Time for Change

Well, it’s been a while since I threw a post on this site.

Originally, I created this blog for my ECMP 355 Class with Dean Shareski, but now I have decided to fire it back up to keep track of my professional development growth as a teacher.

I feel as if I am learning something new everyday, whether it be about teaching or about myself. I hope you enjoy the ride, I know I will. Stay tuned for more.

Blockbuster Event of this Holiday Season

So here is the ECMP final project that NIcole and I constructed.

Basically its a video for Nextvista.org, an educational website that has videos on various topics. We decided to make our video on something awesome: how to find the slope of a line. I know what you’re thinking, “Wow Jordan, that is awesome!”

Though this is an educational video, we saw no reason why we couldn’t spice it up with our brand of comedy. Because afterall, math is both fun and awesome.

So without any further adue, here is our epic video.

My Podcast

So here is my podcast, first ever i might add. I did it by using podOmatic.

Here’s the link I hope you enjoy.

My Future Classroom

Well if you happen to know me, I’m not a guy known for making plans, or for even thinking ahead into my future. But I will change my ways this one time, for the sake of ECMP.

When I think about my future classroom, it pretty much looks like any classroom you have been in. Pretty generic, I don’t need anything fancy. But there is one thing I think I would like. A smartboard. I just think they are the coolest things, and every classroom should have one. I like the fact that you can save the screen on a smartboard. This would come in pretty handy, should I choose to have a website. Then its as simple as posting that days lesson on the site, then its easily accessible for anyone.

I also think having a teacher blog might be useful. Now if you have noticed, I’m not that regular of a blogger, but I think I would be able to handle a post once or twice a week. Just to update what’s going on in the class, so the parents can keep caught up.

Mastercard Commercial

Well folks, here it is. My Mastercard commercial.

Me Summed Up

For Tech Task #12, we had to “sell ourselves” in four pictures. I think this little number gives you the complete Jordan package. Enjoy!

Podacast Review #2

For my review of an educational podcast, I listened to a podcast called iPod in Ed. The episode that I listened to was called iPod and Podcasting for Teaching and Learning. I thought this would be a good one to listen to, as we just talked about podcasting in class not too long ago. So I picked this podcast thinking it would show me useful ways to use podcasts in the classroom. Well, to be honest, it mostly talked about what a podcast is and how to make one. Now it wasn’t really what I was expecting, but it still had a lot of useful information for me. Information which might come in handy to me when I do my Tech Task #16 later today.

Podcast Review #1

For my non-educational podcast review I actually listened to several podcasts, all of which fall under the category of TSN.ca Hockey Insider. And I have to tell you, I think they are pretty awesome. For starters, I love sports, so natuarally TSN is my favorite channel on TV. And now I have TSN hockey insider’s Bob McKenzie and Darren Dreger being downloaded directly into my iTunes, well I just think that is just awesome.

K12 #3

For my third and final K12 Online video, I watched Oh The Possibilities by Lisa Parisi.

This video talked about project based learning, and it basically is what it sounds like: you have your students do projects in the classroom. I think that this is a great idea, my favorite lessons (and the ones I learned most from) were the ones where we got to do some sort of project.I think that its so easy to learn while doing projects, because they’re fun, its as simple as that. I mean what would you rather be doing, answering questions out of a textbook, or create some sort of game, or video that incorporates all the same knowledge.

What I really liked about her presentation, was her idea of letting the students be the experts. Traditionally you have a teacher and students, where the teacher is the expert and all learning comes from him or her. But by having the students be the experts, students can then learn from each other, and to me that’s where learning really occurs. I also think that once students learn something from another student, there is a desire to be a student that teaches something to someone else. (Although this may not be prevelant in older classes, where learning is so called “not cool”; but those kids are toatally wrong, learning is awesome). The bottomline is that students teaching students is never a bad idea.

K12 #2

For my second video, I watched Never Too Young by Sharron Betts. This video mostly talked different application that you can use in an elementary classroom, such as class blogs. But why are these good things to have such young students do in school, why is it so important to teach these things at an early age?

What types of things did you learn in your first two to three years of school? Maybe your ABC’s, how to colour inside the lines, sharing, the four food groups, how to read and write, and so on. Taking another look back now, what did you learn in say, grade eight? Doesn’t come back to you that easy now does it. In my opinion, the idea of teaching these things so early is that things tend to stick with you better. Sharon has a quote in the video “all you need to know you learn in the earliest years of school”, and let’s face it the world is changing. We are now a part of the web 2.0 world. So why not prepare students for this world. I mean, here I am 20 years old in my third year of university, hoping to become a teacher some day, and I’m still not too sure what a wiki is. The world is changing right in front of my eyes, and I’m struggling to keep up. I don’t think there is any need to send students out into the world in the position I was in. Not when there are so many teachers who can teach them the ways of technology, because who knows what the world will be like by the time they graduate.

The saying you can’t teach an old dog new tricks isn’t always true, but remember that it’s always easier to teach a puppy.