My Philosophy of Education Project

Ever heard of blurb.com ? It's a website I've known about for a few years now and one I always wanted to use to put together a book of aphorisms I write on my spare time. I never got around to that. But now I've used Blurb for a different cause: using a book creating software downloaded from the site, I created a book for my Philosophy of Education project, sent it in to the website to be published and just had it delivered to my house, today:

Here it is! (excuse the poor BB photos)

I've always wanted to have work of mine published and, although this was for a Teacher's College project, to see myself on the cover flap of a book and to see my own writing on the pages made me giggle with excitement. This is something I guess I can cross of my bucket-list. Next step will be to actually sell my work when I put something together a little more professionally and ready for the outside world.

Another cool thing about blurb.com is that they allow you to have virtual versions of your book to share with other people. If you wish to quickly flip through my book or read what the pages hold, this will make it easy for you (click 'view fullscreen' - bottom right hand corner of widget - for easier viewing):

My Philosophy of Education by: Claudia Amendola

I am so thrilled with how beautiful this project turned out. I am even more excited to actually hand it in and see what my Methods teacher says about it. I'd also like to hear your comments whether they be positive or negative, either on the text, the project as a whole, or just tips on how I can improve any projects like these in the future.

I think it's a great resource for putting together class books on just about anything, though it can get pretty expensive; my book cost just around $26.00 with shipping. They do get cheaper when you buy them in bulk.

Once again, comments are appreciated! Thanks for reading about the Philosophy of Education project that I've been going on about for a long while now! Did I pump it up too much?

Tech Showcase Review

Tech showcase was on January 28th and it was an interesting experience. This is the first time I saw workshops filled with really eager and excited individuals and it's for a good reason.

The first workshop I took part in was a Gaming Workshop. This workshop showed us a handful of history and civics games that can be used in the classroom (they can be found here) and how they apply to curriculum. My reason for selecting this workshop was obvious: I am a gamer and I want to see intelligent ways to bring gaming into the classroom which won't be shunned by administrators. Students are obviously playing games and to ignore or shun this medium when it can be turned around and taught to teach would be simply absurd. Gaming was a part of my youth and I learned a lot of literacy skills, science skills and history skills from certain games I played as a kid. Education and learning was made much more fun with games involved. Disappointingly, this workshop didn't disclose that the workshop was geared for more senior and intermediate grades which, being a primary/junior pre-service teacher, would have been useful information. The majority of the workshop was spent browsing the links we were given and what grades would benefit from them. Sadly, this was of no use to me, but I do like seeing workshops promoting gaming in classrooms.

The second workshop I took part in was the Hyperstudio workshop. I took this workshop because I read that we'd be getting a copy of the product and learn how to use it, hands on; the copy was a trial and we didn't get any hands-on trial at all. In my opinion, this was the least beneficial of the three workshops I took. Hyperstudio is simply an animation creating program that children can use to make art projects, moving pictures based on stories being read or projects in social studies, etc. The entire presentation involved the two presenters clicking tools and using them in the program. I, personally, find it impossible to learn a program by watching someone do it in a 1.5 hr session but by getting my hands dirty and experiencing it first hand. You can't learn a program like Hyperstudio by watching them use it; there is no way someone can memorize what to click and when to click it. I can see the benefit of a program like this in getting students to create interactive images and projects, but I don't know that Hyperstudio, in particular, is necessary for this task. I am sure there are plenty of other programs that do a similar thing.

My third workshop was Epson BrightLink workshop. I took this workshop because I had researched the product and had some interest in it. Also, the other workshops that were available was nothing I haven't already had experience with. The Epson Brightlink is advertised as being "new technology" (while the 1991 Smartboard is rather old). The Epson doesn't require a special board; cast it onto any surface and it can be used. I really recommend looking up videos of the product as I don't think I'll be able to describe it well, but it is pretty impressive. One thing I really liked about the Epson Brightlink is the ability to select and add widgets. The widgets appear at the bottom of the screen and by selecting them, they immediately add themselves to the project. The widgets can include interactive maps, interactive graphs where you can add data, time widgets, etc. Another bonus to this product is that you can search directly in the program for multimedia additions and they add themselves to the display immediately as well. And while this is something people don't often think of, the projection uses rear project which means that the product does not cause shadows of the presenters to be cast and there is never a bright light shining in the teacher's eyes. Overall, the product is definitely a useful tool for classrooms, a different experience from the outdated Smartboards, but nothing too innovative and life changing. @MindShareLearn also concluded this presentation discussing technology in classrooms and innovative teaching and I had a photo taken with him:

Ignite Presentation:
I had the pleasure of getting an invitation to present at the IGNITE presentation that @zbpipe decided to start. My topic was "Where it all started (and where it's taking me)" which was a 5 minute presentation about when I first got into all things nerd and where I'm at today. I also spoke about where it will take me in teaching and what kinds of things I can bring to the classroom with these "nerd skills". Despite having insulted Apple users in front of ~100 people, the crowd giggled and seemed receptive. I am happy with how it went. Everyone's Ignite presentation was engaging and fun to listen to!

Tech Showcase was definitely the best Professional Development day I've attended, and if this much tech was incorporated into our other PD days as well as having such passionate and engaging presenters, I imagine students would be much more excited to attend Brock's Professional Development Days.

Music Lesson for Sixth Grade Class Using FL STUDIO

At the beginning of the school year, my Music Class required to make and present something that can be used to teach music and I had to come up with three lessons to accompany this music device. It was pretty obvious that I would choose something technological as my "music device" (and strangely, I was the only one to do so in that class) and this is the awkward five minute presentation that was created:

Music Lesson: Grade 6, Creating Music from Claudia Amendola on Vimeo.

To view the lessons, you can access them by visiting a Google Document I have created here.
Thank you to @ianborges who was kind enough to lend me his personal music studio and who tolerated my many filming retakes due to laughing or forgetting what to say.

Enjoy the lessons!

Final Collaboration

Our last session with @ballantynedj 's grade eleven students was on Monday. We had the pleasure of seeing a video that his students put together that showed an overview of the project's process. The video, while done in very short time, was rather well done. It is still being spruced up by his students and once it is finalized, I will post the link here.

The whole experience was a lot of fun and it seems that the students took a lot from it, and we did too. The project was brilliant and watching the video, you can see how the students get into it and enjoy what they are doing. Well done, @ballantynedj and thanks again.

The same could be said about the internet/games/TV&movies, no?

"Fairy tales are not responsible for producing fear in children... Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give a child his first idea of a bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea that a bogey may be defeated. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon."

- G. K. Chesterton

Grade Eleven Collab Continued

Have you ever used Todaysmeet.com? Neither have I. Have you ever considered it using with students? Neither did I, but @ballantynedj did.

Communication begins: writers of the post are written under each message.

Let me tell you what Todaysmeet.com is, first and foremost; it's a twitter style feed, used and sent in real time for instant communication with others that you send to the generated URL for your "chat". All messages must be less than 140 characters, allowing the chat to be equally distibuted among members with no single person over-powering the next. It is easy to set up and it is easy to send to others. Not to mention, the entire chat transcript is recorded and ready for viewing from the website, under the chat box, making the ability to save the chat simple and carefree.

Receiving some valuable feedback from @ballantynedj's grade eleven students.

This was the second part of our online collaboration with @ballantynedj's grade eleven students in Waterloo. We joined a chat with Daniel and his students and discussed with them where their strengths and weaknesses in their presentation were. The students also gave us their own feedback of our feedback, allowing us to improve our online tutoring skills for any future use. Using this real-time chat system, we quickly discussed what the next steps for their project would be and how we (@darthclaudiaa, @YatesV, @yoMsDunn, @daley1s) could contribute. The next steps the students will be taking is that they will be creating a video using jaycut.com (with an open username and password for access by all members of the party: the students, Daniel and us Brock students to view the creating and editing process) and we will get to watch the finish project.

Who knew such a simple website could be used in such an innovative way. Todaysmeet.com is a great communication tool for projects such as these or even for quick communication between students and their teachers (I imagine students with laptops, watching a video or presentation in class, and the teacher sending messages to students as to what to look out for or asking questions for students to answer while they are watching; a great way to keep track of who is paying attention to videos or presentations) and the transcripts can be saved for assessment purposes (or even to keep track of who might be using the page innapropriately). Another great classroom idea by @ballantynedj that has me inspired and eager to take these advancements into my own classroom.

Thank you again to @zbpipe for this opportunity.

A Short Review of the 'Building Futures' Workshop

The Introduction:
We are told, again and again, never to talk at our students. We are told to engage our students. We are told to never put information on our slides or presentations that our students could read to them. We are told never to read off our sheets of paper and we are told to sound natural and not rehearsed. These are directions that our advisors are given by the Ministry, so why doesn't the Ministry follow their own directions?

I was so excited for this self-directed workshop and it is heartbreaking how terribly it opened up. The presenters did all I mentioned above for two hours. One young presenter, three years into the game of teaching, freshly graduated and one who you'd think wouldn't have picked up bad habits of Socratic teaching due to her obvious passion for her career (and her students) read off of a sheet of paper with a rehearsed and difficult speech to listen to, even apologizing when she missed a word and had to re-read. What happened to practice what you preach? Why wouldn't they model what they expect from us? The Mellenial generation (or Y Gen) have too great of expectations for the workforce, most of the time, but I don't think it is too much to ask that we be talked at less and talked to more, with engaging presentations that keep us focused and off our cellphones.

"Literacy Workshop"
While a lot of the information in this workshop was repetitive of what we speak about in our Language course, the information was presented in a more interactive manner, encouraging our participation and even having us get up and fill in anchor charts. The presenters also made note of how much we had been talked "at" and how they wanted to change that.
Some of the best points I took from that session were:
- Making kids feel like they can take action
- Robust thinking is reflective thinking; metacognition is important
- Allowing kids negotiate their thinking for meaning; eg. a child saying, "That isn't how I saw it." and why
- A lot of digital literacy was emphasized such as having kids look at advertisements and debating whether advertisements should be in video games
- Another media literacy project that was given as an example was a photo essay for environmental issues
- Rich tasks are cognitively demanding, engaging, have new knowledge and thinking

"Occasional Teaching Workshop"
This workshop, while presented in a simple slideshow-and-talk form (the teacher actually admitted to leaving the career of teaching due to technology; when she couldn't keep up, she felt it was time to bow out) but the presenter was passionate and knowledgeable about her topic and kept you listening. She shared a handful of new information and had a lot of visuals to share with the class, giving physical examples to the many ideas she had to share. This was my favourite workshop of the day.

"Healthy and Safe Schools Workshop"
If you have taken law as I have, this presentation didn't have a lot of new information. The presenter was one of the ones I couldn't hear in the morning, but in a small space, his voice was quite booming and clear. His presentation had a lot of group problem solving and discussion and he even prepared a little quiz to test the knowledge of school statistics of bullying and harassment. It was a very well put together presentation and while it didn't keep me as hooked because it was repetitive, it was still clear and laid out nicely with the group work and hypothetical situations we were presented with.

Conclusion:
Overall, the workshop was quite beneficial. I truly wish the introduction wasn't so demoralizing because I would have been far more excited for each workshop if it had been presented with excitement and enthusiasm as well. I see nothing unprofessional with this advice that I hope the Ministry stumbles upon, because I am all about laying things down as I see them and not sugar coating them or putting on a guise. I am sure they'd be rather pleased to hear constructive criticism in order that they may improve the presentation for the following year.
I also wish that information on each work shop would have been available (eg. the Tech Showcase has a blurb about every single workshop prior to signing up for it) so the tedious situation of hearing repeated information doesn't occur.

ourtimetolead.ca

Have you heard of it? Have you visited it? Chances are, if you've been to the movies at a Cineplex location recently, you would have seen it on your screen. Accessing the site probably didn't even cross your mind. The advertisement was probably ignored like all the others (despite how eye-catching it truly was).


So, what is it?
It's a website run by the Globe and Mail where weeks are dedicated to specific topics ("8 Discussions We Need to Have"). This months focus is "FAILING BOYS". Let me tell you: if you are a educator (future or present), if you are a parent(future or present), or if you simply have a concern about the leaders of our future, you have to go to this website and read the articles under this discussion, immediately. They are absolutely fabulous and sadly, accurate. While some sentences, as with all news articles, need to be taken with a grain of salt, majority of the topics approached hit the nail right on the head. The feminization of education (something I'm strongly against), the lack of male role models (heartbreaking), developmental differences (something many fail to acknowledge) and so many more gems are available on this website. The best thing is that it is meant for discussion. What this means for you, emotional and passionate reader, is that your opinions are welcomed and, in fact, highly encouraged. Weekly chats, forums and "Article Discussions" are all available on this website. It is, after all, our time to lead. We must have a say and take part in this, as well. These are critical issues and they should not be ignored.


If "Failing Boys" doesn't tickle your fancy, the other discussions are about the military, about multiculturalism, about women in power, about our work-lives, our Health Care, the internet we explore and the food we eat. One is bound to concern you and affect you, first-hand. This website should not be avoided. Do yourself a favour and simply have a little read.


 (Note: This is from a blog entry I wrote in a personal blog back in October. The discussion and web page are still continuing in full force and I still highly recommend reading the articles.Click here for a direct link to the "Failing Boys" discussion.)

Create Philosophers

As a double major with honours in English and Philosophy, I see a lot of value to creative thinking. More than simply higher level thinking, I am for thinking about thinking, for asking 'why', for challenging what you are told, for looking at the double meanings to simple sentences, for reading between the lines. I am all for creating mini philosophers.

This isn't as hard to do as you think; there are child-centred texts out there just for this kind of thing. In fact, the reason I'm blogging this right now is to promote one; The Little Prince. If you click that link, you'll be taken to a wiki page that shows some of the most memorable quotes from this text. If you click that link, you will quickly see that this picture-enhanced children's book is no regular children's book. Some of the lines in this text are comparable to the words of philosophers I studied in my undergrad. It is a brilliant book. It is beyond brilliant: it is inspiring, life-changing, philosopher-creating. No one can read this text and not be inspired to start writing their own aphorisms in response to what they are reading.

I truly recommend bringing this text into the classroom either for novel-studies (it comes in a short novel form) or classroom reading with reflections. The reflection part is the most important part but I ask you not to box off your student's reflections. Have them pick a line that stood out in the chapter you read (there will be plenty) and have them write anything in response to it; how it made them feel, whether they agree or disagree, why the character might have said it, etc. This text is in no way boxed, so I urge you not to box your students' thinking as they read it. Another bonus to this wonderful piece of work is that it is written in French so there are French editions that could be used in French immersion schools or read at the end of French classes.


I urge you to bring out the philosophers inside the hearts and souls of your students, because those little philosophers have the potential to completely blow your mind (as most philosophers of any age can do).

My student centred blog

I have been asked to create a more class-oriented blog that I will share with students.
Click here to view this newly created blog.

Grade 11s and Google Docs

We are always told that we should not reinvent the wheel; why exhaust ourselves when it is already laid out for us? Most teachers receive resources and think: 'Why spruce up whatever hits curriculum necessities already?' But @ballantynedj must disagree with the statement "Why reinvent the wheel?" because he is doing just that with his introduction of modern technology in the classroom.

I am not talking about just using educational computer software or educational ipad/ipod apps (which are beneficial in their own sense), I mean real-world programs like Google Docs where documents can be shared, edited, discussed and commented on by all members of the party it is shared with.

What was my role in this? Well, @yomsdunn, @yatesV and myself (@darthclaudiaa) have been given permission to access these documents and are encouraged to comment and give feedback on what part of their project needs improvement and where their strengths lie (for more information on the project, visit @yomsDunn's blog, here: http://msdunnonline.net/tech-edu/). @ballantynedj's grade eleven students dove into it like flies to honey; they were using this adult program that they will likely use in their future endeavours in a student-oriented manner and were so eager and excited to learn from it. Eager and excited about a teacher telling them how to improve their work? You heard correctly! @ballantynedj has used their medium for their age - zee intranetz - and shown them that teacher evaluation doesn't have to be tedious, cruel or frightening. Evaluation can be modern, beneficial, a learning experience and even exciting when it comes time to evaluate the evaluation you received! In the weeks following this, students will give us teacher-candidates feedback on our feedback via Skype; another modern approach to communication for teachers and their students and one that hits home for this day and age. Students also learn, if not consciously than subconsciously through this experience, the many benefits of sharing their work online with others around the province, country or even world, because the variety of suggestions simply grows as you network, and thus the work can do nothing but improve.

After explaining this project to my significant other, he told me how much more he would have enjoyed school if teachers would take advantage of real-world technological teaching opportunities with something as simple as Google Docs and how lucky students are to have these programs today. True kudos for @ballantynedj who's colleague put it right when they said, "Here is the cutting edge, you just stepped over it,” and a big thank you to @zbpipe who has given me the opportunity to be a part of it all.

Google Docs in action