We're excited to feature some of the awesome technology-infused learning projects that received ManACE Seed Grant funding this year! Educator: Jennifer Borgfjord School: La Verendrye School Division: Portage la Prairie School Division Jennifer explains the Sketchnote Squad project: Our vision is to create a core Sketchnote Squad within our school that will ultimately share their learning about visual note-taking and it’s many benefits through in-person sessions and media. Students will be introduced to sketchnoting by following the activities in “How to Sketchnote: A Step-By-Step Manual for Teacher and Students” by Sylvia Duckworth. Once they have gained proficiency and confidence, they will share their learning with others. It is our goal to have our squad grow over time. What's happening with the Sketchnote Squad? Before school closures, supplies were ordered and Jennifer met with the Squad to explain the project. They started sketchnoting with pencil and paper until their supplies arrived. Once the Bamboo pens arrived, they got started with digital sketching in OneNote to get used to the pens. (They learned the hard way that the Bamboo pens scratch the Otterbox screen protector on iPads. Fortunately, only one was affected!) Jennifer and her students had several small-group sessions and shared their sketchnoting with with grade 4 and 5 student groups before classes were suspended. Now that Jennifer is teaching from home, she continues to engage in PD to learn more about sketchnoting. She's curating resources for sketchnoting and sharing ideas with her class through Google Classroom. Check out this Wakelet collection from Jennifer for resources on sketchnoting: https://wke.lt/w/s/3Ktcyw You can follow @SketchnoteSquad on Twitter for updates!
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We're excited to feature some of the awesome technology-infused learning projects that received ManACE Seed Grant funding this year! Educator: Daralyn Davidson School: Dakota Collegiate Division: Louis Riel School Division High School Visual Art students at Dakota Collegiate will have the opportunity, through the Oculus Quest, to immerse themselves in Google’s TiltBrush virtual reality drawing software. Learners will be able to learn how to make and create artworks collaboratively in the virtual space to extend, integrate and refine their art-making competencies using digital and virtual reality technologies. Learners will be able to share their artworks with an audience through recorded photos, videos, as well as through experiencing the work for themselves through the headset. Photo courtesy of Daralyn Davidson
ManACE Technology Information Night (TIN) - Thursday, February 21, 2019
6:00-6:30 (Free!) supper and socializing 6:30-8:00 Presentations Location: Virden Collegiate Institute Multipurpose Room Address: 251 Kent Street, Virden, MB Please click here to register! Not in Virden? We will also be announcing a Winnipeg TIN Night soon! 5 Tips and Tricks for using Google Suite in Your Classroom Presented by Erica Snyder, Park West School Division Google Suite has many useful tools for teachers across all grade levels. This presentation will highlight my 5 favourite features of Google Suite from my perspective as a high school math and science teacher. Micro:bits in the Middle Years Classroom Presented by Regan Brereton-Waller, Fort la Bosse School Division Learn more about using Micro:bits and their vision, “to inspire every child to create their best digital future”. The session’s focus will be how to incorporate coding with Micro:bits into curricular outcomes in a middle years setting. We will discuss ideas and examples of how coding with Micro:bits can be meaningfully integrated into the classroom to provide high engagement and 21st century skills including critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. Connected Wellness Presented by Devon Caldwell, Fort la Bosse School Division Teachers face increased pressures in their work, and children and youth experience anxiety, lack of sleep, and distraction. This session will examine traditional tools such as meditation, yoga poses, and breathing techniques to promote wellness, stress reduction, and coping skills. Drawing from her own experiences as a classroom teacher and special educator, Devon will share practices and technology tools to ease anxiety, integrate movement breaks, enhance physical health, and improve mindfulness. We are very excited to be launching new, monthly Twitter slowchat discussions beginning October 17, 2018! We hope you'll find us on Twitter @manace_manitoba and join the conversation! Read on to find out how you can participate.
How do I join the ManACE #mbedchat slowchat?
What are we talking about? The theme of our October slowchat is professional learning. Each month there will be a new theme and a new moderator from the ManACE Board. Why join a slowchat?
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Here are a few more descriptions of this year’s Seed Grant winning projects. Enjoy! Developing Digital Graphic Skills for a Visual Culture at Henry G. Izatt Middle School by Barry Dyck Our cultural beliefs and value systems are embedded in the images that we create, whether it be in paintings or digital images. In a digital world where the creating and viewing of images is easier than ever, we have ordered two Wacom graphic tablets to expand student possibilities for creation. The tablets will be used in our Art, Applied Arts, Digital Design and Graphic Communications courses for students to create digital art, animation, comics and to edit images. Cricut Crafting Project at North Memorial School by Kim Houle The Portage la Prairie School Division’s strategic plan & North Memorial’s school plan have a strong focus on bringing community into our schools. Connecting families to the school. Giving parents a voice within their child’s education & learning. Additional, North Memorial School has put emphasis in the School Priorities to incorporate Indigenous Education into daily routines & lessons. With this in mind, our vision for the Cricut Crafting – Connecting Community project is to build community & rapport with families by providing a unique, creative, and relevant project that relates to their Indigenous culture. We will make family quilts that have symbols of their culture on them. Families will be able to come to the school and make the quilts as a family and as a community, and share stories about their culture with others while they craft together. We will use a Cricut machine to cut out the symbols and pattern pieces for the quilts. Using this technology with students and their families provides new skills, connects at-school learning to home, and it connects students, staff, and families. 2018 Seed Grant UpdateOver the next few months we will be highlighting this year’s Seed Grant winners in the Journal. We again had many great applications and we wish we could fund even more, judging was a difficult but inspiring process. Today we have our first project overview by Kris Drohomereski from Ecole Edward Schreyer School as well as a submission from Antony Brouwer from Prairie Mountain High School. Sphero Project at Ecole Edward Schreyer School by Kris Drohomereski The MANCE seed grant has been an amazing resource for my classroom and school. With the money I have received, I have been able to purchase 7 sphero minis for my classroom. The goal of my project is to help students learn code through play and project based learning. The first phase of the project is to introduce students to the spheros through play. We are currently playing games such as bowling, obstacle course races and maze navigating to build the student’s familiarity with the spheros. The next step will be to introduce basic code and collaboratively develop programs for morse code with a grade 6 class at École Edward Schreyer School. My dream is to test and share lessons on coding with other classes in the schools and make robotics and coding a part of every STEM class experience. Digitize Your World at Prairie Mountain High School by Antony Brouwer PMHS is a small rural school, and it is difficult to offer the range of courses or access to materials that many other larger centres offer, particularly when it comes to technology. In an effort to combat this problem, we are turning our outdated and underused lab into a more multi-functional space. The purpose of this is to create a dynamic workspace, where the shifting needs of students and technology can be more easily adapted to . By focusing our resources into a single lab, we can maximize the impact of limited resources, purchasing specialized equipment that will give students valuable exposure to technology such as 3D printers, digitizers, and creation based software programs. On top of this effort, the creation of a school club focused on playful and engaging use of technology, will help to give students more opportunities to experience technology in a way that is directly connected to their needs and interests. All of this is tied in to the enhancement of our current course offerings, with ICT and Design Drafting receiving improved access to machines that are highly specialized. by Abby Craton (Teacher Candidate – University of Manitoba)
Put simply, technology has revolutionized society. From the way we communicate with others, to the ways we can learn and access information, smartphones and other personal devices have entirely altered the way we, as humans, live. Though this comes with a multitude of obvious benefits for the economy, medicine, agriculture, business, education, and our social lives, there are many unintended consequences from the use of these tiny devices. Students need to understand the environmental, ethical, and social ramifications of their smartphones and personal devices, in order to be responsible citizens in the classroom, and in today’s world. In the past decade, owning a smartphone has turned from an anomaly to a standard. Since 2007, when the first iPhone was released, over 7.1 billion smartphones have been produced and sold – a number almost as large as the population of the entire planet (Greenpeace International, 2017). By 2020, it is estimated that approximately 70% of the global population will have their own smartphone. However, the average individual only uses their smartphone for about two years, due to diminished battery life, unexpected damage, or social pressures to update to a newer model (Greenpeace International). This is having a massive impact on the planet, both in the energy required to continuously produce massive numbers of smartphones, and with the resulting waste that comes from their lack of reuse. Much of electronic waste, or e-waste, consists of metals and chemicals that are extremely damaging to the environment, and are having an effect on microscopic, plant, and animal life across the planet (Pulcu, 2015). According to a recent study by Mission-Blue, a charitable organization for ocean preservation, the number of dead zones in the ocean has increased 500-fold in the past 40 years, largely due to the presence of toxic chemicals from mobile industries’ waste (Pulcu, 2015). Combatting this issue is difficult, due to the huge social status that comes with having the latest smartphone. |
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