March 5th, 2019
Today we had two really great opportunities. We engaged in a video conference presentation with Verena Roberts where she shared with us her research regarding pedagogy in kindergarten to grade 12 classrooms. It is always wonderful listening to presenters who are clearly so passionate about their profession and research. I also always enjoy being in a video conference! As someone who feels challenged by technology, being involved in a video conference feels so futuristic!
After listening to Verena Roberts we then engaged in a very informative session with Jesse Miller. I think I can speak for all my peers when I say that we all left the presentation feeling a little uneasy about our current usage of social media. However, despite the fear, we were also exposed to some really useful information.
I appreciated Jesse Miller’s refreshing outlook on technology and social media. More than once he discussed how positively social media can be used and was clearly trying to break the current bias on social media usage. He did, however, also explore the more dangerous side of social media and gave us some very valuable information for how to keep ourselves and our students protected.
Prior to today, I had never really considered how far my future employer may go to look me up online and while I feel quite confident that I present myself well on social media, I was shocked to learn just how deep they can dig. Another idea that I had never considered was how teachers post about their students online. This is something I had never even considered doing and was quite honestly shocked to find out how many teachers post pictures of their students or even just post about their students in general on their personal social media accounts. While I think documenting and sharing the processes that are happening in your classroom is important I don’t think I will ever feel comfortable sharing my students online.
Today was incredibly informative and I am sure that I will continue to ponder the ideas that were shared for a long time to come. Thank you Valerie for yet another great opportunity!
Find Verena Robert’s and Jesse Miller’s twitters below:
Miss Lindsay 