MOOC. Before taking the Integration of Technology course offered by OECTA this summer, I would have thought MOOC was just the sound a cow might make! I had never heard of MOOCs before and am extremely grateful for the eye opening experience. MOOC, or massive open online course, is exactly that. A course offered to anyone who is willing to sign up. Many MOOCs are free and are taught by some of the top minds in their fields from universities across the world. There is so much to learn and really puts the learner in the driver's seat. It is knowledge of all kinds at your fingertips at times that work for you.
My first MOOC I participated in was called, Get Organized: How to be a Together Teacher. Every year I start my year with an agenda in hand and the vow that this year will be the year that I will finally get organized. This year will be the year that I know all my deadlines, due dates and meetings ahead of time. This year nothing will creep up on me. Then the year comes roaring in and my organization leaves something to be desired. In this course, teachers were guided through building our own Weekly Worksheet to help teachers plan their day to day lives. We were then guided through how to make a Comprehensive Calendar so due dates were never missed. And finally, time was spent on keeping an organized to do list. I would highly recommend this course to any teacher who feels that they need to bump up their togetherness skills. Although there are due dates on this course it was easy to follow and quite manageable. Timelines were given before each assignment making it easy to know when to fit it in in your schedule. In a busy school year with so much going on, MOOCs would be a great way to increase your PD without having to spend too much time outside of work hours or having to be away from your classroom. The options for learning are endless. I can’t wait to dig deeper into more MOOCs. Click here for a list of MOOCs that might interest you!
0 Comments
Numeracy has been a focus in many of our school boards for a while now. One thing that we all try and do is find problems that can get our students engaged and that focus on 21st century thinking and learning. Often when you talk about this with other educators the issues that come up over and over again are where do we find these problems, how much time it will take to create the problems and how do we make sure that we are keeping our students engaged.
It's no longer easiest, efficient or most engaging, to open up a textbook assign students questions 1 to 10 and away they go. Not saying that the textbooks don't have valuable information and that they need to be all thrown out, but really what we want to do is have a mix of different resources that meet the needs of our students. With IEPs, differentiated instruction and celebrating the individual students that are in front of us, having a lot of resources at our fingertips is incredibly valuable. To help me with this gargantuan task, there are a couple of websites that I feel are my go to's. |
Whitney McKinleyPassionately obsessed with collaboration, innovation, technological integration and 21st century teaching and learning. ArchivesCategories
All
|