*This post has been written as part of my journey as a Ph.D student through University of Regina. Weeks 5-7 of this course did not include blog prompts. Week 8 Blog Prompt Can online social media activism be meaningful and worthwhile? Is it possible to have productive conversations about social justice online? What is our responsibility as educators to model active citizenship online? Meaningful & Worthwhile Activism One of my favourite things about social media is that it reduces barriers in the sense that it can expand our connections. For those with access to connectivity, social media can increase their… Read More
EC&I 831 Week 4 – TikTok
*This post has been written as part of my journey as a Ph.D student through University of Regina. Week 4 Blog Prompt Choose a social media tool that you would like to know more about. Create an account (if you haven’t already), spend some time learning about it (from resources or via conversations) and experimenting. Report some of your observations related to the tool (e.g., features, function, positives/negatives) and its impact on users (especially kids). Contemplate whether or not there are educational opportunities for the tool and/or what teachers or parents should know. When I saw this post I knew… Read More
EC&I 831 Week 3
*This post has been written as part of my journey as a Ph.D student through University of Regina. Week 3 Blog Prompt Write an introductory blog post that outlines your initial ideas for your major project (i.e., the “major” integration project, or the learning project). Be as detailed as possible. At the end of the public school year Dr. Couros and I were able to sit down and discuss what this course could potentially look like given my specific job title and the independent study schedule. Part of this conversation included what the major project might look like since I… Read More
Welcome to EC&I 831
*This post has been written as part of my journey as a Ph.D student through University of Regina. As discussed previously, one of my professional development goals for the summer includes the completion of two classes as part of my Ph.D journey. While I purposefully choose to document all university courses through the blog this specific class, Social Media & Open Education: EC&I 831, actively calls for blog posts and online participation as one of the class requirements. As such, the vast majority of posts within the next few days/weeks will be tagged with #EC&I831 for easy curation. These posts… Read More
ICT Team Overview 21/22
When I first started my position in the fall of 2019 I joked with my team that they should give me three years to adjust. With so many aspects of education being seasonal I was fairly confident that by the end of the third year I would have everything figured out. Six months into my first year we closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and all “normal” systems for our team were shut down until the fall of 2020. My second year saw an additional closure transition in May due to rising numbers in our region. So now here, at… Read More
#TechTipTuesday – Summer Holiday Tech Prep
Every Tuesday I share a Tech Tip on our social media pages to assist our staff in their use of technology as it relates to their role. We are pushing right through this last week of school for 21/22 and this week’s tech tip aligns with a section of our Year End Tech Checklist. I recommend turning on your automatic replies on your email indicating that you are in holiday. (I’ll include a tutorial below for those who operate within Outlook) If you previously had your work email on your Smart Phone or personal devices consider removing it for the break. Alternatively,… Read More
Time to Unplug
On Mondays I share a different ed tech quote on our Thompson Classroom social media pages for our staff to consider. Today marks the LAST Monday of the 2021/22 school year and it goes without saying that, for anyone involved in education, this time of year is chaos (organized chaos… but chaos). While we are still very much in the trenches these past few days I wanted to share this reminder from Brian that taking time to unplug is good for everything (whether that is tech or people). For many of us, unplugging is taking time away from work during the months… Read More
My LAST Graduating Class
On Thursdays I usually use our social media platforms to share using the #ThrowbackThursday trend where users participate by sharing a memory (recent or distant). These posts don’t usually make it to the blog but this Thursday is a very important memory as tomorrow, June 24th, my LAST class from Ste. Rose will walk across the stage for their Grade 12 graduation! When I was in the classroom I got to work with students from Grade 7-12 depending on the school year and when I left on my maternity leave in 2018 I had the most amazing Grade 8 homeroom… Read More
#TechTipTuesday – Coders North
On Tuesdays I share a Tech Tip on our social media pages to assist our staff in their use of technology as it relates to their role. Today, June 21st, is Indigenous People’s Day and I wanted to ensure that our Tech Tip highlighted one of the great tech resources that employees, supports, and honours Indigenous Peoples. As such, this week’s Tech Tip is highlighting Coders North. This website plays host to a large variety of resources to educators who want to integrate coding and computational thinking in a way that is relevant/career-aligned and celebrate Indigenous perspectives. The included image below highlights… Read More
1000th Blog Post!
This post marks my 1000th blog post since I started this journey in 2012! After celebrating my 10th “Blogiversary” I wasn’t sure what my next milestone may be… but then I realized exactly how many posts I’ve published. To celebrate I thought I would summarize my TOP 10 POSTS. These posts represent content that I find exceptionally valuable (meaning I come back to them often or share them with others) and/or those that I invested a lot of work into publishing. I’ve included 5 individual posts and 5 series that I’ve listed in chronological order. Digital Identity: The Big Bad… Read More