Category: EDTC300

While considering my tech habits for this post, I noticed some patterns in my daily routine. I start my morning by rolling out of bed and quickly checking for any emails, or text messages. I usually put my phone on do not disturb mode at bedtime (10 o’clock most nights, woot woot), so I am usually curious if I missed anything important, but usually there isn’t! Then my kids get up and we are getting ready for our day. Usually one of them commandeers my phone to watch some Netflix or YouTube with breakfast. Then after dropping them off for daycare I usually sit down for some breakfast of my own, and I always take the opportunity to watch late night talk shows from the last night on YouTube. Colbert, Seth Meyers and the Daily Show usually. It is a part of my morning ritual, I actually get bummed out when they take time off and I don’t have a new show for me to watch. I think I might be addicted to the drama of the American news cycle hahaha (help me:)). YouTube in general is where I spend most of my time while on my phone. Its probably about 70% for entertainment purposes and 30% for educational related purposes.

From there, I usually start moving in to the productive part of my tech use. I use Google Calendar to organize my assignments and readings for classes, so I check that to plan out what I need to work on for the day. I also have an app called TimeTree on my phone that my family uses to put in events like appointments or when my wife is doing craft sales. These two things are how I navigate my day to day, and I like that both are shareable with other people, so they can see what I have on the go and add in events for themselves.

Then I am on my laptop most of the day using urcourses and working on assignments. This usually involves a lot of reading, and I almost always do those reading using the Read Aloud: A Text to  Voice Reader plugin for Chrome on my laptop. I 100% not be able to do this degree without this tool. There has been so much reading to do since I started this degree, and I am at a very busy phase of life with 2 young kids (3 and 5), and managing many of our household affairs while my wife works as a teacher and running an at home sewing business to support us. I hook up my wireless headphones to my laptop and play my readings while I work around our house and yard. Sometimes I’m even sneaking in a reading while I’m cuddling one of my kids to bed.

I like to think I have found a good balance with tech in my life. I like to look the positive side of things, and tech invites a lot of awesomeness to our day to day. The biggest help getting to a good balance has was having kids. Having to regulate their tech use as a parent made me have to take a hard look at the way I use tech too, to make sure I wasn’t being a hypocrite.

Hi there!

My name is Jerome Schmeiser. I am a BEAD student (After degree program) in my second semester at the University of Regina. I’ve never been someone who reads blogs, or had any ambition to start one, but I am excited to give it a try! Here’s a little more about me…

My first degree was in biology (also from the UofR), after which I spent 10 years working in labs as a quality assurance lab technician at a variety of places. The last position I held in that field was with the Saskatchewan Research Council, who unfortunately shut down the lab in Regina I was working at and moved their operations to Saskatoon at the end of 2022.

Looking for something different after that position ended, I applied for a position delivering coding and technology outreach with the Saskatchewan Science Centre. They had received funding from the Federal Government through the CanCode program, and were looking to provide outreach throughout the entire province of Saskatchewan. Myself and a partner were sent around the province to take over class rooms for an hour and get the students interested in tech and coding with fun, free to use programs, or tech we brought and provided. It was a fun job, and I got to see lots of Saskatchewan and a variety of schools/classrooms. But it was also very hard being away from my young family for days at a time. So I eventually decided to return to school to pursue my Ed degree, where you can find me today!

I gained some really great experience through that position with the Science Centre though, and some great resources for making tech fun. Some of the websites we used were really easy to get into, especially for kids since it lets them code using blockcoding!

If you’ve never heard of blockcoding, it is coding that is partly done for the user already, with important pieces of code already typed out and fitted into colour blocks. These blocks can then be fitted together like puzzle pieces for the user to make a functioning program out of! It takes all the hard work of having proper syntax out of coding, and makes it waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy more fun and approachable than traditional Java or Python coding. I would recommend using Makecode Arcade as a great free resource made by Microsoft to teach coding. You can make a variety of GameBoy style games on this site. My partner and I used to run a class through a lesson and have them get a functioning game in under an hour using this site.

Anyways, I am really excite for this course and for the opportunity to learn how to keep using tech in the classroom in a positive, uplifting way!