Jonie's ECMP Blog

Kelsey, Shelby, Eric, and I have finally finished our final project. It feels great to finally have it finished. We equally divided all the parts of the video up, and I think that it turned out pretty good.
At the beginning, we had planned to cover more of the Education area seeing as we are all in Education. By the time we had covered all of the areas, the video had gotten too long. My part was to cover the lab building, classroom building, research and innovation centre, and the adhum building. I found all the information of all these buildings and we tried our best to cover it the best we could. All of these buildings have very important aspects of the University. We also coverd the residence, and in the video you can see my two bedroom apartment. I think that overall we equally filmed everybody’s parts.
In conclusion, we never had to many obstacles to over come. The biggest obstacle was trying to film without getting anyone else’s face into the video. I think that most of the work was just getting it organized, but after that it was pretty easy to get it all filmed and edited. Well, finally here is the final product! Here is the link as well:

We finished all of the taping tonight. We finished all the taping of inturmerals, as well as Residence around campus. Now that the taping is all done, we can begin editing!! Keep looking at Kelsey Burgera’s blog, as we will be posting all of the editing on her blog. Hopefully all the editing goes well!

As I had mentioned in my blog previously, my hometown Assiniboia had a “pink basketball game” as a fundraiser for breast cancer. It was a great success, and I had never seen so much school spirit in my four years of high school. Every student was head to toe in pink! It was great to see the stands packed full for this game. The Assinbioia Rockets had a great game, although they lost to the Filmore Flacons. Many people came out and gave donations, or bought a t-shirt (picture below) to raise money. The team also had cookbooks for sale. The Assinboia Rockets raised over $760.00 just in donations. Overall the game was a great succes, and hopefully this is a new tradition!!

This week our assignment was to Google ourselves, and see what our personal digital footprint looks like. I was actually pretty impressed with mine. I did not realize that there was so much on the web about me. The first thing that came up was my facebook profile. I am fine with my facebook profile being shown because I feel I don’t have anything negative about me on it, and it is a way that I communicate with other people. I also didn’t realize how many other Jonie’s there were, seeing as it is not a common name.
The second thing that came up was my blog. I think this is great because a blog is a positive thing, and it can tell a lot about a person. It has nothing negative on it, and it is all my opinions and how I am feeling. All the comments that I have made on my peers blog have also showed up. Different things with my mentorships showed up as well. My introduction for Lee Kolbert’s class, and my comments on their class blog also showed up.
Everything else in my digital footprint had to do with sports. Our school athletic site came up, as well as some write ups on games we played in Moose Jaw. Overall, I am very happy with my digital footprint. It contains nothing negative, just my personal opinions. I think that through my digital footprint, you could learn a lot about me. Through my blog posts, comments, and different articles about me people around the world can learn about me. Hopefully as I continue on with my teaching career, my digital footprint will become much more stronger.

This is how I am feeling lately. It is almost final time, and the assignments are piling in!! Does anyone feel the same way?

Tonight we began taping our Virtual Tour of the University. It is going very well, as we had spent quite a bit of time planning. Although, we had problems getting good shots with only us in the picture. If we wanted an shots of a whole area, we had to make sure there were no people. This was a little bit more difficult than it seems to be. We started taping after supper, so all of the buildings of classrooms were basically empty. It was the Health Center where we ran into difficulties because the gym and the pool is so busy at this time. Hopefully we can find a better time to get these shots. It is also very helpful that we are all living in Residence, and it is easy to get filming done!!

As a final project, Kelsey, Shelby, Eric, and I are doing a virtual tour of the University of Regina. We are trying to cover many areas, and hopefully it will be helpful for people who are planning on attending the university. The outline of our final project is posted on Kelsey Bugera’s blog. The areas that I was suppose to cover are the AdHum Building, Classroom Building, Lab Building, and Research and Innovation Centre. Here is a quick outline of what all of those buildings have to offer.

AdHum Building:
• Admissions
• Department of English
• Financial Services
• Department of History
• Human Resources
• School of Journalism
• Photo ID Area
• Presidents Office
• Printing Services
• Department of Psychology
• Register’s Office
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• Student Recruitment
Classroom Building:
• Department of Anthropology
• Arts Faculty
• Department of Economics
• Department of Geography
• Department of Justice Studies
• Department of Political Science
• Department of Religious Studies
• Department of Sociology and Social Studies
• Women’s and Gender Studies
• Police Studies Program
Laboratory Building:
• Department of Biology
• Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Department of Science
• Department of Physics
Research and Innovation Centre:
• Research Services
• Humanities Research Institute
• Campus Security

We had three great guests in our classroom on November 18th. They were Kathy Cassidy, Darren Kuropatwa, and Clerance Fisher. These individuals talked about how they use technology in their classrooms. I found it very interesting because we actually heard from people are using technology daily. When I think back to high school, we always used paper and pencil, but this is so much more exciting. I think it is also great that we have been doing these mentorships because we have learnt so many ways that technology is being used in the classroom first hand. We aren’t only hearing about it, but are experiencing it as well.
Darren was the first guest, and he really emphasized how he has brought the world into his classrooms. This statement is so true because through blogging and class wikis teachers are constanly communicating with other teachers around the world. Darren talked about his class using slideshare.net. He posts his daily lessons on there, so the students always have them. He also does a scribe post where each student is a scribe for the day. When they are the scribe, they write what they learn that day, and the students are basically creating the textbook. In his class, they also do blogging. The students call in BOB because it’s blogging on blogging. The students or teacher can comment on an individuals blog, and address and concerns that student may have. Darren’s classrooms also use a smart board. His lessons are prepared in advancce and the students spend more time on the board than he does.
Next up was Kathy Cassidy. Kathy talked about the myths about teaching primary kids. Her first myth was that it’s easeir to teach primary kids than older students. This is a myth because they are still building their knowledge. Primary kids are learning to read, and write making it much harder to teach. Myth number 2 was that five and six year olds are too yound to be using technology. Within the classroom she uses web pages, student blogs, wikis, and videos. These are all great things to keep the kids and parents updated. The third myth was the primary students should be using pencil and paper instead of computers. Kathy said that there needs to be a balance. Primary students still need to know how to use a pencil and be able to write. The fourth myth was that online is not safe. As long as the student’s no where they can and cannot go, it is safe. The final myth was the students learn best from their teacher. The truth is that kids are also learning from teachers all around the world through skype, responses on blogs, and wikis. Kathy asked a final question, “what are the implications?” I think that the implications of technology are huge. The students are learning so much through technology and their skills are being applied in many different ways.
Our last guest was Clerance Fisher. Clerance uses a class blog and a wiki in his classroom. It is a space for the students to come to and share what they have learnt. Clerance focused on “literacy.” Technology exposes the students to more things, and the students are thinking in new ways. The web is changing very fast, and it is live. The students have access to billions of people, and they can expand their own personal network.
I learnt a lot from hearing about technology in these individual classrooms. In my future classroom, I hope that my students have great opportunities such as these. I would definelty incorporate a class blog and a wiki. This way as a class, we could communicate with classrooms around the world. A blog would also keep the parents updated on the classroom. A blog could also be used for posted student projects. I really like the BOB idea. Each student having their own blog is a great idea because it is a way to share with others what they have learnt, and get a response. I think that technology is going to be a huge thing in our future classrooms. I would like to thank our three guests for sharing about their experiences.

I had never heard of TED Talks, unitl it was our assignment to watch some.  I found TED Talks to be very interesting as they covered so many different subjects.  Although it was hard to pick a favorite, I found one that was very inspirational.  I watched Becky Blanton-The Year I was Homeless.  This was a very interesting topic because she was a journalist and a writer for 22 years.  She felt as if she had become invisible, so she quit her job and travelled.  Not long after, her father died and she became depressed.  She lived in her van, and parked in a different place each night.  Blanton focused on how society had such negative perceptions of her because of where she lived and how these perceptions can affect us if we let them.  She said that homlessness is an attitude not a lifestyle.  Becky’s depression was out of control, and she went to a homeless help clinic.  She was given medication, but unfortunately the medication left her suicidal.  She couldn’t decide if she wanted to write or be homeless.  She was suddenly given hope when she heard that someone had wrote about her journals.  Becky moved back to Tenessee, startd to write again, and got back on her feet.  Becky talked about where a person lives, sleeps, or their life situation shouldn’t be associated with the individual.  Society instantly judges people on how or where they live.  Her final  closing point was that HOPE always finds a way.  I tought that this was an interesting talk because this is very ture in society.  People are constantly judging others on how they look, dress, what they drive, where they live, or an individuals way of live.

There is “Pink Game” in Assiniboia, my hometown, on November 27th. Your probably wondering what a pink game is, right? The Assiniboia Rockets are playing the Filmore Falcons all dressed in pink uniforms. These two teams have been very close for many years. All the fans who are coming are also going to all “pinked” out as well. This is all being done to raise money for breast cancer, and you can leave a donation at the door. I think that this is a great way to raise money, and have a ton of fun with the whole community involved. So if your around Assiniboia on the 27th, come out and cheer the Rockets on!