It was an energizing Pro-D on February 28th as we came together virtually with colleagues and friends. Ideas shared and processes unpacked throughout many of the workshops. As we move into March and April we might consider taking deeper dives into those ideas. We have been hard at work developing on-demand videos in a wide…
Category: Apps
Building Community and Hour of Code
Hi everyone! Michelle here, I’ve taken over the Learning Tech blog for a moment to share with you all some exciting resources for Hour of Code and Comp Sci Education Week. I will also be introducing the new Burnaby Learning Community in MS Teams! Read on to learn more. December is creeping up quickly and…
Winter Ponderings
It is the middle of winter and the anticipated snow advisory came but not really. Over the weekend, EdCampBC – Core Competencies organized by Janice Novokowski and Carrie Antoniazzi moved online and this effort was not lost on the participants who attended. It really showed that there are significant positives as more people from all…
It’s November – Leveling Up Feedback
Feedback could be considered the basis to all learning in whatever capacity. Consider a golf swing – you gain immediate feedback when that tiny ball doesn’t quite get into that tiny tiny hole. Or perhaps it’s the cake that doesn’t quite poof up as shown in the picture of that recipe especially when they say…
Learning Walks
We are fortunate to live in an area that is surrounded with nature right outside our doorstep. The popularity of using “learning walks” add new elements to our day. I can think of the power of this opportunity in every one of the curricular areas. “What if” we placed devices in the hands of students and…
2018 Top “15” iPad Apps
Yes, yes..apps come and apps go. Some maintain their longevity and merely get face-lifts, while others no longer exist. This is one reason we do not rely on apps themselves and focus on the goals of learning. As always, we have connected them to the Competencies. So here goes with our newly edited list of…
Technologies Amplifies and Changes the Way We Create
Is it “technologies amplifies our ideas and changes the way we create”? Or is it the other way around or both in tandem? Last week our district came together for Pro-D. Aptly named “District Day”, it’s a day dedicated to learning and exploring together – meeting and connecting with friends and colleagues from other schools….
Updated Top 20 Apps for 2017
Finally rounding off our list of vetted “must have” TOP 20 APPS for 2017. While these are in no order, the apps can be categorized into two areas – student voice/design/creativity and productivity. Stay tuned for future posts on how you might use some of these apps. Design –*Communication, Creative Competencies Pic Collage Kids (elementary), Pic…
Must be App Smash Time – List for 2016-2017
Seems like the world of apps is constantly shifting with an abundance of tools that promise just about everything except make coffee. I imagine that will happen soon. Here is our updated list of apps and ‘yes’, we like to keep the list to under 20 (leaving lots of space for saving creations). Again, some…
2016 Must Have List of Apps for iDevices
I can’t believe that it was February, 2015 since I started a list of Apps that every school should consider having on their idevices. Anyone who has been to the App Store will know all too well the number of apps represent a mountain of options. How do we choose our apps for “THE LIST”? While exploration…
Our Top 20 iApps Recommendations for 2017
You might have guessed that in the last post, I was aiming for my top 20 apps for iDevices but ended up with only 14. It was incredibly challenging to filter the apps out of 800 on my list (yes you read correctly – 800 of the best). Well, I have finally chosen the last six…
Stories Told: Risk-Taking and Connected Relationships
We left off last year with celebration events for all of our teams. Many things stood out from those gatherings: risk-taking is built on trust, possibility thinking and time to ruminate, ideas start from what we know (a launch page), integration of purposeful technologies requires focused play, assessment is not an afterthought, articulating clear goals…
On the Geeky Side
If there’s one thing you can count on in Learning Technologies is that change is a constant. No longer can you rely on getting comfortable with only one tool; before you know it another version or upgrade is available. Even worse is when your favourite resource has been shelved and you’re on the hunt for…
Our Must Have List of Apps for iDevices
Since ipads and ipod/touches hit the district, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked what apps are great. I wrote about this previously (Apps) using the lens of “Relevance, Thinking Skills, Sharing and Usability” (adapted by Tony Vincent; Kathy Schrock). Another layer may be to connect the app against the SAMR model (a…
Voice and Choice – Teachers & Students Ring Out
From time to time we continue our focus on sharing practices in SD41 that create community and build connected stories using our blogs. On the Cariboo side of the city, resides Armstrong teacher, Jude Comeau. Her blog called Division 11’s Class Blog-Learning One Byte At A Time, is a hive of connected learning. Her purposes are…
iPad Apps that Enhance your Language Arts Program
Joined by a group of enthusiastic K-12 teachers and principals, we explored a number of apps at our District Pro-D session on February 21st. The feature story was Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin. After listening to the story and the oh-so catchy song, we used a strategy called Milling…
App #10 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #10: Partner a beautiful image that you’ve drawn or photographed with interactivity and you’ve got Thinglink. These rich interactives provide another way to curate and organize information. I’ve written about this before using the SAMR Model as an example (developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D) and also here where I was participating in CLMOOC. Thinglink offers interaction tools that tag photos or images…
App #9 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #9: In our effort to highlight the SAMR Model of integration of technology, we’ve been considering what activities might fit into Redefinition (technology that allows creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable). What activities might have significant impact to student outcomes? The “tell your story” concept remains one of the powerful ways we have to teach others, to increase audience,…
App #8 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #8: Image editors are the tools that help your ordinary images dance off pages. IrfanView is a free program (on your school computers) that does a variety of basics like compression. I love the “batch conversion” feature when I need a ton of images resized for the web. (click here for instructions) When I need to…
App #7 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #7: How do you present information from research projects? Usually we default to PowerPoint. Another option is Haiku Deck for all platforms. I wrote about this app for the iPad before (click here). The presentation software offers a beautiful, yet simplistic way to to share information. Each slide offers options for layout, format (bullet points), images (including…