Month: March 2017

On Friday March 10 many schools participated in an event called the Great Big Crunch and Great Gulp across Canada. This annual event encourages students to crunch down on a healthy apple at the same time as other classes and to drink clean tap water from their reusable water bottles.These events were created to increase awareness about the importance of drinking Peel Region’s tap water and making healthy foods choices.

Once again this year, our Health Action Team (HAT) and Eco-Team, took part in organizing this school wide event for students. For the second year in a row, organizer Nancy Zabukovec chose to use Nearpod over the PA system to run this virtual assembly which was extremely successful. The event was even more impactful this year due to the new features recently added to the platform. The collaborate feature allows students to interact and brainstorm while sharing text and images in real time during a live session, while the 3D features allows students to interact with 3D objects.

Here’s what Ms. Zabukovec had to say about using Nearpod and the feedback she received.

Me: Why did you choose to use Nearpod for the event?

Nancy Zabukovec: Nearpod was chosen for this year’s Great Big Crunch and Gulp event for a couple of reasons. First, we wanted to present the importance of healthy eating and drinking with students and staff in a creative and engaging way. Every year, students hear about the importance of eating fruits and vegetables and drinking water. But we never get a chance to find out, during a school wide assembly, what students already know about the topic. We wanted students and teachers to be actively involved in sharing their ideas during this year’s presentation. All too often, students are asked to sit and listen during assemblies, but rarely do they get to share their opinions or knowledge on the topics being discussed. By using Nearpod’s ‘collaborate slide’, classes were able to take some time to discuss what they already know and then post it on a live collaboration board. Classes were then able to read posts from other classes and learn from each other. Students were more engaged than in previous years and felt their opinions and thoughts were valued and heard.

A second reason we chose Nearpod for the event was because it saved time. Throughout the year, there are many school assemblies. Although assemblies are informative and a way to gather as a school community, they do take away from student learning time in the classroom. For a school of our size, 600 students to enter the gym takes quite a bit of time away from the morning/afternoon. By using Nearpod, the Health Action Team and Eco Team were able to present the Great Big Crunch and Gulp presentation in less than 25 minutes. We were able to eliminate time wasted during travel time to and from the gymnasium.

Ms. Zabukovec also spoke about the importance of student voice. Using Nearpod was a way to gather student voice through the use of the new collaborative feature in Nearpod from the entire school. I know that my class was excited to see the different answers from the different classrooms around the school. They were far more engaged and attentive than I have seen them in other assemblies. The event was such as a success that I have been thinking of how this would be a great tool to use at the beginning of the year with our Open House event. Stay tuned!

 

Imagine 240 of some of the most innovative teachers, from 83 different countries in the world, gathered together for three days of learning and collaboration. For someone like me who is passionate about Global Education E2 was a dream come true! It was three days of learning, networking and growth. I enjoyed working with an international team of educators to  #MakeWhatsNext as well as learn about some innovative ways teachers are leveraging Microsoft tools in their classroom to meet the educational needs of diverse learners.

Although, we face linguistic and cultural differences as an international community, we share many challenges in meeting the needs of students and we were able to share these successes and challenges. I enjoyed hearing from Megan Lawrence and Martha Jez speak about accessibility and technology and gained a great deal of practical solutions and ideas.

I really enjoyed learning about Micro:Bit, building on my coding skills in the STEM workshop and building a Robotic Arm. I am already putting plans in place to pair up with our learning commons teacher and a grade 6 teacher at my school to try this activity out, as I know it will be a wonderful learning experience for my students.

As a Skype Master Teacher I was thrilled to meet the others 16 educators’ present at the conference. I was also able to make many international connections for future Skype calls but this time I meet these educators prior to the call, an event that has never happened to me before.

Another highlight was attending the Minecraft workshops where I was able to gather further ideas for classroom activities and meet Meeno Rami the Manager for Minecraft Education at Microsoft and author of Thrive, which my class was extremely excited about. Using this tools in my classroom and school has been extremely powerful and I gained new ideas for my classroom and school.

Finally, meeting fellow Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts and Fellows from across Canada and being part of this amazing team was thee most valuable experience. The talent and collegiality of this great team makes me grateful and has inspired me to continue innovating and pushing boundaries to hopefully transform education for the betterment of all our students.

Thank you to Microsoft and Lia De Cicco for organizing this amazing experience!

Lately, I have thinking a lot about digital balance. What am I speaking of when I say digital balance?  For me it is self-regulatation (i.e. not being on your device all the time) and learning how to leverage technology to enhance my life.

As a teacher passionate about the use of technology, I see digital balance as an area that we will continue to discuss in education. Students need to understand that, yes, technology is wonderful and can help us learn in some amazing ways, but so can a variety of other activities such as physical exercise and connecting with others face-to-face.

Digital balance is about teaching students how to use technology for learning in purposeful ways that address modern pedagogy. It is one of the reasons that I am a big believer in introducing BYOD into the primary grades. It is an opportunity to teach students to build that balance before they pick up many of the less effective habits I have witnessed in older students. For example, learning how to have your device on your desk and not be using it unless we are using it to learn.

Like all good teaching, modelling the behaviours we want to see in our students is very important. This is one of the reasons I use social media in the classroom. We talk about what I am Tweeting and we Tweet together. I spend time in September teaching them to understand that the person they are in real life should the same person on social media. We learn that  words can have power and we can use our voice to spread positivity and learn with the world. It is imporant to also teach students how to disagree with others online, in an effective and respectful way.

Working globally online is important as well, as I try to model how I network and create relationships with other classes and teachers in respectful ways; however, I make sure I speak about the importance of turning off the devices and giving our brains a break. Students need to understand the importance of other activities such as getting outside, playing,  being connected to nature, exercising and eating well. It is all about finding that balance, which is different for each and every one of us. Sometimes in education we speak in dichotamies: should we ban cell phones in class or should every child have a device? How are we preparing our students to utilize and tap into the power of technology while learning to strike a balance with other activities?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.