EDUC+8Y34+–+Sec2Showcase

Katherine Gregoris, I really enjoyed the tech showcase. My favorite presentation was on the smart board, creating a picture book walk-through using the Smart board and a Document camera. Lots of great ideas!

Student: Crysta-Leigh (Tika) Patrie Teaching and Technology Showcase: Make Your Lessons Pop with BrainPOP! Descripton of the Workshop (and what I learned): The presenter began with an explanation of what BrainPOP was and how we would use it in our future classrooms. BrainPOP is a great educational website with a variety of subject-specific links to movies for students in grades K-12 (ages 6-17). The subjects this site covers include Mathematics, Technology, Health, Science, Social Studies, The Arts, and English. This animated site visually stimulates the human mind with all of its colours, movements, and easy-to-follow instructions. I learned that integrating technology into every subject can help enhance the learning experience for the individual student. BrainPOP can help students understand the importance of each strand using the wide collection of resources this site has to offer. Students who are attentive and engaged in their learning will be able to apply what they learn now to future experiences more easily. I will definitely be using this website while I plan my lessons for my second teaching block (grade 4/5), as well as for other future teaching endeavors of mine.



The first workshop which I attended was BrainPop (in the picture above). I found this workshop to be very useful as the instructor walked us through how to use the program. BrainPop will be a great tool to use as it provides the teachers with excellent resources such as videos, handouts, activity ideas etc. Also, BrainPop will engage visual and auditory learners through the interactive applications and videos.

Hayley Thornton and Danielle Elder We participated in a workshop about using technology to create a global classroom. Students can video conference with other students around the world. Teachers around the world have their classes completed the same activities, and the students share their work via webcam. By doing this they gain a better understanding of different cultures and how topics are addressed. In addition to sharing their work, the students can chat about other issues taking place in their community. By connecting with other students they become global learners. They also develop friendships with studetns around the world. This process can be thought of as "on line pen pals". An example of students collaborating was initiated by Will Smith. He started a music initiative where students added pieces of music to one soundtrack. The final soundtrack "Rock Our World" featured music and voices from schools in many countries including Canada, and it was made into a music video!

Place your cursor below the last entry on this page. Insert a line, then type your name, the title of the conference session you reviewed, and your review. Insert your picture by clicking on the IMAGE tool in the EDIT toolbar. **//BE CAREFUL//** not to type over another entry on the page—it’s easy to do. Click **Save**.

Picture posted by Amber Holden. In this picture: Amber Holden, Aaren Zavarella, Danny Aldridge and Chris Lowe.

Nichole Pichardo- Project Wild Workshop.

I was unable to attend the Tech Showcase, the following picture is with the facilitator of the Project Wild Workshop. This was a great workshop with an awesome resources that is easy to use. The activity guide provides teachers with lessons that promote evironmental education and enables students and teachers to be active world citizen. Check out the website! []



Tori Takacs and Barb Gunia

SMART Education was an excellent workshop to be at. Both of us have never used a SMART board, so seeing allt he ways in which it can be used, and the different 'accessories' so to speak to go along with it are fantastic! Teaching and learning can become more hands-on and can reach several of the multiple intelligences. We are very excited to use one in the future, hopefully our school boards have one!

Amber Holden I attended the BrainPop workshop. I believe that this will be a very useful tool and i cannot wait to use it in the classroom. Because of this workshop, I feel more comfortable using technology in the classroom. I have learned many new ways to encorporate technology into lesson plans creating higher order thinking and engaging units for students. I am glad to see that there is such a great resource available for eductators to consult to asist in the intergration process. I feel that working with todays generation, educators must feel confident in technology and use it to their benefit. Hands on activities allow for further retention of information and deeper learning opportunities.

Krista Kernaghan

Brain pop was an easy to access online resource available for teachers to use in their classrooms. It is full of fun and engaging activities which allow a different kind of teaching strategy to implement into schools. It can be applied across the curriculum. It is great to use as a group activity, for students individually, or for teachers to access for ideas and materials. I also really like how it offers a home connection, where children and parents can access and use brain pop together.

Nicole Hickmott The presentation that I chose to review here is the Web 2.0 workshop. This workshop was the first presentation that I attended. I found this workshop very interesting because it was an extension of the tools that we have learned about in tech class at Brock. It was particularly interesting because the presenter teaches a grade one class and uses twitter and blogs with the students. It is my goal to be a primary teacher, with special interest in the youngest grades. I had never even imagined being able to use these tools with students in the way in which she described. While there were some hoops she had to jump through, such as her grade one’s being too young to have an e-mail account, she found a way. She used her own e-mail to set up a twitter account that her students could tweet from. She also set up a class blog for the students that they all participate in updating. While those were only a few examples of how Web 2.0 tools can be used in the classroom, there are many other uses. I think that it is so essential to use these resources because these tools are the reality of so many children’s lives. Children do not go home and sit down and write with a pen and paper, they are continuously connected to technology. The classroom teacher noted how incredibly engaged the students were once they could navigate the material in a way that makes sense to them. I was so surprised that the students in grade one were able to learn how to use this technology. This proves that what students are able to learn is limited only by a teacher’s ability to get the students engaged. I will definitely try to incorporate these 2.0 tools into my second teaching block, and definitely into my future classroom. I think that these are great resources for teachers as long as they know how to use them properly!



Lori Van Bakel

The tech showcase that I chose to attend was Brain Pop! Typically the teacher used the tool to introduce a new concept to his class. He focused primarily on the large variety of videos that are available and the many activities that accompany each one. I loved how the web tool had an area where the curriculum expectations can be looked at. This helps us as teachers to make sure that they are being met within the activities and lesson plans that we are using. I selected this session because I had previously heard about it from my last associate, but had yet to be exposed to the benefits of using it within a classroom. In my future classroom I plan on using this tool for instructional purposes, especially in the primary and junior grades. I look forward to becoming engaged in the advantages of Brain Pop and the countless other technology tools available for classroom use!



I had a wiki post here and somehow it was deleted. So I will write again, though it won't sound as nice. I loved the classroom response technology session. I would love to incorporate this technology in my future classrooms. It is beneficial because it keeps children engaged during presentations. It can be used during lectures to poll the audience and see how they feel about certain issues. Classroom debates can be enhanced through this technology as well. I also really liked how you can download all the results and know which students answered correctly or incorrectly. In addition, it integrates math into any subject. It was a great workshop! Shannon French

This picture, below, was taken at the Technology Workshop held at Brock's Hamilton campus this past Friday, Jan. 29. I really enjoyed this workshop demonstration which involved the use of interactive clickers which students can use to respond to questions presented in Power Point. After the question is shown on the screen, the students anonymously click in their answers and the teacher then shows the results in the form of a chosen graph. This would reveal something like a) 0% b) 3% c) 0% and d) 97%. This would be a wonderful tool to use for a review prior to a test, so a teacher could see where he might need to focus further review if they are noticing a high percentage of incorrect answers. This most definitely will become a technology you will see in classrooms in the immediate future. John Gill

We took this picture at our first workshop during the Tech Showcase. This workshop introduced me to interactive clickers, which I had never seen before. I thought it was great! I think this type of technology is good to bring into the classroom because students will be able to participate without feeling pressure to raise their hands. It can be used for test preparation and games. Jaime Hignell

Jolien Koole

// Workshop: Laying the Foundation for Effective Instruction in Literacy // // Presenter: Linda Charko, Student Achievement Officer, The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat // // Attendee: Jolien Koole // // Date and time: Friday, January 22, 2010 from 10:10-11:25 // // Location: Bethany Community Church //
 * __Building Futures Professional Development Workshop Day__**

Linda Charko spoke of the 21st century learner in her workshop entitled //Laying the Foundation for Effective Instruction in Literacy//. It was proposed that there are four roles of a literate learner: **the meaning maker** who uses prior knowledge to construct and communicate meaning, **the code user** who recognizes and uses the features and structures of text, **the text user** who understands the purpose and audience of the piece, and **the text analyzer** who can analyze the author’s motive and intent, determining bias and utilizing critical thinking. In order to facilitate these roles and create a well-rounded literate learner we, as teachers, must enlist strategies that are evidence-informed and effective. As suggested by Charko, the strongest strategy is one that is multi-fold. It is using a combination of both a variety of materials and purposeful talk, along with the gradual release of responsibility and propelling students toward deep, critical thinking. Through this four-pronged approach, we can foster an environment for literate learners to flourish.



Jessica Staffen

At the technology showcase in Hamilton, my favourite workshop I attended was BrainPOP. BrainPop.com is a website that offers teachers (and parents) an online resource for lesson ideas and extentions. The session was very informative, and I really like how the presenter was a current teacher who uses BrainPOP in his classroom on a regular basis. He was also very passionate and knowledgeable about the website, so he was able to pass along this information to us. I have been exposed to BrainPOP.com in an undergraduate class, and even offered a lesson from there in my EDUblog assignment. I have explored the website and there are lesson ideas for almost every topic. One thing the presenter also mentioned was that BrainPOP is in the middle of aligning all of their videos and activities with the Ontario curriculum. This presentation also introduced me to BrainPOP ESL, which I had not been exposed to in the past. I think it's a great resource (it's still in the launch phases so it's free for anyone to use right now) for all teachers because most classes now have students who are speaking english as a second language. I am definitely going to use BrainPOP during my next teaching block because the videos are informative and written in student-friendly language.



Building Futures Professional Development Workshop Day Workshop: Occasional Teaching Presenter: Bruce Davey, Retired Teacher, Current Occasional Teacher Attendee: Kaitlyn Sevcik //Date: Friday, January 22, 2010 // //Location: Bethany Community Church // This presentation was at the Building Futures Workshop day. Mr Davey spoke about occasional teaching. During the presentation Mr. Davey utilized a PowerPoint presentation to enhance his instruction. I found the PowerPoint to be helpful in guiding Mr. Davey’s discussion. He used the PowerPoint as a skeleton to his presentation, which he elaborated on and added in examples. I decided to attend this presentation because it is most likely that I will get an occasional teaching job before I get a full time job. I thought it would be interesting to know some inside details about how to go about occasional teaching. I will definitely utilize PowerPoint in my teaching career. Candice has shown us many other ways to use the program to create exciting and interactive lesson (BINGO, Jeopardy). This technology is not that new to me as I have had experience with it. Something new that I learned about during Mr. Davey’s presentation was alternative remotes. He discussed a comical moment where he experienced technical difficulty in the classroom. A student in the classroom that he was supplying in had a watch that worked as a remote. As 21st century learners, students are exposed to a variety of technologies which, in this case, was one that would hinder a classroom teachers plans and boggle their minds if the teacher did not know what was going on. So beware of the alternative remote control watches that students could use to ruin your movie activity!
 * Kaitlyn Sevcik **



Mary Packer Web 2.0 The first presentation that I attended was on Web 2.0. The teacher was a Gr. 1 teacher and she used Web 2.0 everyday in her class with her students. Her students had twitter accounts that she set up through her own email. The twitter accounts were a fun way for the students to learn typing and writing. The fact that her students were able to twitter and blog and have their parents see it and tweet back made the students want to not only post their comments, but to self edit them to be correct. I chose this presentation because it had to do with practical use of smart boards in the classroom and I was pleased to hear from the presenter that she was a novice when she started and that she had limited technology access in her classroom. She only had 4 basic computers for her students to use, but having basic computers with internet access is enough. She also skyped with another teacher who showed us how to use Web 2.0 in the classroom to skype with math scholars in Russia and students in Newfoundland, etc. The possibilities of Web 2.0 in the classroom seem endless. However, they were speaking from the perspective of teachers from Hamilton, I have yet to see a smartboard in any elementary classrooms in Niagara. If schools could afford them, I think that they would be well worth the money. I think that this type of technology is definitely necessary in our ever changing world of technology. I can see how it would be very beneficial for students in their education and their personal lives.



Arleta Hursky Canadace had seen the picture with me and the presenter from OCT. The PD day that I attended was all about the OCT, which was very informative. The Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) offers its members support during their teaching career. The Foundations of Professional Practice which "outlines the principles of ethical behaviour, professional practice and ongoing learning for the teaching profession in Ontario" (OCT). As teachers we need to always apply our teaching to the Standards of Practice and the Ethical Standards of Practice. We as life long learners need to make sure to always follow the standards during our teaching career.