The message sent to me at the Innovative Teaching and Learning PD with George Couros last March is that students need to share their learning to an audience, and we need to be up to date in the ways in which our students, and the rest of society communicate.  This was also the message I saw in George’s TedTalk video, which I recommend checking out.   Some examples of using technology and mediums to share and communicate ideas we saw that day were Google Forms, Twitter, Storify, and YouTube.

I teach mixed grade 7 and 8 English, social studies, and guitar classes.  I find myself now, probably like many of you, reflecting on every lesson, task, and project my students are participating in, and how to make these more innovative.  Some questions I ask myself as I’m delivering lessons, or helping students choose projects are:

In what ways can technology be used here?

What are some ways my students can share this?

What will be the challenges of using this medium for sharing?

How can I “catch up” and be more social media literate?

Speaking of social media – which was a big topic at our PD that day – and as a teacher who was hired in 2008 with an unofficial message being sent from many different parties within the education system at that time, I stayed off of social media as much as I could.  I have used a very basic Facebook account so I could keep organized with activities in my personal life such as schedules for band practice, baseball games, and social gatherings.  I barely posted status updates or pictures.  Now, I feel encouraged to change my thinking and start dipping my feet in the social media pond a bit more.

As for my development in embracing a larger innovative mindset, I’ll just start with a few simple ideas and grow from there.  Use a hashtag for #poetrycorner in ELA for students to share poems?  Use a blog site for students to publish and share their short stories?  Have students create videos for presentations instead of having them do it live in front of the classroom? Sharing songs they made on GarageBand through whatever medium they wish?  These sort of tasks are not very complicated, and could be an easy place to start for anyone feeling a little uncomfortable.

Just like we tell our students, don’t be afraid to take risks in your learning.  Try, look at your results, reflect, adjust, and try again.

 

Shane Barchuk

Gordon Bell High School

Cluster 1965