Tikatok

Kids always like to see their stories published. Tikatok is a way to do that. Books can be shared online for others to read, and they can be published into a hard copy, but the cost would be substantial for a whole class, around $11.00 /per softcover. Nonetheless, the process of creation is there and they can read their work online and it looks very professional. They also can email and share it with others.
As always, the preparing for the writing is the crucial aspect of the wiritng process. Learning how to transfer their story into the tikatok format would be hard work at first for young elementary students, but it would be exciting.
I practiced by starting a simple book. http://www.tikatok.com/view/book/learning-about-tikatok I do think it has possiblities.

Voice thread is a tool that I am playing with and talking to teachers about. I was introduced to it by my colleague, the Learning Resources consultant. I made a couple of my own, just to get the practice, but we have used vociethread in workshops with teachers. They are a great way to synthesize learning around a particular topic.
It is interesting to see that not all people understand the many skills involved. First the thoughts that you want to express need to be synthesized. Then you have to find a visual that represents the idea you are trying to express. Finally, the words need to spoken clearly and succintly. The thing I do like about this is that for a good voicethread to be created, it is really the thinking skills that are needed, not the technical ones.
The technical skills about finding an image that is free or creating a visual and then uploading it is another thing to master. In my experience, the most difficult skills for some people is to realize that before you choose an image, you need to know what you want it to represent. That leads me to make the point that sometimes the 'fun' of technology gets in the way of thinking. We get so excited about the cool pictures we can use that we are not careful about what they are really saying. Cool tools are great, but they should be there to support and stimulate thinking.
These links are for an inquiry group we are working with and if you scroll down there are 2 voicethreads created by the teachers after our first day of learning together. http://imaginethis.wikispaces.com/understandingthequest http://imaginethis.wikispaces.com/Inquiry+Learning
This link shows how a teacher used voicethread to collect his students background kjnoweldge about Shakespeare. http://voicethread.com/share/326561

In talking to teachers, they either really like voicethread, or they get frustrated with it. It seems that it does not always running smoothly and then students can get frustrated. Like most technology, problem-solving is a major necessity.

Wordle Tool

This is a quick cool tool http://www.wordle.net/ that highlights word use. The most frequently used words are the largest. I made this one using my blog posts. It is very easy!
A teacher librarian had students do it with a portion of different well-known books. The students then had to try to identify which books they were. Here's link with a sample. http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/342382/fellowship_of_the_ring This is an article the teacher librarian wrote. http://ssla.ca/medium_articles/submissions/pdf/winter2009_pdf/Wordle_mobertos_winter09.pdf
As I created the above wordle, it highlights the concepts that I've been reflecting on. I think the tool has many possibilities, both for my work with teachers as they do their own reflections, but also with students. Students can use it to summarize their journals, a response to a book, a description of a book, etc. It could be taken even a step further to critique the wordle and see if it really does show the main concepts and ideas that you were intending to get across. Many possibilities!

Siemens 1

In his article Connectivism:A Learning Theory for the Digital Age Siemans makes the statement, "We derive our competence from our connections." It causes me to ponder what makes me feel competent. Is it my interactions with others, what others think of me, how competent I am at a task? What role do my emotions have. What does he really mean by competence? As I write this, I think that's the crux of the unsettledness I have with his statement. If comeptence refers only to competence in knowlewdge or skill I have, I possibly can agree. If competence refers to who I am as person, I have more problems with it. I know that I always need to learn more and more about everything, but sometimes in life, we just have to be happy with who we are. That doesn't stop the learning, but it it allows us to feel like we are worthy, despite our weaknesses. I will never be an athelete, my house needs to be cleaner, I'm uncomfortable in a crowd, etc., but I can counter act those deficits by knowing I also excel in some areas. Getting back to Siemens' comments, is it only through connecting with others and with knowledge that I grow? If we are continually growing, when do we ever reach competency?

Sticky Sand

I am thinking of the sandbox metaphor for this class and relating it to an episode of Ellen that I just watched. She was interviewing the model who made the cover of the swimsuit edition of a magazine. During the photo shoot she had to roll in the sand. Ellen's comment was that it must have been uncomfortable because the sand gets into all kinds of annoying places and just sticks there. The model went on to talk about weeks later finding a piece of sand in her hair while on a flight and how it was embarrassing because she had to scratch it out of her hair and then examine it. Rather a meaningless conversation, in true Ellen style, but that's what I'm feeling right now. Sticky sand is making me uncomfortable and I know that what I really need to do is take one grain at a time and examine it.

New curricula

As mentioned in Block 4, the province is bringing out a new set of curricula. It has become a major focus of my job to understand the ELA curriculum and support its implementation. It is a shift in the way it asks us to look at the learner. I started teaching in the 1980's, when instruction was teacher focused with the learner being viewed as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge transmitted by the teacher. The 1992 curriculum asked us to move to focus on the student as a learner. The instruction was to be activity based and led by the student. The 2000 curriculum brought with it specific objectives. Instruction was to be purposeful and objective driven. It moved from student-focus to learning focus. Now this curriculum challenges us with outcomes, which are supposed to be measurable, and asks us to move towards higher level thinking and social responsibility. We no longer learn knowledge and facts, but also need to understand what to do with that knoweldge and how to find our own knowledge and understandings. Its focus is on deep understanding rather than obtaining knowledge, skills and facts.
I reflect on where I have been lead by the curriculum throughout my career, because I am being challenged to understand my own views. The content of Block 4 also challenges me. I accept constructivist premises wholeheartedly, but do find that belief challenged. I am working with 2 consultant colleagues and a group of teachers to write inquiry units. This is the second project we have worked on. It seems that true inquiry learning requires teachers to move towards a contructivist approach. They are eager and willing to engage in that process until we get to the actual writing. It is hard for them not to write lessons that move students towards knowledge and ideas that the teachers hold. So we are then challenged as facillitators to reflect on both the learning process and the product. Do we allow them to make sense of the underpinnings of inquiry leanring in their own way and express that within their units, or do have a predetermined diea of what it is, with the expectation that the units should meet that critieria? Interesting food for thought.