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Studying human evolution is so fascinating.   Especially in today’s world where technology is evolving so fast that a new tool or software that comes out today becomes obsolete in a year or less.   McCrindle is an Australian advisory firm that focuses on researching generational trends.   They have a very interesting infographic that offers a snapshot of key traits and stats specific to each generation (builders, baby boomers, GenX, GenY, GenZ, GenAlpha).   It is incredible to think that a tool such as the iPad, which is so common and widely used, came out only 9 years ago.  Image source:  McCrindle.com Similar to McCrindle, but more associated to education, Project Tomorrow Speak Up is an organization that researches the effects of technolody in education. In 2019 and in collaboration with Blackboard, they came up with a report on the role of mobile and social communications from the perspective of parents and educators.   One o...

We have all been in situations at any grade level where the instructor simply stands in front of the class, bombards us with plenty of information and expects us to take notes and learn what we can from it. This can be labeled as a passive learning environment. The opposite of that, and quite honestly what I think should be everyone’s approach, is active learning. Active learning is an approach that strives to keep learners engaged with the course materials through the use of student-centered techniques designed to them self-motivated. There are many teaching strategies that stimulate learners by putting them at the center of the process, such as role playing, field trips, game-based learning platforms, group projects, brainstorming, among others. This week I learned about how a teacher used a technology tool to test what kids had learned about the American Revolution (view post)  instead of using your traditional quizzes and exams. In Ms. Malhiot’s classroom, students us...

Welcome back! This week we are covering a fun topic.  Technology is evolving at a very fast pace nowadays.   Especially when I think of cellphone technology, it is widely known that we now carry more computing power in our cellphones than NASA had when they started sending men to space.   There are many applications available that let us order pizza, complete our taxes, listen to the newest Sam Smith album, etc. This week on my blog I want to talk about a concept introduced by David White to describe how we interact with technology, where uses the terms “visitors and residents”. Visitor means that you use the technology to access something specific but there is not a social component.   Resident is when the technology has a social component, where you connect with others.   So to determine whether my engagement with an app on my cellphone is considered “visitor” or “resident” I would ask myself whether or not I interact with other people and if there is an...

This week I have prepared a presentation using Adobe Spark where I talk about TedTalks.  At the end of the presentation you will have a general understanding of what is TedTalks, how it started, and some of the advantages of implementing it into the classroom.  Additional Resources: https://www.ted.com/talk https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAuUUnT6oDeKwE6v1NGQxug https://ed.ted.com/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4264800/ https://time.com/34784/why-ted-matters/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/06/19/heres-why-ted-and-tedx-are-so-incredibly-appealing-infographic/#117a19423b0e

Welcome back to this week’s edition of my fabulous blog. 👌 It is no surprise that technology plays a huge role in our daily lives. However, how does it affect children’s ability to learn and stay engaged in school?   New technology tools or software comes out every day promising to change the way we learn forever. This is seldom true, but as educators, we need to be able to wheat through all the different tools coming out daily in order to identify the ones that will truly blend seamlessly with our instruction methods, lessons, but more importantly, improve the chances of our children achieving the learning goals. This is where Triple-E comes into play. Triple E is a framework that measures how technology in a lesson is actually helping students reach their learning goals. Many other frameworks out there also attempt to aid educators in analyzing whether or not new technology tools will actually help in the classroom but Triple-E is the only one that focuses on learning ...