RVS Guest Author: Dave Morris, Associate Superintendent of Learning – One incredible challenge in being a leader of 21st Century leaning is how to approach the use of digital resources in classrooms. I believe that Alberta Education and many school jurisdictions are also struggling with this issue as well. Do we purchase and license resources? Do we try to collect suitable resources for teachers into repositories? Are online textbooks the [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Authors: Sarah Lewis, Teacher, and Bryant, Grade 4 student - As a teacher with Rocky View Schools, I am tasked with ensuring that my students are 21st Century learners who exude creativity and who know how to collaborate. To learn more about 21st Century competencies in Rocky View Schools, visit the following link: http://abed.rockyview.ab.ca/learning/learners. I often make use of inspiration from my own life or events taking place around [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Sarah McNab, Communications Officer – I’ve got a confession to make. There are days when I don’t exactly love overseeing the Power to Enrich. There are even days when I refer to it as the bane of my existence. There, I admitted it. Isn’t that what blogging is all about – sharing your intimate thoughts with all of cyberspace? Now, before you judge me too harshly, hear [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Tracey Sweetapple, Guidance Counsellor, Bert Church High School – I make no bones about it. I love being a teacher and decided on this career path in Kindergarten, but I remarked to a colleague recently that had I been exposed to mass media and technology the way youth today are, perhaps I might have chosen a different career path. I did not state this lightly for despite [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Lucie Pratte, Learning Specialist – So, you are a teacher minding your own business in your classroom with your students when suddenly you are surrounded by an oodle/oogle attack! Google, Moodle, Doodle, and even Poodle (not a dog J) all demanding that you pay attention to them. What is a teacher to do? “Who you gonna call?” Hopefully you will call me, the Learning Specialist at your [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Tracey Sweetapple, Guidance Counsellor, Bert Church High School – Some while ago, during the Professional Learning (PL) portion of our Bert Church High School staff meeting, Bobby Mathew, Learning Lead for the science department, gave a short presentation on the app Show Me. I had heard of Show Me and had previously downloaded and looked at some presentations, but hadn’t understood how versatile it could be and [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Richard Gaudio, Learning Specialist - We are very pleased to announce that this fall, Rocky View Schools will host an official TEDx event at the RVS Education Centre. The goal is to bring together RVS students, teachers, and leaders to create, share, and stimulate dialogue about teaching, learning and education. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Tracey Sweetapple, Guidance Counsellor, Bert Church High School – “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.” Plato I recently attended a screening of the documentary “Finding Kind“ in which the notion that girls are catty, cruel, gossipy, and unkind to one another is explored. These pejoratives, along with far worse, are unhelpful in assisting girls and women to ‘find kindness’ that is, innately, at the core [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Scott Mahan, Learning Specialist – As we continue to navigate our way through the messy business of educational reform in Alberta, I often wonder if we are doing enough to educate our kids in the area of digital citizenship and online safety. If the old saying is true and “Knowledge is Power” then do our educational leaders, teachers, parents, and students have enough knowledge to adapt to [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: Tracey Sweetapple, Guidance Counsellor, Bert Church High School – I’m a fan of Rick Mercer so I attempted to write in a style akin to his ‘Rant’. Consider this ‘Sweet’s Spiel’. Young people today are growing up in a highly visual culture. Never before, in the history of mankind, has the visual processing of a young person’s brain been so exercised. I mean, think about it: comic [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author – Richard Gaudio, Learning Specialist – One of the ways that we are building a culture of sharing in Rocky View this year is through four Celebration of Learning events. The goal of these Celebrations is to share the best practices of educators in Rocky View for a live audience and then showcase the videos on the RVS YouTube Channel. Our next RVS Celebration of Learning will [ Read More ]
RVS Guest Author: John Murphy, Principal, Nose Creek Elementary – Gene Roddenberry’s fictional Star Trek series has fuelled the imaginations of countless millions who have come to realize that if you can conceive it, you can make it happen. A mantra of the new films “… to boldly go where no one has gone before,” also captures the spirit of the educational team in the district of Rocky View Schools. [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Dustin S., Grade 12 Student – Hello to everyone, I hope you all had a great holiday break and a fantastic start to the New Year! It is now 2013, and the technological world is becoming exponentially more advanced. Chestermere High School, as well as other schools in the jurisdiction, has made the transfer to 1:1 learning. With everyone in the classroom having his or her own laptop [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Sara Drennan, Teacher, George McDougall High School - “Inappropriate use of technology will not be tolerated in this classroom”. A former colleague of mine would begin all of her classes with this phrase. She would gather all cell phones into shoebox at the beginning of class and students couldn’t touch them until the end of the class. To her, there was no way a cell phone could be used [ Read More ]
Guest Authors: Ava & Mackenzie, Gr. 4 students – In our classroom, we use a website called a wiki. Everyone in our class can access this website easily. Our teacher will put stories, chapters and information for us to use on it. We use the information to help us with our learning. For example, we can access different versions of chapters from books we read in class. We use this [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Rick Gaudio, RVS Learning Specialist - One of the most powerful Educational Technologies we have in Rocky View is Google Drive. Based in the “cloud”, files stored in a user’s Google Drive can be accessed from anywhere at anytime, but even more valuable is the ability to share interactive files with other users. Here are four examples of useful processes in Google Drive, along with “How To” videos so [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Sean Hartley, Teacher, Sarah Thompson School – This year is my first with Rocky View Schools. What drew me to this board was its commitment to the 21st Century learner. Every day we are encouraging students to be collaborative, technologically literate, self-directed learners who also care about their communities and the world they live in. Here at Sarah Thompson School, we are a very fortunate group. Being a [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Andrew Smith, Teacher, Bert Church High School – Recently, my secondary English students have been studying Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. As a large and, in their opinion, “rather dense” text, students have spent a good deal of time silently (and critically) reading. For the past several years, I have had an increasing number of students reading this text via various electronic devices; it is readily available in [ Read More ]
Guest Author – Richard Gaudio, Learning Specialist – In a recent lecture, Dr. Michael Geist described how the new Canadian Copyright Act represents a “seismic” shift for education. Bill C-11 includes a number of measures that will allow educators and students to take advantage of digital technologies. Most significantly, it expands Fair Dealing to recognize education in a structured context as a legitimate purpose. The Government of Canada defines Fair Dealing as: …a [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Andrew Doyle, Teacher at Glenbow School – Transformation of education occurs in many ways, whether at a district level or school level. Perhaps the most important changes that must take place are in the classrooms, between the teacher and students. No longer do we consider the classroom a structured environment in which information is transferred to students and is universally assessed. Classrooms are organized so that they allow [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Todd Kiernan, RVS Parent and Principal of Learning – About three weeks ago my oldest son, who is in Grade 6, asked me what he was going to use as a computer for school. Back in the spring of 2011 his school hosted an open house that brought together parents, students, and educators to discuss the opportunities for students in bringing a personal device. While the focus may [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Richard Gaudio, Learning Specialist – Making videos is an excellent way for teachers and students to construct meaningful content and share it with a broad audience. The tools are easier than ever to use but it can still feel daunting to put yourself out there. My goal in this post is to give you a few tips to make decent quality video and encourage you to use multimedia [ Read More ]
Guest author: Leslie Collings, Principal, Springbank Community High School – I am a big fan of personal learning networks (PLNs). A personal learning network, to me, is connecting with people and ideas with whom you may or may not know to learn from them/their ideas. With the explosion of information on the Internet, I have to admit that I have become a big user of Twitter. Twitter is the hottest [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Nancy Lake
I thought that as the subject of this blog is about mobile technology, I really should write it from a mobile device. I am on a bus trip with our PeeWee hockey team driving back to Airdrie from Regina, and my approximate location is somewhere in Saskatchewan, on the #1 highway between Swift Current and Medicine Hat. But one look at my cell phone, and I can see my exact coordinates on Google Maps. I know how far it is to the next city, and if I’m looking for the nearest Tim Horton’s, I just type it in the search field and I get directions, along with an ETA. I am writing this on a laptop, but I could also choose to write it from my iPad or iPhone…
Guest Author – Andrew Doyle There is lots to be said about social media and its uses, advantages and vices. I myself have recently been added to the addicted to twitter list. I have been on facebook for years with varying levels of interest and I engage in the ‘always connected’ lifestyle without a second thought to it. When talking to colleagues about simple things such as email I hear [ Read More ]
Guest Author, Dan New – In my recent post, “My Teacher is on the Television” there are implications of students interacting with a screen rather than an educator. It is this very conception that I have attempted to address in my classroom this semester. The question all distance educators (not just video conference educators) must ask is, “Are these students a part of my class, or are they simply observers?” [ Read More ]
Guest Author – Andrew Doyle With the abundance of choices in technology to integrate and utilize in the classroom it is hard to reflect and determine if we are using these technologies effectively for student learning. When I refer to technology in this post, it is all inclusive of things we use in our classrooms (websites, SmartBoard, Cameras, software, internet, etc.). The goal of integrated technology is to not only [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Nancy Lake
My kids came running up the stairs from the basement, shirtless…faces burning. What in the world? “We’re in the world championship for volleyball, Mom! We need a quick drink and then we’re on!”
I’ve never been a gamer. I don’t understand it. Even when Pac-Man and Donkey-Kong were King, I didn’t play. So when my kids wanted their first gaming system, a Game Boy, I wasn’t thrilled. Reluctantly, I granted their wish. Next was a Game Cube (only because it was compatible with Game Boy). Then came the Nintendo-DS, and a hand-me-down PlayStation 2. Wait a minute…this was getting out of hand…
Guest Blogger – Derek Keenan – If you don’t spend a great deal of time reading educational technology blogs, (not sure who does, other than me) the term mobile learning might strike you with images of doing algebra on a train, or reciting shakespeare while riding a bike. However, mobile learning is far from a mystery for educational researchers who have been working with small, portable devices in education for some time…
Guest Author, Don Thomas – The Board of RVS has already passed the first reading of a policy titled Digital Citizenship. It has been distributed to School Councils for their input. This particular issue is one fraught with all the recent stories of abuse, child abduction, and pedophiles. Yet no one will deny the exponential growth of Facebook and other social media sites. For a typical set of parents, the [ Read More ]
Guest Author, Dan New ~ Calculus students at W.G. Murdoch High School in Crossfield, come to school every Monday, just as any other student. They wander in from the parking lot, place their belongings into their lockers, and grab their calculus materials. When they cross the threshold of their Calculus class, however, what they are greeted with is far from what one might define as a “regular” classroom in today’s [ Read More ]
Guest author, Leslie Collings – Recently, a delegation of SCHS staff members went to San Diego to experience High Tech High firsthand. If you have ever browsed Edutopia, you will most certainly certainly have encountered this amazing school. Because SCHS is a one-to-one school, our delegation was interested in how High Tech High integrated technology in a project-based environment. Perhaps the most important lesson from the trip was that High [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Nancy Lake
Moodle? Mahara? Wiki, Blog…sounds like new swear words from our Pee Wee Hockey team’s dressing room! Actually, these terms all relate to online collaborative environments. The Horizon Report sees these online spaces scheduled to affect education in one year or less…well, we’re ahead of schedule…
Guest author, Simon Pols – I was only 11 years old when I went to the Drive-In Theatre to watch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. I recall laying in the back of the station wagon eating salted popcorn, drinking cream soda and trying to figure out how I could create a manikin, synchronized with the movement of the bedroom door; complete with snorts and snores. I laughed along with others at [ Read More ]
Guest Author: Lauren Curry – Well what if someone says something mean on the wall? Everyone can see it. People think they can hide behind the screen and say whatever they want. Can you tell who is who? Can you edit comments? If we have something to say, shouldn’t we be able to say it to peoples’ faces? These were some of the many spirited replies with which I was [ Read More ]
Guest Author, Nancy Lake – “Mom! Mom! Do you want to see our school project? I’m working on it with Jordan and Avery.” These were the words out of my eleven-year old as he rushed in the door.
“Sure…” He had nothing in his hands, and thankfully, his friends weren’t with him this time as I didn’t have any “good food” (cookies) to offer them today. “Where is it? Is it in your back-pack?”
“No…it’s on the computer,” he replied. I expected him to get his flash drive to show me. “It’s in the cloud Mom, on Google Docs.”
“What??”
The cloud? Google Docs? What was he talking about? Perhaps you’ve had this conversation with your own child…
Guest Author: Kevin Wttewaall Learning Director: Technology In the last couple of years more and more of our students have personally owned devices (POD’s) such as smartphones, laptops and tablet computers. Many POD’s cost less per year than renting a band instrument. Most handheld gaming equipment includes an Internet browser. Should these tools be used in school to provide access to online educational technologies and learning resources? A tremendous [ Read More ]
Guest Author, Nancy Lake – Emerging Technologies…quite a mouthful. Technology seems to be changing faster than my wardrobe, and honestly, that’s pretty fast. I share a home with 3 males (husband and 2 boys) and I firmly believe that there is truth to the saying, “boys and their toys” as I find myself navigating the world of the latest and greatest electronics. In the past year alone, we have seen [ Read More ]
