The Haydn Hideaway

For this Tech Task, we are asked to discuss our Twitter experience! (Click here for my educator account, in case you are not following me already...!) Personal Use I've had my personal twitter account since 2009 and now have a collection of 16,000 tweets from over the years. I couldn't tell you how I managed to tweet that much, other than the character count used to be much shorter than it is now. I liked Twitter for the simplicity - the short little thoughts that someone may be having. For example, here is a screenshot of the first tweet in my feed at the moment: This is the quality material I enjoy from Twitter I use Twitter as a platform to share the small thoughts I have that I don't think are "important" enough to constitute as a Facebook status (read more about that here  under the "My Digital Identity" heading). Facebook is for things I want to share with a wider circle of family and friends, and Twitter is for things I may want to j...

In this Tech Task, I am to share one of my favourite online resources, explain why it's great, how it can be used in the classroom, and some great (or not so great) features about it. The Tech Task also says this can be for classroom use, or professional use. Does that mean I can talk about both? Classroom Use For my favourite classroom use online resource, I must talk about Musication  and their series of boomwhacker videos, as I previously mentioned in this blog post. Musication has a collection of boomwhacker play-along videos - think karaoke, but for boomwhackers! First, I really like these videos because I feel they give boomwhackers a purpose in the classroom. Boomwhackers are one of those instruments that are typically left behind in the music class. Their pitch isn't super clear if they're not played properly, and when you have an instrument that is played  by 'whacking' it, you better have some good classroom management skills and practices alre...

In my third Tech Task, I am to find an edublogger I like, describe their background, why I follow them, and what I have learned from them. Thankfully, the task mentions that if there are other bloggers I follow and like, I can link them also. Wonderful, because there are so many great music education blogs out there! I will only describe one in depth, or else this task will take too long. Mrs. Miracle's Music Room by Aileen Miracle Aileen Miracle has taught for over 20 years in both Ohio and Michigan, anything music including general music, band, choir and strings. She currently teaches K-5 general music, but has taught K-7 general music as well. She is a past president of the Midwest Kodály Music Educators of America, and has taught Kodály levels at different universities. She also has her own Teachers Pay Teachers store with lesson plans, unit plans, sub plans, holiday activities and visuals, among other things.  I first followed Miracle when I decided to swit...

Today I went to a professional development event called "INvolved - Inclusive Health Promoting Schools" hosted by the University of Winnipeg. It is a physical education student-driven conference that originally started in Brandon about six years ago. A friend of mine, who is a U of W early years education student, invited me to go. Though neither of us are physical education teachers, we thought it would be beneficial for us to learn more about inclusivity, adaptations, and about teaching health class. This friend and I have been friends since our early elementary school years and our general classroom teacher was the one who taught us health, and in case we found ourselves in a similar situation, we thought this would be a good experience. Keynote We began the day with our keynote speaker, Heather Rootsaert from Edmonton Catholic Schools. She is the physical education and wellness consultant and has been a physical education teacher for over twenty years. Her topic was...