Meeting with people with like interests is always interesting and informative. Seeing examples of technology in the classroom provides motivation and ideas that I can take back to my own classroom. Moodle is definitely something that I would like to explore further.

Side discussions also provided some interesting insights, such as the differing access to the school's server. One has to wonder why things that are working well, are changed.

Discovery Video

I have not yet used any of the videos from the Discovery Learning website. One of teachers has found it to be a very valuable resource. I asked him to comment on his experience with the site. He responded and had his Grade 7 students comment as well. The following are their comments:

The Discovery Education Streaming Video Site is extremely informative but it also absolutely enhances students’ learning. Today I showed the video, Cells: The Basic Units of Life. It not only adequately covered most of the material in our Science Grade 7 core unit, Basics of Life, but the students really did enjoy the presentation. I’ve looked at many of the videos on this site, and can easily see how they can be effectively utilized to get students energized and engaged in hands-on learning experiences. Video is the perfect medium for students who are auditory or visual learners.

I’ve already used two videos, the Cells and Discovery Atlas: China Revealed: Short Stories.
We all know from experience that the more engaged the students are and the more interactive your lesson is, the more they will enjoy, learn from and retain information from your lessons.

Allan Norman
Grade 7-12 teacher
Cut Knife High School

That is a great site you showed Mr. Norman. It has been awesome so far great education on that site and it is really interesting too.
Dawson

So far we have only saw two videos and I think they are great! They are very educational and interesting to watch. Although there are some bigger words they make it so you understand. I like it how there is a variety for different ages. –thank-you
Raeanna

I like the site that Mr. Norman showed us even thou we only saw like two videos oh well it gives us a lot of good information for the education that we need.
Tia. Thank you


I thought the website we saw was very educational and entertaining. It had all kinds of interesting things on it.
Cameron

I think it was a pretty good web sight even though we just saw two of the movie they had lots of good information on it I enjoyed them and I am looking forward to watching another one.
Alex

It is very hard to tell if it is a good website or not because we only watched two videos, and those were interesting so I think it’s a good website. I am guessing there are a lot of interesting videos, and I bet there are thousands of videos on it.
Aaron

I think it is a good idea because there are lot’s of educational videos. And lots of people can learn from them. I have not watched hardly any yet on 2 but yes I think it is a good idea and a great way to learn when you’re having fun because most people would rather watch videos and lots of great information on it
Sh’lace


I think it is a very good website to learn things from. I learned stuff I did not know about. It is more fun to watch movies and learn from it, than have to sit and learn from a text book all the time.
Megan


This website is very full of interesting things, and the movie we watched today was outstanding. It gave us great details of everything about our unit, and it is a great website to learn from. Thank you very much; I know my whole class will enjoy this website just as much as me.
Cassie

Information Literacy

From the session with Stu on January 22, I came away with a very useful concept; one that has helped provide renewed focus for much of my instruction. His definition of Information Literacy as the ability to find, authenticate and share information was extremely useful. If we want students to be life long learners, we must provide them with the skills to achieve that goal.
If students can’t envision how ideas can be personally beneficial, they often aren’t interested. As teachers we need to show them how to be good consumers of the Internet’s information. Students need to realize that with all the information available, they can be their own teachers. If they want to know how to do something, they can find the answer, providing they have good information literacy skills.
Hooking students by using the technology the way they are using it, may help – but as teachers, we must prepare them for the future. A future where applications like Google Docs may very well replace the mainstay applications like Word and Excel, but students must know the basics of how to format documents properly. They need to know how to create a table of contents, have the ability to create sections in a document so they can format the sections differently. Business students and students involved in research need to know how to create, manipulate and read spreadsheets and charts. A good understanding on creating databases is invaluable to organize information.
A good number of recent graduates from our school have told me how well prepared they were for their post-secondary education. Much of their introductory material was a review of what we had done in class. Hopefully post-secondary instructors will promote information literacy, ensuring that everyone will be a life long learner.

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Let's get started

The exchange of ideas is necessary for growth. While communicating to an invisible audience is somewhat foreign to me, I believe it to be a worthwhile venture. Dabbling in this new medium will provide the opportunity for me to grow and share thoughts.