Category Archives: EDTC300

A Penny for my Contributions

Hi again, and welcome to, the final blog post for EDTC 300. For this post, we were asked to compile some examples of how I contributed to my classmates’ and others’ learning. I consider myself a lifelong learner and through this, I can share new information to enhance others’ learning. Learning is not a one-sided experience for me; it is important that I learn from others the same amount as others learn from me. So, not only am I learning but I also like to focus on supporting those who are doing the same. This is what we were able to experience during EDTC 300. We experienced this by creating a personal learning network with other teachers, classmates, and other professionals. These connections will be long-lasting and beneficial to continue learning from one another.

I have compiled my contributions into the variety of social media we used throughout the semester: Twitter, Slack, Blog, and Anchor.

TWEET TWEET

Twitter acted as one of the strongest personal learning networks that we experienced this semester during EDTC 300. Due to an extensive amount of time spent on Twitter, I have made connections that will benefit me for years to come. For example, following the SaskEdChats to connect with more teachers and to challenge my biases and to learn and grow from these connections.

Not only did I participate in a few SaskEdChats, but I was also able to fill my personal Twitter feed with quality, relatable content that allowed others to grow their knowledge from class content. I also was aware of my bias towards high school teaching and attempted to share resources for other grade levels. Some examples of these contributions are below.

  • Tweet Reply (1/2)
  • Tweet Reply (2/2)

Slacking off

Slack was a less audience-directed app that we were to use, for example, if classmates had questions, whether directly to a classmate or the whole class. We used this as a method to bounce questions off of each other and this has created a sense of community because of this communication. It was great to have classmates reply with their opinion or suggestions to find an answer to the questions. I loved that this modeled what being on a teaching staff is like – it will prepare students for this transition as they enter their professions. I am a technologically literate person so I did my best to give suggestions when my classmates were having issues with their technology or any of the social media or blog platforms we used. Here are some of my contributions to the Slack community.

I B-log here

This was my favourite part of EDTC 300 – blogging and commenting on my classmates’ blogs. This is where I felt the most connected to my classmates. This is because we were all experiencing the same, new information and reflecting on it much differently. This is where a majority of my learning took place because of the wide variety of thoughts and responses to the prompt posts and their learning projects. It was great to read a different point of view or a different method of approaching the new content. It was also great to experience difficulty and success in our learning projects, side by side. It felt like a very supportive community of people with the same experience(s). Here are a few examples of how I responded to others’ blogs and provided learning in my own blog posts.

ANCHOR Overboard

Anchor was one of the apps I tried in one of my blog posts, called Lower The Anchor. I really enjoyed the user-friendly platform because students would have an easy time adjusting to this kind of app. I also loved that it was available on all devices. This means that if for some reason, there is not enough tech available, students can use their phones to participate. Due to a bit of experience in an actual classroom, I teamed up with a classmate, Tina, to provide an opportunity to share some of our experiences with our other classmates. Tina set up a Google form that our classmates had access to and, with that information, we used Anchor as our method of answering the questions from the form. We did a two-part podcast and were able to use the share function on Anchor so that we could speak into our own devices, from our own homes. We did get some really good feedback on how helpful it was to have those questions answered prior to their teaching careers. Below is our podcast and a few responses to the podcast.

https://anchor.fm/allysia-coburn/episodes/Episode-One-QA-with-Tina–Allysia-eri8pc/a-a4qsc8e

Coming to an End

Overall, I am very pleased with the exponential learning and connection I have made outside of the classroom and look forward to continuing the connections I have made on our social media accounts. I loved that this provided many different perspectives and challenged my current thinking. These types of personal learning networks are a great asset to my professional development and I look forward to expanding them. I would love to know if I have made an impact on you throughout the last 4 months. Leave a comment below and reach out when you like, I am always here to help and learn alongside you.

talk soon

An hour of \C0D3/-ing

I cannot believe that this is our last week of prompted blog posts! This week we were asked to go and have some fun coding. We were given the following options to practice coding:

I chose to use Code and did the Hour of Code option: Intro to App Lab under the “comfortable” skill level because I have no issues picking up new skills when it comes to technology. Watch the progress below:

As expected, I didn’t have any issues navigating the hour of code that ended in doing a second one called Dance Party.

What I Learned

I certainly learned how easy it was to code using this method. I also understand how difficult it can be for those using it to code apps we use on our phones daily. I cannot imagine how long it took to code all of the functions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other related social media platforms.

Thoughts & Applications

I really like the idea of Code and how it has coding available for all different grades and skill levels. I think it makes it more welcoming for any kind of student. I also liked how easy it was to navigate the website and use filters to find the correct grade and level of difficulty. I also enjoyed that students receive a certificate for the completion of the coding tasks – it gives them a sense of accomplishment that they can share with their friends and family. Again, something that elementary and middle-year students would be more excited about than high school students. Ah, who am I kidding? I got one and I was excited for it.

It has many applications to the school curriculum and makes learning not feel so much like ‘work’ for students. If I taught middle years, I feel like it would have multiple applications to those curricula. I have a hard time stretching how it would apply to the high school curriculum, especially mathematics. However, I did notice that there was university-level coding available but never had the chance to check that part of the website out.

Thanks for following along with my prompted posts and you will see, in the next week or so, some concluding thoughts on the class as well as a final learning project post!

Talk soon!

Networked Learning

Well, EDTC300 is wrapping up, against my wishes! This has definitely been one of the most practical and applicable courses I’ve ever taken. In this post I’ll be showcasing some of the ways I’ve (hopefully) helped others learn throughout the past couple of months, as others have certainly helped me!

One thing I noted was that I was one of the only (if not the only) working/experienced teacher in the class. So as soon as I was told I am expected to contribute to the learning of others, I felt suddenly quite a bit of responsibility fall on my shoulders. I suppose because I figured I should be using my experience as best as possible to help the learning of others. This was then done through various forms of technology, but I found that my classmates were the most active on Twitter, so I posted most of my experiences on Twitter, to hopefully help my classmates! Here are a few examples of times I supported the learning of others via my own educational experiences:

In addition to sharing some of my experience, I also shared resources! This was done over Twitter, but also in our Slack Community as well:

I also took some time to read and comment on other people’s blogs, as I was fortunate enough to experience others reading and commenting on mine as well!

So overall, what did I learn about networked learning?

In one of our class discussions a classmate said “I used to think it was better to be offline, than online” in reference to how often times, as educators, we try to erase any digital footprints we have to perhaps appear more professional. After looking through the dozens and dozens of screenshots I’ve posted, how can we say that being offline lends itself to being MORE professional!? Look at the resources I’ve shared with others, the blog posts I read of my fellow classmates, the Twitter interactions we shared regarding professional learning or even teacher related well-being. Being actively engaged online is necessary, in today’s world, to being an effective teacher and I thoroughly believe that. I think that there are obvious benefits to understanding how blogs, Twitter, Slack, etc. all work in terms of possibly using to incorporate in the classroom. However, more impressively, these mediums are so essential to an educators growth as a professional! I sincerely cannot express how much I’ve learned just from being on Twitter for 10 minutes a day. Things about my profession that I haven’t been exposed to in my seven years of experiences. So simply put, we as educators need to broaden our horizons to include an extensive digital professional network. It doesn’t happen overnight, but the ability to share and collaborate with other professionals online is genuinely one of the most valuable tools I think a teacher can put in their pocket!

Keep it going..

My learning project has been so much fun. For real. Not once did it feel like something I was forced to do, or a requirement. It was something I enjoyed, and I am making a promise to myself to keep it going. I want to continue to improve my golf game over the summer, and I have a feeling for the rest of my life (the teaching life lends itself to getting a few golf games in)! I will continue to use some of the different resources I’ve found along the way to help me improve any imperfections I may have (and trust me, I have many) in my game, including Chris Ryan and Meandmygolf, along with various tools used as mediums to help me with my game including Twitter and YouTube. Here is a recap of my learning over the past few weeks!

My very first blog post was about how good I would look on the course in my attire. In hindsight, super irrelevant!

Week One:
I remember starting this blog, talking about how little I knew about golf and seemingly adamant that the most important first step was having these new golf shoes that I got for Mother’s Day. The shoes ended up being a bit too big and I had to exchange them, however because they were bought online the new pair still hasn’t arrive. I’m telling you this because I want you to know that even though I thought that was the most important element to my game, I ended up enduring my entire project with just basic running shoes. That is certainly one thing I took away from this learning process, you often don’t realize the most important tools and skills until you are actually hands on learning! Very reflective of some of the content I’ve experienced throughout my time in EDTC300. I never realized how important Twitter was, until I was actively using it!

Possibly the widest stance in golf history?

Week Two:
This was my round at Deer Valley. Despite the incredibly breathtaking scenery, there was something hideous on that course that day. My golf stance! This is when my horrific driving stance was first brought to my attention. I always knew I kind of looked like I was hitting a baseball when I was golfing, but I didn’t realize quite how much it looked like a full body slapshot/baseball swing until I had it captured on camera! This was a great round for a baseline, to see where I was at, and see what needed improvement.

Week Three:
During this week I took what I noticed at Deer Valley, and I worked on correcting it. For example, I narrowed my stance, and also took some time to fine tune my pitching thanks to a tutorial on one of my favourite golf YouTube channels. Here is some of the improvement I saw after these changes were made:

Week Four:
This week had me out on the range at the Murray Golf Course, again focusing on my pitching and my drives. I used a super cool app called Video Blend to help me spot differences between a good swing and a bad swing (based on the product of the swing). Here are a couple cool examples of my overlays:

The face of my driver incorrectly faces down instead of out in front of me.

Week Five:
My husband had pointed out the face of my driver when I swing my club. He noted it seems to be pointing downwards as I start my backswing which actually, in turn, changed a lot of things about my swing (my right knee collapsed and rotate in too much, my hips unlined, etc). So I took to the internet to find out how to solve this and of course, trusty old YouTube came up with this awesome video. This allowed me head into my next practice on the range with a bit more knowledge and expertise!

Week Six:
Next it was time to put in some practice! Here you can see me changing my swing (this was NOT EASY) by adjusting my backswing to incorporate what I had learned the week prior.

Week Seven:
This week I took all the knowledge gained and headed out to Flowing Springs to put it to use! For once it wasn’t extremely windy, which was really nice!! I shot a 98, which is high, but I’ve never shot under 100 in my life. It’s pretty incredible what some practice can do over only a couple of months! Here’s a slow-mo of my final swing, where I put it all together:

Wrapping it up..
So to sum it all up, I’d like you to take a look at the following couple of videos. This is my husband and my daughter. My husband often just practices his swing around the house just focusing on little technique changes here in there. Notice my daughter, copying him:

I didn’t just add these on for the cuteness factor, although this totally does melt my heart! I wanted to give simple proof that kids are always watching, and what we model as educators is always being observed by kids. So although many of us pride ourselves on being life long learners, I think it’s important to show that to students as well, if that’s genuinely what we want them to be! Whether we are modelling appropriate digital citizenship or our desire to continuously learn and improve, kids are watching and they are silently demanding the best of us, so that they can, in turn, be their best as well!

My new drive!

This week I was working on opening up the face of my club when I’m driving the ball. Recall that prior to this, I had done some research and learned that I need to have the face of my club facing in front of me as I swing. Here is how the face of my club looked before:

As you can see, the face of my club was facing slightly towards the ground as opposed to straight at the camera. Ideally, if the camera man is looking at me straight on as they are in this view above, the face of my club would be looking right back at the camera man. Here the face of my club is not quite doing that!

So I took to the driving range to give this as go. Remember, even slight changes like this can be quite drastic. As I practiced this new swing I felt super awkward and uncomfortable. I know I need to get out of the comfort zone of what I was doing before because it wasn’t consistent, but it certainly takes a while to get the hang of! Here are four of my new and improved swings:

As you can see, on my backswing the face of my club was facing up (in front of me, to face the camera man) way more than last week! I was curious though, if it was remaining opened as I brought my backswing back down as I go to the hit the ball, so I took some screenshots to compare:

As you can see, the follow through portion of my backswing still has the face of the club facing ahead, but I think not quite as much as the backswing itself, so this is something I’ll work on for next as well. This weekend I’m going to go do a full round of golf and hopefully try and tie together all the different tricks I’ve been working on over the past seven weeks or so!
One thing that I’ve definitely noted is that you don’t just switch a part of your golf game and a miracle happens where everything is better all of the sudden! There is so much fine tuning and practice needed and this was proven to me today. It was pretty ugly to start, but I can see how this change could increase consistency in my drives over time!