Hello again! Thank you for returning to my blog. I am finally getting around to posting about my second day at Ed Innovation 2016. The second day was another day of discovery, sharing, and tons of Tweets :) Read below for the rest of my reflections: Our keynote speaker for Day 2 was John Bailey from Google Expeditions. He led us on an incredible journey in Space using our newest tool- Google Cardboard. This cardboard device allows students to immerse themselves in the virtual world. They can move around the Space Station or swim the Great Barrier Reef. My AT and I were imagining all the possibilities of introducing this to our students. Everyone in the gymnasium was buzzing with excitement over this amazing tool. You can take your class on a field trip from the comfort of their own desk. Google Cardboard opens up a whole world of opportunity and exploration for our students. You can see my AT and I were having a great time exploring the Space Station :) My first workshop of the day was App-Smashing where we were immersed in the world of Green Screen animation. This new technology will allow for more differentiated learning in the classroom. It was especially fun to play with the filters and backgrounds. Again, I was imagining all the ways to introduce a Green Screen into my class. I am so impressed with the way classroom technology is developing! As you can see, I was also able to take a trip to Space! ![]() My second workshop was Google Tour Builder. This amazing tool allows for students to take a virtual field trip from their Chromebooks or laptop devices. The tool allows for students to search various locations around the world and create a story. The presenter was explaining how this tool could change the way students even complete book reports. Instead of having students write the events of a narrative, have them create a Google Tour showing the different settings of the story. This was something I had never thought of before. Google Tour builder could also allow students to talk about summer vacations stories, or talk about current events. It was a tool with many possibilities. My third workshop of the day was Hapara. This tool allows teachers to share content, assess, and chat with students about work progress. This tool makes it easier for teachers to share class material with students. Rather than making a dozen photocopies,Hapara send the worksheets to the students' Google Drives. This also saves the teachers lots of assessing time and chasing down students to hand in assignments. Hapara is constantly updating and changing to meet the needs of the students and teachers. I will definitely use this tool in future practice. The final workshop of the day was The Maker Mindset. This workshop was led by one of my previous professors, Professor Michelle S. Hagerman. She was discussing with us the possibilities of creating a maker mindset in the classroom. She told us the story of her Father, who would have thrived from a maker classroom. In a maker classroom, the students would complete hands-on activities and participate in rich discussions. We would give the students the tool they need, and allow them to discover, tinker, wonder, and achieve on their own. In my future practice, I want my class to shift to student-led from a teacher-led approach. The students would find a project that inspires them, work hard at it, and share their success, or failure, with the class. These kinds of projects help students become risk-takers in their educational journey. I was very moved by Michelle's words. It inspired me to do something different with my students than how I was traditionally taught. ![]() Overall, Ed Innovation was such an amazing experience for me. I walked away with tons of tips, tricks, ideas, and goals to give my future students the best classroom experience. I was also able to purchase an autographed copy of Chris Hadfield's The Darkest Dark. I am still fan-girling over that! I want to extend my deepest thanks to Ed Innovation, all the speakers, presenters, volunteers, and, especially, the University of Ottawa Faculty of Education program for allowing us to attend this amazing summit! Please comment below with any stories from Ed Innovation! And, as always, the shameless plug portion of the blog. You can follow me on Twitter @cstar012 for more updates and future blog posts!! Thanks for stopping by, Miss. Starkey :)
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Hi everyone! Today's blog post is a reflection of my first day at Ed Innovation 2016. This is a special weekend workshop discussing innovative teaching strategies and technology integration. It was an action-packed first day! I cannot wait to share with you all I learned. The day began with an exciting and inspiring speech by astronaut Chris Hadfield. He enchanted the audience with his anecdotal stories of dreaming of becoming an astronaut. As an educator, he reminded me that failure is not the end. Failure is a reminder to try again. Failure makes us feel uncomfortable, but it is an important part of the learning process. We want to inspire young minds to become risk takers. Also, we want our students to dream bigger and dream the impossible. I was captivated by Chris's words, and it truly inspired me as a future teacher. My first workshop of the day was Escape Rooms and Deep Learning. Our presenters explained how they brought the trendy Escape Room activity into a rich, learning environment. This was a student-led project which had students design a room filled with puzzles and clues. I love how this project was created entirely by students, and shows how dedication and hard work allow students to flourish. I was astounded by the props and clues that these students created. I was really impressed! It was also nice to read the student reflections, describing how proud they were of their hard work and how much the enjoyed sharing the Escape Room with friends and family. I was also introduced to a different way of looking at multiple intelligences. I normally associate multiple intelligences with Gardener's theory. I think of kinesthetic learners, visual learners, logical learners, etc. The types of learners introduced in our workshops (the hustlers, the designers, and the hackers) made me reflect on how I differentiate learning. It narrows down my options into three categories. The student would choose the job that appeals to him or herself. The names are also really cool! My second workshop was App-Tastic. We were introduced to three interactive apps to engage student learning: Plickers, Kahoot, and Showme. Plickers was a twist on the common multiple choice exam. I've already used this app in class, and I love it! It is very interactive and gives students plenty of thinking time. Also, the app only shows which students answered the question, not who has the right or wrong answer. Kahoot is another app I have used in class. It is also very fun! Some may feel anxious with the timer and points, but it is a great way to engage students. Showme is great app similar Sketchnote, but it adds voice and video recording. I like how this app is a great alternative for students who may feel nervous presenting in front of a class. Needless to say, myself and my fellow colleges enjoyed Plickers very much ;) Plus, these Google cookies we got for lunch were very Instagram worthy! My third workshop was Lego Math! I was very excited once we received our Lego pieces. We did a quick warm up of making a bar graph using Lego figures. We also had to create little ducks using six pieces of Lego. This simple warm-up exercise showed us the importance of differentiation. We all had the same pieces, but our ducks looked different. The presenter gave us many activities we can do with the students using Lego, lessons that I didn't think of before. He showed us how students can create Cartesian planes, plot ordinal/spatial movements, create symmetrical pictures, even make patterns. I left the workshop full of ideas to integrate Lego into the classroom. It will utilize hands-on, inquiry learning and encourage students to think outside the box. My last workshop of the day was Breakout Edu. The workshop showed us how to create breakout boxes in the classroom to encourage student inquiry and problem-solving. The breakout boxes we played with today were created by students. The clues really made me think. Our team took 17 minutes to open our Breakout box. They were well crafted and tied in perfectly with the theme. Our box was themed Mario and it tied into the Grade 5 Math curriculum. It also promoted teamwork and collaboration as one student is not responsible for the entire group. I love how most of the items used to make the boxes were found at the Dollar Store. I definitely want to try Breakout boxes in my Practicum class. It was quite the exciting first day at Ed Innovation 2016. Tomorrow will bring another day of inspiring talks, interactive workshops, and new ideas to bring into the classroom. Be sure to check back on the blog for my updates and photos from Day 2! And as always, you can follow me on Twitter (@cstar012) as I am live-tweeting the entire weekend for Ed Innovation 2016!
Until next time, Miss. Starkey ![]() Good morning everyone! In today's blog post, I will discuss my experience using Pear Deck in the classroom. This is an amazing tool to bring into the class to promote interactive student voice and participation! I have never used a tool like Pear Deck before. In my last Practicum, I did many a presentation using Smart Notebook. Don't get me wrong, my students adored using the Smart Board, but I believe using Pear Deck takes your presentation to the next level. My current AT uses Pear Deck in the class. It is amazing to see how the students engage with the material when using Pear Deck. I find my students who are more quiet in the class feel they have a voice. When his or her answer appears on the projector for all to see, a small smile appears on his or her face. A smile of pride for having their work recognized. Recently, my classmate Riley and I talked about Pear Deck to our peers. It was something new we learned about last year at the University. Our peers were very engaged with the presentation, and loved following along their own devices. The features of Pear Deck were quite exciting for them to use. The sketching feature was the most popular when we asked them to circle the excellent benefits of Pear Deck using their device. The draggable feature was also fun we they were asked if they would use Pear Deck in their class. I was very pleased to see that most of the class was interested to use it during their Practicums. Pear Deck is also a great tool because it sends students their own take away results. These results save to their documents and students are able to see how they performed during the presentation. The teacher also receives a saved copy of the Pear Deck results into a sheets folder to help with assessment. No need to find a paper trail of results anymore! I will be using Pear Deck during my upcoming Practicum. I believe this is something my students will enjoy. It teaches them the subject matter in a unique way. And it gives them to opportunity to become the teacher and go through the slides at their own pace. It changes the dynamic of the classroom setting to a student-led lesson rather than a teacher-led lecture. I will share below the analysis of Pear Deck created by Riley and myself. We go into further detail about the great aspects of using Pear Deck in the classroom. It helps to promote digital literacy and differentiated instruction. It is an amazing tool to use. And it's free! The premium account does give you more features to play with, such as draggables and sketching. However, the free account still has great features to navigate. I hope you enjoyed reading today's post! More importantly, I hope this gives you the push to try Pear Deck out in your class with your students. Please comment below your experiences with Pear Deck! And as always, you can follow me on Twitter for more updates and photos of the exciting things done in Teacher's College. You can follow twitter.com/cstar012
Take care everyone! Miss. Starkey :) |
AuthorCaitlin Starkey is a Teacher Candidate from the University of Ottawa. She loves to read, watch movies, and drink lots of hot chocolate. These blog posts are a glance at her lesson plans, personal reflections, and ramblings about everyday observations. Archives
February 2017
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