Is another great digital storytelling tool. It is easy to learn and easy to use.
Students would find this a great tool to use for presentations. I can easily use this as a tool for sharing information about school counselling.
You can:
pick your best pictures
upload them
record your voice
share
When you share to facebook etc. You get another narrable to use for free.
Check out my first narrable… Do you think you could use this to tell your story?
A work in progress still figuring out how to embed or share on wordpress.
Thanks to Erin Luong who suggested I tweet the code first, then copy and paste the tweet from twitter to wordpress and I probably would get the link which I did. It saved me a lot of frustration being able to do it this way. So here it is:
As part of etmooc we are encouraged to use a variety of Storytelling tools. I had known about voicethread http://voicethread.com/ for awhile now, but this is the first time I actually used it to tell a story. I believe it will be a fantastic way to share what I want to in school counselling. It wil be a great tool to embed in our learning guides in a self- directed high school.
I bought SNOWBALL (the white mic in the picture) which is a great tool if you are doing any voice productions. I like how clear my voice turned out.
A work in progress . My voicethread …
Go to : Never Give Up to see my voicethread. I am working on making it better . I definitely need to work on the timing of my voice.
I love how you can add links to the thread , so I added one of my livebinders on depression in the first thread. I can also see how I could add this link to one of our learning guides so that students could have access to the information. Beacause you can integrate with (D2L) Desire to Learn, this will make it easy for us to use in our school.
School Counsellors in the US have been using this resource and I can see why. See the SCOPE article http://sconlineprofessionalexchange.blogspot.ca/2012/06/using-voicethread.html It will definately work as a psychoeducational tool that we can use in Student Services for various topics that relate to school counselling. I look forward to utilizing this tool more often.
This process of learning has and always will be fun for me, but there is something different about this ETMOOC?
How is it like lacrosse for me?
I am passionate about both
At 54, I am still in the game
The game is not about winning for me
It’s about loving what I am doing
It is about making connections
It’s about learning from young people
It’s about feeling I have something to contribute
It’s about facing fears
It’s about feeling excited about what I am doing
It’s about questioning whether I really should be doing this
It’s about recognizing the value of continuing to do this
It’s about modeling for my own children to not quit and finding things in life that continue to bring me joy
It’s about making mistakes and learning to laugh at myself
It’s about trying new things
It’s about letting loose, like in a lip dub or trying an old move like I used to when I was a young lacrosse player and realizing that I can still do it!
Do the comments people make on a blog or in lacrosse really matter? Yes, and no. I have to admit I loved it when the past captain of the Calgary Roughnecks, Tracey Kelusky told me I had “golden hands”. I was thrilled. It was an ego boost, especially for someone my age. I can’t run for beans, but I have golden hands (that was few years ago he said that, but it still brings me some joy.) When Andrew McBride, the present captain would ask me to show the much younger ladies how to shoot or pass, yes inside, I beamed with pride.
Or when someone encourages me by commenting on my post, I also have to admit I like that. However, I also recognize that few people may even read or will comment on my posts or might even say non-encouraging comments at some point, but that does not discourage me. I am doing this for me, nobody else. It is about me being reflective, and what I can learn.
I continue to learn as an adult. A few years ago, I took guitar lessons and my teacher told me “I was his most dedicated student who learned so little.”
This is not something I would recommend any teacher say. Did it devastate me? NO, I can actually laugh at that comment as an adult . However, I still have not learned to play guitar. Will I? Yes. Will I do it in a visible way? NO, not like some of my colleagues in ETMOOC , but I will not give up. I will play guitar some day.
However, learning the guitar is not a passion for me like lacrosse or all of the things I am learning about in ETMOOC. I will learn a lot from many of the things and a little from some things. I can take what I like and leave the rest. It is up to me.
For now, the best thing so far about learning is making the connections to my own life as well as making connections in the virtual world that lead to connections in the real world.
I love learning and I love learning the ETMOOC way.Yes indeed, learning and lacrosse they do go together perfectly! I can’t wait for the next ETMOOC lesson and I can’t wait for lacrosse season to start.
Connecting,the hallmark of a great counsellor. Having and developing a positive relationship and working alliance with students is so important. It is essential that school counsellors have many tools, but especially the ability to connect.
So today as we in-serviced school counsellors on utilizing technology tools to enhance their comprehensive school counselling plan, we connected on many levels.
Being involved in ETMOOC led us to plan differently for this in-service. Usually, when I have presented to school counsellors in the past, it has been a sharing session of tools that would help them.
However, this time was a bit different. We presented a toolbox full of tech tools and then we would help them to learn the one or ones that they chose and were really interested in.
We modeled our in-service after ETMOOC concepts from the various blackboard collaborate sessions as well as all the twitter discussions. In ETMOOC, there are so many tools and ideas, but we get to choose the ones that work for us. We wanted our school counsellors to have a similar experience.
I had in-serviced school counsellors like this in the past, but this time it was just a bit different. Erin @ehordyskiluong and I used and shared a lot of tools to assist our colleagues. We integrated concepts from ETMOOC and it was so much fun.
School Counsellors are getting on board and connecting in ways they had not thought of before. It makes me very happy that more school counsellors in Canada are beginning to develop their PLN. We will be connecting with counsellors from all over the world because of twitter and ETMOOC. Again a big thanks to Alec Couros and Dr. Erin Mason for their connections to assist us in making this happen.
Oh the web we are weaving. We are developing such a positive network and we still have so much more learning to do. I look forward to week three in ETMOOC.
Will I be able to keep up with all this connecting?
Thanks to the great school counsellors who connected with us and are willing to share.
I never underestimate the importance of the administration in any school, but an administrator who is showing digital leadership today is so important. George Couros http://georgecouros.ca/blog/ models this extremely well.
Administration seeing counsellors as part of the leadership team is so important to me and I have been very fortunate to have leaders who absolutely view their school counsellors this way. One of the main ideas I got from that chat was the possibility of the principal and counsellor presenting together, which I really liked. I have presented many times in many ways to both counsellors, teachers and administrators, but never in all my years have I presented with my administrator. We have worked together, collaborated together, thought of ideas together, but never presented together.
After listening to George’s presentation on Becoming a Networked Educational Leader and linking the #scchat and his presentation together another idea has come to me. What a great idea it would be for an administrator and counsellor to do a collaborative blog together. In fact that will be my goal this year before this course is over to do a collaborative blog with one of our administrative team members. I know how open and supportive they are so I look forward to writing a great blog with one of them. As a matter of fact this really inspires me in ways I had not thought of before.
So today I asked our VP if he would be interested in collaborating on a blog with me and he said YES. So stay tuned for our future blog… not sure what topic will be yet, but it doesn’t matter . This will be a first for both of us. To me this is educational leadership at its finest!
I am responsible for what I learn in #Etmooc. A video post from Benjamin Wilkoff inspired this blog.
Yes, ETMOOC and the amount of information we are presented with is overwhelming, but I LOVE that:
I have choice in setting my learning goals
I have learned how to curate the information I am interested in using tools like pinterest or rebelmouse or many others
I get to take the road I want to travel on in this journey
I get to share what I want, when I want
I am learning to focus and filter
I get to collaborate with those of my choosing
I am choosing to learn from so many people, but filter what it is that I learn
I am so grateful for ALL the wise people who contribute to #ETMOOC, so that I can choose what works best for me.
I think ETMOOC is like being at an amazing banquet with a glorious feast presented in front of me. I get to choose what in that feast will be healthy for me. Yes, it is difficult to choose and there will be frustration in the choosing, and I might even want to avoid some banquets, but in the end I ultimately choose what is best for me and me alone.
By choosing what will work best for me. I know that choice can and will affect other people. By taking care of what it is I need, I can affect others in a positive way.
Check out:
Thanks Ben for making me reflect in more ways than one.
What’s going on inside the building of Bishop Carroll is not only exciting, but innovative, educational and engaging. Not only are the halls of Bishop Carroll High School buzzing, but inside the offices of several educators learning is taking place.
Bishop Carroll works together with other members of the coalition to improve the self-directed experience of all the learners. These schools meet together on an ongoing basis as well as convene at a yearly conference to look at ways of improving the model for students.
All of us at Bishop Carroll agree that we have never been in a school where so much focus and dialogue on instruction takes place on a regular basis. In fact, our staff has biweekly professional development meetings to ensure that we are able to collaborate on best practices and share new ideas. Teachers are continually focusing on how they can make things better for students in a self-directed learning environment.
Bishop Carroll has been around and functioning for over 40 years. Changing visions and learners have meant that staff has also adjusted to honor the shift. Within the last four years, the staff started making a technological commitment. Innovative practices, sharing, collaboration, encouraging our students to experiment with different formats and technological materials has produced growth for not only students, but also teachers. Students have many choices in how they choose to receive information ranging from personal exploration of a topic, pod casts, discussion forums, Google- docs, multimedia presentations, digital learning guides and a focus on digital citizenship.
Technology has not replaced teachers, but has enhanced the learning experience for both the teacher and the student. Technology can be seen as a launching pad for further and more in depth discussions.
Three of us at Bishop Carroll have signed up for an educational experience like none other. Seeing as we already focus on technology as part of our teacher professional growth plans, we felt that getting involved at an international level would be very beneficial. This is a first MOOC for all three of us. What is a MOOC? It is a Massive Open Online Course. We are taking #ETMOOC and are so happy we are involved in this process as it reminds us of what it is like to be a student in the 21st century. For more information go to ETMOOC
How are #etmoocers like students in our self-directed school?
Both:
are self- directed learners.
set our own learning goals
at first experience an increase of anxiety in a new learning environment
are following a personalized program
are excited about learning in a place that honors the way we want to learn
are encouraged to be autonomous and have opportunities to direct our own learning
are taking risks (we ask students to do this every day)
are critically examining what we do and why we do it
look to teachers to guide them through the process
are self- paced, involving continuous progress
are student centered environments with a focus on active learning, reflection and collaboration
ask for HELP, and often it’s just a click away
Today we chose to collaborate to write this blog post as part of the sharing experience. As we progress through this open forum we hope to continue to share best practice in both the teaching realm as well as what we are doing in the role as school counsellors.
Happy blogging
Over the past few years I have dabbled with technology, but I would not say I had a passion for it. With the amount of hours I am spending on my laptop, IPAD and I Phone, paying attention to ETMOOC, I am definitely headed in that direction. It all started with Alec Couros getting me going on twitter.
However, my real passion is School Counselling. I absolutely love what I do and I now feel technology can assist school counsellors like nothing else has. I believe Dr. Erin Mason @ecmason is an inspiration when it comes to this area.
Her dedication to this area is one of the things that has led me to even be interested in something like #ETMOOC. The SCOPE Blog: is taking an in depth look at tech tools for the School Counseling profession and I believe after ETMOOC I can add a few more tools to that kit. SCOPE is School Counselor Online Professional Exchange for those of you in this field.
This process of connecting the two areas that I feel passionate about is where I believe I am headed. That will be my goal. This will be my focus. Melding these two things I am passionate about to make the difference in the lives of students.
I am in the infancy stages of really making this happen and I will be looking to others who are way more experienced than me to assist me on my journey.
I get easily frustrated when technology seems complex. I have many lessons to learn and #ETMOOC is pushing me to reach further. Exciting, yet scary all at the same time.
Reflecting on this experience, I am hopeful I will move me forward in a new direction. Exactly what that new direction will be I am not sure. That’s the scary and exciting part that can bring about some anxiety. Something I am sure students in our self- directed school community experience, but is relatively new to me.
Making my learning more visible, makes me reflect and see more clearly which is virtually impossible seeing as I have kerataconus. However, seeing more clearly happens in the mind and how joyous is that.
I do look forward to new discoveries and connections. What will I learn next? It’s all up to me. That is what ETMOOC is all about.
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us” Joseph Campbell
I will wait patiently to see what is in store for me.
Narrable : https://narrable.com/
Counsellor Talk : Connecting with those who want to make a difference. 