Week+6

__Lesson Plan Presentations__ __Amanda and Jenny__ Amanda and Jenny presented a lesson that asked to research a Canadian Historical Figure. Students were asked to upload their information to a wikispace created for the project. The project needed to consist of what they achieved and how they were influential to the formation of Canada's identity. There should be pictures and a podcast. They mentioned the use of audacity to the class though any type of program could be used to create an interview with the historical figure. They also introduced me at least to [|www.bibme.org] which is a great site that helps organize citing for students.

__Graham and Shannon__ Graham and Shannon had a great presentation about teaching poetry to their classes. Poetry is a hard unit for students to get excited about unless the right means are taken towards teaching it. The idea they had was to analyze a poem and for each stanza to have a picture that represents what that stanza is trying to say. Students were then asked to put this information into a chart where they had the original text, the picture representation and a third column where they were to write why they chose that particular picture. The poem they used as an example was "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot. Please find the lyrics [|here] and a video of Gordon Lightfoot playing the song while the lyrics go by here: media type="youtube" key="lvKGz4s3kuU" width="425" height="350" align="center"

__Luca and Lily__  Today's class marked the beginning of the lesson plan presentations, please find below mine and Lily's Presentation that asked students to use the technological medium of [|www.Prezi.com] to present their information to the their classmates. Students would be asked to look up a Canadian aboriginal tribe and present that information to the class through Prezi. - The Lesson Plan that Lily and I created for this week. - The assignment outline that the class will be asked to work on. http://prezi.com/jjrjd6gtopep/ - The introductory Prezi that we made for the class to view.

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 Allison and Jessie introduced us to the world of gizmos at [|www.explorelearning.com] These gizmos were really neat and could definitely have a place in a science or math class. The only drawback being that there is a 30 day trial before you need to pay for access. =====  __Matthew and Lisa__

This lesson could be really cool as well I thought. Unfortunately the technological medium that they had decided to use was not working at the time and I don't know if I could trust to use celestia in my own classroom because of that. One cool thing that Celestia did offer was the ability to have built in options for students who have completed their work early which makes it great for teachers to implement.

__Justin and Patrick__

Justin and Patrick presented a really neat view on a grade 10 religion class. They took the idea of taking Gospel Values and having students create a modern version of the parable and either use the medium of a podcast or video to present it to the rest of the class. One drawback in the classroom is that you usually do not have a bible for each student to use so they decided to use www.biblegateway.com to find the passages that students would be looking up. This presentation had real promise and I look forward to using it during my practicum.

 With the conclusion of the day's lessons we moved into talking about other resources we could use in the classroom. Such as the Ontario Educational Resource Bank where you can find **a lot of great information and teacher produced resources.** We also talked about different **types of content filtering** that schools use today: **URL blocking, Keyword blacklisting** and how some students can use a **proxy** to get to the sites they want. Proxys are a type of **intermediary website that allows you to roam free reign** on the net regardless of what system you're on.

We also looked at **OSAPAC** (Ontario Software Acquisition Program Advisory Committee) which has a compilation of useful software that can be brought into the classroom. One piece of software that I've used is **Comic Life** in my **Family Life** classes and I would do it again without a second thought, OSAPAC has quite a few resources (click the resources tab) dealing with Comic Life already compiled. I used this program in an assignment on learning to overcome the challenges that God puts in everyone's life. The assignment asked grade 7 and 8 students to research a character (I compiled information sheets for each them prior) and make a comic life (using themselves and friends) that showed what the challenge was that the individual faced, how they overcame it and what they were able to accomplish regardless of any challenges they faced. For instance, Terry Fox was a character, they had to design a one page comic that explained that Terry had Cancer and had a leg amputated but then he still went on to run across our nation. The assignment was very well received by the students and teachers at the school. My principal actually came to tell me how great he thought it was. That was one of the first times I realized how being **technologically savvy could positively affect my teaching career.**

__ISTE: Leading and Learning With Technology__

Presented a **pros and cons** list on the **question of Internet filtering**. Some **pros** were, **protects students, school not liable** for what could potentially happen on the computers. Some **cons** were that **children do not learn to be responsible on their own** and that eventually they will be **using the Internet outside of school without the tools** they need **to safely navigate** **it**.

The issue is an interesting one, my opinion is that unfortunately we cannot allow the students free reign on the Internet and remove filtering because the possibilities of what one student could pull up to show any of the others is always there. Yes, it's true that children could do that outside of school but in the school there is a **legal** **responsibility** to protect children. In our society where people are sued for far less what could happen in a grade 8 classroom if one child were to show the class pornographic content or of any graphic violence or hateful speech. It should not be in school that children are made aware of these things, but parents should be given the opportunity to talk to their children first and explain their own **personal opinions** on such tough issues. The youtube issue is one that we have often in our class and I can agree to have the filtering changed to be more open however I don't think we could ever entirely remove it.

This was an interesting video on Internet filtering that touched on a number of different opinions and also gave some food for thought. I like the argument that filters can be too strict and therefore restrict learning. I had not really considered it before. See what you think! media type="youtube" key="97GcS6JRBw4" width="425" height="350"

