Story of My Life

Hi All!

Contrary to the title, this post is not the complete story of my life; however, it tells you a bit about myself and my knowledge relative to EDTC 300. I only chose the title to reference the song “Story of My Life” by 1Direction.

As you may or may not already know, my name is Alannah and here are a few snippets of information so you can get to know me better.

• I am in my third year of the Elementary (K-5) Program, and one of my biggest passions is working with and helping children. I strongly believe that the more people in a child’s life they can trust and develop a relationship with, the better.
• I currently work at a Before and After-school daycare program in Regina and have for the last two years (exactly as of today!)
• Naps, Netflix, and Knitting are my main hobbies. It is actually laying in my bed, binge-watching on any streaming service, and crocheting (which is very different from knitting), but the alliteration sounded better.
• I love to bake, but I have both a gluten and dairy intolerance, so that makes baking a little more difficult. If any of you have ever tried to do homemade gluten-free baking, you know how terrible and finicky it is. However, here are some links to my favourite recipes that have worked well for me so far.
  • Gluten-Free Cinnamon Roll Cake
  • Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies
  • Vegan Chocolate Fudge

I am originally from a small town, where I went to a K-12 school that, in my current opinion, lacked technological resources. Thinking back, I remember being in grade 3 when our school first got  SMART boards and iPads. We used them to play mostly math games and some literacy games, but that was rare. From grade 3 until about grade 9, the only use of technology was the teachers projecting something, the occasional time we went to the computer lab, and watching movies or videos. As I got older, more technology was introduced, especially in my grade 11 and 12 years – thank you COVID. We started using things like Chromebooks, Google Classroom, Kahoot, Quizlet, Math Jeopardy, handing our assignments in digitally instead of on paper, creating and editing our own amateur videos, and an app to communicate important messages, schedules, dates, and extra-curricular. Since starting university, I have definitely learnt about more educational technologies and their place in the classroom. I have learnt about apps and programs used to communicate with parents and guardians easily, read aloud videos of books on YouTube, different educational games and websites, different forms of media to use to teach lessons or complete assignments, and why educational technologies have proven to be useful in a classroom of a world that relies so heavily on technology. I would say my knowledge on the topic is still limited, hence why I am taking EDTC 300 this semester. 

Now, I would not consider myself a blogger, so to speak. I have done many blog posts for various classes, and I have not enjoyed it. I often find myself too formal, boring, lacking to write something of great significance, and terrible at coming up with fun titles, so I am trying to work on that for this class!

Thanks for listening, and see you all next time!