Halftime reflection

1. Describe one significant idea or issue that has arisen for you, as you were engaging in the topics during Learning Experiences #1 and #2.

The most significant idea that has arisen for me was from both modules and it was the overarching idea of frontloading your work.  What I mean by that is that with technology, it takes a lot of planning and learning and preparing ahead of time, but once your pre-work is complete, it really makes your work a lot easier and more efficient and effective.  It's important as a teacher to maintain that ongoing commitment to professional learning especially in regards to technology.  It is always changing and advancing and you can't stay stagnant and use the same technology that will become outdated in no time. It's not only necessary to spend time LEARNING about new technology so that you are ready to made an educated decision on whether it is useful to implement for you, but you also must spend time UPLOADING content for a lot of the apps and sites that you will have your students using.

1. Elaborate on how specific resources, ideas or experiences in the Learning Experiences have contributed to your learning. e.g. reading material, course activities etc.

I really liked the activity where we had to alter our ALP.  I didn't have the opportunity to make one last year as I was on maternity leave, so this was a great opportunity for me to create my ALP for next year with the integration of technology in mind.  I liked that this was an authentic task which will actually serve me well for the next school year.  

Another thing I really  liked was learning about OSAPAC, and using that as a resource for finding digital resources available to teachers.  It's amazing that I had never been given a link to this site https://www.osapac.ca/dlr/ before, because it has a large list of digital resources free to use for Ontario teachers.  What this has shown me is that there needs to be more leadership in schools around technology and sharing information like this website so that teachers are more aware of the tools at their fingertips.

1. Share how your participation in the discussion forums have contributed to your learning and connect this to your understanding of the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession.

The sharing of information and ideas amongst the participants in this course has been a very enriching part of this course.  I think that this aspect of the course aligns directly with three of the standards of practice; ongoing Professional Learning - The participants are showing their commitment to this by participating in the discussion boards and completing the e-tivities, Professional Knowledge - participants are learning about new assistive and educational technologies which helps them to stay current in their professional knowledge, and leadership in learning commmunties - we are all being leaders by sharing our knowledge and experiences from different areas of the education system, different grade levels and subjects, and we are teaching each other what we know.

1. Discuss any outstanding questions and the steps you may take to further explore your interests as part of your learning in the course.

I would really like to explore some of the resources I saw on OSAPAC.  Specifically, I would like to try using XpressLab with my intermediates next year.  I have seen it in use, and have used it for tutoring, but I haven't used it in a classroom setting before.  I would also like to explore Comic Life because  I got an email saying Bitstrips would no longer be accessible in September, and I am looking for something similar to use in core French.