I have a great feeling about this next year!! I'm loving 2013 so far! However, I would like to take a moment to remember 2012.
This past year I was able to revisit a camp that I love very much, experience a new camp that I enjoy very much, I was given the experience of doing two sermons at my church, I celebrated a second anniversary with my girlfriend, I received a scholarship that allowed me to stay in school, finished my last ridiculously overloaded semester in my undergrad, and just had a great time with my family in the past couple weeks (just to name a few highlights).
This year I hope to just have more fun, play more sports, and to be more dedicated to what I do and who I am. I have a great feeling about this year and I hope that you all do too!
Happy holidays everyone and Happy New Year!!!!
Reflection of week: Family time is great- spending time cherishing memories with family is the most refreshing and enjoyable thing to do! Happy New Year- cherish the old and be happy in your futures!
Monday, 31 December 2012
Saturday, 22 December 2012
EndoftheOverloads!
Well, as funny as the apocalypse jokes have been all week, I would have to say that my favourite part of the week is that everyone is now finally done the semester. I have just gotten back to my home town and am very ready to simply relax and look forward to my second semester that consists of a much lighter schedule. With this semester now in the books, I would just like to say that I really enjoyed all of my classes this past semester. Some more than others of course, but I would say that this has been my most professionally enjoyable semester in that many of my classes actually made me interested in continuing to develop upon the knowledge base that I had started. It's a good feeling to be done, yet it kind of feels like I haven't finished. Maybe it's because I only have another 3 semesters until graduation, but I would like to think that I'm starting to truly understand what it means to be a lifelong learner- to keep learning even when it isn't for marks.
I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Joyous Kwanza etc. and share with you a simple reflection that I had thought of after my seventh, and final, overloaded university semester:
Learning happens over your entire life and takes place in many different ways. The mistake that I have made is that I have valued my formal education a great deal higher than my informal education and disrupted that balance that should exist in my life. Keep on racing towards the goal, but set a pace. For what good is the goal if you are alone in your victory?
Reflection for the week: Take time, smell the roses. Disappointments, triumphs, and even knowledge will come and go, but the love that you spread lasts forever, in the lives of the people that you touch.
I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Joyous Kwanza etc. and share with you a simple reflection that I had thought of after my seventh, and final, overloaded university semester:
Learning happens over your entire life and takes place in many different ways. The mistake that I have made is that I have valued my formal education a great deal higher than my informal education and disrupted that balance that should exist in my life. Keep on racing towards the goal, but set a pace. For what good is the goal if you are alone in your victory?
Reflection for the week: Take time, smell the roses. Disappointments, triumphs, and even knowledge will come and go, but the love that you spread lasts forever, in the lives of the people that you touch.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Semester in Review
Just under three and a half years ago I began my university career. In the program in which I am currently enrolled, I have come into contact with some very incredible people who will be graduating in less than 4 months. As I attended a friend's recital this past week I found myself going on a long walk down memory lane where I realized how short a four year degree really is, and how much one can learn in such a little time. I then started to wonder when all of this learning happens and came up with the answer, that seems obvious, that it happens in every moment that we choose to be fully engaged in our education. This includes, but is not limited to, all of the morning classes that we chose not to skip, every lecture that we decided to listen to as opposed to go on Facebook or fall asleep during, every study session that we attended, addressing all of those mistakes that were made and taking responsibility of them in order to ensure that they wouldn't happen again, and largely in the way that we connect with other people. If we are engaged we learn.
I would like to take this time to share with you all a Prezi that I made to show what I have learned in my ICT class this past semester.
Lesson of this course: I have learned that in all things that we do, we need to feel connected and supported in our explorations. This is so we are encouraged to continue our educational journeys past the end of the courses we take and into an ever changing, unpredictable, and bright future.
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Dress to the 9's with Voicethread
Alright, another week closer to the end of semester and Christmas holidays! I don't know about anyone else, but I am so stoked to trade the time with my projects for enjoy time with my family in a couple of weeks.
This past week I was able to play around with a new app called Voicethread. This application is an internet conversation tool that can be used for classroom conversations, collaborations, and various other classroom assignments. I tried to put together a short clip where I would post a physics demonstration and try to have students figure out "What is Going On?" A video like this would be posted about once every week to once every two weeks. Students would have to respond to the video with an audio, written, or video comment to answer the question, "What is Going On?" Most, if not all of the demos that are featured in the videos would have been shown in class as well. A seemingly decent activity with accountability in its assessment.
Being a beginner to this application I found it rather finicky and seemingly full of limitations. All audio comments have to be uploaded or taken in one prolonged take. It was nice to be able to doodle on the video, however, I still had difficulty performing a perfect take (which I never did quite do) without the ability to pause mid take or to use bits and pieces of different takes. I can see how this would be a useful application, however, I feel as though the lack of editing capabilities, low user-friendliness, and the inability to save the video file to your computer makes this application something that I will not continue to use. I do see that it has value, however, I am unsure if the time that it will take to learn how to use it (and teach students how to use the program) will really be worth the ability to use this program.
Here is the link to the video that I made with the attempted explanation of what was going on: https://voicethread.com/share/3832488/
Something that I did learn through reflecting is that I find it difficult to properly explain things in one medium. This is something that I certainly need to work on if I plan to be effective as an educator.
Lesson for the Week: It is essential for development to confront our weaknesses. For me, this means to practice explaining situations clearly and in as few words as possible.
This past week I was able to play around with a new app called Voicethread. This application is an internet conversation tool that can be used for classroom conversations, collaborations, and various other classroom assignments. I tried to put together a short clip where I would post a physics demonstration and try to have students figure out "What is Going On?" A video like this would be posted about once every week to once every two weeks. Students would have to respond to the video with an audio, written, or video comment to answer the question, "What is Going On?" Most, if not all of the demos that are featured in the videos would have been shown in class as well. A seemingly decent activity with accountability in its assessment.
Being a beginner to this application I found it rather finicky and seemingly full of limitations. All audio comments have to be uploaded or taken in one prolonged take. It was nice to be able to doodle on the video, however, I still had difficulty performing a perfect take (which I never did quite do) without the ability to pause mid take or to use bits and pieces of different takes. I can see how this would be a useful application, however, I feel as though the lack of editing capabilities, low user-friendliness, and the inability to save the video file to your computer makes this application something that I will not continue to use. I do see that it has value, however, I am unsure if the time that it will take to learn how to use it (and teach students how to use the program) will really be worth the ability to use this program.
Here is the link to the video that I made with the attempted explanation of what was going on: https://voicethread.com/share/3832488/
Something that I did learn through reflecting is that I find it difficult to properly explain things in one medium. This is something that I certainly need to work on if I plan to be effective as an educator.
Lesson for the Week: It is essential for development to confront our weaknesses. For me, this means to practice explaining situations clearly and in as few words as possible.
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