I’m in my second class in my masters and my second class with Alec. These classes are giving me the opportunity and motivation to explore topics that have definitely been on my mind. Totally reminds me of Genius Hour / Passion Projects which I have researched and used in my classes a few times. I have dabbled in coding and have done Hour of Code with my students many times. Each time it has been very successful and I know this is a direction I’d like to implement more into my classroom. There is definitely a place to integrate opportunities like these in many disciplines not just as a stand-alone class. I love using Minecraft in my classroom. In my math classes, I have used this tool to explore concepts such as slope, area, volume, scale, algebra and more. In my social class, I have used this tool to explore archeology, ancient civilizations, and Medieval castles. There is a very exciting app that is embedded in Minecraft Education Edition. This app is called the Agent (click here to learn a little bit more about Coding with the Agent). The Agent is a programmable ‘bot’ inside the game that you can activate to carry out code that you have created. The code is for this is created using MakeCode (similar to Scratch) which is an online coding site created by Microsoft and gives you the ability to use block coding, but also switch to Java Script to let you see the computer programming language ‘under the hood’ of the blocks. I have found many tutorials provided by Make Code (click here to see some of the tutorials I be using), YouTube Videos, course inside the Microsoft Education Community (great source of many course and can also become an Microsoft Innovative Educator – that opens up many other opportunities such as a chance to go to an Education Exchange Conference that is held in different locations throughout the world), and I will also use my PLN on Twitter (https://twitter.com/PlayCraftLearn) and as a Minecraft Global Mentor for help on this journey. I also hope to create a couple projects to use in my classroom 1) have my math students create a calculator with formulas for concepts such as volume and surface area and then have the agent build their shape, 2) have my social studies students program a landmark or signage in the ancient civilization world and hopefully 3) have my social studies students be able to create a code to solve a UN SDG goal (maybe trench for clean water or something like that). I plan to vlog each time I attempt a tutorial, tweet my journey, and share my adventure with our #eci831 community. I also have a class set of Microbits that also use MakeCode so I might extend by project to include a few more adventures using these. I was also thinking about how a teacher can tap into social media to engage students in the election. I am doing this with my social 9 class right now, but I am not sure how I can turn this into a project for this class, but would love if people could go to #oneillss9 and engage with my students. I’m excited about this project and I’m looking forward to this journey.
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My relationship with social media has focused mostly on my professional life and has been a positive experience. I have had an interest in using technology to improve my understanding of all facets of education. In fact, my first teaching job was as an itinerant teacher that would take elementary (K- Grade 8) students to the computer lab for experiences with technology. In this role, I basically had my own reign over what I did (as there was no set curriculum except for some keyboarding outcomes available) so I had opportunities to be creative with technology from the start. I soon found myself using technology as tool throughout my career and consider myself a bit of a trailblazer in this area. For a long time, I felt a little bit of an island unto myself. There were not a lot of educators (around these parts) that were also interested in teaching with this developing tool over 20 years ago. But as time moved on so did access to improved technology and more teachers were ready and willing to ‘dip their foot in the ocean’. I was fortunate to serve as a technology coach and consultant in my division in the mid-2000s. Over my time in this position, I was able to initiate and engage in many technology based educational lessons. This was a great experience, but it was still mostly in isolation and my ability to share and learn from others in a larger scale was limited. I had created an eportfolio and had shared a few teaching artifacts online as part of an Education Technology Diploma I did online in the earlier 2000s (through the University of Cape Breton). This was one of my first attempts in sharing online and leaving a ‘snap shot’ of some of my views and work as a teacher. I have been fortunate to have been selected to a few ‘edtech’ teacher education programs. One such amazing experience was becoming an Apple Distinguished Educator. During one event I was having a conversation with a couple of amazing teachers (and just overall great people) and one teacher from just outside Toronto set me on my social media journey that has been an absolute game changer. That medium of choice throughout this journey has been Twitter. Now I had signed up for Twitter before (didn’t see where I was going with this so I maybe could have made my username a little more profession than @vendi55 but I’m kind of stuck with it and it has kind of grown on me) but had not really taken the plunge into the Twitterverse. My fellow ADE and friend (Colin Harris @digitalnative) had me revisit Twitter and set me on a path that really has been transformational. I now had that access to people, ideas, resources, and conversations that I did not have access to before. At first I did a lot of following and lurking, as I checked out a whole new world that was before me. So many possibilities and so much potential. As I have progressed in my Twitter adventure I have become more active. I share resources, insights, classroom activities, participate in Twitter chats (and have even lead or co-lead a few division, provincial, national, and international events), and continue to learn more about this medium. Hard to believe that earlier this year I experienced my 10th ‘Twitterversy’. Twitter is a huge part of my Professional Development and I have grown a strong and extensive Personal Learning Network. I have had many positive learning experiences and conversations on Twitter especially in the area of education. I enjoy participating in weekly #formativechat (Mondays at 5:30 PM (until DST)) and #saskedchat (Thursdays at 8:00 PM) Twitter chats as frequently as I can. In my classroom, I have attempted to integrate Twitter with my students in the past and have limited success to date. But this year I have once again tried to engage my social 9 on Twitter to follow the election and share insights from their perspectives with the world. So far it has been more successful than in the past as I have learned more and become more committed to creating this experience in the classroom. One interesting story from this venture has been a producer from the CBC reaching out to me on the election due to this activity and one of my Tweets, which she was able to follow up on find my eportfolio and blog (deanvendramin.weebly.com). This led her to believe that I wasn’t a bot and that my post was valid. I also appreciated her comment that she was impressed with work I have done in education by checking out my eportfolio. I feel I have created a positive online presence and that if someone Googled my name they would find someone who is passionate about education and enjoys being innovative. I look forward to continuing my Twitter / online journey and see where it takes me. I do have other social media accounts but none that I use extensively. I signed up for Facebook to keep in touch with few teachers I met at an international Microsoft conference (it’s fairly locked down, I have I a lot of friend requests that I just haven’t bothered to accept, once in a while I post a course completion from the Microsoft Educators’ Community). I have a LinkedIn account that again post a course completion once in a while and an Instagram account that I post pictures from nature (mostly skylines). I don’t use social media to share a lot of personal information or events, but will check out what’s trending once in a while. I struggle with how much personal information to post as it’s good to reveal a little bit of the person behind the screen, but also there are limits (some people post too much (IMO) – like sharing the delivery room footage of the birth of their child). I also look after my school’s Twitter account and feel it’s a great way to share and promote the great thing going on at our school. Social media has been a useful and positive tool in my career and I look forward to continue to use this medium to learn, share, and grow. Here are some blogs that I have written in the past that relate to my use of social media (including a book talk about the book Social Leadia by Jennifer Casa-Todd (which will be a great resource for me and something I will probably use as part of my summary of learning):
https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/tweet-meet-is-sweet https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/social-leadia-lets-make-it-happen https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/social-ledia-making-connections https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/social-leadia-social-media-in-the-classroom https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/social-leadia-digital-leadership https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/social-leadia-first-impressions https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/immooc-reflections https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/digital-citizenship-part-1 https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/saskedchat-blogging-challenge-1-why-blog-why-write https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/march-29th-2016 https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/lets-communicate https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/tweeting-its-not-just-for-the-birds https://deanvendramin.weebly.com/blog/be-a-good-digital-citizen Here are some wakelet collections of social media (mostly tweets) events / experiences I have been a part of: https://wakelet.com/wake/14f3e93d-a503-4e28-bef9-ba17c248abba https://wakelet.com/wake/25dede40-79f1-406e-a160-289eabeada71 https://wakelet.com/wake/4718495f-5bfc-4d63-b462-80b5c651060f https://wakelet.com/wake/60379ebe-2e17-4ee7-996a-afbc3cba373a https://wakelet.com/wake/fd82fe37-1fa3-4497-8568-8a87a9c9f767 https://wakelet.com/wake/192ffe0c-a9a1-4a3b-93ea-202bc714ec03 Here’s a copy of one of our school newsletters using wakelet: https://wakelet.com/wake/26dfc937-74d5-4393-b5b9-550efb8e9a4d Excited to be part of ECI831. Looking forward to deepening my understanding of social media in society and in education. Stay tuned for more.
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AuthorDean Vendramin. Educator for over 20 years. Currently Education Leader for Math/Science at Archbishop M.C. O'Neill Catholic High School. Have a passion for all things in education with emphasis on technology integration, assessment, professional development, and 21 Century Education. Posts are articles he has written for the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation monthly newsletter The Bulletin, Saskatchewan Math Teachers' Society The Variable, blog requests from memberships he is a part of, and his own thoughts. Archives
February 2022
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