Friday, July 22, 2016

LE3 - Another one bites the dust...

Well another module has come and gone and it's time to think back and reflect on the whirlwind that was this week.  I'm not sure if I am the only one who feels this way, but these intensives really do create a whirlwind in your life.  Maybe it's trying to balance this week's course load with a family vacation with my inlaws and my 1 year old and being pregnant ANT the CRAZY heat but MAN AM I GLAD THIS WEEK IS NEARING COMPLETION!!

To save myself time, I have just copy and pasted this week's reflection form directly into the blog.


1. Describe one significant idea or issue that has arisen for you as you were engaging in
the topics during the Learning Experience:
The most significant idea for me this week was the idea that we have so much staff training in different technologies, but rarely any follow up.  How are we to know if what we are doing is making a difference if there is no follow up? Not even something so simple as a Google form to ask how many participants have actually implemented whatever they have learned in a PD session in their classroom.  



2. Elaborate on how specific resources, ideas or experiences in the learning experience
have contributed to your learning. e.g. reading material, course activities etc:
I liked having to think about the upcoming year in the calendar activity and finding ways that I could help further the use of technology at my school.  I would really like to form a tech committee and really start holding these sessions.  The teachers that I mentioned in my calendar are already using certain technologies really effectively in their classes and I think that other teachers could really benefit from teacher-led sessions.

I also really liked using Google Forms.  I have taken Google Forms before but believe it or not I have never created one.  This is a practical tool that I will be able to easily use in French.

Because I don't teach math at all (probably for the best) I have never actually got to play around with the resources we use at the school, and so trying out Tinkerplots and Geometer's Sketchpad was actually fun for me.  I found the Sketchpad a bit tough as it's not very user friendly for learning.  I ended up using YouTube to teach me.  I LOVED Tinkerplots though! What a great way to sort and manage data! The inquiry based learning opportunities here are endless.





3. Share how your participation in the discussion forum has contributed to your learning
and connect that to your understanding of the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession.

As a teacher, we make a commitment to ongoing professional learning, and I think that this is being accomplished through such rich discussion and postings from my colleagues in this course.  I think that even if people don't make a comment on your post or don't start a discussion about it, they are still learning just from reading what you have written.  We don't have time to learn it all or look at all of the resources (in the math activity for example), but by reading each other's posts, we can learn a bit about those resources and decide whether or not it might be something that could be useful to us in our teaching.  Teachers are coming together as a learning community, which is one of the best ways for us to learn and it aligns with the Standards of Practice.






4. Discuss any outstanding questions and the steps you may take to further explore your
interests as part of your learning in the course:
I actually plan to use Google Forms when I go back to school as my introduction survey. Every year when I get new students I have them fill out a (paper) survey about their interest and experiences in French to get a read on how they are feeling about the subject in general.  This often produces a handful of students who write how much they HATE French and nothing will make them like it.  This is where I focus my attention for the first while is forming a bond with these students that has nothing to do with French but more about their personal interests (which is also a question on the survey).  I think this data will be much easier to compile and read online and much more engaging for them to complete.







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