Sally Song is a Grade 7 teacher in the Surrey school district who graciously shared some of her education technology tips and tricks with us. She has some valuable resources to share with us, some of which included:
-Office 365: this program can be used for student collaboration. Students simply sign up (for free in the Surrey district), and they have access to all of the Office programs. This allows them to create documents that they can all work on simultaneously, increasing the opportunity for collaborative work.
-“Remind” app: this app generates an anonymous phone number that you can send text messages from, so that your actual phone number isn’t revealed. Sally mentioned that she uses this app for planner reminders, which I thought was brilliant! This is such a game-changer if you’re somewhat forgetful (like me), and have forgotten to mention something to students before they leave school. Sally mentioned that we should turn two-way correspondence off so that we aren’t plagued with parent text messages.
These two programs are definitely something I’ll be looking into for my practicum. I plan on downloading the Remind app this weekend to do a trial run. Something else that Sally mentioned that sparked my interest was her Masters Degree in “Imaginative Education,” so I went over to her twitter to check it out. I noticed some tweets of her cohort doing some pretty interesting hands-on activities, so this is something I’ll be looking into as well. It is my goal to get a masters degree in education within 5 years, so I’ve been researching into different disciplines to see what I would like to focus on. I love how this Educational Technology class is taking me on different learning inquiry journeys- whether they are related or unrelated to Ed Tech!
I really respect the path you are on and your goal to get your masters in education within 5 years. The way you are doing that, by eagerly taking on these different learning inquiry journeys and researching different disciplines not only helps you on your path to being a well rounded person and educator, but continually adds to your growth mindset and your ability to provide a fun and inclusive learning environment.