PHRD had its last all-school PD day of the 2014-2015 school year last Friday, and what a great day it was! I am continually impressed by the wonderful work that is being done in classrooms throughout the division. However, it is a little disheartening (while at the same time totally awesome) to acknowledge that what is publicly celebrated is only a tiny representation of the work that is being done. So often we wonder, 'Why?' and perhaps part of the answer lies in the video presented on Friday morning:
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During the first week of December, I had the extreme honor of attending the Curriculum Re-Design Symposium in Calgary. What an inspiring couple of days! Firstly, I was lucky enough to spend the ride back and forth to Calgary with some extremely talented and knowledgeable teaching staff from PHRD. A lot of great sharing happened along this ride. The actual symposium was a great time to share with PHRD student reps, teachers and Associate Superintendent Mark Theissen. Along with other representatives from across Alberta, the days were spent attending various workshops, with a common theme. It had a very positive vibe and an excitement for a change in our education system. A group of like-minded people took into account many different factors and came up with many great ideas that were all noted and this voice was taken into consideration. It left me with a feeling of great hope for the future of education in PHRD and Alberta. We are already doing great things in our division and after attending this symposium, I feel the future looks very bright indeed.
Jackie Comeau By Tammy Tkachuk It’s an exciting week for PHRD teachers and teachers across north-central Alberta. Google has come to town! It’s time for Google Summit 2015. Over the weekend, Christine, Cheryl and I had the opportunity to participate in a pre-summit, along with three staff members from Eleanor Hall School. We were put through our paces at a Google Bootcamp for Educators. Our presenter walked us through the ins and outs of Gmail, Drive, Chrome, Docs, Slides, Sites, Classroom, and more. I was blown away by some of the features in Google Maps, Docs, and Forms. We picked up a lot of tips and tricks that we’d love to share with you and your class! Today and tomorrow, we are at the Google Summit itself at Northlands Expo Centre. Educators from across north and central Alberta are here to learn about using Google and Chromebooks in the classroom. We are lucky that representatives from most of our PHRD school will be at the Summit gathering ideas to bring back to their classrooms and schools. Please feel free to ask around, chances are that someone from your school attended the summit and I’m sure they would be willing to share what they learned with you and your kids. Christine, Cheryl and I would also be delighted to share! Once the Summit wraps up on Tuesday, there is still an opportunity for some of our PHRD staff to attend another Bootcamp for Educators in Whitecourt on Thursday and Friday. By the end of this week, we will have Google trained teachers all throughout PHRD. Make sure you ask them to share their expertise! This week I have been investigating alternatives to posters. What are some digital tools that students could use to demonstrate their understanding of a concept in a way that incorporates text, visual images and possibly has an audio component? Thinglink https://www.thinglink.com/ Students can create interactive images by adding video, text, other images, music etc. ThingLink examples: A menagerie of Google Chrome extensions (shown above, with quick descriptions) https://www.thinglink.com/scene/614171442354847745 This one may be used by a teacher to demonstrate what you can link to in ThingLink https://www.thinglink.com/scene/385215957930344448 A Chemistry example http://natashaambriz.edu.glogster.com/nitrogen-family Student representations of understanding of renaissance art (for SS)(you can see all levels of achievement represented here!)
Students can upload photos, images, and record their own voices! Samples of student work can be viewed on the main page Great for storytelling and report type work. Little Bird Tales examples (not just for elementary students!)
Big Huge Labs http://bighugelabs.com/ has MANY different ways students can manipulate images and text to demonstrate understanding. Some of my students’ favorites:
PicLits http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx
‘Inspired picture writing’ combines careful image selection with precise word choice (and provides a drag and drop option for students requiring that kind of scaffolding)
For this post, I want to focus in on the theme of digital law and how I taught this in my grade 4 classroom. For several years, I had my students publish their work online using their blogs. In the beginning, we did not worry about citing sources when posting images to our blogs. Students would use Google to search for images and use those. It was much like they did when they used images from the internet in a document or presentation when they did not publish their work online. We soon started questioning if this was the right thing to do when we use the images online. As a class we started investigating the answer to that very question. Are you allowed to take images from a Google search and just use them? This question led to more questions of my students:
-What is copyright? -Is it different to use images online as opposed to images you use for other things? -How do you know if you have permission to use an image? -Where can we find images that we are allowed to use? -How do we cite images properly? -Does copyright apply to music we use in our work? -Where do we find music we are allowed to use? Over time my class and I have found some useful resources when it comes to using images and music in our work. I hope you find them useful! Copyright: 2Learn- copyright & teaching the basics Images: The Noun Project- a community building icons that anyone can understand Pixabay- Free images Compfight- A Flickr Search Tool 15 Best Sites for Open Source Images Photos For Class - The quick and safe way to find and cite images for class! Pics4Learning - Free photos for education 27 Superb Sites With Royalty Free Stock Images For Commercial Use Google Image Search Adds Usage Rights to Search Tools Research Tools in Google Docs- allows students to easily find and cite images in a Google Doc Music: Incompetech- royalty free music. Search by genre or feel. Soundation- online music studio with recording, effects, virtual instruments and over 700 free loops and sounds Audio Nautix – Online collection created by Jason Shaw. FMA- Free Music Archive. Search by genre. Jamendo- royalty free music downloads Are there any resources you and your students use? Let me know in the comment section below! |
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AuthorsThis blog and resources website has been developed through the work of various AISI coaches in PHRD. The lead collaborative teachers for the 2015/2016 school year, Cheryl Frose, Christine Quong and Tammy Tkachuk will continue to update this site. If you have resources you would like to share or would like to contribute to the blog, please contact us. Archives
May 2016
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