Conversations about technology in the classroom.

The following post was created by Michelle Hordos & Shae-Lynn Kowaniuk.

In our ECMP 355 class we were asked to create a post illustrating possible issues regarding technology in the classroom.  Please note that this conversation is just an example, not a real one that took place.

The following is a conversation had after Ms. Smith, a Grade 2 teacher, asked parents’/guardians’ opinions about creating a classroom blog.

Email from Grade 2 Parent:

Dear Ms. Smith,

I am just writing to express some concerns I have in regards to you wanting to start a class blog. First of all, I appreciate the efforts you are making in helping with my child’s learning. I realize that technology is a big part of schooling and I do see some benefits with this richer learning experience for students. Also, I realize that a classroom blog would help with communication between parents/guardians and the teacher. However, I am concerned about the privacy of my child on the class blog. I would appreciate it if you could give me a little more information on what you would like to put on the blog and if my child’s name will be on there.

Best regards,

Kathy

 

Email Response to Parent:

Kathy,

Thanks for giving me some feedback about the blog I am wanting to create for our Grade 2 class. One of the main reasons for wanting to start this blog is so parents and guardians can see the work that their child is doing. Mainly, I would like to have a page for each child where I can add their learning and also use the blog as a communication tool with other classrooms as well. In addition, I would like to share things with parents/guardians like upcoming important dates, for example.

I understand your concerns about the privacy of your child. When creating this blog, your child’s full name does not have to be on there. Also, I can make sure that any pictures exclude your child’s face. Please let me know if these strategies to protect privacy are adequate enough. If you have any more questions please feel free to email back or call the school to get a hold of me.

Here is an example of a class blog to check out if you are interested. This is similar to what I would like to do for our Grade 2 class blog: http://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org/

Thanks,

Ms. Smith

Resources to support above response:

https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/start-classroom-blogging

https://www.teachstarter.com/blog/7-benefits-blogging-classroom/

 

Reply to Teacher from Kathy:

Ms. Smith,

I think the ideas you have for wanting to start a classroom blog are great. Your suggestions made to protect the privacy of my child will be suitable. I am very excited to see my child’s work more frequently now. I appreciate your willingness to accommodate for me and I trust that it will all work out.

As a side note, I was wondering about whether or not the students would also be engaged in putting things on the blog. As a parent I am concerned about if students know how to use sites such as blogs and what you are doing to educate them about technology. Grade 2 students seem young to be having their information on the internet and I just want to make sure that my child is receiving the proper education about online presence.

Thanks for putting the time into answering my questions,

Kathy

 

2nd Email Response to Parent:

Kathy,

I am happy to hear that my suggestions for privacy will work for you. In addition to creating the classroom blog, I am taking it upon myself to educate my Grade 2 students about something called digital citizenship. Digital citizenship covers topics such as online etiquette, communication, being healthy online, being kind to others, and digital security. All of these aspects of digital citizenship are very important to think about in our new digital world that most are engaged with, including young children. This will create positive digital citizens for the years to come.

These are some resources to look at to better understand digital citizenship if you are interested:

• http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/1331-why-is-digital-citizenship-important-even-for-youngest-kids
• http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/

I hope this helps in easing your mind about your child being engaged with technology.

Have a good day,

Ms. Smith

 

Reply to Teacher from Kathy:

Ms. Smith,

Thanks for all of the resources you have provided. I can tell that you have put a lot of thought into this idea of a blog and students using technology in school and life. Because of your help I feel much more comfortable with the use of technology in the classroom. I will be sure to contact you if I have any other questions.

Thank you and enjoy your day

Kathy

One layer, two layer, three layer…

Today’s task:

Mastering the Absolute Best Ever Lasagna recipe I found on Food.

First of all I needed to brown the ground beef. I also added onions and garlic to the pot.

I show the next steps in the following video. In this video I start what will be the meat sauce.

After this video I added the ground beef to the tomato sauce to finish the meat sauce. I let the meat sauce simmer on the stove until the noodles were ready.

Once I added the ground beef I prepared the cheese mixture that would be another one of the layers of the lasagna. I also prepared the lasagna noodles, which was the other layer.

The following video shows how to prepare the lasagna once you have all three components ready (noodles, meat sauce, and cheese mixture).

One layer, two layer, three layer…

The first layer is noodles, then the meat sauce, and then finally the cheese mixture. You can do how ever many layers you wish. I was only able to do two!

Here is the lasagna ready for the oven. Once you have the lasagna ready for the oven bake it for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. I found this time and temperature suitable enough.

I must say over all the lasagna turned out great! It was tasty. However, it wasn’t my favorite thing to cook so far. There were many dishes that I needed to use! Also, the whole process seemed time consuming. I am ready to try something else. Any suggestions for what I should cook next would be great!

On the other side of things Food seemed to be a good resource to use. You can sign up with them and save recipes if you wish.  I found the recipe on their site easy to follow and straight forward.

Also, I found an app that is helping me keep track of meals. The app is called Meal Planner. I downloaded the app from the play store. On the app you can not only keep track of meals you have, but also add ingredients and items onto your grocery list. In addition, there are some recipes on there! I am super excited to try this app out and I will let you know how it is working for me soon!

 

Happy blogging.

PS- I am still searching for video editing programs. Let me know if you have any good ones to use!

Also, let me know if my “how to” videos are helpful or how I can improve on them.

Our Digital Era & Digital Citizenship

Whether or not people accept the fact, today we are living in a digital world. We use technology for a number of things including communicating, gaining resources, and completing tasks. Increasingly there are less tasks that we have to complete on paper and mail. Even people who may dislike technology are having to access it. Thinking about this makes me realize just how big our digital world has become. So what are the implications of this digital world? What does it mean for people living in it and engaging with it? What does it mean for teachers? How does digital citizenship play a role in all of this? These are some of the questions I will be answering in this post.

What’s next?

Photo Credit: wabisabi2015 Flickr via Compfight cc

I’m thinking it is safe to say that we don’t have to worry about cats on the internet but you never know!

Anyway…

I first want to address what is talked about in Character Education for the Digital Age. The article shares that one of the challenges of digital citizenship is to teach our students how to navigate through our ever changing digital world. I believe this is definitely one of the major challenges we face. It goes on to say that whether we teach our students that they have two lives or one deeply affects how students will navigate through our world.  “Two lives” means that students should live unplugged from technology at school and only plugged in out of school. “One life” means that it is our job as educators to help students live one life by encouraging them to use technology at school and within the greater community and society.

There is debate whether children should live one life or two lives. The dangers of living two lives is that students are left to learn outside of school about technology themselves. They are not taught about issues like cyber bullying or sexting. Also, this creates a world where adults are less involved with what students are doing online. The article states that school is a great place to teach kids to become good digital citizens who use technology effectively and wisely. I agree with what the article is saying. Instead of pretending that technology is not there we need to talk about it and ensure our students know all that the internet consists of and how to engage with it in a positive way.  There are many different tools out there for students to use. We need to show students how to use these tools to best suite them and the online community. It is not only about showing them how to use the tools, but also awareness that tools could possibly be misused. We do not want to scare students, but want them to have knowledge to make the best choices.

Photo Credit: rainerstropek@yahoo.com Flickr via Compfight cc

I now want to touch on what Jessica Lewis shared in her post about digital citizenship. Jessica raises a very strong point on how to teach students about digital citizenship and the importance of modelling netiquette. Of course modelling is important for any task for students to learn but I think she made a great connection to digital education as well. Modelling netiquette for students is so important so they take on the same roles when engaging online. We can teach students a variety of things about netiquette including proper citation, sharing opinions, connecting with others, having empathy, and simply being kind. When we teach students about proper netiquette we enable them to be good citizens in this fast pace world.

Photo Credit: The DEMO Conference Flickr via Compfight cc

I want to finish off this post by asking you:

What are your thoughts about digital citizenship?

How are you going to teach about digital citizenship in the classroom?

Some Helpful Tools…

Where has the time gone?! We are over half done our semester and I would like to give you some reviews on the tools and resources I have been using so far for my learning project in ECMP 355.

Photo Credit: ❡ ♻ ₭ Flickr via Compfight cc

Here are some of the resources I have used so far and how they have been working for me:

1. YouTube: I know quite a few people have been using YouTube as a source for their learning project, like Robbi Nace Keller in her post. She uses YouTube as a source to learn how to sharpen her gravers. I think YouTube is a great tool to use to learn new things. In my own experience for my learning project I have used YouTube just a couple times to learn a recipe or see how to do something. Mainly I use written recipes and instructions because I prefer to learn that way. However, YouTube has served as a place where I can also upload videos for others to see. For example, in this video I explain how to make the filling for shrimp fajitas. YouTube allows me to easily share “how to” videos and instructions with others. So far YouTube has been an awesome tool to use. I think we can say: Thank-you YouTube!

Photo Credit: redsoul300 Flickr via Compfight cc

2. Pinterest: I don’t need to say much about Pinterest. I think we all know how great it is! I have countless boards on Pinterest, including resources for teaching. However, I have been using Pinterest for my learning project as well. I have a board specifically for recipes I can use. It is so easy to search for something and find it on Pinterest. If you haven’t gone to Pinterest for your learning project yet I suggest you do!

Photo Credit: vastateparksstaff Flickr via Compfight cc

3. Cliptomize: I have already shared quite a bit with you about Cliptomize. I just want to remind you that it has been super helpful for me in recording all the recipes I have done and want to keep for the future.  Cliptomize isn’t just for cookbooks, you can make any kind of book on there. I suggest you check this resource out!

4. No. 2 Pencil: I found this blog when searching for recipes for my learning project. I have used a couple of recipes from here so far. This site is super awesome because aside from a ton of recipes there is also DIY and craft ideas to check out and use.

5. Natasha’s Kitchen: This is also a blog I found when searching for recipes. This resource has an inviting tone and lots of great stuff! Recipes are categorized nicely so they are easy to find. Check out the categories here.  Also, the recipes on this blog are easy to follow. One cool thing I found was this blog encourages you to share what you have cooked on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and tag it with #natashaskitchen. I may have to do this task sometime!

6.  CyberLink Media Suite: I have been using CyberLink Media Suite to try to edit my videos that I create. However, I have had trouble trying to edit out parts of my videos on advanced video editing. If anyone has the same program on their HP computer and knows more about it please comment below and help me out!

7. CyberLink YouCam: I have been using CyberLink YouCam to record all of the videos I have shared so far. Below a boy explains some of YouCam’s features. CyberLink YouCam is an easy enough tool to use to create videos. You simply click the Capture button to record and then click it once more to stop. So far this tool has been working for me. Also, like he mentions in the video, it is easy to transfer videos from this program to YouTube once they are created.

I hope you appreciate the resources I have shared so far. Check them out and let me know what you think of them! In the future I will be sharing more with you and giving reviews.

I want to finish with questions for you:

1. What resources have you used so far and have they been helpful?
2. What video editing tools do you use? (Please share as I am seeking to find a program that is useful to me- easy to edit out parts of a video and possibly be able to add text, music, or other simple features.)

Pork-chops & videos- random hey?!

It feels good to be back after February break and be writing a blog post! It’s even better that I am continuing on my ed. tech. journey while enhancing my cooking skills. You may be wondering why my title is so random- well I will be telling you about cooking pork-chops and showing videos so there you have it! Feel free to give me feedback on anything!

Watch below for an introduction to what I prepared in the kitchen today. I am trying to incorporate more videos into my posts sharing things with you!

Today was definitely my biggest challenge in the kitchen so far. I chose to step out of my comfort zone a little bit and prepare something that was a little more challenging to get right. Today’s task was to prepare pork-chops and scalloped potatoes! To view the recipe click here. I retrieved this recipe from The Midnight Baker. I encourage you to check out their site! This recipe drew my attention because you could put everything together in one pan to bake- again less dishes!

Now I am going to take you through what I did to prepare and cook the pork-chops and scalloped potatoes because at times it may have been a little bit different than what the recipe asked.

Step 1: Cut up vegetables. I chopped the potatoes and onions into thin slices to go on the bottom of the pans, underneath the pork-chops.

Step 2: Watch the video below to see what I did next after cutting up the vegetables. The one thing I forgot to mention in the video is to cook the dish for 1 hour at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

What is said in the video:

• Season potatoes and onions with salt, pepper, seasoning salt, garlic salt, paprika, and chili powder. Then mix together.
• Add potato mixture to pans.
• Brown pork-chops separately in frying pan on stove.
• When pork-chops are done browning put them on top of potatoes in pan.
• Pour sauce (mushroom soup and milk) over pork-chops and potatoes and then bake in oven.

I hope the video above helped in understanding what I did! I want to provide more “how to” videos seeing as some prefer that over just text and pictures.

Below is the finished product and us “digging in” to our meals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned this week to see some reviews on the tech. tools and resources I have been using so far for my learning project!

 

I want to end off with 2 questions for you for now:

What video editing tools do you use?

What strategies do you use to choose blog post titles? (I think my titles could use some help)

It only takes one second…

“It only takes one second to put yourself up, but you can never take yourself down” – by Carol. This blog post is being written after having guest speaker Carol Todd in our ECMP class.

Carol Todd is a strong woman in my eyes. Her demeanor and attitudes after what happened to her and her family is positive and inspiring. I am very grateful to have had her speak to me (and us) to share some information about the case, but also what we need to be doing as educators to help prevent sextortion and innocent people being victimized. Watch the video below to learn more about sextortion and how it can be prevented.

Carol Todd’s words were very important for teachers to listen to. In the next couple paragraphs I am going to share some of her words that stuck out to me most. Close to the beginning of her visit Carol shares that there would be a lot more she would tell her daughter about online if she could go back. Later on she goes on to say that parents (and teachers) cannot be afraid to talk to young people about what can happen online, what goes on in their lives, sex education, and about mental health. She states that we need to normalize these conversations so these young people are more likely to share with us if something is going wrong. I agree with Carol and see the importance of talking with young people and letting them know that they will not get in trouble if they share what is going on. In addition, we need to educate young people on the severity of some topics such as sextortion and have them informed about what they can do in various situations online.

There is one more point I want to touch on from Carol’s presentation. Carol said in her presentation that there is no such words as “get offline” anymore. This relates to the way some people out there think about cases where young people are online and face sextortion or other bad situations. Some people think that if a person simply goes offline they will have no problems left and can live a regular life. I think this is false because what is online cannot be erased and others around you still see it and comment on it. Also, I find that being online can be addicting to some people so to say to them  to go offline is troubling. In addition, it seems like everyone is online today so how is one supposed to stop going on? Instead of telling people to stay offline we need to educate (young people in particular) about how to be respectful online, how to be safe, awareness of who is out there online, and most importantly- how to have empathy for others (important in real life as well). After Carol’s presentation I recognize the need for educating my students about online, more than ever before.

The last thing I want to talk about is the documentary I watched about Amanda Todd from the fifth estate. Below is the documentary I will be talking about. Watch if you are seeking to learn more information about the story of Amanda Todd (Carol Todd’s daughter) and what the Todd family has been through.

In watching this documentary I pulled a couple significant points that have made me think a little differently about my role as an educator. In the documentary they share that the internet serves as another audience for people to become known and popular on. Some people (including students) can become transfixed by the image on the computer screen and have a different version of themselves online. This is problematic because people then do not realize what they are doing because they just want the attention that people are offering them on various sites. As an educator I need to teach young people to not get fixated on online attention and to make safe choices about what they should be sharing. Teachers need to help protect students, rather than having a deadly silence by not talking to them about the internet at all.

In the documentary they state that there are many other victims out there today. Unfortunately, it is very hard to stop online predators. However, we can work to educate our young people and provide support to them. I want to finish this post by sharing a resource from the documentary- Cybertip.ca. This site is where people can report online abuse. Please share this report form with your students, parents, and anyone else online. It may stop a bully or even save a life. Let’s empower the right people.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

What’s cooking in Michelle’s kitchen today?!

Hi all!

So, what was cooking in my kitchen today?

The final product!

BEEF STIR FRY!

For my learning project this week I embarked on making beef stir fry with rice. It took me a while to find a beef stir fry recipe I liked and one that I had all of the ingredients for. I found a recipe on a food blog this week called Natasha’s Kitchen. I strongly suggest you check this blog out. There are tons of recipes that you can search for or find by category. It is a user friendly site that I found to be super helpful!

Now I will show you some of the steps I went through today to prepare my beef stir fry!

NOTE: I had the skillet set to about 250 (medium heat) for most of the time.

First of all I cut up the beef steak I was using into longer, thin strips and then added it to the skillet with 1 tbsp of oil.

Once the meat was partially cooked I added the garlic and spices it called for. In addition I also added paprika and chili powder. I let that sit for about 10 minutes and then added about half of the sauce I was to prepare.

After adding the spices and sauce I waited for about 20 minutes and then added the vegetables (mushrooms, onions, celery, peppers, carrots). You can choose whichever vegetables you like and put them in. The recipe told me to cook the vegetables separate but I just added them to the skillet with the meat and cooked them together. This approach worked out well and less dishes!

 

Once the vegetables were mostly cooked I added the rest of the sauce and let that cook for about 20 minutes before I changed the setting to warm until lunch. Below is a picture of the stir fry ready to be served with rice.

Overall, the process of making stir fry was not too bad! The recipe I found was fairly simple to follow- I made a few adjustments to it but thankfully it turned out anyway! I think this was my strongest dish yet and the feedback I got from family was great! For the full recipe and instructions click here.  Hope you try it, it was really good.

Lastly I want to share with you the kitchen tool I used this week- an electric skillet. This is a great tool because it is essentially a frying pan that plugs in. It has different heat settings, will cook food for a long time without you having to check it often, and you can get a fairly big size. I found this tool very easy to use to make stir fry in because everything could be cooked well in the same place! I strongly suggest you look into buying one of these! Canadian Tire has great deals on them sometimes! Just check out their website or go there.

One last thing- I have now added a few recipes to my Cliptomize cookbook. Check it out here!

When life gets tough make banana bread with mom.

My learning project is not only serving as a learning experience- but a stress reliever. It seems like the world is so demanding around us: deadlines, work or school tasks, learning new things, etc. Sometimes we need to stop and appreciate the little things in life. Like making banana bread with your mom! I was going to share the recipe my mom has been using for banana bread for years (and the one we used to make our banana bread yesterday). However, my site isn’t liking me very much today. I was going to upload a picture of the recipe but it was not loading. Anyway, if you are interested in the recipe comment below and I will get it to you!

I classify my mom as a great cook. She has been cooking for her family for about 30 years now. If I cannot find something online for my learning project I can definitely ask her! Some day I hope to be as good at cooking as my mom is. The cooking I am embarking on for my learning project will hopefully send me on my way to being a better cook. Not only does my mom help and inspire me to cook, she also inspires me to do things in life. She is a positive and go to person to talk to. Anyway, I have a question for you: Is there someone who inspires you to do things in life? What have they inspired you to do? We all know building relationships and connecting with others is important. Comment below if you want to share with me who inspires you and why.

Lastly, I want to share some great resources with you if you are wanting to do some cooking yourself. I suggest you check these out:

• allrecipes
• epicurious
• food network Canada
• simply recipes
• yummly

In addition to these there are many more! Just google cooking recipes. Anyway, I will be using some of these in the next little while. You can also let me know what you think of these resources if you decide to use them. Just comment below.

Again, sorry for the absence of pictures! Thanks for reading.

-Michelle

DIGITAL identity

One word. One sentence. One share. One post. One moment. One mistake.

Unfortunately, these thoughts circulate my head as I think about digital identity. I may be too paranoid but I think quite often about the scary things that could happen when engaging with online spaces and creating a digital identity. It only takes one person to take a post the wrong way, or one day for someone to not even recognize what they may be saying and how it could be marginalizing or discriminating others in this world. We have seen it countless times on the internet where people have made that one mistake and paid for it in their lives. It may have been intentional or may not have been intentional- the thing is SOME PEOPLE DON’T CARE. However, Katia gives me hope that people forgive others who make mistakes. She shared that she thinks it is important to allow people to move forward after they have made an unintentional mistake online. I really like this point she offers because we may be misunderstanding the person that we think did something SO wrong.

In no way would I ever anticipate making that one mistake, it is just always in the back of my mind as a share things with this ever evolving digital world that connects people in a matter of seconds.

 Photo Credit: aquopshilton Flickr via Compfight cc

On the flip side I now want to touch on my own digital identity. In high school I considered myself to be a conservative person online. There were only a few posts or tweets along the way that seemed a little silly (like saying I am bored, haha). Even before beginning university I was always worried about what others would think of me online. Similar to the way Christina Thiel shared what she used to think about digital identity in her post, I used to also think that “being invisible was much better than being visible”. Her post spoke volumes to me because previously I would try to also hide online in hopes that no one would notice my profiles in fear of their judgement (not that I actually had anything to worry about). Only recently, actually, after joining this class I recognized the importance of creating a positive digital identity. Creating a positive digital identity can allow me to showcase myself in a great way to others- show my strengths and abilities. From now on I am going to work hard to develop and strengthen my positive digital identity.

I am happy to say that 2 of the 3 top results that came up on DuckDuckGo when I searched my name were my professional Twitter account and my blog! This gives me some satisfaction that I am on my journey of building a positive digital identity!

 

My Take on Shrimp Fajitas & Fries

At the beginning of my learning project I had stated that I am not only trying to learn how to cook more foods and use different tools in the kitchen, but am also trying to cook healthy. Today I made  shrimp fajitas and oven baked crispy french fries.  Yes, when first reading this it does not sound healthy, however, the shrimp was baked in the oven with vegetables to fill the tortillas and the fries were oven baked with minimal oil. It may not be your healthiest meal but it is a step in the right direction if you are trying to eat healthy, but still enjoy food.

This week I mainly used Pinterest and YouTube as resources for my learning project. Using Pinterest was easy for me because I found and followed a recipe on there last week that turned out. I strongly suggest using Pinterest as a resource because it is super easy to find things and save for later. YouTube on the other hand was a new resource and experience for me because I am used to learning by reading and then understanding. When using the YouTube video I had to re-watch it a few times to get out all of the main elements I would need to follow for the recipe. I know, it sounds silly but I learn by reading, not watching videos! I find this interesting because most people I talk to say they can learn better from watching videos. Anyway, below is the video I followed to make the oven baked crispy french fries.

I followed the directions in the video very closely and the potatoes turned out… score! YouTube as a resource for my learning project, on the other hand, I am not so sure about yet. I think I enjoy going on blogs, Pinterest, and other mainly text sites that offer recipes and tips for cooking. On a complete aside, this is interesting to note as an educator because I need to remember I have students that learn through text and visuals, as well as other mediums.

I realize I am getting sidetracked. Below is a short video showing the steps I completed to prepare the shrimp fajita filling to go in the oven. I forgot to mention in the video that I chose to cook it on low so it would take longer (30 minutes). In the recipe it suggests it will be ready in 10 minutes. I had my fries cooking at the same time so I didn’t want the shrimp to be done earlier. After the filling was finished in the oven I simply filled a tortilla and added whatever sauce I wanted. They turned out delicious! For the full recipe and cooking instructions go here. Pinterest took me to this site (No. 2 Pencil) where it gave the full information for the recipe.

This video was not easy for me. I have never even attempted to record myself to teach others before, let alone record it and try upload it to an online blog!! This video is an amazing feat for myself! Learning this process of recording and uploading has been a valuable experience in itself, let alone the things I have been learning about cooking. If any of you are wondering how I created this video and uploaded it I simply recorded it through my webcam and then uploaded it to my YouTube channel. On there it turned it into a YouTube video and then I was able to share it easily in this post by copying the link on its own line! For those of you worried about others online seeing your video on YouTube, don’t worry- there is a private setting on there so only you can see it! Please have a look and give me feedback or tips on how I did on the video! I am proud to say I figured this all out myself.

I want to finish this post off with sharing some of the things I have learned thus far from engaging in this learning project:

1) I have learned to be more confident in myself and my cooking abilities. My dishes have turned out great so far.

2) I have added simple dishes that are delicious to my cooking toolbox.

3) I can use technology to my advantage! I have thoroughly enjoyed the engagement I have had with technology so far and I have been learning so much (like making and uploading a video). Thank-you ECMP 355!!

 

Thanks for reading- stay tuned for more on my learning project soon!