Ms. Schutte, do you have TikTok?
Technology has always been evolving in my thirty years of living and my eight years of teaching. Keeping up with the times has been something I strive for as a middle years teacher. I use technology in my day-to-day life in many ways some that overlap between personal and professional and others that only work best when trying to engage 30+ grades 6/7 students at a time!
In my personal life, I try to stay in touch with my friends and family that I do not get to see every day. Most of the time we use Zoom or Google Meets. My best friend and her husband live in Calgary, so we have game nights virtually and my dad lives in Moose Jaw and sometimes it is just nice to enjoy a happy hour beverage with him too!
I started post-secondary in 2012 and spent four years finishing my Bachelor of Education degree in 2016. I took a short time off to start my teaching career but began my Certificate of Inclusive Education in 2018 and finished it during the height of the pandemic in 2020. During this time, I experienced my first online learning classes. I became quite familiar with URCourses, Canva, and Jamboard. Now, I am in the eighth course of my master’s degree in education for teaching, learning, and leadership. I have been able to advance my technology skills, make YouTube videos for presentations, and feel very comfortable researching through the University of Regina’s online library.
As Ms. Schutte, I try to stay “in the know” and keep up with the trends my students are following. I am teaching grades 6/7 where it is pretty obvious what trends are in or out just by listening to them for a few minutes. My students do love to learn with the use of technology, and I have used quite a few programs over the years that I am comfortable with. My notes, student resources, and some assignments are done through Google Classroom. Students in my classroom use the WeVideo program to make videos and commercials, and most recently I finished this school year by creating podcasts! Minecraft Education is an excellent cross-curricular program that engages my students in many different ways. Finally, Kahoot and Blooket are crowd favourites for studying, test-prepping, or downtime students have. Through the 2023-2024 school year, I tried to get more comfortable with coding and had EYES and SaskCode come in and do workshops with my class. When I am teaching, I rely heavily on my projector, Microsoft OneNote, and Edsby to get me through the workday.
My personal life and classroom would look very different without the use of technology, and I will continue to strive to learn more and adapt to the changing times. Finally, I think I am one of (maybe) very few middle years teachers who do NOT have a TikTok account. My students always ask and never believe my response because “everyone has TikTok”. Does anyone else not have TikTok either out there? Catch y’all on the next one!