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I refused to give Santa a Christmas list

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Placement Evaluation

Did you enjoy the experience? Why or why not?

Overall, the experience was somewhat fun, but also a lot more work than expected. It was nice being able to teach other students as part of my placement rather than just doing things for the teacher. As tough as it was to find a way to teach students so that they would understand, it was also really rewarding to see that they've actually learned something.

What went well with your placement?

Our biggest achievement as a group was figuring out what worked best for both us and the students. In the first few excel lessons, we found it difficult figuring out exactly how we should teach, however after those few, we figured out a great system. Another thing that went well was the weebly cheat sheet that we created for. It featured all the simple tasks that she would need to learn to update her website. 

What difficulties did you have with your placement?

With our placement, the one difficulty was timing. Often times we were supposed to meet with our placement teachers and discuss future plans but they never really happened. Also, whenever we were in the classroom, we often spent time trying to fix the computers and other stuff that just got in the way. Another difficulty was communication.

Do you consider your placement a success?

Our placement was definitely a success! We worked really hard and did the best we could to help our placement teacher with whatever she needed. In addition, we did teach a whole unit to the class and hopefully they learned some valuable skills from those few lessons. 

Do you think the project is useful/has value for IDC students/teachers/students of placement teachers?

I think the project is useful mostly for IDC students and for the placement teachers. IDC students have the benefit of learning to use technology and also share their knowledge with teachers. As for the students of the actual placement teachers, only if the teachers use the information they’re given to help the students, they benefit. For our placement specifically, the students did benefit from the placement because as part of our placement, we taught them how to use excel which may be useful to them in the future. 

How could the project be improved for future IDC classes?

For future IDC classes, I feel that it would be best to have a set timeline of when a placement should be done by. Also it would be best to make it part of the project to have an exact timeline of when different aspects of the placement should be done by, that way, we aren't all over the place and know exactly what should be done for the teacher.

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Addiction to technology...

Do you think it is possible to be addicted to technology? Do you personally have a problem with technology addiction?

I think it is definitely possible to be addicted to technology, I however do not feel that I have a personal problem with technology addiction... And the first sign is always denial. The definition of an addiction is this:

Habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control

And while I do sometimes subconsciously type in "t" or "f" into the web address bar which leads me directly to Twitter or Facebook, I would say that it's not voluntary, especially considering that I've had the willpower to not go on Twitter or Facebook for the last 48 hours. I will however admit, I did WANT to, like REALLY badly, but I didn't. This just proves that I do have some sort of control over this "addiction". I did however use other types of technology, TV, using the computer for homework, in which case I wasn't completely distanced from technology, only the distracting types. I would say that my life would be a lot more boring if I weren't able to use technology and it would be hard for me to really... function. I'm finding it hard even with this detox to just be productive, I'll just stare blankly at the screen if it stops me from doing homework.

I think that in the society we live in today where people are so dependent on technology, I wouldn't necessarily call it an addiction, it's more of a lifestyle, a new way of getting things done. To completely distance one's self from technology would just make life so much more inefficient. We require technology to communicate with others, type out information quickly, learn new things. And although we can learn new things from books, there are some things that only the internet can show us. There is however, a possibility to be addicted to technology that makes us inefficient. Things like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc. For those who like to tweet, update their status every two minutes.. well THEY have a problem.

Does technology affect your attention span?  If yes, in what way?  If no, why not?

My attention span is very much affected by technology. *Goes on Facebook for an hour*. I find it difficult defining the line between when I should be doing school work as opposed to doing other things like going on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and I end up doing both at once. I often lose my train of thought for whatever school assignment I'm doing because I get distracted by a new notification or something. This is probably not a very good thing going into university and it is definitely something that I am trying to work on.

At the same time, a distraction is a distraction. If we're working on something that is completely uninteresting, we will find something to distract us whether it be technology or not. 

Are digital distractions a problem for you? Do you see a problem among your peers? Should teachers do anything to help students manage digital distractions?

Digital distractions are a problem for me and I find it is a problem among peers as well. We often find each other telling one another to get off Facebook, or Twitter to continue or school work. Teachers can really only do so much, I believe the only thing they can really do is help us manage our time more than anything. They really don't have no control over my own actions at home and shouldn't have to, they're our teachers, not our baby sitters. It's up to us.

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Teacher For A Day...

The seminar I chose to do was Technology Troubleshooting. 

Did your seminar go as you planned/expected it to?  If not, what surprised you?  

Life is all about surprises, and it's safe to say, most things don't go as planned or as expected. Our actual activity did not go as well as we had hoped or planned. I guess our group underestimated the students' abilities and well... behaviour. I have to give them credit however, some of the students were quite good at fixing computers and were able to do it very quickly. However, there were others who without a second look asked for help and complained. It was difficult to tell whether they really cared or they were just looking for a way out of work. 

What did you not anticipate?  What would you change if you were going to deliver it again?

We did not anticipate that it would take as long as it did. A lot of time was taken up with  preparations for breaking computers and organization. In addition, we did not expect that some of the computers would ACTUALLY be broken and unfortunately that affected how the student was able to experience fixing a computer. If we were to do this again, it would be better for us to teach more regardless of the level of knowledge the class had. I think most of us felt that the students knew what they were doing and went through things rather quickly. Also, we should probably NOT mention the chocolate and treats until after, they would probably be less hyper and scary.

Did you enjoy the experience?  Why or why not?

I definitely enjoyed the experience... (she said as excitedly as possible). No, but really, with some real thought, I genuinely did enjoy it. It was good chance to be able to share my own knowledge with younger students knowing that they still have 4 years of high school. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed planning the lesson as opposed to actually delivering the lesson. I guess the reason I didn't really enjoy it was because I have learnt that I don't have the greatest patience. Maybe I should work on that... 

Did the experience change your perception of teaching or education?

Well, for starters, I know for a fact that I do not want to be a teacher anymore, so I'm glad I got that out of the way. However, I have realized that teachers daily lessons do take a lot of planning and thought. It must be hard to deal with us kids and I definitely respect teachers more now (not that I didn't initially).

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or ever really

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Procrastination and Learning

"From the lessons on procrastination and learning, choose two to four facts/strategies/pieces of information that particularly resonated with you.  It could be because you agree with them, disagree with them or simply found them interesting.  Explain why and give reasons for your choices

"when we don't value the task, we procrastinate"

It's true, we are not always going to enjoy every task we have to do in life. For example, cleaning our rooms, making our bed, whatever assignment it may be, there just isn't any value to it and is not worth our time. I can completely agree with this. There are just some things in life that I don't find particularly valuable or worth my time. The biggest one, making my bed. Why make your bed in the morning when you're just going to sleep in it and mess it up 12 hours later? (My mother and I have had one too many arguments about this). With this, its just an ongoing procrastination, I can't remember the last time I made my bed unless it was to change the sheets. I think if something is not worth it to us, but still has to be done (such as a not so enjoyable assignment) we will wait until the last possible minute to do it, and therefore, we're procrastinating. 

"The further away our goals (or deadlines) are, the more we'll procrastinate"

"Long time goals don't interest us until time turns them into short time consequences 

When our goals and deadlines are so far away, we feel that we have all the time in the world to finish whatever we have to do. But really, do we?  It is completely true that we always leave things to the last minute because we always think there is time when really, it just goes by. 

"10 000 Hour Rule"

10 000 hours is A LOT of time. That is 416 days, 13 months, OVER A YEAR. For someone to be an expert at what they do, it takes 10 000 hours. An expert is someone who is the best at what they do, are able to advise novices on their area of expertise and has an expansive knowledge and experience on the topic. I really did not think it took that long to become good at something. 

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Teacher Placement Assessment

Before: 

As a lot of our time and effort was put into the movie, Faseeh, Tanuja and I are currently sitting at a low usage with our teacher's placement. So far all we have done was have a few conferences with her, and created her website on weebly. In the few times we've met with her, we have discussed all she would like us to do for the placement and we've also started to make a cheat sheet for her as to how to use weebly

Now:

In the coming weeks, our placement will definitely be picking up to a high usage placement. Our Teacher has requested us to start coming in more often to teach some of her classes. She would like us to show the class how to use excel, access, powerpoint and a lot of other programs. She would also like us to do a full lesson on Prezi

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ICT Skills

Technology Operations & Concepts

I'm able to organize and manage my own personal files and group them accordingly, and can also use most work publishing tools online, however I'm not too familiar with online forums or database software. I think that after this IDC class though, I should be able to use these forums and database softwares. If i'm not sure how to use some devices, i'm usually capable of figuring it out on my own because most are pretty similar as to how their operated. 

Research and Information Fluency

I would say that I'm quite capable of using search engines and gathering information for projects. Although sometimes i'm not so great at knowing WHAT it is exactly that I should search for, or how I would word what I'm searching. As for citations and such, I think over the years I've improved at properly citing my work.

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving 

When organizing my notes, I would say that I usually go for the traditional route of writing notes, so I don't think i'm very strong at creating mind maps or online timelines.

Communication & Collaboration  

This is most likely my strongest skill, I usually think best when I can bounce ideas off of others and collaborate our ideas. Again, with technology, I think I can usually quickly figure out how to navigate a site that I haven't used before, because the layout is quite similar in most sites. 

Digital Citizenship  

When using other peoples work or images online, I've always learnt and made sure that I cite it and show that it is not my own work. I can generally know what sites are safe online and am able to responsibly use online content. 

Creativity & Innovation  

Since I was in middle school, I've always been familiar with different presentation methods using technology since I was in a cyber arts class, so I would like to think that I'm pretty creative with any digital presentations. However when it comes to creating my own learning resource type thing, I'm not very familiar with complex softwares. 

Skill That I Need To Develop 

I think the skill that I would want to develop is creativity. I'm not sure that the school would really be able to teach creativity, but I think it would help if some of our projects had more freedom which would kind of force me to have to be creative with how I present my work.

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The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn

-Alvin Toffler

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Best Assignment in High School?

This was while ago, but i really enjoyed it. Grade 10 business, also known as... alright so i don't remember the course code, big deal. Ms.Graham was teaching our class about Ergonomics, the study of comfortable office space... no just kidding, it's really the study of efficiency in working environments and also the design of proper workspace equipment to provide a comfortable environment. (So really, i was sort of right about comfortable office space) The assignment was to create an ergonomically correct office that is both professional and useable. We really had a lot of freedom as to how we went about creating the model, whether it be a floor plan, 3D model etc. My partner and I started off with trying to create a 3D model, that didn't go so well... So using our 21st century skills--which we yet to know were 21st century skills--of problem solving, we learnt to use a really cool tech tool formerly known as "Google Sketch-up" (I think its called Trimble Sketch-up now) and we ended up with a great final product of a 3D floor plan model! 

The 21st Century skills that I developed were definitely there, teamwork/collaboration, digital literacy and problem solving were all used to finish this project. Learning to use the sketch up program was a lot of work, but it slowly became easier and easier. I think this was a really good project because it gave us freedom to use whatever medium to present our ideas.