Tsuu T'ina Nation Digital Story

     Over the past couple of weeks, I have been able to research and explore how the Tsuu T'ina nation came to be what it is today. Additionally, I have been able to explore the Tsuu T'ina Nation middle school, and how they integrate Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing into the Alberta Education curriculum. This has allowed me to reflect on my professional responsibilities as an educator, and create lessons that I would like myself to learn in regard to Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing. 

    For today's blog post, I have created a digital story that compiles my findings and my goals into a video that can be found here. I hope you enjoy watching my video, and you are free to leave any input or resources that you may in the comments that will help me achieve my goals. 

Twitter in the Classroom

Before you started your practice in education, did you use Twitter? I may be the only one in thinking this, but I absolutely love to use Twitter personally to share photos and funny tweets with my friends. Therefore, when my professor Norm in my emerging technology class mentioned that we would be creating a professional twitter to share our education journey I was ecstatic, and my mind started racing with ways I could integrate Twitter into my practicum classroom this year, and even my own classroom in the future. 

Here are three ways that I would potentially integrate Twitter into my future classroom, and ways you could too: 

1. Have students take over Twitter for a week and discuss a topic related to their in-class learnings.

During my grade six field experience at Langevin school in Calgary my mentor teacher ran a blog for her classroom. One of my favourite ways she used this blog was letting her students take over the blog to talk about a topic. Each week a student would take over the blog and talk about their learnings throughout the week. One week a student discussed a field trip they went on, and what they learned. I believe this would be a fantastic idea to implement on Twitter, especially because the word limit is smaller and allows students to warm up to the idea of using technology publicly. Twitter may also be a nice alternative to a blog for younger students who are still learning how to form sentences, or who are just learning to type.

2. Share updates with parents on their student learning.

Over the past two years in the education program I have seen technology be used in a variety of ways to inform parents about what students will be learning about each week. I think twitter would be useful in this way as you can create threads. One way I would use Twitter threads to update parents about student learning is create a thread about the outcome students will be learning in a certain subject for that week. For example, I could tweet: 

“This week our kindergarten’s will be learning about the numbers one and two in math, and how to represent them in different ways” 

You could then add a tweet to that thread to show examples of student work, provide parents with extra support they could use at home, questions to ask their children, and much more. 

3. Use Twitter to connect with schools and teachers around the world. 

One of the biggest things Mount Royal teacher candidates learn during the education program is the importance of collaborating with peers. Although it is super important to collaborate with fellow teachers at your school, I believe it is just as important to connect with teachers all around the world, who all have different points of view and experiences. The more teachers and schools you are able to connect with, the more you are able to add into your tool kit for your classroom. I also think it would be cool to connect with a school in a different city, or even country that your class could be pen pals with. Twitter truly provides so many opportunities for connections. 

    And there you have it, three simple ways that you can integrate twitter into the classroom. Of course there is so many additional ways that you can bring twitter into the classroom, and if you scour the #EDUC3326 hashtag on Twitter you can find dozens of other teacher candidates who have written similar blog posts to mine, and run their own twitter!

    If you would like to follow along on my twitter journey you can click on the twitter logo below, and it will take you to my own personal twitter, or you can find me @MsGiesinger. 

P.s. If you have any of your own recommendations, feel free to comment them on this post!

Year 3 Goals, Experiences, and Questions

                                 Professional Responsibilities 

Honours cultural diversity and promotes intercultural understanding. 

Planning for Learning

Uses resources that accurately reflect and demonstrate the strength and diversity of First Nations, Métis and Inuit. 

Facilitating Learning 

Integrates digital technology and resources, as appropriate, to build student capacity for:

- acquiring, applying and creating new knowledge;

- communicating and collaborating with others, critical-thinking; and

- accessing, interpreting and evaluating information from diverse sources  

Assessment 

Creates multiple and varied  assessment tools that align with outcomes.

Inclusive Environment 

Creates and manages effective classroom routines and procedures to 

promote positive, engaging learning environments.

My Previous Educational Technology Experience 

Throughout my time in the education program I have observed technology mainly being used through chromebooks to use google docs and conduct research. However, I have also observed my mentor teachers use iPads as an assessment tool where they take pictures and videos of students' work to help track student thoughts and progress. 

My own personal experience with educational technology is I have created websites and online stores. I also have experience with photography, videography, photo and video editing, and social media platforms such as youtube. These all of which I believe would be useful to help integrate technology into the classroom. 

My Questions about Educational Technology

I think my own personal grey area when integrating technology into the classroom is how to incorporate technology into assessment. I have seen my mentor teachers use iPads as a way to document verbal responses; however, I am wondering if there are potentially websites that we can use to help us assess students through technology. I am also wondering if there are any websites that we can use to help us create assessment tools such as rubrics.