Edubits By Christina Harden

My Mentorship…a great learning experience!

Christina Harden — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:12:20 +0000

This by far was one of my favourite experiences of this class. I learned alot about managing time and the art ofcollaborating with people. I learned the value of teamwork. I had three mentors:

Maria Knee from Deerfield, New Hampshire (Kindergarten)

Melanie Holtsman from Jacksonville, Florida (Kindergarten and Grade 5)

Valerie Beck from Martha’s Vineyard (Grade 7)

Iwas not able to contribute /collaborate in the I would truly have liked with all my mentors. I comented on Melanie and Maria’s class blogs. WithValerie’s class I was able to help out with editing their newsletter that they were publishing. They published this newsletter for circulation around Martha’s Vineyard. This newsletter does not cost anything, however they do sell ad space. This is a major undertaking for this class. They are rewarded, however, with a great finished project and $18,000 in funds raised. This money goes toward their Grade 8 class trip to England. I edited ALOT of articles and through this experience I learned how time consuming marking/editng really can be. During my reading of hese articles I learned many different things about the area around Martha’ Vineyard as well as some of the history. Interestingly enough I also learned many different ways of preparing seafood. Mentorship was a very rewarding experience as it felt good to be able to contribute to something very meaningful. Thank you to my mentors and Dean for allowing me to share in ths wonderful experience.

Social networking…What does it mean to me?

Christina Harden — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:47:38 +0000

My growth in ECMP 355 is directly related to the social networking aspect of this class. It has been a step by step journey. When I started this class I knew only the bare minimum so I felt totally unprepared. I was the one avoiding technology if I could get away with it. As I stated before I felt totally unprepared for this class. This feeling grew into a feeling of anxiety. I put in some long hours to learn some of this “technology stuff” and it still felt like I was totally floundering. On a few different occasions we discussed as a class how we were progressing and feeling about the class. It helped to know that I was not the only person feeling this way. I had to remind myself to climb back up and try again. I learned from my successes as well and even more from my failures. Throughout the duration of this class I learned the power of collaboration. Without the social networking and help that I have experienced from this class I would not have learned as much as I did. I learned through the comments on blogs and my comments back, as conversation developed from this. Corie and I had a good conversation about the TED talk that we both viewed. Karie helped me out on a number of occasions with a variety of items. I also was able to get help fom my “techie friend” that I had not seen in a long time. Through our common bond of technology we reconnected. I enjoyed the elluminate sessions as it allowed me to express myself a little more freely and I was able to do alot of social learning through the entirety of the classes. I would like to thank my classmates for contributing to my social learning, without you I would not have learned as much asI did.

The evolving saga of my final project!

Christina Harden — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:09:00 +0000

I had no idea what t do for a final project for this class. When Rushton talked to our class about his website www.nextvista.org I was quite intrigued and intimidated by the idea of creating a video for his website. I had a very limited knowledge of Windows Movie Maker having only used it once before. But…I thought I could give it a try. Next I had to decide what topic I could creat a video on. So in my true multitasking fashion I decided that I would use one of the concepts I taught in my science unit on pants during my preinternship. I did this to help extend my unit resource in a technological way. I chose to talk about Roots, more specifically: The difference between Taproots and Fibrous Roots. This is one of the learning onjectives in the Grade five science curriculum. The next step was to contact Rushton with my idea and then to creat an outline (with step by step detaails as to what would be said). I created my outline but was unsure of how to address the credits. Rushton gave me excellent feedback on how to credit flickr photos. This knowledge would have benefited for other assignments. He verified hat my outline was okay to proceed with. I then started to create my video. After much trial and error I had a finished video. Yeah!!! Once completed I sent it to Rushton via www.yousendit.com(this service allows you to send large files). This is another technological service I knew nothing about. It did not send the first time (long story short…I did not save it on my computer as a video, so I sent Rushton just my project file…oops) Oh well it worked out better in the end anyway because my techy support friend came over and helped me to put music to my “Root Video”. Let me tell you as odd as this video sounds I learned alot during the creation of this video and I am pretty proud of it.

My future classroom.

Christina Harden — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:32:02 +0000

This class opened my eyes to a wide rang of technological applications that I could potentially use in my classroom. I can see the benefits to using google maps and google earth. I also can now say confidence that I could use power point (I know that this is very basic) in a variety of ways. I will introduce the tool Flickr t my students. I really enjoyed doing the four picture presentation. I appreciated that this is a very creative process and I would love to expose my student to this idea. When listening to Clarence, Darren and Kathy talk about their classrooms as moving beyond the four walls. They are exposing their student’s to experiences and social networks that span the globe. In my classroom I would love to incorporate a class blog. My class blog would serve a multitude of purposes: to allow my student’s work to be published in a forum for others to view, to allow my students the ability to social network with other places and to develop an open communication between home and school.

Storytelling done in 50 ways…well not quite!

Christina Harden — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:53:58 +0000

I am becoming quite the fan of flickr. I have always loved taking pictures and I appreciate the photos that other people take. I love that pictures can say so much with no words at all. In my spare time (which is quite limited these days) I like to scrapbook. So when presented with the task of exploring some of the 50 tools to tell a story I naturally gravitated toward the flickr applications. To go through the process you must join the flickr 6 words to tell a story. After creating your picture with a 6 word story you submit your project and they judge it based on certain criteria. Your story must be only six words in length and it must tell a story and not just be a title caption. This is actually harder than it sounds. Apparently Ernest Hemingwat was once challenged to write a complete story in six words. He wrote…

For sale:Baby shoes, never used.

And with those six words the story is complete.

Here is my six word story complete with picture. Enjoy!

Hannah parade picture

New techology, my opinion is undecided…

Christina Harden — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:48:01 +0000

Diigo, ireader, google maps and the list goes on…I started a Diigo account but I have not had the opportunity to extend my knowledge with this particular tool. To me Diigo, in the words of Marsha is as clear as pond scum. I am still unsureabout this little piece of technology. To stretch my learning I plan on exploring Diigo more this summer.

Google maps, I am sad to say, is another application that I did not have a lot of time to explore and appreciate. This is a resource I would like to incorporate into my future classroom (possibly even during internship). I need to further develop my knowledge and skills with this tool. This will be another application that I would like to explore over the summer, at my own pace.

I found that throughout the class we were exposed to many applications and resources. Due to my limited experience with technology it took me a longtime to become familiar with each one. I need to take my time to learn the many things we were exposed to. I do not fully appreciate the potential of some of them for this exact reason. Creating the google map is the tech task that I chose not to do as I would like the opportunity to explore this application more on my own.

Digital Identity…something to ponder!

Christina Harden — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:02:59 +0000

We were asked to google ourselves as one of our tech tasks. I had never googled myself before much less even thought of doing that before. When I did I discovered that I am on the first page. I went one step further and googled myself with my maiden name as well. I was here as well, not on the first page. I am on the first page due to being in this ECMP class. I am also on facebook and now I have signed up for various accounts such as Diigo, wordpress, gmail etc… I was actually surprised that even with my limited involvement with technology I was on the first page. However I guess I should come to the realization that if I use computer services then I am putting myself out there and a digital identity will be left. When I mentioned to my husband that I googled my name and I was actually found on the google search he was quite surprised. His very next response was “google me”. I did just that and he was on the first page as well.

Will Richardson wote an article entitled “You need to be ‘clickable’” He questioned “Are you preparing your students to be googled?” Some things to ponder from his article are:

~”We can either be the authors of our own online storis or let someone else do it for us”

~We should be our own advocates for our digital identity-We should be putting stuff out there that is reflective of who we are~

~We should be using our digital identities to extend ourselves in collaborative relationships~

~In the words of one of my classmtes, Larissa, “reputation can be a powerful tool but it is fragile…it takes years to build and seconds to destroy”…How very true. Thanks Larissa for the insight.~

I am still cautious about putting myself out there but it is pretty much inevitable that it will happen so I might as well do it in a positive way

Four (or five) pictures speak a thousand words.

Christina Harden — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:37:34 +0000

Here is my four (actually it is five) pictures that repesent who I am. I had this assignment done awhie ago but was completely unhappy with it…it simply was not what I envisioned when I pictured it in my head…so I did not post it (it was really that bad). I wanted to take more time and learn how I could make it better. Now that I have a little bit of experience with Powerpoint and thanks to my new friend Flickr I have created much better finished product. I hope you like it!

Click on link to access my pictures.

four pic in one powerpoint

Extending my learning in the blog world

Christina Harden — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:47:58 +0000

I spent the better part of the weekend trying to figure out how to make my blog look pretty…I started out with the bare minimum but I wanted to extend myself and learn more about creating a blog on my own. I had a friend come offer some advice and through this I came up with a more personalized blog rather than the generic blog…it is a work in progress but I am learning quite a bit as I go along…the trick is to find timeto work on everything and develop the new skills I am acquiring… I have not figured out where to find this illusive time. So I have now posted my new custom header which was created to be a little more reflective of what I want this blog to represent about me. I also have been working on learning (in my own time) how to hyperlink (which I can now say that I know how to do) as you can see from my previous blog. I was unable to figure out how to upload any video thus far onto my blog…keep checking in on the ever continuing saga of my technological advances. The quote “slow and steady wins the race” comes to mind.

Technology to use or not to use that is the question?

Christina Harden — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:24:59 +0000

“Any Society that would sacrifice a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both” ~Benjamin Franklin~

This quote was mentioned when we were talking about technology in the classrooms and the parents reaction to it. The question “How do you address the situation when a parent does not want their child exposed to the technology being used in the class (for protective reasons)? I believe this quote addresses this question by saying….that we must not as educators (for me…a parent as well) choose not to use the technology available to us due to the rationale of keeping our children safe. Yes…procedures must be put in place to keep our children protected while using technology (ex. appropriate internet websites) but this should not be the reason for not using what is available to us. Our world is definitely a technological world and quite honestly that is not going to change…there is no looking back. Our children (students) will need to learn about the technology around them. They will inevitabley be exposed to it despit our use/not use in the classroom. If we want them to learn about this in an informed, safe, appropriate environment then we as educators should be providing this to them. So then my next thought was if I am teaching this in my class then I should be more informed about the policies put in place for our student’s protection. This information is something that I am not aware of so as an educator (and a parent) I took the responsibility upon myself to learn more about the internet/technology policies for the Regina Public and Separate School Boards.

Check out these links:

Regina Public School Board Policy:

http://http://www.rbe.sk.ca/index.asp?id=sch_internetandnetworkpolicies

Regina Separate School Board Policy:

to be added when I find it!!