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Using Voicethread. A Digital Storytelling Tool.

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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.

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A work in progress . My voicethread …

never give up snip it

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.

My Story of Art and Flow … Visible Learning , Digital Story Telling

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Why do I love painting., because I think I might make money at it someday? No absolutely NOT.

It is because it is the ONLY thing in my life that brings me such wonderful flow. True flow in the psychological sense as described by the positive psychologist Michaly Csikszentmihaly.   http://psychology.about.com/od/PositivePsychology/a/flow.htm

It brings me to a place where I am living in the moment. It is a place for me where eight hours feels like five minutes. I have never experienced this feeling in anything I do. Lacrosse brings me to that place for a very short period of time, but nothing else I have done in life has been able to bring me to this mental state.

I can only draw stick men of sorts, so I never gave painting or any Art a real try until two years ago when my neighbour and friend Cristine invited me to her place for an Art lesson.

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Since then I have been hooked, moving away from my fears of feeling I can’t … to I can. It is about the process for me, the freedom to just let go. I have taken four one day lessons with four different Artists (each having their own unique style) and that is what is so freeing.

There is no one right way to do Art. Painting is so liberating for me. I look forward to it as an escape, a relaxing activity that just brings me joy and most importantly flow.

We all need a little flow in our lives especially those of us who are in the helping professions. Flow brings us to the place where we can go to recharge.

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I am not going to go to that place with my Art that can be the perfectionist in me. I am just going to let go and be me with the Art.  I am doing this for me and if my kids happen to like a piece of art I do, I hope someday they will keep it with them as a memory of me. The fun, who cares piece of me that just allows it to be.

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Maybe  they will keep  the piece that they had input into, the one where they inspired me to do something different than I originally planned.  It is now  the piece I call “ Celebrating Family”.

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or maybe the piece I call Dancing in the Rain, which I loved to do as a child.

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or maybe they won’t want any, but will have great memories of their mom having fun.

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For me these Art days are about having fun, learning from others , celebrating and connecting. Not unlike ETMOOC.

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For a little video of our last Art Day go to :

http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a55304d5455774f44453d0d0a&blogview=true

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Art has brought great joy to my life. It is a gift that I am very grateful for.

These digital stories allow me to create memories and that really is what it is all about for me. Thanks again ETMOOC.

Search Cube … Coolest Tool … Etmooc users will love

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Go to : http://searchcu.be/#/c/5F301EE6

I love this tool. It will make my searches fun and easy. Students will love this too! So happy I discovered it on twitter.

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Go to: http://www.searchcube.com

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This tool is more fun on an Ipad! You can search and find websites and images easily. You can make your own cube with your favorites. Have fun!

INSPIRED

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INSPIRED

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I so appreciate all the people in this ETMOOC.  So many people’s blogs on  ETMOOC  inspire me to write  and be creative. Amy’s blog did this today. http://amysmooc.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/winterwondergram-patterns-and-diversions 

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I love reading Amy’s blog. She is very creative and the way she writes is fun and inspires me, so today I decided to model my post after her blog and add a bit of my own creative flair as you can see above. It is a tribute to my #ETMOOC network.

I decided to try her #hashtag idea and I went on Instagram and took my own pics on my IPAD. The pics for sure have a story and made me a bit homesick. I think you will see why. That is part of my story…

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Hope you enjoy! Home of my heart …  family connections in Cape Breton … so many memories and stories …

Sometimes you need so few words #ETMOOC STORY

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Click here:

OUR ETMOOC STORY… sometimes you need so few words

julie

 

Another #sixwordstory

Never Give Up! … High School Counselling

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So may tools to use. So many stories to be told. As a school counsellor I need to be ever mindful of what I share, but I believe this voicethread talks about stories without telling anyones story.

I am also going to share the original Haiku Deck as I believe it shows the pics better. See below.

http://www.haikudeck.com/p/yUVtlERH8Y/dont-give-up

  • I want to just have the pictures like in Haiku Deck ,but I am still figuring that out.
  • I would also like to add music to these and would like a way to do that as well.

Below you can see and hear my voicethread. This is a work in progress, so I appreciate all feedback. I am  still figuring out exactly how to do that , but for now here it is. Comment away with any suggestions to improve.

http://voicethread.com/share/4097212/

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept trying when there seemed to be no hope at all” Dale Carnegie

See Newest  Version:

https://voicethread.com/share/4098348/

 

How is Learning Like Lacrosse?

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This process of learning has and always will be fun for me, but there is something different about this ETMOOC?Image

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 and Sharing with School Counsellors the ETMOOC Way

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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? Image

Thanks to the great school counsellors who connected with us and are willing to share.

Go to:

http://www.haikudeck.com/p/jzY0cDFbQQ/technology-tips-and-tricks-for-school-counsellors

Administrators and Counsellors Partnering in Educational Leadership … Idea Inspired by ETMOOC

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Image 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.

In one of my first twitter chats the topic I chose to engage in was the Principal and School Counsellor Relationship. http://www.schcounselor.com/2012/11/scchat-transcript-principal-and-school.html

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!

Go to:http://www.haikudeck.com/p/Eqgh61bZMC

 

I Am Responsible … #ETMOOC

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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:

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  • 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.

Go to: http://www.haikudeck.com/p/9RSM928Doj/choice