Sunday, December 10, 2006

Tech Task #7

So I recently got to participate in a session at tappedIn and found it very informative. It was much different then I thought it would be as I thought there would be more then just two other people myself and the person leading the session. It was very cool and I got to learn all about the website and how to navigate around it. This is very helpful because when first going onto the website I learned that I found it very hard to navigate and understand, but after going to this I realize that it isn't that hard. This website is FULL of rooms, I could not believe it. There are people from all over the world on it. Dianne (our leader) was very informed of the website and had no trouble answering any of our questions. She even showed me how to find Alec on the site and send him a message! (I didn't send him a message though, BUT I do know how now!) I found it very cool how you can jump from room to room easily and how this would be helpful in the classroom. It was overall a positive experience and I will keep checking back at TappedIn as my career progresses for more educational help!

Christmas

Wow has time flew by! I had a great semester with good classes! Going to miss ECMP though, it was one class that I can truly say i enjoyed coming to and a class where i actually learned something that will be useful for my future! It's so nice now to have programs on my computer such as open office. Also nice to have all my bookmarked pages "dotted" and I can get onto them at any computer, HANDY! Also nice to have all my "favorite" websites sitting at the top of the page and it is as easy as a click of the mouse to get there. Learned so many helpful websites and other pieces of technology! This blogging business is kind of cool i do suppose, but I am not sure if I will keep up with it. I truly do enjoy reading all my "high tech" friend's blogs from time to time and see what they are feeling and what they are up to, blogging is kind of cool in that way! Finished our major project which was a video that Krysta, Brittney and I created. It's kind of cool, I am pretty pleased with the final result had TONS of fun doing the filming at the Preeceville Fire Department and it will be fun to look back on in like ten years and laugh at myself. Thats about all I got about this class, but I am telling ANY education student that i run into to TAKE ECMP 355 WITH ALEC!
I love Christmas..thought i'd throw that in there. Was talking to my mommy today on the telephone trying to figure out what we are doing for Christmas. Its so hard to find time to visit EVERYONE in your family, this year will be a little bit harder now that i have to find time to spend time with Chris and his family, oh well i'm sure everything will work out in the end. I guess I will head off to hudson bay to hang with my granny ward and that family on Christmas Day then on New years the other side of the family will come to my house for a shin dig. Christmas is filled with so many traditions...i love tradition..half of the time though we really forget why we do what we do when we do it, if you know what i mean? I just don't question it anymore and go with the flow. hehe, its easier that way sometimes! I can't wait to get out of the city for almost a month, Monday is my last exam and after it i am heading STRAIGHT to Saskatoon to spend some time with Chris, then its homeword bound to see all my kids! My mom is a babysitter at home and there is about 8 little kids that i really miss right now, so i can't wait to see them! anyways! i Hope everyone has a VERY Merry Christmas and well a HAPPY NEW YEAR and see everyone in the next semester! Entertain me, what are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

Catch ya on the flip side!

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Blogging Theme #2

Hey everyone! I just checked out the cool cat teacher blog, and read and checked it out. I read a particularly interesting article entitled 11 Steps to online parental supervision of your child. This went through many steps that you as a teacher or a parent can do to ensure that your child is not abusing the internet. I found that this article closely goes with the Blogging theme #1 that has to do with online safety. So, with this blog one could say i am killing one bird with two stones.
I found it very interesting to read some of these steps to ensure that your child is safe on the internet. Some I thought were kind of far fetched and illogical. I strongly believe that it is imperative that a parent knows what their child is doing on the internet, but a parent also has to have some trust with their children. From my personal experiences, my mom always was checking what we were up to on the internet. She would come into the computer room when we were on just to talk about the importance of not talking to strangers, not giving out personal information, etc. I remember getting super annoyed with it simply because common sense was enough to tell me not to do these things. Sometimes i think we underestimate the common sense of a child. Children know not to do a lot of these things. Sure, some children are exceptions but do we really need to do this to every child, hover behind them watching every move they make on the internet when all they truly want to do is visit a good website? I do however believe that there is a need for some filteration. Things like myspace or even hi5 are great, but i do often wonder the valadity of it. I have a hi5 account and have recieved many "invitations" to be peoples friends. These people are usually men talking about how "beautiful" you are or somethign bizarre like that. Children know not to accept this kind of stuff! Hi5 can be good as long as you can only allow YOUR friends to view it, it can be a great place to see pictures, blog and do other fun stuff.
Overall, i think the key to this article pertaining to online safety is to communicate with your children. Give them some constraints on the computer and make sure they are aware of some of the dangers involved in online safety. If a parent sets up a positive communication in the begginning of a childs internet experiences it will be easier to help them understand later.

catch ya on the flipside

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

End approaching fast

Wow, that is the only word that comes to mind when i think about how fast this semester went by. It seems like yesterday was my last day of work and all the hustle bustle of moving back to the city. Oh well, now it is near the end of the semester and one takes time to think about their accomplishments, where they have failed and everything else. It is also a time to realize everything you have planned and "promised" over the past semester has come up a little bit short. All those big schemes changed and none of them happened. For example, I planned on the beginning of the semester that i would keep more organized and would not procrastinate. But once again, failed to do that! Oh well..then i think about my friends, the ones in Regina and the ones not. It is sad that we have not honored our plans to hang out. I lived in Rez at College West last year and made really good friends, i promised i'd be back so much to visit, turns out i have been there once! ONCE in 3 months..sad.. Also told my old roomate that we would have to hang out this semester, yup i've only sat down with her twice! Then i think about all the plans to travel to see friends. I certainly haven't been to Carlyle to visit a friend..only been to saskatoon once! Oh well i think that is just how things work. However, when i sit back and think about what i haven't done, it makes me realize just how much i HAVE done as well. I've defintely become better friends with some people here in Regina, i have had tons of fun outside of school and heck even inside! I have also even come to terms with some people who were said to be my "enemies" I think there comes a time in life when everyone thinks about where they are in life, and it is important to be constantly evaluating their progress. Anways, thats just my random thought of the night...

Catch ya on the flip side!
Crystal!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Telecollaborative Projects (tech task #5)

The Teddy Bear Project

So I did some searching and I found a very interesting telecollaborative project to be used in a classroom. When I was in about grade 3, my cousin did a project where they got a frog and sent it by mail to people. It was almost like a chain mail, but instead an object. Along with this frog came things like a care package, how to care for the frog as well as a diary. We had to take the frog everywhere for a week, then write about it before sending it on to someone totally different. The frog that I recieved from my cousin had just come from another one of her cousins in the United States. It was very interesting to see al the different thigngs it had done. The telecollaborative project I found is the "high tech" version of this! So how it would work is a classroom from somewhere across the world would send a teddy bear or another soft toy by air mail. When the class in say Regina recieved it, they would write an email at least once a week telling everyone what their bear had done. This gives a child from someplace far away to see first hand what life in a place like Regina, Saskatchewan would be. Children would also take pictures if they wanted of their community and landscape perhaps with the bear in it, also giving the children a good idea of what it is like. This would be great not only to learn things about geography but also about a whoel different culture! It would be great for any age group and every classroom would be excited to recieve something from another class from the other side of the world! A project such as this, shows how snail mail really is disapearing and the world of technology is entering! To check out this particular telecollaborative project just click the link at the top!

Catch ya on the flip side! Crystal

Monday, November 06, 2006

Tech Task #6

Arthur's 2nd Grade

We checked out Arthur's 2nd grade program for both windows and Mac. This program allows children to learn how to read, spell, synonyms as well as compound words. It also teaches math skills such as adding, measurement and telling time. This program also teaches students to be creative through arts and story writing. Besides this it teaches categorizing, as well as many special features such as progress tracking. The program has different levels for every different level of learning abilities. It was easy to install and fairly easy to use once in the program. The only problem we ran into was the accurateness that a child has to use while using the mouse and matching. It is made especially for children from ages 6 to 8 and in grade 2 level. The tasks to be completed on this program are geared towards this age group. The program is very engaging and the animations are very good and familiar to students. It is very organized and easy for a child to follow. It is set up through each of Arthur’s friend’s parents. They all have different jobs that they try such as accounting, where children learn math. The price of this program is very comparable to other educational programs such as this and runs for about $24.93. Overall, we would recommend this program in the classroom as it is very engaging and challenging for children to not only learn parts of the curriculum but as well as learning computer skills.

Crystal Ward, Sheri Missal, Krysta Wishlow

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Online Safety

Hey everyone, sorry i have not written in the last week or so like everyone else the school is catching up to me! I have also been sick, but I finally went to the doctor and got some medicine so I will be better in no time!
So tonight I was watching my favorite show, ONE TREE HILL! Anyways, tonight episode was very interesting. It was mainly about the character "Petyton" who always has pod casts for anyone to watch on the internet. However, there was this stalker dude who was well..stalking her. He showed up at her door posing as her long lost brother after she had said in her pod cast that she had a brother that she had never met. Peyton believed all the lies that this derick dude had to say. He found out everything about her through these pod casts and even foudn out a way to track her down and actually meet her. Anyways, the rest is history, so he shows up posing as her brother and whatever and finally is going to rape her (?) or so the viewer is led to believe. Although this could be called a teenager soap opera it has a lot of real life issues. The idea of online safety defintely came up tonight. It shows that we as people really need to be careful at who is allowed to view such things as podcasts. Podcasts can be great and completely beneficial but in an extreme case such as this can lead to rape or even murder. This guy was so obsessed with peyton that he had a huge tattoo on his back of one of her portraits. This is a serious issue! what do you guys all think?!

Monday, October 16, 2006

Monday October 16

hello everyone out there. So this weekend was a damn good time! For a weekend when you tell yourself that you are NOT going to go out but instead stay home and get some work done..yeah didn't happen. Friday night went to the pump it was a good time, there was lots of peope there. Some bad stuff went down at the pump that I got blamed for..but honestly now..it was his decision not mine! lol..anywase...saturday night i went over to a friends then hit up denny's for breakfast at 2:30 AM..... Yesterday whew...hit up homework all day with Krysta and Garrett. Wow..we taped Garrett singing a song for us "Dirty Pop" funny funny! ECE class is getting a bit crazy with our crazy project that we are not even done and it is due TOMORROW! AHHHH thats all i really have to say, so until next time catch ya on the flip side...AND please fight your own battles! hahahahahahahahaha

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Preeceville

One must love going home back to a very small community. In preeceville if you need to run up town to buy a carton on milk, count on it that it will take about an hour! I just go up town when I get home because my mom needed some cream for the pie :) Anywase...i finally show up back home an hour later. Everyone just loves to visit with you and see how the "big" city is treating you. Its kind of crazy to actually think that people that you hardly know are so interested in how you are doing! It was nice to be home and doing nothing but hanging out. I got a chance to go back to my school and visit a few teachers again. Our school has a thing called the "superseries" and friday night was superspike. Its a GREAT fundraiser that our school puts on. There was about 20 volleyball teams there with lots of fun games. I got a chance to visit with my old grade 2 and 3 teacher there. Shes the best, i love going home to visit with her. She has all these little hints as well as dilemmas that i will have to experience when i get into the career. She is so supportive and I think she'd even die for me if needed LoL! So after the school social time, me and all my highschool graduating friends headed on down to the good old "gw". We convinced the bartenders to give us a good drink special...and they did..so we all had a wonderful time, even if the next morning wasn't so wonderful! Anywase, thats about all i have to say, till next time....keep it between the navigational beacons, and catch ya on the flipside!

Thursday, October 05, 2006

interesting story in the news

So today I was catching up on some interesting news and i came accross this article, you should read it by clicking here!
I found that story VERY interesting. Makes a person wonder, how could a teacher get away with charges like this and no one know about it?! I strongly believe that teachers have to be excellent role models and have to be very careful what they do outside of school. For instance, when I would see my teachers going to the bar, it was such a big deal. Or if i was at a normal Preeceville Ukrainian wedding when the whole town was there and we would see a teacher enjoying a beverage, everyone would be talking. However, all the teachers that i ever seen always have still be very respectful out of school. As i got older and started babysitting for a lot of my teachers i also got to see them a little "intoxicated" at times. For an older student i do not think it is such of a big deal, we understand that they to are people. HOWEVER, in this case it isn't a case of enjoying himself. He was obviously trafficing cocaine. This is not acceptable for a teacher, and espicially for the fact that no one even KNEW he was charged! crazy! I really believe what Bernadette told the press about telling her daughter. "the children develop a sense of trust and confidence towards their teachers..." this is so true. I can not remember not trusting one of my teachers. As a student we believe usually that our teachers are wonderful people whom we can trust. This should be true by all means. I think that Mr. Mamela should not be able to teach simply because of this outrageous act that he's done. Teachers have to be respectful rolemodels and it is obvious that Mr. Mamela is not.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Hump Day 2

HEY everybody who actually reads this! So i just wrote a long blog like YESTERDAY so i really do not have to much to say! I can tell you that I am EXTREMELY PUMPED about this evening, why you might ask.........CUZ ONE TREE HILL STARTS WOOHOOO! i have not been this excited about a silly little show since last year! lol! Speaking of season premiers...why the heck is 7th heaven back for its 100th season? Jeez, love the show and all, but if they were just going to bring it back then why the heck would they make such a big deal with the series finale last year?! yeah crazy! TV is grand...i love the fact that I actually get the opportunity to watch it this year, last year in College West i had none..yeah it sucked without One Tree Hill! How SAD! oh well enough said until next time...keep it between the navigational beacons!

oh I also burnt my ear on my hair straighener today..yeah im swift..it hurts like hell

Catcha ya on the flip side!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Monday September 25

Hey there everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, who am I kidding, no one even reads this I don't think so why do I ask questions...silly me. Anyways, another weekend has gone by and the month is already almost over! It seems like I just moved here again! So my weekend was a good one and I would strongly recomend that you see Jackass Number 2...I did TWICE! Good show, way better then the first one! I also got to go to the lake with a friend this weekend, since my roomate ditched out and went home for the weekend. I love the lake and I hope that some day I can own my very own cabin :) It is so relaxing out there no matter what the weather is like. Then I traveled to Strasbourg with my friend and we got to play with his ferrets for like an hour and a half. I love ferrets...they rock! I think that pets are just great. ( I am going to write somethign educational based!!)
What do YOU think of pets in the class room? I remember in grade one we had a hamster...he ran away one day..but me and my friend Cindy found him in a corner. I think having pets in the classroom is a great opportunity for children to learn about animals and it also gives them an idea of how much work pets can actually be. Any classroom that I have ever been to that has had pets, the children take great pride in them and look after them very closely.
There is my educational part, now back to my weekend. After we played with Fez and Honey we went in for a visit with his grandma and she took us out for supper! She is an amazing women who has so many interesting life stories and like any grandmother is just delighted when you stop in for a visit!
And that was my weekend, now its back to class and back to the same old same old. Who ever reads this should leave a HELLO at least in the comment box, just so i know who reads it!

Well...Catch ya on the flip side!

Oh...its almost time for the Black Eyed Peas...should be a good concert!
To add....as a follow up on that supper i made the other nite...yeah it was amazing...i suprised myself...i have some MAD skills people MAD skills!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Hey high tech world!
Its Wednesday....you all know what Wednesday is..HUMP DAY. Yes the week is already half over, wow how time flies. I really have nothing exciting to write about so here goes nothing.
Tonight my big brother finally comes home, well he has only been gone TWO WEEKS but hey who's counting. He is probably going to yell at me for sure because i talked to some of the guys he works with on Saturday night...yup I am for sure going to be in trouble :S Oh well, nothing new for me. We are going out for supper with him, his girlfriend and a friend from back home who FINALLY moved back to the city, its bad news for me that shes back, we tend to get into A LOT of trouble. Did you know that A LOT is actually TWO words and not one?! Who knew? WoW my mind is really not coherent today.
Tomorrow night i am going to be a chef. Well not really, I am just cooking a chicken, a whole chicken! I am even going to stuff it and make some yummy gravy. Sounds impressive I know. Then me and Chantal (my roomate) are having my brother, his girlfriend and our friend David over for supper. Yup its going to be good.
One of these days I am going to write something educational in my blog, someday....someday. Someone give me an idea of what I should write about and i can gaurentee you that I will write about it just for you. This blogging business is going alright and I can defintely see that it is a great way for people to stay in touch! Maybe I should start telling my friends from back home to get this stuff
Well alec is telling us that we are going to start class
so catch ya on the flip side!

Monday, September 18, 2006

The weekend....

Hey everyone! It is already Monday, holy cow! My weekend was just grand and wonderful! Friday night me and a friend went to the bar with Dionne, however i still felt like crap from earlier that day so we just ended up going home really early. Saturday me and my roomate had a small "social gathering" and had lots of fun! A friend from Prince Albert also came down that i met last year from Rez so that was defintely a ton of fun!
Sunday was pretty boring didn't do anything to interesting but cleaned the house and did some homework. Me and my roomate chantal :) also stole well "picked up" another friends vehicle so we cruised albert in it for a long time. It is amazing how many CHICKS checked us out! I love how people see a car like his and automatically believe it is a "guy." Good times!
Well talk to everyone soon!
Have a wonderful week AND catch ya on the flip side!

P.S. my email is crystalwa1@hotmail.com if you want you can add me to MSN!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

September 13, 2006

Today in class i learned many things! There are so many free educational sites out there it is crazy. For example all the Tux programs. The math one is very tricky! Holy! it reconfirms that I am extremely bad at math. I think I need to go home tonight and play this game all night hopefully I will improve! The other tux sites are also very useful and can be incoperated nicely into a lesson plan, or could be used when the students are all finsihed what they are doing as a filler at the end of the day.

Also, it is quite amazing what word has to offer people. There are so many things in the program that people are unaware of that essentially saves lots of time. The table of contents would have come in VERY handy last year for some projects that we had to do! I can see the mail merge also very interesting.

I find that this class goes by SUPER FAST and all the information we learn in this class has some valubility in it!

Hopefully the rest of my classes will ZOOOOMM by like this one, then I can enter my appartment and have a nice nap!
Talk to you all next time and hope you all have a WONDERFUL day!

Monday, September 11, 2006

Hey ok here is my OFFICIAL first blog, since this one will actually contain some kind of information. The first week of school is over already, if time flies like this all year it will not take long for this semester to be done with!
ECMP 355 so far has been a good time! I have already learned more then i did in 2 classes then I probably did through my computer classes in High School! It is awesome! It is quite amazing how many sites there actually are out there for educational purposes and cool ways to keep in touch with everyone. Living three hours away from home its important to keep in touch with pictures and other things. Such things as youtube can be a very interesting website to look through and to get a good laugh when you are super bored and probably should be doing homework instead.

I look forward to updating and developing my personal "blog" wow that seems really hightech!

Ecmp 355 Blog

Ecmp 355 Blog