Tag Archives: kuropatwa

Darren Kuropatwa – Day In The Life

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My students, colleagues, and I are extremely lucky to have had Darren Kuropatwa as our guest this past Tuesday. Darren presented “A Day in the Life of a Teacher Teaching with Technology“. It was a wonderful presentation that seems to have really inspired the session participants.

Here’s a bit of what they are saying:

What a great experience in class tonight. Darren Kuropatwa is a math teacher who embraces technology in his classroom and shared with us his typical day (from start to finish!). He painted a wonderful picture and shared his class blogs, his insights, and his passion. Thank you Darren. (Cindy)

The presentation this week with Darren Kuropatwa was very inspiring. As the feeling of this new technology that we are learning is at times overwhelming, this presentation was a breath of fresh air. It was nice to see how this technology can be worked into the classroom. (Leah)

I have only one word to say . . . Thanks! I had the privilege of listening to a presentation from Darren Kuropatwa, who in my opinion, is an expert in the field of Educational Technology. . . this is very obvious!! He is someone that, in a perfect world, all educators would strive to be like. Darren (for those of you who don’t know) is a teacher who teaches a variety of grade 9-12 Mathematics classes integrating the use of technology to amplify student learning. In the eyes of a self-proclaimed ‘rookie blogger / techie’ , he is someone that I learned an awful lot from last night. (Travis)

We were very fortunate to have Darren Kuropatwa present to our EC&I 831 class last night: “A Day in the Life of a teacher teaching with technology“. I think I sat through most of the presentation with my jaw on my keyboard! He is absolutely AMAZING! (Connie)

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Darren Kuropatwa, an educator from Winnipeg. After witnessing how Darren incorporates technology into his classes I am giving him the label of ed tech guru. What he is doing within his classroom is exciting, cutting edge, engaging, etc, and that is through the eyes of an administrator. (Dean)

I agree. Darren is an amazing, innovative, and inspiring teacher. But don’t take my word for it.

See the session summary, view Darren’s slides, or view the Elluminate session recording.

Thanks again Darren!

A Full Plate of Exciting Projects

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It’s already an incredibly busy semester. Here are a few of the projects underway.

ECMP 355: I regularly teach an undergraduate course to preservice teachers focused on the integration of technology in teaching and learning. I’ve taught it since 1999, and I can’t believe how much it has changed. Originally, we focused so much on user-centric apps, presentation tools, MS Office productivity tools and flat HTML web resources. Today, the social/semantic web is a key focus. I promote the plethora of free, open and social tools available to students. Students are able to collaborate with others, and with each other. Blogs, wikis, podcasts are common resources.

Some things haven’t changed much though. Electronic portfolios have always been an important part of the course. Only the methods in which they are created has changed. The same goes for digital storytelling, a mainstay in my course from the beginning. And most importantly, critical technology and media literacy remains a common theme that binds the entire course.

This year, I’m happy to announce plans to collaborate with Darren Kuropatwa’s highschool students. Mentoring and collaborating with high schools students from a distance will be an incredibly powerful and meaningful activity for my preservice teachers.

If anyone’s interested in checking out the ECMP Moodle site, go here, but you’ll need to get the passphrase from me.

EC & I  831 Graduate Course – Open, Connected & Social in Education: I am currently developing an online Graduate course to be offered Winter 2008. The course will focus on the open and social technologies in the classroom and appropriate pedagogies in the connected age. Rob Wall will be helping me develop this course, and I’m already excited to have his input. He’s got some great ideas, and I think this course will be the best I’ve offered. I’m excited. If there are people out there that would like to be a part of this experience, I’d love to have you participate. I know I am going to rely on the edublogosphere a great deal for this course to be a success.

Digital Internship Project: We have chosen 34 interns this year to be “digital interns”. These students are provided with a laptop, other special equipment, edtech-related professional development and specialized support during their internship. The students are part of a Ning virtual community, and have just begun to share their stories and successes. I’m looking forward to seeing these students become excellent teachers and gain wisdom in the use of technology in teaching and learning. We hope that this experience will allow these individuals to become educational leaders in their future schools.

If you would like to see what’s going on, or join us, come to digitalinterns.ca.

Good Spirit School Division EdTech Projects: I’m also working with the teachers of Good Spirit School Division. There is a very keen interest in improving educational outcomes in the division, and educational technology is one of many thrusts to achieve this. This project is in its infancy, but good things are beginning to happen.

aTEPnet: There are many aboriginal teacher education programs in Canada. These programs are doing wonderful things for aboriginal education, but there is not much of a connection between these programs. The Canadian Council on Learning has funded us to help develop an online social network (aTEPnet) that will connect ideas and individuals across these programs.

Web-Based Learning Resource Development Evaluation: Saskatchewan Learning has funded the WBLRD project in the province since 2000. This project has given teachers time to develop rich web-based resources for the benefit of themselves and other educators in the province. We have been contracted to evaluate these resources, the value of the process and provide direction for the future funding of similar projects. Stay tuned for the results later this year.

Looking at this list makes me a bit overwhelmed. Yet, I’m realizing how much the “network” comes into play into just about everything I am doing these days. This is the biggest change to me, and the change that has made the most difference to me in my own learning, my teaching and my educational philosophy.