Information Technology Loving Librarian

Howard Rheingold TItle of image: Howard Rheingold Creator name: Joi Ito Source of the image:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2121488118 Of all the technologically inspired teachers out there, Howard Rheingold is probably my favourite. I first stumbled upon his blog through my Integration of Information and Computer Technology Part 2 course. I absolutely love his emphasis on teaching students how to detect crap online and I love how he asserts that this will have a positive effect on both the individual student or learner as well as on the internet commons. He provides insight on how the development of the internet has shifted the responsibility of detecting crap from the producers (publishers) to the consumers (readers). Prior to the internet, publishers were paid well to ensure that the information they were releasing to the world was accurate. With the advent of the internet, anyone can publish any crap at any time. These ideas were not completely new to me as a...

Had fun playing with piktochart today (https://piktochart.com/). Seemed user friendly enough. Wondering what will be the lowest grade level I could use this with. Here is my final product  https://magic.piktochart.com/output/23504981-digital-canadians-in-5 . CanadiansInternet.com was a great source of info to create the graphs  http://canadiansinternet.com/canadian-digital-social-mobile-statistics-global-scale-2014 . I used Google's search engine to find an image that was labeled for reuse and came across one from Thomas Galvez (2012) "Think before you" http://canadiansinternet.com/canadian-digital-social-mobile-statistics-global-scale-2014/ .

Here's great picture to consider when teaching digital citizenship. Always be careful who you add as a friend on any social media app. Buckley, L. (Photograph). (2013). Flikr.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybuckley/8642363966 

I didn't know this even existed until now. Another great resource to consider when teaching my students about digital citizenship. Includes resources for parents too. https://www.google.com/safetycenter/resources/

This has to be THE best resource out there to teach digital citizenship. It is so well organized. I love how it is based around the theme of the good Samaritan. I used some of the ideas and resources provided for my own students and they all seemed to really enjoy and learn from the lessons. Here's the link: https://sites.google.com/a/ocsb.ca/ocsb-digital-citizenship/  

Here's a different way of thinking of a digital footprint from the viewpoint of our students who are all digital natives and are born into this digital world.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79IYZVYIVLA  

I was looking at some of the other Professional Development videos offered through Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board (DPCDSB), specifically on YouTube as dpcdsb chats and came accross Newsela https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9tOj4jTJAA&t=277s . I remember my son using it during the year with his teacher in Grade 3 as he had to do a presentation an article he had selected through this site. If you go directly to the site https://newsela.com/ you will notice there is a class login students can use to access articles. What I like about Newsela is that it's a great online source of fairly well written articles. I have seen students try to do searches on the internet using Google and they usually don't have enough skill to discern between articles that are written well and articles that are written poorly. It's very user friendly. You can search articles by grade level. The only downsides are that their are no Kindergarten and grade 1 friendly articles accordi...

It's really great that this course has me blogging periodically, it's definitely helping me to reflect on my own learning by sharing it with the internet. It's a bit strange not knowing who might come across your work but it has been a benefit to my own personal development nonetheless.  Today I learned about wiki's and created my very first wiki space http://techlovinglibrarian.wikispaces.com. I had the opportunity to play with it a little bit. I still need more time to see how it all works but I really like the ability to use widgets and the calendar feature would be very helpful for school wide library events.  Do you use wikispaces with your students? Please share with any helpful comments or links. 

I just finished watching DPCDSB chats Tech Tuesday on YouTube, specifically the one on Cube for Teachers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GKaMDMabwQ&t=283s. This one holds a particular interest to me as both a teacher and a teacher librarian because it is a search engine for curriculum related resources for instruction, assessment as well as for related online tools. In the video Heather Hickey points out that one of its key features is to organize all of your links so that you don't just have a whole bunch of unorganized bookmarked favourites (which is exactly what I have). I'm going to try to remember to use this instead of Google next time I want to search for some ideas for lessons, units etc. Here's Cube For Teacher's How To Guide http://www.cubeforteachers.com/howto.php. In order to get an account you will need a board email and then you will have to verify your password. ENJOY!

Thinking today about resources that will further my understanding and assist me in supporting the needs of all learning.  The first, is a very well known resource for educators, EduGains (http://www.edugains.ca/newsite/HOME/index.html). I really like the way that it has some of the key Ministry of Education documents "floating" in a circle at the top of the page. It makes it very friendly to navigate some of the latest information. Within this circle of documents you can click on the "Learning For All" document and it takes you to another page with 4 slides, one of which takes you to a video from the Provincial Network Team providing further information about the things teachers can do to ensure the highest learning for all students in their classroom.  Another resource that I am hoping will help to increase the success of all my students specifically in Mathematics is Mathies. http://oame.on.ca/mathies/index.html. The site is designed with the Ontario Math C...

It was a bit discouraging at how difficult it was to find resources for student use for the learning about our First Nations  Métis and Inuit.  This resource is really great because it is cross-curricular. A teacher could use the stories contained in this free, online resource to cover Ontario Curriculum expectations in Language, Math and Social Studies. The illustrations are really well done. Check it out! http://mathcatcher.irmacs.sfu.ca/stories. I love how the websites name is mathcatcher, makes math seem all dreamy and fun. 

DPCDSB Chats is my go to YouTube channel whenever I'm looking for some professional development specifically with regards to how to use Educational Technological tools as well as how to use them for student learning. Many of these videos are created specifically for the Professional Development of DPCDSB's teachers so I high encourage you to take a peek. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4lBzt98SWxAmBMqWE0-jkQ Or just type DPCDSB into the YouTube search bar.

Really excited to participate in a Summer Institute (Professional Development) being offered by Dufferin Peel in August of mPower and mathies. I had a chance to register for an account and do some self-learning in the meantime and I am totally impressed. It is a website that has designed games for Grades K-6 all based on the Ontario Math Curriculum. It does not cover the entire curriculum but if you log in you can see under resources exactly which games cover which expectations. For example, for Kindergarten there are 7 different games that cover expectations from Patterning, Number Sense, Geometry, Probability, Data Management, Spatial Sense and Number Sense. The games are also real world and open ended. One of the neatest features of the website is that it is designed to keep track of student assessment for (diagnostic and formative) as well as as learning (reflection, metacognition). Looking foward to learning much more about this valuable tool next month. What are your though...

It's been over a year since I last wrote on my blog. Why did I stop writing? I had another child! It's amazing how busy these tiny humans can keep you. Luckily I have the help of family to watch my children while I take on the challenges of Integration of Computer Technology in Instruction Part 2 through York University.  I am so grateful to be participating in an online course with other talented educational professionals this summer. They are giving me the adult conversation stimulation that babies just can't provide.  BIG LESSON FOR TODAY... I'm making mistakes and I'm going to admit to them here. First mistake, I ate chocolate for breakfast....Seriously, it was the first thing I put it my mouth. I really need that jolt in the morning to get going. Coffee just doesn't cut it. I really should break this habit though. Other mistakes...I don't know how to get my blog to look as svelte as other peoples' blogs. ex. http://royanlee.com/. I want t...