Riding the Wave Conference 2015

 I am attending the Riding the Wave of Change conference in Gimli, Manitoba.  It has been an inspiring and productive day of professional learning. 

We kicked off the conference with an engaging keynote from Richard Byrne,a teacher and notable edublogger at

 http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Richard shared many good points about teaching students in a hyper-connected world.  This quote that he shared really resonated with me:

http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/education-can-happen-everywhere

Richard also shared some tools that can be useful in the classroom: 

Run a backchannel or chat room with http://tozzl.com/

Contribute local wildlife photos to  http://www.projectnoah.org

Learn and practice vocabulary with this student-developed tool https://vocabulist.com

I also attended a great presentation by Darren Kuropatwa today.  There were several parts of his presentation that made me think deeply about our connected world and how we can use technology to empower people and make a positive contribution. 

Some important points that resonated with me:

"Citizenship isn’t just what we should NOT DO.  It’s thinking about how we can make a positive contribution." 

 - Darren Kuropatwa

• The internet does not forget.  For example, websites like archive.org document the history of the web.  That means that even websites which are now taken down can be viewed.  
  • The internet can empower you.
  • Choose what you share in the digital world.  What are you good at?  How can you help a problem?  How can you share your passion in a positive way?   How can you make a difference?  
• Here are some examples of people sharing their passions and talents
• Sean Quigley - sharing his musical talents "Little Drummer Boy"
• Maria Aragaon - sharing her musical talents performing Born This Way (Cover) by Lady Gaga
  • Amanda Hockling - a 26 year old self-published author

Darren shared two powerful videos that got me thinking:

Can we autocorrect humanity?    You do have a choice (about how and when you use technology and about what kind of citizen you are in this world).  "You need not delete your social networks or destroy your cell phones, the message is simple, be balanced, be mindful, be present, be here. :)" -Prince Ea

The Kindness Boomerang watch how one act of kindness can lead to another.  This video definitely made me feel happy and it made me appreciate the kind, supportive students, families and community members that I'm fortunate to work with!

I also checked out a variety of cool (and useful!) tools in Lori Emilson's session today:

Olympics: Connecting with Athletes

Another important part of our Olympics inquiry has been learning about Canadian Olympic athletes.  Students were really excited to hear that locally-trained figure skaters, Paige Lawrence & Rudi Swiegers, would be going to the Olympics.  This was our first athlete connection in this Olympics inquiry, so we spent some time "getting to know" these athletes.  We checked out their Twitter account, watched videos of their qualifying performances and found out as much as we could about them.  Students requested that we send them questions on Twitter and we were thrilled when Rudi & Paige replied!  The students now refer to Rudi & Paige on a first-name basis and ask me daily "Can we watch some videos of Rudi and Paige?" or "Can we send Rudi and Paige a Tweet?"   The power of social media to connect us to others is incredible!  Since we're such big fans of Rudi & Paige, I've started watching for newspaper articles, videos and online material that relates to their Olympic journey and I've been saving them on my Olympics Diigo list to share with my class!

We've also made connections with some other athletes.  Mr. Obach (my husband and fellow teacher) sent us a link on Twitter that explained Hayley Wickenheiser would carry the Canadian flag at the Olympics.  Students really understood that carrying the flag would be a special job and my students were excited to find her on Twitter and send a Tweet congratulating her!  Mrs. Caldwell and the Oak Lake Kindergartens had made connections of their own with athlete Mellissa Hollingsworth and Tweeted us a video interview to watch. We are really excited to continue learning about Olympic athletes!