Professional Growth Plan

It seems strange and sad to be at the end of this road with no direction to go on from here. I am so worried about finding a job that I would be willing to do whatever to secure one. I suppose that everyone is feeling this; we went in at a time when all you had to do was graduate and you were hired. Now, everything is so uncertain. I might have to move to another province or country or even choose a new profession(even if I don't want to). It is hard to think positively about goals when the most important thing to me right now is finding a job and paying my bills.


Goal1: To take care of my body
I have been on the weight roller coaster ever since I started school. I cant seem to find the balance between healthy eating and getting enough exercise. I have to lose at least 25 pounds and though it really isn't that much weight I can really feel it effect my self esteem. I know that I will get into shape; I like to do things and see different places. I have started to do Yoga and I find that I really connect with the ideals and messages the practice portrays. I have been trying to do it everyday for at least 15 min. After I feel wonderful and refreshed. I would say that to fulfill this goal I would like to make Yoga and some other sort of sport or active recreation my criteria for fulfilling this goal.  
Goal2: Apply to every job that I see an opening for
I stalk the apply to education site and I mark the jobs but I have not applied to as many as I would like. Sometimes I see the requisites and think "well that's not me", but I cant afford to do that. I have to advocate for myself because no one else will. To achieve this goal I need to write a neutral cover letter that I can save and change as needed. I then need to take advantage of as many job opportunities that I can.
Goal 3: Learn French
I noticed that most of the student teachers who had a second or third language got hired right away. Also that there are many positions for French teachers all over the country. By learning French I can make myself more valuable to hire and widen my opportunities. I will have to take a few French courses and that may take time. I should look into the prices and availabilities of these courses so I know what to expect. Obviously the completion of this goal would be when I can speak, read, and write well enough in French to teach in an elementary setting. This will be the hardest goal because it takes me a long time to conjugate verbs or even to understand how to conjugate them. But because I know it will be difficult for me I get a better understanding for the students who also struggle with grammar and punctuation. 
Goal 4: Teach at least 1 inquiry project with personal feedback in my first year of teaching
I have learnt so much these past 2 years about pedagogy. I have struggled overcoming the ways I was taught to do things to help my students find their own way. After learning so much about inquiry and different assessment techniques how could I not use them? How I accomplish this goal will depend on what grade I teach, what my class is interested in, and how much time I have for the process.  I cant say that it will be in the next year, but maybe in the next 5 years when  I get a job.     

Self-Assessment for IO project

It is nice to be almost done!I have been so happy working with Danita because our styles of learning compliment each other nicely.This project has me very excited. I want to have a class now to teach this lesson to. I feel we were on the same page as to the planning and division of the work. We met to go over certain aspects and were constantly e-mailing back and forth. I have been sick again so this last month has really tired me but even though I had to reschedule a couple of times I did my half of the project.Through our meeting we collaborated our ideas and imputed the data onto IO.My goal is always to exceed expectations on a rubric and I feel that this is the closest Ive come to an organized inquiry on IO.We started pretty early getting this together and I feel that when one has time to consider all aspects of a project you always think of ways that would have worked better. For the time we had, and the amount of thought we put into this project I am very satisfied.I know that in two weeks I will have an idea that would improve the project, but I am under the impression that this happens to most teachers in the field and that they usually take a few years to work out all the kinks in a project. 

Assessment for Ingaged Learning

I keep forgetting all the ways that a teacher can assess student learning. There is so much variety in the ways that you can and the results you get. I have heard that feedback assessment was the most beneficial before, but not until after my practicum. I tried to use the class rubric and discuss the good work and bad work with them, but i wasn't consistent with bringing up the rubric every week to remind them what they had to do. Of course by the end of the project some of the students didn't meet the rubric because they had forgotten what they were supposed to do.  I love the idea of public feedback, and of establishing a learning community. I think I understand now how I can try to establish it. You have to teach the students how to assess themselves and others in a constructive way and get them used to giving and receiving that assessment. I love the statement "is that helpful or hurtful?" The goal for everyone was to better their work and not focused on grade.  I have always wanted to be that teacher to move the students learning up 2 or 3 grade levels. The rubrics do not have to be created all at once but a few questions at a time and very clearly outlined and defined. I would take one class to create an outline rubric with the students but I wouldn't go into the depth that really would have assisted them now that I look back. I love the idea of sending the rubrics home with parents and having workshops to help parents give critical feedback. That was something that always frustrated me as a student. My parents would say "good job" and I would say why and what was good and my parents were not prepared and did not have the skills to give me that feedback.

-teacher took small photos of students and had them self assess on behavior every day 1-4, Velcro,
- getting students to document their own work with a video camera
-having a class blog and website
-video documenting a project process
-Involving parents purposely
-sending rubrics home


This was the best presentation I have had this semester!

Horizon Project

I think that this site is fantastic. I think that giving professionals a voice in their specialty is something that doesn't happen enough. I wasn't surprised about the predictions for the next year, or for the predictions for the next 2-3 years. The predictions for the next year included e-books and mobiles. I'm not sure if they did this at the beginning of the year or at the end of 2010, but e-books and mobiles have been evolving since the blackberry first came out. Augmented reality was predicted in the next 2-3 years to become very popular and I think that it will continue to be in the next 10 years. There has been augmented reality products predicted since the 90's. The problem is that most of the technology was not affordable for the average person. My dentist had an augmented reality set in 1996 that you could watch TV on when you were having your cavities drilled.These are not new technologies and I don't think that these predictions are very insightful. I suppose if they were to say that these will be readily available to all people in society that might be different. The problem is that society is not equal and many in the lower income brackets will not have access. One might hope that they would have access through education, but with the countries education cuts there is little hope of that now. :(     

Xtranormal Presentation

Dr. Jones

Xtranormal Presentation

I can't tell you how much fun I had planning this presentation! I got to play around making movies, cartoons, and writing scripts! Drama and Art were always my favorite subjects and these programs: Xtranormal, Animoto, and Goanimate are so easy to use. 

I was first introduced to Xtranormal when my practicum teacher used it to create a  fake video conference with a Ear expert. We were working on the Hearing and Sound unit and had some science experts come in to review the program. The kids loved how both my partner teacher and I got to interact with the Ear doctor. She had the program divide the kids into groups and explain the tasks that they had to do. It created such a fun environment from the very start of the lesson that the students were "hooked" until the end and didn't want to go out for recess!

Xtranormal  is very well designed but beware if you are a perfectionist because you can spend hours going over and adding to your cartoon.There are tons of different styles to choose from (cuddly bears and crash test dummies ). If you want to go for the more detailed graphics it could end up costing you. However, as educators we can send an e-mail to their customer service address and get all the fees dropped. I was so impressed with this choice on their part, because this really is a great educating tool. I would caution anyone from letting their grade 4 class go on this site alone or unsupervised just because it does have an age restriction (pg13). I believe they chose this because you can view other people's movies and some of them would definitely not be appropriate for young children. For student use without constant supervision I would recommend  Goanimate because it is also easy to use and especially created for a younger age group. I loved the little props that you can use in Goanimate. It is not 3 dimensional like Xtranormal but it does the trick.

WEBSITES:

http://www.xtranormal.com

http://animoto.com

http://goanimate.com

Mexico2011

Mexico2011

Guest speakers fron the Calgary Catholic Board

Build 21century learning environments

-supporting one another in our practice
 -supporting teachers
-going from the classic lecturer to listener to active collaboration 
-Aisi = Alberta government help for teachers
-searching vs research
I love the term elbow partners, very creative way of saying turn to the people beside you. 
I am pleased to hear that the government did not cut this program completely, though a 50% drop in funding is substantial. The Literacy and numeracy is exactly what my partner teacher was trying to tell me when I was doing my practicum; they are beyond the subjects of Math or English just concentrating on the skills. Need to use technology to support tasks that are interesting. I love the commercial that one of the speakers ended with to illustrate the point that technology can only be used when it makes sense. The man kills a fly with his ipad and smashes the ipad far worse than the fly.
I love the points the speaker is making about the loss of skills in handwriting and wrist and finger strength. I noticed it in my first practicum and especially when I tried to get the students to sew a Christmas craft that I remember doing in grade 3. I was working with grade 5 students and they could not sew for the life of them; the project took all day. If someone had worked on fine motor skills when they were younger or even if I had thought to do some work before then it would have helped them to be more successful.

Be Positive!

I was unaware that showing library movies was illegal in the classroom.I really appreciated the link to the movie data base.

Working on the Circumference of the Earth

This was a fun task to complete and I know I would want to do this with my own students if I taught grades 5 or 6. I learnt the most about creating blog pages and what a powerful tool they can be in school. I would love for my class to have enough time to access the computers for a blog page. Unfortunately the reality is that this might be a homework assignment or a year long project that has only a few entries because of the limited time most classes have in the computer labs. Blogging would be a great way to get students to reflect and become more accomplished typers. I believe that being familiar with this type of technology will benefit me in the instance that now that I know how to use it  I more likely will.
Because our group had difficult time schedules we had to do quite a bit of work by correspondence and shared passwords. I found that this was a very effective way to work as long as the whole group understands the deadlines and objectives of the project. I think our group did very well when we divided the tasks and had an outline created. It was the easiest to do because of our schedules and everyone became accountable to the group for specific projects. I put the most pressure on the group because of my holiday plans and they were very accommodating by agreeing to meet a week earlier than we would have normally to plan everything out. Being away I did not see the finished project until I returned and was really impressed how it all came together. The most frustrating thing that we encountered was even though we all thought the project would be a great experience, we could not replicate it because it was the wrong time of the year and we could not get in touch with anyone from a school on the same latitude as us to complete the experiment. Because of this we had to find a more complicated way to figure out the circumference which involved several extra steps. I felt disappointed that I could not be part of the final steps to putting the project together, but I really enjoyed my holiday.  Next time I think I will invest in a fortune teller to inform me if the holidays written in the handbook are correct or not so I could be part of the whole process. the only thing I need to work on now is finding those contacts so that if i do attempt this project in the future I will have another teacher who is 500km away that I can work with.

Presentation on Second Language Aquisition and Researching

I have always been really  interested in learning other languages. I have learnt French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Latin and the FL Teach site looks great for me to find sources to translate and help improve my vocabulary. I really forgot how isolated I was when I lived in a small town considering language learning. We were lucky because my brother and I were in a French Immersion school that had teachers from Quebec. I remember though, being 11 and wanting to learn Japanese and having to use a huge old textbook and the audio tapes. Even access to the internet have improved the ability of students to better learn a second language.The group presenting gave some excellent sites and ideas about what to do  to help assist and hook students learning.

The second group also gave some excellent sites. I am really excited to use Jing; it looks like a great program. I also didn't know about the e-library on the Calgary Public Library site. It is just amazing that you can get papers from around the world for free and that are current. I would get so frustrated in my first year when I would find a great video and not be able to play it in the class. In this way you can download the video and share it in the class. I found this class extremely helpful and I cant wait to use it.   

Visit from Neil Stephenson

"Inquiry is how you think about the topics that you teach." 
                                                             -Neil Stephenson
I was really impressed with Neil as a speaker and the information he provided for the class. I was really interested in the Calgary Science School as a school and their modus operandi. I loved how they decided against expanding into two schools or a high school because they wanted to maintain their small status and focus on  perfecting their teaching skills to help others. I was not surprised that there are 3/4 more boy's at the school than girl's, but I was disappointed. 
 I really agreed with what he had to say about the inquiry procedure. I really liked how Neil made a point to discuss the fact that many teachers think that just having the technology in their classroom will help. I love that it is not about the technology; it is about the thought that goes behind the task that the teacher decides how to use the tools and why. He also reiterated the fact that teachers have to balance the fine line between  teacher centered classrooms and student centered classrooms. I just loved this class there was so much information to think about. 

Kate's and D'Arcy's Presentations

I have used Prezi before in a presentation but I did not know about Google docs. I'm not sure if this would help me out at all because it sounds like it is just the same as the windows programs. Though everyone would like to say that they don't support a multi- billion dollar monopoly, why fix what isnt broken? I understand that you can work on the projects from anywhere but in my first year i will be at the school till late hours  and probably working on my own laptop. The second presentation was more to do with what is possible with  a little technology. I think the idea is great for secondary students but not elementary. It would be very unlikely that all the students would have access to Iphones. It brings into question of whether a teacher would even want to bring Iphones into the classroom for independant movies. I know that my students from my last practicum would not have been able to handle it and they were a very well behaved and focused group. I was hoping that in these presentations we would go over how to use this software and little backdoor codes or cheats we could use to make things easier. 

Technology and Me

I have always been comfortable with technology. In my practicum I used the smart board for attendance and for Math and Literacy questions and assignments.The Smart board was pretty much always on and I thought that it did benefit the students to have daily interaction with this particular technology. I think that students need to be very literate in these different tools because they will be used as stepping stones for other systems that haven't been invented yet;just like when I was younger and used the Macintosh computers to play the Recycling game or practiced typing. Having said that, there are aspects of technology that I do not like. I feel that the way we use technology is very irresponsible. We have made our society more reliant on the unknown and the fast-food model of consumption. The idea of "I want it , and I want it NOW!" is just being reinforced so that potential consequences have no time to be reflected upon. Another concern for me is that though people are using technology, not many of them understand how and why it works. Who can actually build a computer from scratch? I know I cant and I have taken Computer tech. courses. Is this the right way to deal with a potentially powerful societal tool?