My Virtual Associate Teacher...

One of our assignments in 8Y59 requires us to be partnered with a Virtual Associate Teacher—an educator with whom we’d communicate with via tweeting and blogging. Zoe provided our class with a list of educators who have integrated technology within the classroom and, upon browsing this list, I chose Jim Pedrech. Jim teaches English and History at a secondary school in South-Western Ontario and promotes the use of technology and games within education as ways to foster the learning of 21^st century students.

Jim’s classroom blog, which appears to have been created for the students enrolled in the courses he teaches, not only includes detailed course information but also helpful links, videos, maps, timelines, and games to supplement his students’ learning. I also came across a remarkable blog post that discussed the creation of a fictional but historically accurate game entitled “The Paulsford Mysteries” which allowed students to acquire a deeper knowledge of the Victorian Era. There’s a link within his blog that leads to this project which I checked out and it seems pretty amazing!

Additionally, Jim’s been tweeting out some really great resources and sites that I’ve been bookmarking which has inspired ideas for future lesson plans. He’s also joined our class Ning and has been actively responding to teacher candidates’ posts and has even shared a great timeline resource on the discussion board. Jim has been a great VAT thus far and I look forward to continue checking out his posts, comments, and suggested resources.

While I’ve been following Jim’s classroom blog and tweets closely for the past couple of weeks, I’ve also been following all of the VATs on the list that Zoe provided on Twitter. I just wanted to mention that it’s truly amazing to see the passion and innovation demonstrated by all of these educators. It’s apparent that these teachers go the extra mile for their students and I’m left inspired and motivated.