Monday 25 February 2013

Devon Caldwell: Kindergarten Diva & Edublogger!

I had the privilege of attending Devon's PD a few months ago, so when one of my tasks was to follow an edublogger I knew exactly who it would be!

Devon has only been teaching since 2008, but has accomplished amazing things already in her career that I can only hope for in my own! She has been awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in addition to other awards such as the FLBSD Early Years Teaching Excellence award. What caught my attention the quickest, however, was her most recent achievement of the Mindshare 21st Century Digital Classroom National Video Challenge for central Canada. She has taken full advantage of all of the ways that technology can be used in the classroom and has an incredibly useful blog to follow. 

(http://kinderdiva.blogspot.ca)

Although I learned a ton at her PD, I also learned from her blog. She includes a section on how to use technology for assessment which I found to be useful, giving examples such as Evernote. I had downloaded Evernote a while ago to start using it for just this, but somehow forgot about it with everything else that I have been trying to keep up with! Devon had a great point at her PD about this sort of thing though and I was reminded of it while glancing through her blog. She mentioned that while all of the new ways to use technology may seem overwhelming, what is sometimes important is just to know that they are there to explore for yourself when the time comes. I think this is a great piece of advice because trying to take everything in can be just that, overwhelming!

I have also been reminded while following Devon's blog that this job really can be as fun as you make it! I am really excited to try some of her ideas out in my next student teaching placement, and can only hope that my students are as excited as engaged as hers are! 

Last but not least- this seems like a great time to give a big thanks to Devon and her Kindergarten class for their help with our group project! We look forward to presenting tomorrow with the help of our youngest group members!

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