What is your background in education, and can you remind me how we met?
I completed my education through McMaster University and Nipissing University, where I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education, with teachables in senior history and English. I moved to Saskatchewan in 2012 to begin a middle years English position with the Northwest School Division. We met at a first year teachers’ meeting, which was a program set up in our division to help new teachers share resources, learn about current initiatives and educational technologies available to us, and to work alongside more experienced educators to improve our classes.
Can you describe the school that you work at?
I teach in St. Walburg, Saskatchewan, which has roughly 800 people in the town. We are primarily a farming community, and have a K-12 school with approximately 300 students. I have really enjoyed the small class sizes which we have, as they range from 9 to 27 students, depending on the grade. While we have small numbers, we certainly do not lack in our athletics and extra-curricular activities! We have a number of teams which have made it to the provincial level in different sports, including volleyball, badminton and track and field. We also have worked really hard at the school to integrate new educational philosophies and technologies within our school. These initiatives include guided math and reading, triangulation of data, outcome based assessment, daily 5, Key Math and aimsweb.
What types of technology do you integrate into your classroom?
This year I chose to integrate Google Classroom into my middle year’s English courses. The students enjoyed having access to all of their work and assignments, and found it was easier to keep track of everything. I also noticed that it was easier to keep track of students’ assignments and monitor who had handed it in. The only struggle with using this method has been our access to computers. We do not have enough computers for each student in the school to have one each period, and thus there were some classes where they were unavailable to be used. The students also often forgot their passwords, causing this process to be rather inefficient. As a result, I found that I still needed to print out a number of assignments and had students still submit some work by hand.
I also utilize a SMARTBoard in my classroom. I enjoy having this technology as I am able to save copies of all of my notes and print them off, particularly for those students who require completed notes or who are absent.
Audacity has been used by a number of my students who prefer to submit their work orally, or who feel their learning can be best demonstrated through a discussion or conversation. The students have submitted their audio files at the end of class to justify their learning.
Finally, we have begun to utilize aimsweb in my school which is a brief assessment that provides a snapshot of students comprehension and reading skills. This helps me as a teacher direct my allocated RTI time to provide interventions for those students who are below grade level or may be struggling with a particular concept.
Do the students bring in technology into the classroom?
The majority of students have smartphones and they are able to use them based on the discretion of the teacher. Often students prefer to use their phones to complete small amounts of research or to look up definitions as it is faster than finding a dictionary or using the internet at the school. Some students have also brought in their own laptops depending on the assignment.
Is there technology that you would like to use in the future?
In a dream world, I would really like all students to have their own computers, as this would make using digital classrooms (such as Google Classroom or One Note) more feasible. I would also be excited to have a tablet, as they are easier to write on and are often clearer than a SMARTBoard.
Thank you for your time and best of luck with your exams!
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