Well after having laryngitis for a week and not being able to talk, its finally here... my final reflection.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Coming into this class I was not sure what to expect. But looking back I can say that I have learned a lot of ways to incorporate technology into my classroom. Although my blog posts are few beyond the tech tasks, when I did find the opportunity to blog, I  tried to make them packed full of ideas. I feel that my biggest contributions to the class were the sharing of how I would use the technology in the tech tasks within my own classroom. Sharing ways that I would use a blog, and other forms of technology in the classroom to make parents feel like they are part of their child's learning experience was something I was excited to discuss and contribute to this class. I tried to share some of my passions when it comes to teaching through my blog posts, and really enjoyed sharing my thoughts on the documentary Bully. I hope to continue blogging after this class is finished to continue to contribute my ideas to the social learning environments of other teachers intereste


The list of things that I learned from others through this course is endless. I loved reading about how others plan to or would like to incorporate technology into their classroom, as well as the experiences that they have already had with technology.
It was great to read others posts, but I learned the most from reading my classmates posts about the tech tasks. I especially enjoyed these posts because I could relate to what they were discussing, and had partaken in the same experience. Reading about struggles, or frustrations that people had with the tech tasks, as well as how they would use the technology was great. Once I get an idea in my head, I often get tunnel vision, so reading how others would use the same forms of technology in their classroom was a big learning point for me. Perhaps my favourite posts were those that followed tech task #7. I learned so many different ways that technology could be used in the classroom, and so many different thoughts on how to use the same forms of technology in classrooms. 

For my internship I will  be interning in a grade one class. As I listened to Liz Kolb's presentation, I found some great tools for implementing technology in my classroom. One of the things my co-op teacher commented on when I met her was that she is not really up to speed on all of the technology in the classroom, but that she loves the idea and wants to learn more. This got me super excited because technology is something I really have a knack for. I catch onto technology quite quickly and really enjoy working with it.

The first thing in Liz's presentation that really caught my attention was audioblogger. I got quite excited about it. I was quite disappointed to find out that it is only an application that you are able to use with blogger. After playing around with Weebly, the blog site that I am using, I found out that they also have an audio component, but that it is not quite easily accessible to students, and also needs to be paid for. I would totally use this in my classroom as a way to engage students into using technology. As grade 1 students many of them will not have their own cell phones, but I would guess that almost all of them have access to a cell phone at home.

Upon completing all of requirements for this tech task, I figured I would add a separate blog post for my thoughts. 

Five photo Flickr:
I totally loved this!!!!! I love photographs, any kind of photographs really, so being able to see photos taken by other people, and to then link them together to somehow tell a story was totally cool. Plus it was so easy to use. This is definitely something I will use in the future in my classroom, (especially if I end up having to teach my own arts ed classes). I think that even the youngest of students could compete a five photo flickr story, especially with the skill that most young children have with technology these days. It would be great as a class project, or as an individual one. I would also use it in the primary grades as part of a creative writing assignment. The students could create their five photo flickr story, and then write about it. I think they would totally have a blast with it.

Daily Create:
To be honest, I was very apprehensive about these going into it. Upon reading them, there were a lot that sounded really challenging and like a lot of work, but I soon realized that as long as I gave it a shot, that I would most likely surprise myself. I had a lot fun with this part. Reading through all of the daily creates on their twitter feed helped me find the ones that I ended up completing. I can definitely see myself doing more of these in the future, especially the photography ones. It is not something that I could see myself using in my classroom, as I will be interning in a grade 1 class, and my hopes is to teach younger grades. But if I ever ended up in middle years or high school I think that this is definitely something that I could see myself using in my classroom, especially with the BYOT initiatives going on in schools now. Would be a great way to encourage students to get involved with technology for more than just social media use.

Choosing to do a daily create that was photography based, also forced me to sign up for a flickr account. Something I had never really thought of, but now that I have seen what it is, I am totally happy that I took the plunge and became part of the Flickr community. Click here to check out my Flickr page. 

For the second, or should I say third part of this tech task, I decided to challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone and complete some of the daily create tasks. I doubted myself a little at first, but soon realized that not everyone who completes the tasks are professionals at what they are being asked to do. It is more about having fun and interacting with different types of technology.

I found the first one really easily, it was the daily create for the day that I visited the web site. The task was to "capture a photo in the golden hour - first hour past sunrise or last hour before sunset." I have always really enjoyed taking photos, and am finding that the older I get I am becoming more passionate about it. I ended up uploading two photos for this daily create. The first photo I took a couple of days ago while out for my evening run around Wascana Lake.

I decided to upload a second image because it is one of my favourite photos that I have taken. I stumbled upon it while searching through the photos on my computer to meet the minimum upload of 5 public photos on flickr to have your photos show up in searches. (This was my attempt to have my photos actually show up on the daily create page). It was taken while I was on vacation with my family in Kapalua, Maui in 2012. You can see all of the photos I have uploaded to Flickr by clicking here.

For my second daily create I decided to tackle a writing task. I knew that this would be a challenge for me because I am not much of a writer. The task I chose to do was to google your favourite colour and write a 3 line poem about what pops up in the search window. Follow this link to read my poem about the colour pink.

For my last daily create I chose to do a drawing task, which once again is greatly out of my comfort zone. I am even less of a drawer than I am a writer. The task was "using your foot and a pen write our your name on a piece of paper." Here are my results.... pretty shakey!

My first Five Card Flickr story is about the Journey that I was on when I decided to train for my first half marathon in Vegas. It was a journey that was challenging, being careful about what I ate, finding new places to run so I was not bored, learning to be responsible for my own training, and the amazing feeling when I avtual

So I met with my co-op teacher yesterday, she is totally amazing! I will be her 15th intern, which is pretty cool. I am so excited to be working with her on my journey to becoming a teacher. However, I got a few curveballs thrown at me yesterday when we met. She is waiting to hear if she is going to get one of the transfers that she put in a request for. So I could end up in grade 1 at Sacred Heart, or grade 3 at St. Angela. Now grade 1 at Sacred Heart would be an amazing learning experience as it is an inner city school, something I do not have much experience with. But grade 3..... EEEKKK!!!! That one has me a little bit worried. Grade 3 is definitely out of my preferred grades and I would even say out of my comfort zone as far as teaching goes. Both would be amazing learning experiences.... if I end up with grade 3 I guess the lesson of learning to roll with the punches is one that I will experience early in my career! I've also been thinking it isn't necessarily the worst to have a range of experience, but the idea of grade 3 scares me a little bit! 

Well I have finally finished my about me page. Feel free to check it out.

All About Noelle

More Updates coming soon!

While reading the news this morning I came across an article about a group of teachers and educators canoeing from Alberta to Ontario to bring awareness to the importance of Outdoor Education. Give the article a read and let me know what you think.

Post a comment with your thoughts. How important do you think outdoor education is for our students? Do you plan to incorporate outdoor education into your teaching?