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Sunday, 7 December 2014

Gender and ed-tech by Audry Watters


Gender and ed-tech by Audry Watters
 
In the future - if only 10 Institutions by giulia.forsythe, on Flickr
Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  giulia.forsythe 


I wanted to share my reflection on the message shared by Audrey Watters.  I would usually research the presenter before they presented but I didn’t have time this past week.  I found this to be an eye-opener and Audrey’s message made me think twice about cyber safety and gender equity issues.  I admit, I was not aware or affected by these issues but after this message, I have greater awareness!

As an educator and as a parent, I feel like I should know more of the inequities and dangers that are ever so present.  Audrey’s message has made me feel uneasy and concerned about what I, and so many others, do not know.   I have 3 daughters who are always on their technology and we’ve talked openly about cyber safety in our home but when we asked our girls about if these same discussions happen in their school, we find out that they do not.  I am not sure why this isn’t discussed more at the school level or if this will change in the future.

I found it very interesting when Audrey pointed out that the problem with the Internet is that it was, “Largely designed by men from the developed world, it is built for men of the developed world.”  I know that this is somewhat true because I had worked for a software company and it was 90% men.  She also stated that, “Harassment – of women, people of color, and other marginalized groups – is pervasive”.  Audrey tells of a story where she sets up fake identities – both boys and girls – and I believe she said that over 70% of girls were harassed but a very small percentage of boys were actually harassed!  I found this to be the most shocking of news and I shared this with my daughters – they were shocked as well but didn’t think that the percentage of girls being harassed was that high.  I’m not sure why this would be but perhaps my girls don’t go on gaming websites as much?  I’m not certain. 

As a result of Audrey’s presentation, my wife and I are going helped them change their identities on the web and now they sound more gender neutral.  Another plan I have is to engage in a similar conversation with colleagues I work to bring about greater awareness of the issues, especially with some of our more vulnerable groups (special education students).

Thank you Audrey for this wonderful presentation!

Kelly

My Final Reflection on the Semester


My Final Reflection on the Semester

I really learned a great deal from this class in terms of the tools and resources that were shared.  This helped broaden my perspective on teaching philosophies and how I can go about developing my learning at a new and higher level.  I was comfortable with sharing and collaborating with teacher’s in my community but never dreamed of collaborating with educators from around the world.  If someone would have suggested the idea, I would have agreed to it but I was unaware that this actually took place before I took this class!  Now, I have a whole new appreciation for collaborating and developing a network of educators with whom I can collaborate and share resources with.  I usually speak of working with teachers but this is because my role as coordinator has me working with teachers and not students. 

The learning that took place in this course around social media technology and student learning really took me to a whole new level as well.  I was fascinated by how teachers were implementing things like Twitter, blogging, Maker Movement, etc. into their classrooms.  I see elements of this in the high school special education classrooms that I work in but not to the extent that I witnessed with the teacher’s in the course.  I think there are many more elements that can be brought into the classroom for example, some great app’s, blogging, use of social media, research on the internet for various projects, Maker Movement projects/kits, digital citizenship/network identities and cyber safety should be something we implement as soon as possible.

MY SUMMARY OF LEARNING VIDEO 

LINK:   http://tinyurl.com/l2lvqhg


1.     Blogging – Reflection or Goal Setting?

I remember going through university and always “Reflecting” on my learning and then…it seems to stop the day you get a job because you get busy with your job and life.  I found it to be a lost skill in my life.  I like to do goal setting and this seems to work better for me.  The work place tends to think in terms of goal setting and although there is an element of reflection that goes into goal setting, blogging doesn’t seem to be able to find it’s way into the workplace that I’ve seen.  Now, having said this, I think I am going to create a blog that communicates like a newsletter to all the programs I work with.  I chose Blogger as my blogging device and I didn’t like it but I didn’t feel like I should change have way through the semester to something new.  I didn’t like it because it was not as nice to look at it and it had some missing features compared to what other people had.  For example, twitter quotes, links to other blogs, calendar, etc.

 

2.     Twitter – When we started this using Twitter I couldn’t understand what all the hype was about on this tiny little screen on my phone.  People recommended Tweetdeck and once a colleague showed me how to set up columns, I started to how it could be organized and streamed.  However, this wasn’t enough to make me stand up and take notice the effectiveness of Twitter.  Perhaps I’m to blame for not delving in deeper – I did ask around my office and people showed me some examples of what they followed.  So, I tried looking for people with special education backgrounds.  I did some hashtag searches for special ed and came up with a few leads but they were groups like #autism, etc.  I would read these tweets and it was usually people tweeting about a conference.  I didn’t find this to be so outstanding…BUT on Nov 11th, we had no class due to Remembrance Day and while I was studying that day, I saw a couple of tweets saying to join the #spedchat group at 7pm (our time).  So, I thought I would sit in.  This is when I was hooked!  The conversation was very engaging – very authentic – very open dialogue about various topics related to special education students!  I was captivated by conversations but I was so impressed with the tweets and with the resources shared.  I then started looking into the profiles of some teachers and then I started to realize that these people were actually great contacts to have and when I checked out their profiles, they had impressive backgrounds!  It was at this point in time that I realized the power of developing my PLN.

 

3.     Major Project – My original idea was to create a teacher’s web page for resources in the area of Special Education.  As a new coordinator in Special Education, i saw this as an opportunity to find a gather good resources in one location because at the current time, teachers are operating in a silo.  When I suggested a web page to Alec he thought it was a good idea but then suggested a place where teachers could not only find resources but also post resources that they would like to share with others.  I had never heard of anything like this before.  When I thought about this for a while, I really liked the idea but had no idea how to go about doing it!  This is when Alec recommended a social bookmarking tool that would allow for storage of various websites. 

 

It took me a while to set it up because I had no experience with such a tool.  Setting up the Diigolet was challenging because of the settings but once I got this, it was easy to use.  The Diigolet also allowed you add certain things to documents for example, if you wanted to highlight a certain section or put a sticky note on it, this could be done easily.  Like most things in this class, once you set something up, it was easy to use but setting up wasn’t always easy.  I watched You tube videos for the setup and how to use the tools within.

 

Organizing all the resources was the next step for me.  It took a youtube video to help me set up the “Lists”.  I set up 4 different lists: SLC, FIAP, VAP and DC as well as a “General” folder for things that didn’t fit any other bucket! 

 

Teacher’s visiting the website:  I have about 8 teachers out of 20 who have gone to the Special Education Resource Library and have checked out the resources and used some of them.  12/20 have not been to the site.  Possible reasons:  (a) I rolled this out right at Report Card and eIIP time so a few people commented on the timing of the project; (b) some teacher’s had trouble with or did not want to join Diigo (trust factor); (c) teacher’s not comfortable or familiar with this type of sharing; (d) I emailed everyone to say that this was part of my university class – so perhaps some did not take it as serious if it was something that the work place was introducing.  I would do this part differently next time – I would have introduced the library at one of our meetings as opposed to by email.  If I could show them how easy it was, many more people would have signed up for Diigo.  I will be trying this at our next meeting in January/2015.

 

4.     The Challenges & Triumphs

I would say some of the biggest challenges I had was

·        I felt very shy at the beginning and I didn’t feel comfortable asking people for help re: Twitter and I wish now that I would have spent more time asking people. 

·        I would have enjoyed more time doing Face to Face meetings at the U of R (for ex. One at the beginning of semester, middle and end.) But I realize that many people are from out of town and this is not feasible but something to consider. 

·        A challenge for me was the unconventional component of this class.  Not knowing what your mark will be was a bit unsettling.  It makes sense, for sure, but it is frightening because I kept second guessing what I was saying and doing.  There were times when I had trouble for example, with crediting photos on Blogger.  I spent a good day trying to figure it out and then finally said to the class, I’m struggling with how to do this and Jennifer Mitchell jumped in to help and this was a life saver!  Well, how do you ever account for this lost productivity?  I spoke with Katia and she said that I should blog about that.  Not having blogged before, I didn’t know to do this. 

·        Good advice on a weekly basis from Katia and Alec but its just different doing it all on-line.  Yes, I sent private emails and they were answered well.  I even went to see Katia and she was a wonderful help for sure.  I guess, this on line class just takes some getting used to!  I would be better prepared for this type of on-line class in the future!  And, by the way, I would take one like this again in a heartbeat! 

·        No major papers – well, I loved this concept.  This was very refreshing and very different!  Taking this class reminded me of Dave Cormier’s presentation as he talked about the rhizomatic learning concept.  He explains how learning can take so many different turns and paths but we all start in different places and we all experience different outcomes as well.  Reflecting on how Alec created this class, I couldn’t help but think, wow, this is exactly as Cormier explained his concept!  I thought this was a really experience.

·        I loved working with so many experienced and professional people from so many walks of life.  I felt very honored to share with so many wonderful, accepting and intelligent people!

 

In conclusion, I would like to say that I am very sad that this class is over for me but glad that it has carved a path for me to follow well in to the future.  I feel like I was just getting going and it’s over.  At times I was frustrated because I wanted learn faster and I hated to struggle with what I felt were relatively easy concepts, when I reflect back.  Regardless, the important thing for me right now is having the time to dig into the resources I have and keep identifying new resources and posting them in the Library I created!  It is so exciting because I learned so much from this class and will keep on this journey for a very long time!

Thank you all – for sharing and caring so much!

Take care,

Kelly

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

Final Class Tonight: Would you give a student extra marks for going the Extra Mile?


THIS actually happened to me 48+ hours before the last class!

OOPs my jobs new laptop screen by cactusbones, on Flickr
Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  cactusbones 

 

Ok…I know you are not supposed to leave things until the last minute but I thought 3 days before the assignment was giving me enough time…turns out – this is what happened

Sunday 9am
Working on gathering pictures for my presentation and deciding how I will make my video interesting and funny!
Sunday 3pm
Going to start recording my presentation on Movie Maker.  It is recording audio but no video.  Or, only video and no audio.  Great!  Tried to shut down and re-start, etc.  No luck! 
Sunday 6pm
Going to try download a new version of Movie Maker from website.  Turns out I downloaded a version from a website that had malware (advertising).  It basically stalled out my computer.  Ads were popping up all over the screen. 
Sunday 8pm
Shut down the computer.  Turn to completing my script for the presentation.
Monday 8am
Goto IT dept and explain the issue.  They decide to re-image my computer.
Monday 12 noon
Get my computer back.  Working fine.  Movie Maker not appearing.  He said they re-installed it.
Monday 1pm
Take computer back down to re-install Movie Maker.
Monday 3pm
Confirmation that Movie Maker installed.  Pick up computer but ask him to show me that it is installed and working.  He turns computer on and it turn to a black screen.  He tries logging in again and it won’t turn on – it only reboots, over and over again.
Monday 4:30
He says, “sorry, our day is done.  I think your hard drive is shot!  I will have to look at it tomorrow!"
Monday 4:40
I beg him to give me a spare computer in place of the old one.  He gives me an old computer that they could spare for a couple of days.  Nothing is loaded on the computer so I have to do it all on my own.
Monday evening
I’m freaking out because I have someone else’s computer…I don’t have the things I need on this computer.  I had everything saved on my “favorites” so I can’t remember anything about our class!  Stressed!
Monday evening
Continue working on my script for the presentation until midnight
Tuesday 5am
Wake up early & continue working on project.
Tuesday 8am
Take muffins for the guys in IT because I feel bad that I was bothering them so much on Monday…plus I want my old computer back today!
Tuesday 8am
Realize that computer will not be ready so I have to just do a Powerpoint presentation – it’s not going to be as good as Movie Maker but it will have to do at this hour!
Tuesday 3pm
Receive email that my computer is ready!  He says he did not have to replace the hard drive – they re-imaged computer again because they ran a scan and everything seems to be ok…for now…
Tuesday 4pm
Start recording my voice over top of powerpoint presentation using Screencast for the first time ever! 
Tuesday 6:30
It’s taken me about 12 re-takes…I’m out of time!  This last “take” is going to have to be good enough! 
Tuesday 6:40
I blast out of the office and fly down the stairs…running to my car.  Hoping that I can make it to the University in time for our 7pm class!
Tuesday 6:45
Rip out of the parking lot to the University!
Tuesday 6:59
Find a parking spot and put $2 in the meter.  It says 30 minutes!  I look, oh, it’s only a 30 minute parking spot!  Nice.  Hope I have enough change for the next meter!
Tuesday 7pm
Run into the Education Bldg.
Tuesday 7:02pm
I see smiling faces and a wonderful table of pizza (heavenly!  I’m starving and my voice is raw from recording my audio for the last 2 hours!).  Smile and nod...nobody knows what I've just gone through in the past 48 hours!
Tuesday 7:15
A great evening of great food and conversation.  Thank you Alec for your generosity in buying us pizza!  This is greatly appreciated.

Sunday, 23 November 2014

Major Project: Someone asked if Diigo is better than Pearl Trees. Here’s what I had to say.

Highlight the Web With Diigo by cogdogblog, on Flickr
Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  cogdogblog 





Someone asked if Diigo is better than Pearl Trees.  Here’s what I had to say. 
The answer is they are both great social bookmarking tools.  I think they are both reliable and do similar things.  It depends on which one you are most comfortable with.  I had no experience with either of these tools.  So, I chose Diigo because my Professor, Alec Couros suggested it and once I started using it, I felt very comfortable with the tool.  I did watch some videos on Pearl Trees and it looked good as well.  When I started using Diigo, it was easy to bookmark things of interest to me and Diigo provided me with a free teacher account with free storage, I started using it and never looked elsewhere.  Research on Google had the two rated very similar. 

Here are some of the functions that I really like:

1)     I liked it because it was easy to login and use.  I was able to save, bookmark, share and annotate documents directly from your browser and they are stored in a list on your diigo page. For example, I can highlight portions of the page and even put a sticky note on the page!  A recent upgrade allows for annotation on PDF’s which is a handy feature in my work and as a student going to university!    

2)     I like the screen capture option which you can save independently or attach it to the specific webpage.

3)     I applied for a teacher account and within a couple of days, I was given access to a lot more  storage space - all free!  As a classroom teacher, I can add student names (email addresses or Diigo accounts not required).  As a coordinator, I can invite other teachers to one of my Groups.  The one I created is called, “Mr. B’s Special Education Resource Library”.  https://groups.diigo.com/group/mr-bs-special_education_resources_fiap-vap-dc-and-slc

4)     My library can be shared privately with people I invite or I can make it open to the public.  Other professionals can look at my resources and they can even add some to my page.  As the only person who has Administrative rights to the account, I can control who or what is posted and if I want to exclude someone, I have the ability to do so.  It’s easy to add tags so you can search for topics more easily and add comments on links as well!

5)     Organizing my topics and/or research directly into my folders or Lists as they call them is simple and it has the feature of “tagging” items so that they are more easily searchable. 

 

6)     Now, this is all wonderful but would you believe that Diigo can actually expand your Professional Learning Network too?  Well, I found over 1000 different links to different groups.  If you are new to developing my PLN, this is a great place to start!  I was so pleased to be able to find other Special Educators all in one location!  Here are the 4 that I have decided to follow for now!  I’m so excited to be a part of their network and look forward to expanding mine! 

a.     AT in SPED - https://groups.diigo.com/group/at-in-sped : A group geared toward finding and sharing information about AAC research, communication and Assistive Technology.

b.    Technology for Special Education - https://groups.diigo.com/group/aac-in-special-education

c.    Special Ed in the 21st Century - https://groups.diigo.com/group/special-ed-in-the-21st-century  No Child Left Behind? Web 2.0 can be an outlet for these often 'Left Behind' voices. Resource supplement for a Ning network with the same name: http://21stcenturysped.ning.com/

d.    Diigo In Education  https://groups.diigo.com/group/diigoineducation

7)      Hot Bookmarks from the Library are listed under the “Community” link.  This has been so helpful for me in this class because I can search by interest (e.g. special educators) and it provides me with a list of interesting articles!  I have been able to search areas of interest and save them to my library but also tweet out the interesting articles.  At the beginning of this class, I would always wonder where fellow classmates would find such interesting articles!  Wow, this only took me until November!! 








Saturday, 22 November 2014

My First Chat Experiences: #Saskedchat & #Spedchat


My First Chat Experience:  #Saskedchat
 

I don't know what I thought of Twitter at first but it didn't make a lot of sense for me.  The turning point for me was connecting to people that I was interested in following.  This seemed to take a while - it wasn't instant for me.  However, once i found a couple of communities i was really interested in, it turned my world upside down!  I can't stop looking at Twitter, in particular, these 2 chat groups!  I'm sure there are more but beginners must start somewhere! 

My first experience with doing a chat was about 3 weeks ago on a Thursday evening with #Saskedchat.  I I didn’t know anything about what this chat was going to be about.  At first I thought it was like our on-line class (please don’t laugh…) so I turned up my volume button thinking people would be talking about various topics!  I feel so dumb telling you this!  I then realized that people were chatting about various topics listed as:  #1, #2, etc.  I tried sending some Direct Messages to people but nobody responded so then I thought to set up a column on my Tweetdeck and this helped me to sort out the conversation(s) that were going on!  I finally got up the courage and tweeted out that I was a “newbie” and then like the flood gates opened, my twitter account just kept buzzing and buzzing!  People were saying “Welcome” and let me tell you…I felt overwhelmingly welcome!  I thought…what an awesome group!!

The conversation was very rich with pertinent education topics.  That week we talked about designing learning spaces and looked at different issues surrounding this.  We also covered classroom management issues.  Great topics and great information shared.  I couldn’t believe how much information people were sharing back and forth!  I couldn’t figure out how people could find information so fast while this was all going on!  I think it had to do with people preparing ahead of time and knowing what questions/topics were going to be covered.  I joined this group on Google Plus and now I can vote on the weekly topics, which is really cool. 

I am overwhelmed at how people on this chat are so incredibly inviting and willing to share.  If you have any questions or issues you want to discuss, they are more than willing to help.  I use the word “overwhelmed” to describe how I feel about this type of sharing amongst colleagues that you don’t even know!  For example, there were people sharing resources and websites that they had put together!  The next thing that just blows my mind is that you can check out and follow some of these brilliant people and look in to their twitter accounts to see what they know and who they know.  This had led me to some fantastic people, knowledge and resources!!  This is so exciting for me and I am forever grateful to ECI831 and the many contributors to Saskedchat!

My Second Chat Experience: #Spedchat

On November 11, we had no class due to Remembrance Day.  I sat down at my computer to join a chat that happens at the same time as our class 7-8pm.  Spedchat is mainly a group of special educators from around the world.  I found this group after doing a search for special educators a few weeks prior and realized there was a chat that could be interesting.  This turned out to be true! 

I found the resources such as news articles, book suggestions, critical reviews, personal reviews/blogs, etc.  I was able to save many of these articles to my Diigo library of resources and have shared them out with my fellow colleagues already! 

This quiet “chat”, as I like to refer to it, is a really effective tool that I will continue to follow in my career going forward!

Thank you for reading my blog.

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Major Project: Special Education #Hashtags & Twitter



Major Project: Special Education #Hashtags & Twitter
 

 
To think that only 10 weeks ago I was introduced to Twitter.  I really didn't see what all the hype was about.  I started following people and some things were interesting but I found things like news websites more interesting.  I was surprised how many people followed Twitter but I couldn't figure out why they would find this interesting.  I had no time for this and it just didn't make sense to me! Frustration!  When would I fit this in to my already busy life!? Grrr!!  My first impressions of Twitter were just not great...in fact, very frustrating!  I found reading blogs in our classroom more interesting - now this I found impressive!  In fact, it was a bit intimidating because all of you could write up a storm!!  However, with all the rave about this #Saskedchat, I thought I would tune in one Thursday evening.  This was definitely a turning point for me as I was welcomed in and was truly impressed with the chat!  TSN Turning point for me!!    

THEN....
2 weeks ago - Remembrance Day Tuesday, I just happened to be following someone who said to join them for a Special Education Chat (#spedchat).  It's the same time as we have our class but because our class was canceled last week due to Remembrance Day, I joined in!  Well, this just opened MY EYES to TWITTER!  I found a bunch of people who are special educators and I started following them and sharing resources!  NOW I GET the whole Twitter thing...and honestly, i'm hooked!

I feel bad that it took me so long to figure this out but that's just the way it goes sometimes.  I found this class to be very challenging for me because I am not very technologically inclined.  I found it hard to keep up in ECI831 and I had many technological setbacks along the way that consumed so much time.  However, when I look back now, I'm a little embarrassed at how long it took me to get involved in Twitter.  Funny how you can go from Frustration to Addiction, all in a matter of weeks!  haha!

As promised, I've created a list of 20 hashtags - I know there is probably more but I thought it might save newbie Special Educators some time!  Please add if you have additional hashtags!

Special Education #Hashtags

#specialed
#slp
#speducate
#braingym
#learningdisabilities
#ece
#specialneeds
#gifted
#autism
#aspergers
#cerebralpalsy
#tck
#dyslexia
#adhd
#add
#mentalhealth
#differentiated
#inclusion
#asd
#autistic