Dr. Gatin and Multi User Virtual Environments

On January 27th our Internet for Educators class was visited by Dr. Gatin. He gave us a great presentation on Multi User Virtual Environments. The main part of his presentation was on Second Life. Second Live is a multi user virtual environment that is built by the users.

This technology is great for student interaction. Its somewhat a safe place where students can socialize. The students can meet new people and interact from places all over the world. This kind of interaction could benefit someone who is researching someplace on the other side of the world. Students also have the option of joining classes, there are many places where students can go to learn new things.

As a future educator I think it would be important to do a lot of research on Second Life before sending our students out to try it. There is going to be many places for these students to explore and I would feel more comfortable if I could guide them to safer places. I know they are going to explore and most likely find places where they should not be but that's the danger of the internet.

I wish the presenter would have had more time for Second Life. The topics he covered in the beginning were things that were covered by past presenters and feel less time could have been spent there.

A Visit From The Doctor

On January 20th our Internet for Educators was visited by Dr. Alec Couros via Elluminate Live!. The first thing I would like to comment on is method used for communication. Elluminate Live! is an amazing program. Being able to connect in this form would be a great resource in a classroom. I am a strong believer in guest speakers and with this technology a teacher has access to people all over the world. If you, as a teacher, are covering a topic and would love to have a guest speaker not available in your area this technology is definitely something you could look into. Another thing I found great about this technology was the ability of the speaker to share pics and videos with us. The videos he shared were awesome!!!

In terms of the information he shared with us, it was all great. With the past 2 presenters we've had we have more than enough information to start creating our PLN's, which, after seeing our last couple of presenters as well as listening to Mike, seem to be quite important/useful. The sites he shared will definitely come in handy in the future. This is another presentation I feel was too much in too little time, thankfully he shared a link to his slide show.

He shared a quote at the end of his presentation which I feel is super important, children today were raised so different from us. They are being raised in a time of technology and we need to keep up to date so we are aware of what kinds of technologies they are using and what they are using them for.

Till next time,
Lava Man

John Evans PLN

This past week we were lucky to have a presentation by John Evans. John is a Professional Learning Consultant for Manitoba Education and promoter of technology in classrooms. He brought new ideas into the classroom and really opened my eyes wider to the resources available online. John not only promotes the internet as a great place to find resources, through his wiki site and twitter account he offers a ton of these great resources.

John's presentation was super informative, I feel the time we had was not enough to get the full grasp of what he was teaching us. Its too bad we only had one day with him, not that we're not learning a lot from Mike. Its awesome to learn from people like Mike and John who are so passionate about technology in classrooms, its people like these guys, who love technology, that really encourage me to use it.

John's main focus was on PLN's (Professional (Personal) Learning Network). A PLN is an awesome tool for any educator who wants to continue to learn new strategies and gain new ideas for using technology in classrooms. During this semester I will definitely be building my own PLN. The ideas and resources he shared with us, along with the ones we already learned from Mike, will be the start to a great PLN.

Lava Man

First Blog

Hi, this is my first time blogging ever!!! I am pretty excited to start and see how it goes. No real big news right now, I'm a week and a half into my last semester of Education and pretty excited. I can't wait to be done. My last placement is in Fisher River which is an hour and a bit north of Gimli, I'm pretty excited not only because it is my last placement but I have family in Gimli I will be able to visit often.

Thats it for now,
Lava Man