech. Although Sandra’s presentation was so fantastic, I learned a great deal from several other presentations including Tim Cavey’s presentation. Tim Cavey used the Blue Jeans app to present over the webcam and discussed the use of podcasts. Following his presentation I started to listen to several podcasts from his channel Teachers on Fire and have thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment and professional learning I get from them. I enjoy the ability to listen to a podcast while I am completing mindless daily tasks so that I can learn while being productive at home.
Following this class, I have thought a lot about using technology in the classroom. I have also integrated activities like the coding activity that was presented by Sandra MacAulay into my practicum classroom. We watched a video on giving exact instructions and then related this to coding. The coding activity that we completed was without the use of computers. Students could use the arrow symbol pointing in all 4 directions, a star symbol, and a lightning bolt symbol. The star and lightning bolt could mean whatever they wanted but they had to creat a legend. The students worked in partners and had to code eachother to follow a series of actions using the symbols they were provided. One thing that I really enjoyed with doing this activity with my class was that it was snowing almost all day until we completed this and a couple of my students used the snow to write and create a code for each other to follow.
Exact Instructions Challenge PB&J Classroom Friendly | Josh Darnit
My ePortfolio is already becoming a handy storage unit for resources I will be including in my future classrooms. This week I plan on using my ePortfolio’s standard 3 section to access Katie Marren’s meditation for the classroom resources. Before taking EDUC-431 I don’t believe that I would have been able to say I achieved the use of technology in my classroom and now I am integrating it in the most simple ways.
I feel lucky to have participated in EDUC-431 EdTech class at the University of Northern British Columbia because it has allowed me to connect with eleven different educators who all specialize in different areas of technology. EdTech allows us to bring in expertise from all over by breaking the barriers of distance with modern technology and network with so many amazing educators. One thing I am so appreciative of in this course is the amount of times the presenters would stress the importance of taking a step back and preventing tech from taking over your professional life. Sally Song said it best: “teachers tend to experience a lot of pressure to do new things and be innovative. Know your limits within the technological mind frame and go from there.” I think that it’s so easy to get carried away with the technological world of education and as much as it is important to try new things once in a while it’s more important you don’t burn yourself out doing so. It is far better to master a few things than to take on too much and give up early on.
This EdTech class has provided me with so many new resources and supported me in building my professional learning network. I am thankful for this course as it has set me up for success as a modern educator and opened up my eyes to all the possibilities in EdTech. I plan on continuing to use both my professional twitter account and my ePortfolio as learning tools. So although this blog is an end to my course, it is not an end to my technological journey as an educator.
