Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from February, 2021

ICT Skills and Pedagogy

 What are ICT Skills and Why do We Need Them? ICT skills are very important in our line of work, even if you don't think they are. Information and communication technology is the way of the future for almost all businesses that our students will be joining in the future. If we do not use these and teach these effectively, our students are going to be at a disadvantage in their future endeavours. I thought I was teaching my students enough to get by with, as I was the Computer learning teacher to our grade sevens for three years....In hindsight, nope. Forced Situation - A Change in Learning My school and A LOT of my colleagues, and to an extent myself, had a little push in upgrading our ICT skills because of the novel coronavirus that has changed many things in the world currently. The push in our district in March of 2020 was straight to Online Digital Learning after Spring Break (I believe that was province-wide) and this included a lot of teachers using online tools more prevale...

Fostering Reading Cultures in Schools

  Thoughts on Reading Reading is an important aspect in schools and unfortunately, too many students do not enjoy this because they have been forced to read books that do not interest them or that they actively dislike. This is a truly sad state of affairs because I am an avid reader and I try to bring my love of reading into my classroom. I hope that I can get at least one person in my class to change their mind about reading and are able to enjoy reading for the rest of their lives. This ideal is something that I think about when I plan my English Language Art curriculum for the year and the following tips and techniques have helped me, in some way, along the way. Reading Tips and Techniques Across the Internet (https://www.wuwm.com/post/levar-burton-reading-rainbow-helped-build-generation-readers#stream/0) There are so, so many resources to help teachers promote reading in their classrooms. When I was younger I remember quite a few things bout reading in the classroom but one of...

Reading Review Part C

A Plethora of Information  Narrowing my Focus   (samuelmcneill.com Accessed Feb 6, 2021) The first thing I decided to do this week was to choose exactly which area I will examine more closely. Last week, I had a lot of information on both "What is Digital Literacy?" and "Minecraft in a Classroom." I wanted to choose the area I am most excited to work on this year, and I chose Minecraft because of this. I would say that 90% of my students are excited to use Minecraft in some aspect of their studies and presentations, and I would really like some ways to facilitate and explore this.  The Information As I figured out last week, there is TONS of information about/for/on Minecraft within the Internet. The problem is trying to figure out what is helpful for a teacher who is just starting to use Minecraft in the classroom and utilizing it efficiently rather than just as free time for the students. Once I decided to focus on Minecraft, I needed to do a little more focused ...