blended learning pod cast

I hope you find the following information as interesting as I.  http://sweatpea.mypodcast.com/index.html     

Talk to you soon Angele

Teachers and Tech.

It was interesting, I had the opportunity to read Vivian’s Weblog and she commented that children are very versatile,  but teaching teachers technology can be a big issue.  I could not agree more.  Although,  I am not all geared up about computers myself I have always been sure that I  learn what I need to, to do my job.  However, many members of my staff do not share my feelings on this matter. I can recall the opposition I received when I had to be the one to inform my staff that the district was requiring that all attendance be entered on CIMS (our districts management system) everyday by teachers.  During this discussion things got very heated and much of their frustration was directed at me (the shoot the messenger mentality).  The complaints ranged from my computer is crap, to I can never get on line,  to I don’t have the time, to what if the system crashes.  I have been faced with opposition before about things that have been directed by senior admin. however, this was unbelievable.  As I reflect back , I now know that most of the hostility was generated by fear, fear of the unknown.  Teaching is  something that many of these teachers are masters at but technology is an area they know very little about and quite frankly it intimadates  them.  At one point I had to be blunt and use the analogy that if they were in the banking industry and had been for the last 20 years that the job would look very different today than it did 20 years ago, so the technology piece in education is just a sign of the times as it is in all fields of work.

Yugma

Well Jolene and I managed to do a yugma with Tom.  I can now see how helpful the program is.  Jolene was able to help Tom work his way through  getting a pod-cast up and running.  I don’t know why our IT people don’t want us to have it, they could help teachers trouble shot right from their office rather than running all over the city.   I also wanted to share with you something our school did this week.  We put on a Citizenship Court, 53 new Canadians were swore in here yesterday.  It was a lot of work to organize but it was an extremely worthwhile thing to do.  My students enjoyed it and were very well behaved ( I was very proud of everyone).  So if your school ever has the opportunity to do this I highly recommend it.

podcast

Hey I actually did a podcast and it was much easier than I ever imagined.  I am working on Jolene’s computer and it sure makes a difference when you have the right technology.  With my luck I will just be getting my new computer when the course is over, but that is o.k. I still will have the new skills I have learned.  I sound ridiculous in the podcast because I have a cold.  Someone who is not in the course responded to my last blog and made a good point. He/she said that they had been reading my blogs from time to time and thought that my problem was that I had to get over my fear of technology and I would be just fine.  I think that it is a combination of fear and frustration.  Frustration because I do not have access to the right equipment yet and perhaps fear of feeling stupid (hence touching the screen to connect the phone).   http://sweatpea.mypodcast.com/index.html. Well I am off to try to do a yugma with Tom.  Got to go.

Guilty!

I have been guilty of not responding to others as regularly as I should be.  I often feel like many of the other course members are miles a head of me with regards to thier tech skills so I really have nothing to offer.  I have also been under the weather for the past few weeks off and on (which is not like me). I have missed a couple of days of work but have managed for the most part to tough it out, so at the end of the day I have been wiped-out (I am not totally on the mend yet either).  I do read all the comments but will start to make more of on effort to respond. It is difficult to respond as some of the things people are talking about seem so foreign to me,  I have to admit I am starting to get a little freaked-out.  I have read others comments on the whole what is expected of us issue and I would like a clearer break down of what I should be doing.  It is only because right now I am feeling like I am falling behind.  The plan is to use yugma this weekend and do a sample pod cast,  maybe when I get those things done I will feel a little better. 

Yugma

I tried to do a Yugma with Jolene today however,  I was unsucessful as my offiice computer would not let me download it even with the administrator code. When I talk to the tech support for the division he was pleased that I was not able to access this program and said that  Yugma is not commonly used in a business type setting.  Can anyone explain to me why this would be so.  What is so bad about Yugma?  I will have to try again to use Yugma but I will have to use Jolene’s computer.   Signing off Angele 

Hey!

I haven’t got my new computer yet.  I have to commend my school divsion they are now offering to pay for half the lap-top and I pay for the other half (on payroll deductions) as long as I use my new computer as my main work computer.  That way I would  give up my desk top in  my office and it would go into a classroom.   They are piloting this with 8 people in the district right now, but are going to make this deal available to all employees in mid Dec.  I  think this is a very creative way of getting teachers to become more computer literate, thier plan is to get the computers in the hands of the teachers and naturally thier skills with become stronger as they now have the computer to experiment with at home. As far as the course, I am going to try to use yugma this week and do a trial pod cast.  I am starting to feel like I am falling behind,  it just takes me so long to catch on to things and then I find that if I don’t practice my new skills I lose them.  I think this is because the whole tech thing is very intimidating to me.   Wish me well on my assignments this week.

See Ya!

Angele