Shelby's ECMP Blog

So finally Kelsey, Jonie, Eric and I have finished our final project!  We definatly put a lot of work into it, and it’s relief to have it finally done.  As you know we focused on a tour of the university and although originally we were going to focus on the education aspect of it, we ended up being unbias because we just simply ran out of time to get into specifics.

We all played our part in making this video and it was tough to organize and make sure we all did our equal share.  We had so much more stuff to include but we had to cut it out because the video was getting too long.  It was a shame because we had so much good information but we fit in what we could and this is what we were left with!  My part specifically was the Education Building as well as the Ridell Center.  I had to do research on both buildings and figure out what was available in each as for specific rooms and where it could be found.  It did take some time to find all the good information and then not all of it went into the video.  As well, when we did the residences, we filmed my apartment.  I did my part in the actual video by helping film certain parts as we went along as well as being the one on film for my buildings.  Also, although Eric introduced the intramurals, it was him and I that took part in them which was caught on film:).  We then had to go through the information we had all found and figure out what we wanted to include.  I was going to find some specifics on the education faculty but it turned out that it would have taken up too much time and we decided to treat all buildings and faculties equally. 

The most challenging part was the filming.  We had to keep other faces out of the video and so there was no way we could film during the day which is why it looks so dark in some parts.  We didn’t get a good view of the gym either because the only time we could get in was either early in the morning or at the very end of the day.  We started running out of time and just took a quick shot of it.  There was also the challenge of not being able to film certain parts.  Unfortunately there are a lot of parts where the things we’re talking about are closed because it’s getting late.  We couldn’t film during the day.  Also, there are parts like the library where we had to get permission to film and we didn’t have enough time to go through the process.  The filming did take a while because we wanted to get it right.  We have a few bloopers and outtakes that are pretty entertaining, mostly consisting of Eric!  But combined with all our schedules and other classes, it was difficult to find time to do it where we could all help out.  It took a lot of work to get it organized and I definatly enjoyed the process.  It was a lot of fun. I hope you guys enjoy the final product! I’ve added the video and a link to it here in case it doesn’t work!

Yesterday I came home to help with the Christmas decorations and enjoy my last time at home until my finals are finished on the 18th.  I was excited to put up all the decorations but I knew that by coming home I was committing myself to getting that H1N1 shot.  I absolutely hate needles, there is nothing worse to me.  I didn’t get it at school because all my roommates felt like groggy and sick the next day so I figured I’d wait and get it at home.  I had to face my fear of needles and immediately my arm felt numb.  It was such an awkward feeling.  I felt fine afterword and all was great except that by the end of the night I could hardly lift my arm above my head without being in pain.  This morning I woke up and I thought I felt sick but then I realized it was my head playing tricks on me.  I’m fine today but I have no energy.  I just want to sleep, and my head feels heavy with a slight dull headache.  It’s annoying but I guess it was something I had to do.  Most people I know have gotten it and I figured that I would rather protect myself against this flu than risk getting it halfway through finals! It’s a good reason for me but unfortuneatly I have a lot of homework to do and no enery or will to do it.  I’m sure I’ll get it all done but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

So we finished filming this week!! Yay:)! We were excited, that was the first step and now it’s on to the editing, I think the editing will be mostly posted on Kelsey’s blog.  We got so much information to fit into the film and it’s way too long already.  The biggest challenge will be keeping it brief and not boring because the last thing we want to do is lose our audience.  Eric will keep it entertaining, that is for sure:)!

Last week at my field for ECS 100 I went into the kindergarten class to help them out with their stations.  They were using the computers to play educational games.  I thoought this was a great idea and it introduced them to safe games in which they were actually learning! 

The teacher had set up a wiki with a bunch of websites that they could choose from.  I’m pretty sure most of them just clicked a random one.  The only thing they needed my help with was clicking the button twice to get the wiki to come up, other than that they were on their own.  I thought it was crazy that these young kids got to use the computer to play games.  They all enjoyed it and had no troubles clicking or playing at all.  It looked like fun too.  I was thinking that I don’t remember ever using the computers that young, but I guess in today’s society it’s normal.   Technology is so important now that they know how to use it before they even get to school.  Is this a good thing though?  Will they still have to learn basic writing skills 10 years down the road or will the next generation be totally dependant on technology to write?

So we started filming this week and surprisingly got farther than I think we all expected.  We did however run into some problems with filming.  We can’t really get anyone else’s faces in the film so it makes it hard to film during the day when everything is brighter and easier to see.  It’s one good thing that all of us live in res though.  One we get to show off our apartments and two we can film at night with little difficulty of getting together.  It did suck though trying to film the Kinesiology Building because it gets even busier at night!  We planned on showing some of the Cougars playing as well but are we allowed to?  There was a lot of obstacles that we didn’t count on and now we’ll just have figure out a way around them!

So this week’s assignment is to Google ourselves.  I never realized there were so many Shelby Mackeys!!  There was a lot of stuff on there that had nothing to do with me.  I realize that if people are wanting to hire me then they and going to look up something more specific.  It’s kinda weird to think that all they have to do is type in my name and there I am.  Absolutely everything about me.

The first thing that came up was my profile page for one of my mentors websites.  I thought it was kinda strange that it came up but I guess it’s getting me out there more.  Also a lot of my posts came up for his website too, they linked not to my posts but to Chris Harbeck’s math website itself.   It wasn’t until the second page that my profile page for my blog actually came up but it was right there!

All the other things were sports, all my accomplishments, my titles, city and provincial standings which I thought was pretty sweet!  There are tons of articles from the Moose Jaw Times Herald like this one.  There also my individual standings for soccer which I’m very proud of.  However I found it odd that it’s not the newest version of it, it’s from two years ago. After looking at this I never realized how many times my name came up in the paper for sports and it’s not just one! It’s soccer, basketball and track and field!  It’s unreal.

I think for now I’m okay with all the sports records coming up and maybe I’ll start to broaden things up and make a resume that can go on a website or a domain that will be just for me.

Well it’s almost here!!  Christmas time!! And with Christmas comes a well deserved break!  I’ve been counting down the days until my last exam!!  But at the same time it’s becoming more stressful than ever before.  I have multiple projects, assignments, essays and tests to do before finals even start!! I have no idea how I’ll get through it especially because I know I’ll start getting distracted by Christmas!  I’ll be going home to help set up the Christmas tree,and of course I have to go Christmas shopping!  The question is do I really have time for it all?  There’s so much I love about Christmas: watching the snow fall, going sledding and snow mobiling, Chirstmas parties, hot chocolate, skating, and the thing I’m most excited about is seeing all my friends again!  For once, we’ll all be in Moose Jaw and be able to catch up and hang out.   Unfortuneatly the stress of school comes first before I get to enjoy all the good stuff of Christmas.  For the first time ever, I’m actually dreading December.

My final project is a University of Regina recruitment type video for students thinking about coming here for their university career. I’m working with Kelsey, Jonie and Eric on it and we’ve split it up so that we are each researching different buildings and then we’ll film it together and put it all together. I’m not sure how we’ll be making our posts yet but I think we’ll be showing our progress with our own buildings and the progress of filming will be together. My buildings are the Education Building, and the Ridell Center. I’m also supposed to be doing the faculty comittees but I’m not sure if we are just going show where they are all available or just focus strictly on the education faculty since we are in the Faculty of Education.

Here’s my outline so far for my buildings:

What’s in the Education Building?:
-Audio Visual(AV) Services
-Faculty of Business Admin.
-Center for Acedemic Technologies
-Center for Teaching and Learning
-Digital Print and Copy Center
-Faculty of Education
-Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
-Information Services
-Kenneth Leven Graduate School of Business
-Department of Media Production and Studies
-Paul J. Hill School of Business
-Faculty of Social Work

What’s in the Ridell Center?:
-Career Center
-Councelling Services
-Disability resource Office
-Faculty of Fine Arts
-Harassment Discrimination Prevention and Conflict Resolution Services
-Lazy Owl Pub
-Department of Music
-Student Affairs
-Student Development Center
-Student Employment Services
-Student Union (URSU)
-Department of Theater
-Department of Visual Arts
-Visual Resource Center
-Women’s Center

I haven’t gotten around to finding out about the faculties yet but that’s my next step!

During Wednesday’s ECMP class we had three everyday teachers in your class: Darren Kuropatwa, Kathy Cassidy, and Clarence Fisher.  It was definatly a great opportunity to see how teachers use the information we’ve been learning about in their classes!  I really enjoyed it, and here’s a summary of what I learned:

Darren Kuropatwa is our first speaker and I really liked his methods.  He said that you can’t really learn a concept until you teach it.  I totally agree with this, I found that when I’d help my friends with math or english I really began to understand the concept more.  It’s definatly something I’ll be using in my classroom.  He also used this idea of writing the textbook which I was intrigued by in a lot of ways.  He said that one student a day writes a scribepost on what they learned that day in class so that the students all have it on the website.  I thought it was a great idea and it keeps the students involved in the learning and teaching process.  He said that eventually they write the textbook for one another and it’s always there when they need it.  He used his blog for the students to address concerns they had as well and the next day, he would go over their questions.  I thought this was great because the students will feel less judged when asking questions and they get the help they need.

Next was Kathy Cassidy and she went over some myths about the classroom like, “It’s easier to teach primary kids than older kids,” or “It’s not safe r young children to be online.”   She proved these wrong by letting her kids use videos and blogs and wikis in her classroom!  I think it’s a fantastic opportunity for these kids to learn what technology is all about from a trusted teacher rather than figuring it out on our own like so many of us did.  We all probably got into things that we weren’t supposed to and got in trouble but allowing these young kids to learn from someone is a great thing.  They will learn so much more and use it more effectively than we did.  The best thing I thought Kathy did was keep the parents involved.  It’s so important for the kids to be able to ask their parents think and having them involved and keeping them up to date makes the parents more comfortable with their children being online. 

Finally was Clarence Fisher.  He used the ideas writing over time.  The internet can stretch and grow.  Unlike most teachers who clear their class blogs and wikis at the end of the school year, he kept his and encouraged his students to add to it.  I think this is a great idea because it gives the students the resources they need and gives them the opportunity to add and be a part of this great source for information.  Although it’s overwelming at first and the students aren’t sure how they can add anything, they are up for the challenge.  They comment and post on the wiki and let their classmates know how they can improve certain aspects of what they’ve written.

I learned a lot of Wednesday night and I might have picked up some valuable tips for when I become a teacher.  I like everything that I’ve learned in ECMP but learning how to apply it to a classroom is totally different.  This class definatly gave me some ideas to help include technology in the classroom, keep it fun, easy and exciting.  I really liked the writing the textbook on the blog idea.  I could definatly use this as a math teacher, it’s easy and accessable for all my students and they will be able to have it at anytime even if they forget their textbook at home.  I think I would even post the assignments on my class website or something, just so that my students have no excuse to not do their homework:)!  I found another idea I really like.  It’s like a buddy system but a mentoring thing as well.  You take a grade nine math class and take a grade twelve math class.  As a teacher I would get them together maybe twice a month and have the older students help the younger students with any problems they are having.  As a result, the older students understand the concepts more and the younger students learn more and end up with an older mentor that they can hopefully go to for help whenever.