Monday, January 26, 2015

Monday Update

Oops!/Aha!
This weekend I worked on an assignment for Math that I would really like to try with future students. It could be used in any subject, and it would be great for fostering metacognition. Indeed, I think it's a great reflective exercise for learners of all ages.

Conferences
Tomorrow night I will be heading to Ottawa for a conference. In addition to getting my assignments done early, and trying to make a winter wardrobe from my coastal temperate rainforest attire, I have been reading some blogs about conferences, including Introvert's Guide to Conferences by @sarahdateechur.

Twitter Chats
 On Sunday night I took part in #BCEdChat, #fslchat, and #1stchat. I was inspired, and connected with some really interesting educators.

#PDPPPosseRC
Here is my blog entry about Project Superhero, and here's one about Stuart Goes to School.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Bonjour les amis!

Practicum News
On Tuesday I found out that my first practicum will be with a K/1 Immersion class!
#kinderchat #1stchat and #frimmchat will be a few of the communities that I look to for support.

#BCStuTeach
On Tuesday evening I took part in the #BCStuTeach chat on bullying, hosted by the founder of the #IAmAntiBully campaign.
#yyjignite
I was very much looking forward to attending the #yyjignite event in person. Unfortunately I was not feeling healthy enough to attend. (In the end, I still participated a little bit via Twitter, and ended up in the Storify about the event.)

My FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) did not win, though. My feelings around missing this event prompted me to do a bit of reading about burnout, including this article with 7 Strategies to Prevent Burnout.
#PDPPPosseRC
On Thursday morning, I used BlueJeans in the #tielab to connect the #PDPPPosseRC with @h_james for a video conference. Here's my blog post about that meeting. Despite fumbling around with the remote, I got it working, and I'm already looking forward to my next video chat!

-Britney (@MlleBallen)

Monday, January 19, 2015

Tech Notes

These are some of my musings/notes from today's in-person #edci336 session...

Twitter Chats
I took part in #fslchat and #bcedchat on Sunday night. The #bcedchat was about innovation, and it's on Storify here. Engaging in this process helped me to improve my Twitter chat skills, become more comfortable with Hootsuite, and grow my PLN.

Coding & Programming
I want to continue working on Codecademy as part of my work for this course in order to further my learning about coding. When I asked what his favourite Education Technology resource was via Twitter,  @abnorr shared a kid-friendly site for practicing coding: studio.code.org. I'd like to spend some time exploring that as well. Through @DW_Programs on Twitter, I found out about lightbot.com, a program for engaging kids in programming.

Blogger
My upcoming goals for Blogger are adding social media icons to this blog, and learning how to follow blogs via RSS feeds.

Personal Learning Plan
Here is a sample personal learning plan (PLP). I might work on creating a formal PLP for myself, but in the meantime this blog, Twitter, and a plethora of sticky notes will serve that purpose.

Privacy & Copyright
I plan on learning more about privacy and copyright. Here are a few phrases that will help to guide the beginning of my learning journey:
  • BC Privacy Act,
  • International Standards for Technology in Education,
  • Creative Commons, and
  • open educational resources.
Miscellany
Here are a few hashtags that I've heard about through this class that I'd like to explore further:
  • #remixthediss,
  • #geniushour,
  • #tiegrad,
  • #commentsforkids, and
  • #sd61learn.
Here are some other resources that I'd like to explore:
-Britney (@MlleBallen)

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Get Connected

Video Conference Tutorials
I am putting together a couple of video conference tutorials about Blogger and Twitter for my colleagues in #edci336. If you are interested in attending one (or both) of these sessions, what sort of topics/questions would you like to see covered?

I will be using BlueJeans for these video conferences. Tomorrow afternooon I will start learning how to host a session using BlueJeans. On Thursday morning I will be using it to host a meeting between the PDPPPosseRC and a local teacher. Hopefully by the time I host the aforementioned tutorials, I will be able to use BlueJeans without getting David Bowie's song "Blue Jean" stuck in my head!

Twitter
By all accounts - and certainly by my Twitter account - I have been tweeting up a storm lately. I have expanded my PLN, increased my engagement in some great communities, found some terrific resources, and just generally been quite inspired by what I have found.

Today I started using Hootsuite, and I think that I am starting to get the hang of it. It certainly didn't take long for me to tweet a pun about it.

One particularly fruitful connection was with the Royal BC Museum. Because of this connection, I have been given the opportunity to be part of a creative team for an outreach project that combines science and comics. What an incredible combination of Science Education and Art Education! 

Face-to-Face Learning
I am so excited to be taking part in these fabulous opportunities for networking and professional development in the near future:
Will I be seeing you at any of these events? Are there any other great events coming up? Let's get connected!

-Britney (@MlleBallen

Thursday, January 15, 2015

#PDPPPosseRC

I just created a new blog for my cohort, PDPPPosse Resource Club. It's going to be a K-7 resource sharing page. On Twitter we'll be using the hashtag #PDPPPosseRC.
 
-Britney (@MlleBallen)

Monday, January 12, 2015

SMART Term Begins!

This term my classes are SMART: Science, Math, Art, Reading, and Tech. I am so tech-xcited!

As part of my learning journey this term, I get to take part in a personalized course about Education Technology. Here are a few of the things I hope to accomplish as a part of that:
  • Enhancing and using this blog,
  • Engaging with education communities on Twitter* to expand my PLN (Personal Learning Network), and
  • Expanding my repertoire of education technologies by exploring tools such as infographics, coding, and podcasts.
*On Twitter, I can be found at @MlleBallen & the course hashtag is #edci336.

Mlle. Allen