Weeks leading up to the PD with George Couros, my Vice-Principal approached me about an opportunity. I consider myself an open-minded person that is confident in what I do but I lack in my integration of technology within the classroom.  With that in mind, he thought I would be a perfect candidate for Mr. Couros and I agreed.

During the first session with George I was trying to wrap my head around how would I use twitter in my classroom. I knew very little about twitter and it’s capabilities before the session. I was a little reluctant during the session to sign up for twitter because I just couldn’t figure out if this was a gimmick or something that would benefit me. I am also the individual that has an old cell phone that can’t even access the internet from it. I really enjoyed George’s presentation and it made me really think about my own teaching. Later that week, I decided to sign up for twitter and added co-workers, friends and professional people that I thought would be interesting to follow. I immediately saw the benefit that twitter provided. Every time I signed in, I was able to see a lot of great ideas in teaching Math (I teach Math and follow people involved in the Math world). I didn’t even have to search for anything, the ideas were there on my homepage.

Within my classroom, I feel that I do a lot of hands on activities that makes learners really think and grasp concepts that are presented. Students seem to be engaged and excited about Math. For example, students would estimate how much candy rockets would fit into a three dimensional object and then go and find the actual volume using water and a graduated cylinder. We also compared our findings with the formula calculation. As a class, we were then able to discuss our findings. Is this lesson innovation?

I will be the first person to say that I am a beginner on the journey of innovation and technology within the classroom. However, I am constantly growing and looking for ways to make the material more current to the culture of today’s society. I already see the benefit that twitter can have in getting ideas for me in teaching and I know I am just scratching the surface in terms of what twitter can do in the classroom.

 

 

Tim Holfeld

River Heights School

1965 Cluster