Flippin' Out with Dr. Glen Gaiten

Flipped Classrooms.

Dr. Gaiten brought up this unusual topic in his visit to our humble classroom. I had never heard about it before and to be honest the concept, while it has it merits, kind of confuses me.

It sounds like a great idea, and I think it would work really well in the higher grades, or in a classroom where the majority of the students are highly motivated. I did my own research on the internet regarding flipped classrooms and the reviews were mixed. It seems to do well in the older grades and in classes such as Math, Science, and Social Studies. I haven't really come up with anything for English classrooms (other than finding a fellow blogger who has tried in in his English classroom in which it had less-than desirable results).

Cute Smiling Caucasian Kid With Laptop

(For reals, this is the title of the picture)

However, it's not to say that this idea should be totally vetoed. I think creativity needs to play a big part. I also think that coming up with a unit that is "flipped" would require a lot of preparation on the teacher's part. However, I believe that the more preparation a teacher has to results in less work for the teacher to do after...if it's done properly of course.

I think my favourite part of Dr. Gaiten's presentation was when he opened the Chatzy window. However, I am rapidly becoming aware that I am absolutely bad at multi-tasking (which is kind of sad, because women all over the world claim that multi-tasking is a woman's job), especially when I have a computer in front of me. Whenever I someone mentions a website or a concept that I have never heard of before, and if it intrigues me, I automatically do a search on Google and then I become so absorbed in my "research" that I block everything else out. When I'm done, I come back and I am absolutely confused because I have lost track of the presentation and don't even know what the presenter is talking about.

I think from now on, I'll have to jot anything interesting down and look it up later. The problem with that is that I usually forget to look it up. It's a no-win situation.

Oh! I was talking about Chatzy! I loved it! I loved how if any students had a question during the presentation, they could just type it in and not interrupt the presenter, it also gives the students a chance to co-learn. If anyone had a question, they would just type it in and if someone knew the answer, they could just answer them within the window. It seems like a wonderful concept, but I think you would have to have very specific outlines before you actually open the chat window. Otherwise, the students will be giving each other e-hugs and making disparaging remarks about old people the whole time (haha!).

Me on the computer. Isn't my red couch snazzy?

Anyway. I really enjoyed Dr. Gaiten's visit to our class. Some of my peers are questioning my taking of this course, but I think I really am enjoying this. While I do know how to use the internet and how to find things online, However, there are so many sites out there and it can be such a time consuming task to find any online resources that aren't crap. I don't really know how to find "good" sites for use in the classroom. This class is giving me so many sites that I can utilize in my teaching experience, and I don't have to do that much work finding these sites because Mike Naintais does all the work for us. Isn't that awesome?

Until next time,
Sylvia

PS. I am consciously trying to use royalty-free photos and properly credit them, so these are the credits for the pictures I used today, in the order they appear:

Photostock, Stuart Miles, and Ambro.

Shareski Shares!

Last week we had a guest presenter from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan via Skype.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Anyhoo, his name was Dean Shareski and (according to his weblog) he is a Digital Web Consultant who specializes in the use of technology in the classroom. And what better way for a tech guru (in my opinion) to deliver a presentation but through Skype? It was really interesting to be able to see him on the screen knowing that he could see us also.

When he showed up on the screen,  a mental image of Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory) popped into my head.

Sheldon Cooper...robot?

One of the points of his presentation that I thought was most important, and that I took away, was the fact that it is our professional responsibility as educators to share what we know. In fact, a quote he shared with the class was:

"If there is no sharing, there is no teaching." - David Wiley

I agree wholeheartedly with this. How can we teach if we don't share?

The downside of this is that you have to create more than a digital footprint, you have to create a digital path, and walk it regularly and maintain it.

I am so private. I actually take great pains to Google myself every once in a while to see what kind of digital presence I have. I even Google my e-mail address. Once I was horrified to discover a profile under the name of sharper752 (my e-mail address!) on a free porn site. As much as I like to joke about me and porn, this profile was NOT me. It was some guy from Arizona or somewhere. Ugh.

What makes it worse is that, sometimes I don't censor myself. Yup. I should not be let near a computer or a keyboard sometimes. Especially when I'm feeling happy. Because then all sorts of things happen. Like weird video uploads such as:

Or:

Haha.

Sometimes, I wonder if showing this side of me to my future students would benefit me in a classroom. I remember from high school that my most favourite teachers were the ones who were funny and shared part of their lives with us, whether it was through stories of their (crazy) younger days or sharing their favourite music with us.

Or maybe it will backfire and I'll have significant classroom management problems. I am scared to death and practically give myself anxiety attacks when I think of having my own classroom.

But I will remember this key point "Be friendly, NOT friends!".

Anyway, back to Shareski's presentation. I think that I definitely have to work on being more comfortable regarding leaving a digital trail (and work on censoring myself a little). I do have a Twitter account and have been tweeting already for quite awhile. Last year during my ICT class, I messaged one of my twitter contacts who is from Arizona and is a Navajo and asked if she would be interested in helping me out with our (Shawna Spence and I) final project, which was about the importance of preserving our languages. She agreed and send me her opinion on the topic. She was so happy that she helped us get an "A" for our class and tweeted to all her contacts. This just shows how the power of the internet is far-reaching and can have positive implications.

I think that's about all. Oh, and I do love Dean Shareski's name and how it fits his message of "sharing". It's funny how fate works sometime.

Sylvia.

P.S. During the presentation, I happened to look at the jacket of a girl sitting in front of me and noticed that there were zippers in the armpits. For some reason this disgusted me and I tweeted this thought to Twitter. Never for once thinking that Mike N. was following me and could see my tweets. Imagine my surprise when he replied back to my tweet. Haha! I swear I was listening! I just have a wandering mind. I can't even sit through an evening of Bingo, or a movie at the theatre without my mind wandering. LOL.

I am not the Prime Minister's Wife

Yes, my last name is Harper.
But no, I am not related to Stephen Harper, who is the current Prime Minister of Canada.

Laureen Harper, who is not me.

Me

I am far too awesome to be associated with the likes of Stephen Harper. The above pictures are total proof of that.

Ok, now I think is the time appropriate for some background info. In my first placement, I had my students address me by my first name, which I think they were kind of uncomfortable with. They called me "Miss Sylvia". Which is laughable, because I am certainly not a-miss, I think, although some people might see differently (see my pun there?).

It's a really complicated story, but I'll try to summarize it easy for you. 

My maternal grandmother was Ruth Rhoda Harper. Her dad was James Harper, who fathered, among my grandmother and other people, John Joseph Harper (aka. J. J. Harper). Now, J. J. Harper played a pivotal role in the history of aboriginal people in Manitoba. It was because of his death that the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry was launched (See here). It was this inquiry that brought the attention of the mainstream public to the relationship between the justice system and Aboriginal people. In essence, he was killed because he was native, and what makes it worse is that he was killed by the Winnipeg Police Department. But you know what? As bad as this case was, I am so glad that his death wasn't in vain. His death played an important role in Manitoba's history. He was smart. He was interested in politics and making a better world for our people. The only problem was his skin color. If he wasn't brown, he wouldn't have been confronted and killed on that fateful night, March 10, 1988. I was 7 years-old at the time, and I still can't erase from my memory the wailing cries of my grandmother when she was informed of his death. 

Adam Beech, who portrayed my late-uncle in "Cowboys and Indians" Isn't he handsome? 

My late-uncle, J.J. Harper

Me, at the age of 7

So what is the point of this post? I will tell you now. When I was younger, I was ashamed of being native. I was ashamed of the colour of my skin and the language I spoke. I was ashamed of being associated with the "drunken Indian" stereotype that we were being portrayed of in the media. I am even ashamed of the fact that occasionally, I drink "almost" every Friday night. I am so afraid of being stereotyped that I keep my big mouth closed all of the time. Even in class, which I regret because most of my classmates don't know how awesome and outspoken I really am.

So, can you blame me?

I know that I have really awesome classmates. Thankfully, I have never encountered a blatant case of  racism, intolerance, or ignorance. Most of the people I have encountered have been really nice. However, I do have ears, and I do have friends who have encountered these kinds of people. I guess I'm lucky. Because when I feel really angry or provoked, this is what I look like:

Minus the blond hair and white skin of course. 

But you know, this is how I looked like when, in my undergrad course "Aboriginal Literature for Children and Youth" I talked about my uncle, who was raped by a priest when he attended residential school. Except I was a lot more red-nosed and snotty. I am so not a pretty crier. 

Carey Mulligan, Pretty Crier

So there is a lot of history in my past (and my generation's past's) that makes me cry, but what I hold on to the most is the humour. I am so proud of my gift as a story-teller, and I am so proud of my ability to see humour and beauty in everything I see. I see the best in everything and everyone I encounter, and I hold onto these images. Because even the worst people have good qualities about them. 

I hope to be able to carry these abilities onto my teaching experiences. I KNOW that my abilities to hold onto these qualities will be sorely tested, but I hope to never forget about them, or my heritage.

This post was made in memory of my late grandmother (Nookoom) Ruth Rhoda Wood, the late J.J. Harper and the late Helen Betty Osborne.

Nookoom Nootah

John Joseph Harper

Helen Betty Osborne

Sylvia

From a hidden place, we come forth.

I love the internet. I truly do. It is literally like having the whole world at the end of your fingertips. The possibilities of the internet are endless and exciting. Whenever I feel the urge to travel, I just mosey on over to www.earthcam.com and browse through the different livecam views from around the world. The most interesting one (I think) is the camera they have set up in Times Square. If you're every up and can't sleep at night, and you feel like you're the only person awake, click on that and you'll be amazed at the amount of traffic (both vehicular and foot) that happens even at three o'clock in the morning. I have never witnessed a stabbing or anything like that, and I'm so glad for that. I always wonder if anyone else has, though, and what someone would do in a situation like that. Do you dial *911 and say "Someone is getting stabbed in Times Square! Get the police over there!!!!!"

But enough about that. What I really wanted to talk about in this post is my home and how the Internet came to this little isolated corner in Manitoba.

It's circa 1998-ish and I am in grade 11. We have a computer lab and wow! Those were high-tech computers in those days.

(High Tech Computer)

Our favourite thing to do was play with the text-to-speech program. And play solitaire. They weren't good for that much else. 

Oh yeah, we actually got to type up our work. Yay, us.

Anyway, one day we go to computer class and there is one computer sitting all by it's lonesome in the corner, facing away from the rest of the room. After a few moments of whispered questions, our computer teacher informed us that the Internet had come to Wasagamack, Manitoba!!!!

I was so excited. All I wanted to do was try out this "chat" that I've been hearing about. I wanted to have e-pals all over the world. I wanted a Yahoo! e-mail account. I wanted ICQ. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

The only problem with this is that everyone else wanted to. Everyone. Approximately 100 students wanted the same things I did. And we only had one computer with internet access. ONE. And that internet access was dial-up.

So we had to "sign-up" for hour-long slots to use the computer. This sucked because I was lucky if I was able to get connected to the internet once-a-week. 

Oh, and our teachers got into it too. They gave us assignments that we had to do research on the internet for. Which was a very interesting idea. Except that it was next to impossible to finish your assignment in time because of the long waiting list. 

 (Me, circa 1999. I'm happy because it's my graduating year)

(Or maybe I'm happy because I finally snagged this handsome guy. He's my husband now)

But you know how I was able to use the one computer with internet access all summer and all year? I was smart, you see, so I got a job working for the Education Authority as a web designer for their Aboriginal Digital Collections portal. I didn't know anything about designing webpages, but I didn't care. I just cared about the internet. And during the summer, the school opened up the computer lab for the general public's use. But no one really cared about the internet at the time, so no one really came. Except for the kids and all they wanted to do was play with the installed games on the computers. So I worked as a supervisor. Best summer job ever!

Then I graduated, got married. Had kids. Worked at three different jobs. During this time, more and more people were buying personal computers and having access to dial-up internet. Wow, eh? It got to the point where it sometimes took two hours to get connected. To by-pass this problem, I got even smarter. I had an extra land-line installed in my home and used that one exclusively for the internet. It was next to impossible to connect to the internet during the day, so I would get up at 3 am, connect (which took me 2 minutes) and go back to bed. Then I would leave the internet connected for as long as I could. I was so awesome. I even had a blog on Knet (see here). But when that became too popular and I started attracting trolls, I started another one here. It's sad though. I never have time to update them anymore. Facebook has completely killed the blogger in me.

Okay, so then I moved to Brandon. Where they had high speed. WOW! But during that time, high speed also came to Wasagamack. Now, almost every house in Wasagamack has a computer or laptop with high speed internet. And since then, all the computers in the computer labs in the school are all connected to high-speed internet! What a luxury! These kids do not know how good they have it these days.

 

 

(These kids do not know how good they have it these days)

 

What are the implications of this?

 

I cannot wait to go back and teach. It's going to be so bomb-diggety!

Until next time, I bid thee adieu.

Sylvia :)

First Post.

Okay. I finally got a title and I finally fixed up my blog. But I don't have anything in particular to say right now. My eyes are buzzing from looking at the computer screen and I think I'm getting a little nauseous.

Or maybe I'm just hungry.

So it took me a while to calm-down after our so-called meeting with the Dead last week. Yup. New nickname. Because no one can talk to the dead. Unless you're a psychic. Or crazy. And even if you could talk to them, they would always have the last word because you can't reason with the dead! It's enough to make you want to kill them.

Wait. They're already dead.

So, what was I talking about? I forgot.

Anyway. That will be enough until my next blog. For now, I will leave you all with this very interesting video by the very talented Wab Kinew.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlkuRCXdu5A