Welcome to "Talking Tech' in HD"!!! That is the new title of my blog. Thanks to those who took the time to vote! In the future look for the chance to vote on a logo.
The title of this week's blog is also the title of a Jim Croce song - please watch the video below.
Jim Croce is one of my favorite music artists. He is before my time - honest - but the title is perfect for what I wish to write about this week. The chorus starts with the following lines:
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them
This has been an incredibly busy week here at HD, and especially for the staff as we have parent teacher interviews. I enjoy the 8 minute block that I get to spend with the parents as we discuss and work out strategies, talk about the course, talk about the "whole student" and depending on how well we know each other - just time to catch up. This is time well spent and is very valuable to me, the teacher, and I hope it is as valuable to the parents, the students, the school, my classes and the community. The time spent together provides me much feedback, thought, motivation, and blessings, therefore, it is time well spent.
In the last post I mentioned how our grade 11 class helped the office arrive at the schoolbookings.net solution to streamline the process of signing up for parent-teacher-interviews. The old method of scheduling consumed approx 40 hours, each term, from the office staff! While the old process had the same end result, it was not time well spent. The gifts and talents of our office staff could be and now are better put to use.
It was fun to see a smile on Mrs. Pot's face as we discussed scheduling PTIs, the smile was mostly because it is now so much easier and not a frustrating or time consuming task.
With the correct technology, we can be more efficient and give honor and value to the time of others.
I sometimes struggle with the balance of time and technology, and how it is not just my time but also my family's time. One of my struggles is how much time I spend using technology and how long I spend on one task. I enjoy working with technology and computers, and for me it is also a hobby and quite fun but I need to balance it.
If you have been following from the start, then you know that I am using Twitter (@hblyleven) to learn of it and learn from it. I have really benefitted from the thoughts of others as we share ideas and information. It, like this blog, has taken time but I think these activities are important, but I am making every effort to make sure that these do not take time away from important things like my family, my church, my friends and our community. To balance out the equation I need to give things up - I am watching way less tv - probably a good thing! I think that these activities are time well spent!
My challenge for you, for the next week, is to be conscious of your time spent using technology and that it is indeed time well spent!
Grade 9 Computers BTT1O
We are currently on a "rotation" with our class and Mr. Brink's class. The rotation allows the students to discover and learn about movie making with Mr. Brink. Mr. Brink is the other BTT teacher and is also one of the HD media teachers. His expertise in this area is much appreciated. As a result, Mr. Wensink has made the move to Mr. Brink's class and is working through spreadsheets with them. Mr. Wensink is already two thirds of the way through his 6 week placement. I am very grateful and impressed with the work that Mr. Wensink is putting into our classes.
Grade 11 Computer Programming ICS 3U
The students are creating a guessing number game in which they are incorporating all of their newly acquired programming skills. Mr. Wensink is also incorporating and engaging students with discussions about computer and technology issues such as; online censorship and how the Occupy Toronto demonstration is being supported by a hacking group called Anonymous . Below is a clip of the message that anonymous delivered to the Toronto government.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Not slow and steady -- just steady
It has been almost two weeks now since I ran, and finished, the Road2Hope half marathon. Below is a picture linked directly from the official event photographers' site to prove it. It was a beautiful day for the run. Mr. Plantinga also ran the 1/2 Marathon, albeit in a much faster time than I did.
This was only the second half marathon that I have ever run. I enjoy running and like a fun shirt that I saw someone at the run wearing said, "I run so I can eat!". Now, while running 21 km is not for everyone, I must say that I really enjoyed the event and the many kms I had to do for my training. I had set goals for myself in terms of finishing times. I like to give myself three times to shoot for; one that would be an excellent run, one that would be a good run, and the third that is usually a realistic time.
The run starts on "the mountain" in Stoney Creek and proceeds down the Red Hill Parkway towards Lake Ontario with a few bends, turns and straightaways. It is known to be one of the fastest courses around because of its downhill nature. The crowd got moving and the hype of the run set in. I was really enjoying myself. Checking my watch at every km marker was telling me one thing...I was going too fast. Now too fast for me is not too fast for everyone...just me. At the 10km marker my time was just over 53 min. I expected this to take a little longer but I was also excited because I was on pace for a phenomenal run for me. And then I hit it...the wall. I started to slow down a fair bit and tried to coach myself through the next 11 kms. I started making deals with my legs that if they would only run for the next 2km then they could have a 1 min walk, a drink and maybe my Power Gel energy pak. This coaxing didn't really work as well as my mind had hoped. I ended up finishing the run in 2hrs and 3 mins which is a few minutes faster than my other half marathon, which was 8 years ago. I achieved my realistic goal...you can see me cross the finish line at the 12:30 mark of this video.
Reports cards were sent home today and I just emailed copies out a little while ago as well. I like to think of the courses that I teach to be a bit like a run. Most students to the "wad-ja get?" routine as the see other classmates get reports. I don't like it when students right away compare themselves to others but I am not sure how can avoid this.
I chatted with my grade 9 students and mentioned that some of them were likely hoping for better grades, some got the grades they thought they would, and some may have achieved higher than expected. However, I cautioned, congratulated and encouraged them and reminded them that in our course we are only at the quarter term for grade 9 computers with a long ways to yet go. My wish for them is that they continue to be steady throughout the year and that more importantly than a number located on the top right of a piece of paper, I wish for them to have open minds that critique and investigate the material that we cover.
God has granted us a number of special gifts. A couple of weeks ago for myself it was a wonderful chance to run, this week God has granted me the opportunity to more fully help my students as they work through a high school computer course and for me to more fully understand my students!
I chatted with my grade 9 students and mentioned that some of them were likely hoping for better grades, some got the grades they thought they would, and some may have achieved higher than expected. However, I cautioned, congratulated and encouraged them and reminded them that in our course we are only at the quarter term for grade 9 computers with a long ways to yet go. My wish for them is that they continue to be steady throughout the year and that more importantly than a number located on the top right of a piece of paper, I wish for them to have open minds that critique and investigate the material that we cover.
God has granted us a number of special gifts. A couple of weeks ago for myself it was a wonderful chance to run, this week God has granted me the opportunity to more fully help my students as they work through a high school computer course and for me to more fully understand my students!
As I continue to blog, I am attempting to make some posts a little more interactive. The first activity that you can help me with it to choose a more exciting name for my blog - Mr. Blyleven's Blog - well, it just isn't that exciting. Therefore, please take a moment to vote on possible new names for my blog. If you have another suggestion for a name please leave a comment after this post. Please also feel free to leave comments after a post to provide feedback, give more info to the topic, or to ask a question.
Class Updates
ICS 3U - Grade 11 Computer Programming
Mr. Wensink, from Redeemer, continues to work with the class as they are now practicing loops, and how to use and breakup information into more meaningful pieces (string manipulation for you programmers out there). If you are a parent of a student in this class then by now you are probably aware of the real life problem and the real solution that this class was a part of recently. This class did the preliminary work to find the online solution and bookings for Parent Teacher Interviews. Mr. Todd has congratulated and rewarded us with some tasty donuts - I think he called them Duncan Donuts! It is estimated that this new method of managing interview bookings will save the office staff about 40-60 hours throughout the year!
BTT 1O - Grade 9 Computers
This class has been busy working on their final assignments for the spreadsheet unit. We also had the opportunity to discuss and work on our yearlong electronic waste project. This project will have student events such as an electronic waste collection day, screening of videos to raise awareness of ewaste, unveiling of posters, small electronics collections, battery drop off centres, publication of letters to various people and organizations and the list goes on. I will continue to fill you as this list gets to be more complete. Starting next week Monday the grade 9 BTT classes have our rotation. Mr. Brink's classes and my classes switch. My classes will be creating movies and learning about video production with Mr. Brink. Mr. Wensink and I will be working with the other classes as we do spreadsheets. (for the record I enjoy spreadsheets and think that spreadsheets are the best business application out there!)
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
They make it look so easy...
Hi again and I need to say thanks to those we are taking the time to read my blog. I must say that I am enjoying the process of blogging. It is rather easy when you actually get to write about a topic you enjoy - in my case technology and education.
I need to also give a big shout of thanks to a number of students at HDCH that have been helping me and our school discover how we can effectively use video production in our classes, in our extracurricular program and also with our community. If you happened to be at the membership meeting this week you would have seen a couple of young men confidently running a video production unit. Their task was to film parts of the evening, including Mr. Siebenga's Principal's Report.
Our school recently purchased a video production unit, called a TriCaster . We have been busy learning how to use it and have successfully used it in Miss Baarda's English Language Learners classes as they were filming newscasts and practicing their English speaking. Creating a virtual news desk was as simple as putting up a green screen, which is just some of the ugliest green material I could find at the fabric store, and pushing a couple of buttons. Mr. Cook continues to graciously allow me to borrow a few of the young ladies from his English Media class to setup, film and produce these segments. I can't and don't want to do this alone, actually I don't want to do this at all. I enjoy seeing the students take charge and helping out when necessary. We, or more correctly they, are quickly getting to that stage.
The students that are helping with these events make things look so easy. They quickly take charge of the productions and I quickly get left behind as they learn how to properly setup a green screen and virtual set, add labels to live shot, and include scores and team headings on the feed. Today with only minutes before our event, the boys' volleyball match, went live I asked one of the students running the production this question, "Do you think we could interview the coach, save the clip, and play it back during a timeout?" His simple answer was "Probably, let's try it!" It worked!
My job today was simple - help carry things to the gym, help setup, help tear down, and I got to do the play by play commentating - most likely because I have a face that is perfect for off camera work - I think I will stick with teaching!
Well how does this nice story tie into my goals for technology and the purpose for this blog? I love to model how to use technology in positive manners and I enjoy seeing and encouraging students to develop their gifts in the area of technology. So far we have about 10 kids who are totally into working on this and we haven't even promoted this yet as an opportunity. I will definitely be needing and wanting more kids involved so if you think your son or daughter might like video production as an extra curricular activity please encourage them to talk to me about it.
We have great kids who really enjoy technology and it is their "thing". They don't see problems as roadblocks but rather as learning opportunities and challenges.
One of the issue that we noticed in filming the previous volleyball game was the producer not being able to communicate with the camera people - simple solution - "Mr. B, we need a laptop to setup a host conversation with Skype so we can have a multi-person Skype conversation through our Ipods." My response - "uh - OK" and another idea was implemented. It was exciting to later hear this from the producer, "Camera 1, zoom in on the server and camera 2 get ready for...", they make it look so easy!
Class Updates
Grade 9 Computers BTT
Mr. Wensink, a student teacher from Redeemer, continues to work with the class through the spreadsheet unit. He is doing a great job of helping students with some complex spreadsheet formulas, graphing data, and determining how best to display and format information. We also have completed the second period on our year long project about electronic waste. The students will soon be coming up with ideas for their projects and begin to implement them as they discover how the topic of e-waste fits into our world and how we as young Christians can have a meaningful and positive impact on a local and perhaps global scale!
Grade 11 Computer Programming ICS
Mr. Wensink, is helping students discover the purpose of looping and repeating code in Java Programming. Students have just completed a mini-project as they begin to build their foundation in computer programming. We have had some great learning opportunities to not only develop our programming skills but other learning skills as well. In our last bridge day, students investigated a real problem that the school is trying to solve. Through the help of this class, and their fantastic preliminary work, a real solution has been found. If you want to know more about this real problem simply ask them!
Our school recently purchased a video production unit, called a TriCaster . We have been busy learning how to use it and have successfully used it in Miss Baarda's English Language Learners classes as they were filming newscasts and practicing their English speaking. Creating a virtual news desk was as simple as putting up a green screen, which is just some of the ugliest green material I could find at the fabric store, and pushing a couple of buttons. Mr. Cook continues to graciously allow me to borrow a few of the young ladies from his English Media class to setup, film and produce these segments. I can't and don't want to do this alone, actually I don't want to do this at all. I enjoy seeing the students take charge and helping out when necessary. We, or more correctly they, are quickly getting to that stage.
The students that are helping with these events make things look so easy. They quickly take charge of the productions and I quickly get left behind as they learn how to properly setup a green screen and virtual set, add labels to live shot, and include scores and team headings on the feed. Today with only minutes before our event, the boys' volleyball match, went live I asked one of the students running the production this question, "Do you think we could interview the coach, save the clip, and play it back during a timeout?" His simple answer was "Probably, let's try it!" It worked!
My job today was simple - help carry things to the gym, help setup, help tear down, and I got to do the play by play commentating - most likely because I have a face that is perfect for off camera work - I think I will stick with teaching!
Well how does this nice story tie into my goals for technology and the purpose for this blog? I love to model how to use technology in positive manners and I enjoy seeing and encouraging students to develop their gifts in the area of technology. So far we have about 10 kids who are totally into working on this and we haven't even promoted this yet as an opportunity. I will definitely be needing and wanting more kids involved so if you think your son or daughter might like video production as an extra curricular activity please encourage them to talk to me about it.We have great kids who really enjoy technology and it is their "thing". They don't see problems as roadblocks but rather as learning opportunities and challenges.
One of the issue that we noticed in filming the previous volleyball game was the producer not being able to communicate with the camera people - simple solution - "Mr. B, we need a laptop to setup a host conversation with Skype so we can have a multi-person Skype conversation through our Ipods." My response - "uh - OK" and another idea was implemented. It was exciting to later hear this from the producer, "Camera 1, zoom in on the server and camera 2 get ready for...", they make it look so easy!
Class Updates
Grade 9 Computers BTT
Mr. Wensink, a student teacher from Redeemer, continues to work with the class through the spreadsheet unit. He is doing a great job of helping students with some complex spreadsheet formulas, graphing data, and determining how best to display and format information. We also have completed the second period on our year long project about electronic waste. The students will soon be coming up with ideas for their projects and begin to implement them as they discover how the topic of e-waste fits into our world and how we as young Christians can have a meaningful and positive impact on a local and perhaps global scale!Grade 11 Computer Programming ICS
Mr. Wensink, is helping students discover the purpose of looping and repeating code in Java Programming. Students have just completed a mini-project as they begin to build their foundation in computer programming. We have had some great learning opportunities to not only develop our programming skills but other learning skills as well. In our last bridge day, students investigated a real problem that the school is trying to solve. Through the help of this class, and their fantastic preliminary work, a real solution has been found. If you want to know more about this real problem simply ask them!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Why am I bloggin'?
You will likely notice that I have changed the format of my blog. I have switched to Blogspot because I wanted to allow user comments on the posts. I hope the comments will work and I look forward to your feedback.
In last week's blog I mentioned that I would let you know some other reasons about why I am blogging and specifically for you, the parents and the guardians. I must admit that I am not a gifted writer and, if given a choice in methods to communicate, writing would not be even close to number one.
Using this space will hopefully help to accomplish a couple of goals:
The two workshops that I led at the convention were about Google Documents and Other Google Applications. If you have a Gmail account I encourage you to check out Google Docs. Google Docs is an online office packages that includes a word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation component. One key feature with Google Docs is the ability and ease with which people can share information and collaborate in real time. If two people are working on a document at the same time it is kind of freaky to see another cursor on the screen typing and adding info. Content from Google Docs or sites can easily be made public to share with select people or the world.
Lately I have been thinking about my online presence, or lack of, and how I consume a lot from the Internet but I must admit that I do not really contribute a great deal to the creation of content online. This blog is one way that I hope to add content.
In last week's blog I mentioned that I would let you know some other reasons about why I am blogging and specifically for you, the parents and the guardians. I must admit that I am not a gifted writer and, if given a choice in methods to communicate, writing would not be even close to number one. Using this space will hopefully help to accomplish a couple of goals:
- let you know what is going on my classes
- help me communicate and model the use of more online tools
- provide a positive online presence
- allow some dialog between parents/guardians and myself
- provide me a forum to talk about technology in education
As most of you know, a few days ago we had the OCSTA teachers' convention. FYI OCSTA has undergone a name change and is now called EDIFIDE. I always enjoy going to the conference. It provides an opportunity to see friends and colleagues from other schools, listen to different speakers and I often present various workshops on using technology in the classroom. This year we had the pleasure of hearing Andy Crouch as he led us in a discussion of culture making. His talk challenged us to be more than just consumers of culture but rather to join in and create culture. He is an incredibly gifted speaker and I encourage you to watch some of the many Youtube videos he has.
The two workshops that I led at the convention were about Google Documents and Other Google Applications. If you have a Gmail account I encourage you to check out Google Docs. Google Docs is an online office packages that includes a word-processor, spreadsheet and presentation component. One key feature with Google Docs is the ability and ease with which people can share information and collaborate in real time. If two people are working on a document at the same time it is kind of freaky to see another cursor on the screen typing and adding info. Content from Google Docs or sites can easily be made public to share with select people or the world.
Lately I have been thinking about my online presence, or lack of, and how I consume a lot from the Internet but I must admit that I do not really contribute a great deal to the creation of content online. This blog is one way that I hope to add content.
Our kids and students consume and create a lot of content and culture. Andy Crouch again challenged us to not only copy culture but to create and cultivate the culture. I think that this definitely fits in with having an online presence. I will continue to work through how our kids, and ourselves, can create an online culture and presence that honours the Lord. It is my hope that in our classes we wrestle with this and come up with more than just plans and ideas to create and cultivate culture but that we actually do create it.
Class updates:
I would like to welcome Mr. Wensink to our class. He is a student teacher from Redeemer University College and will be with us for the next 6 weeks.
Grade 9 Computers (BTT)
We have finished the Internet Safety assignment and have just started our unit on Spreadsheets (my favourite business application). We will be working on this for the next two weeks.
Grade 11 Computes (ICS)
We have just started our programming unit on looping. Students are working on a mini project to help provide them a solid foundation to the beginning of the unit. This project is in response to the great conversation that we as a class had last week about what the students felt they needed to feel prepared in this course. I have already heard positive comments from them as they work!
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