LIBE 477

 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...

  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...

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 ...

First Go Around When I first started searching, I was going to jump straight to the Minecraft aspect of my inquiry, but I changed my mind when I realized that I really would like to answer my first question of "What is Digital Literacy." With this in mind, I started searching websites that I could use within my teaching to also try to explain to my students what digital literacy is. With this initial search, I found two sites that I found valuable:: 1.  https://mediasmarts.ca/ This website has a wealth of knowledge located within the site. As I was looking through it, I realized that when I was teaching elementary school (around 10 Years ago), I used this site quite exclusively when I was teaching my students about online safety and computer etiquette. I then moved on and forgot about this site. I will definitely be utilizing it again because I find it truly helpful. 2.  https://www.commonsense.org/education/ This website is a plethora of information for all your digital lite...

What is Digital Literacy? I think I know what Digital Literacy is...I should know what it is. I have taught my grade seven computer class for three years. Because of the times were are in currently, I have stepped back and am only teaching humanities, but I am still my school's go-to technology person. Be it hardware, software, or how to issues, I am the one everyone comes to. But do I really know what this idea means, have I been incorporating it in my classroom, can even teach others how to understand/utilize/teach it? I guess it is time for me to find out. I always try to incorporate some aspect of technology and the interwebs into my lessons and projects. This means that I add videos, TedTalks, infographics, or games to my lessons and I allow students to use these same things with projects, assignments, or presentations. Does this mean I am teaching and making sure my students know and understand Digital Literacy? I am not sure. So I guess that is what I am going to learn and ...