Jordan McFarlen's Blogfolio

Promoting Business Education

mcfarljo — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 17:56:16 +0000

I find that quite often high school students are not aware of what business education is all about and do not know what they can learn in the courses. To help solve this problem a fellow business educator and I created a video about the courses we currently offer. The video was shown to students during the week of their course selections. We also made QR code posters that students could scan using their mobile device and then watch the video. The response from students was very positive and we hope that now students are aware of the courses and opportunities that are available to them. Check out the poster and scan the QR code or click the link to view the video and let me know what you think.

By scanning the QR Code you will be taken to this video…
Campbell Business Education [click to watch]

Life as a First Year Teacher

mcfarljo — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 06:21:18 +0000

Tonight I presented to a group of pre-serivce teachers at the University of Regina about “Life as a first year teacher.” It was great to share my experiences and advice while also learning from the other presenters (post-internship students and cooperating teachers). Here are the slides I used for my presentation. I tried to keep a simplistic design and focus more on what I was actually saying while using the slides to enhance my presentation. Let me know what you think and feel free to comment with any suggestions, comments or stories regarding your first year of teaching.

2010 in review

mcfarljo — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:23:10 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,900 times in 2010. That’s about 7 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 13 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 45 posts. There were 16 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 14mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 23rd with 78 views. The most popular post that day was New inspiration and ways of learning.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, digg.com, facebook.com, jordanmcfarlen.com, and thephysicaleducator.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for jordan mcfarlen, mcfarljo, jordanmcfarlen, wordpress blogfolio with vimeo, and karie shiels.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

New inspiration and ways of learning February 2010
4 comments

About Me May 2008
1 comment

Images & Videos June 2008
1 comment

My Work April 2009

Resume/CV March 2010

Fitnesscaching – Geocaching in PE (Exploring Alternative Environments)

mcfarljo — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 04:09:43 +0000

One of the outcomes of the grade 9 Physical Education Curriculum in Saskatchewan involves alternative environment activities. For this outcome I chose to do geocaching with my students. I wanted them to experience something different that involved teamwork, problem solving, and physical activity. That is how I came up with the idea for “fitnesscaching”. Fitnesscaching is basically geocaching with fitness tasks at each cache. I had multiple caches set up for my students and at each cache they had to complete a fitness task along with a trivial question which was to be answered on their answer sheet. The caches were all set up on school grounds and the fitnesscaching activity was done during 1 class period. We went over geocaching basics and did a few practice activities beforehand to get the students familiar with the GPS devices and the ways of geocaching.

On the day of the activity I had the students split up into pre-determined teams and they all started from the same location which was not too close to any of the caches. They all started with the coordinates to a different cache and would get the next coordinates once they found the cache. While the activity went over very well despite the snow, there are some things I would change for next time…

I would try to make more time for the activity. Possibly by doing more pre-activity work the day before and then beginning right at the bell on the day of.

I would like to do something like this on a bigger scale or in a more diverse area. I think it would be great to do this in a place with more diverse terrain and scenery than our school grounds.

Check out the map below which shows the location of the caches that I planted for the activity. Let me know what you think and feel free to share your stories of geocaching. I am always looking for new ideas and would appreciate any suggestions on how to make this even better for my students!

View Larger Map

The world of substitute teaching

mcfarljo — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:55:48 +0000

Having now completed my B.Ed at the University of Regina and having recently obtained my teaching certificate, this past week I started substitute teaching with Regina Publ ic Schools. While I do have a full-time teaching position with Regina Public starting in the fall, I wanted to gain some teaching experience on the sub-list and work at different schools during May and June. This week I had great experiences subbing at both Sheldon and Scott Collegiate. At both schools I was subbing in the physical education department but they were very different experiences and that is what I enjoy about subbing. The opportunity to see what is being done at various schools and how certain programs are run is a great opportunity.

As a newcomer to the world of substitute teaching I have been wondering about a few things like the expectations for substitute teachers and ways to ensure a successful subbing experience. I’m looking for advice on how I can make the most of my time as a substitute teacher…

I realize there are the basic duties such as teaching what the teacher has stated, ensuring the class is on task, leaving notes stating what you did and also informing the teacher of any behavioral issues. But I would like to know what teachers consider to be a good substitute teacher… I would greatly appreciate comments regarding the following questions.

What are your expectations for a substitute teacher?

What steps can a substitute teacher take to make sure things go smoothly?

What type of feedback do you like to receive from substitute teachers?

What is your advice for substitute teachers?

Here’s a fairly basic but useful link about substitute teaching – click here

A Collaborative Project – Improving Presentations

mcfarljo — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 03:58:39 +0000

This semester Darin Janssen and I partnered with Mr. Park from Mortlach School in Mortlach, SK on a collaborative project. We set out to help Mr. Park’s students create better presentations using collaborative tools. We taught an online lesson and gave the students a brief introduction to some slide presentation design basics. We used WiZiQ to teach the lesson and GoogleDocs to view and provide feedback on student presentations. Check out the Prezi (see below) that Darin and I created as a way of reflecting on our project. It was a great learning experience and provided us with an excellent opportunity to teach online and see what it’s like to truly collaborate. A big thank you goes out to Mr. Park for allowing us to work with his class and helping us out along the way. I recommend viewing the Prezi in fullscreen for the full effect.

ECMP Final Reflection…

mcfarljo — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:01:44 +0000

As part of my ECMP 455 course I will be doing a few reflections over the next few days. I have decided to create a short video to reflect on a few of my experiences. This also served as an opportunity for me to play around with and create a green screen. It has been an amazing learning experience and I have really enjoyed all of the connections I have made both inside and out of the class.

View my reflection below as well as a video showing how I made the green screen. Let me know what you think.

Riding the wave…

mcfarljo — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:04:19 +0000

This post is about Google Wave and some of the exploration and research I’ve been doing on it over the semester. I initially joined Google Wave on October 17, 2009. There was a lot of hype about it on twitter and I thought it would be great to be one of the first groups of people to try it out. At first it didn’t live up to the hype as none of my contacts really stuck with it and I basically just had a few solo waves going. That all changed when i discovered the public waves and saw just how powerful this tool can be. Now I can really see that there are some great uses for it. I’ve joined some public waves and recently created a wave for physical educators and I’m also working on a wave for business educators. Below you can see the slides for the online lesson on Google Wave I am teaching in my ECMP 455 class tonight. I have also attached links to some useful resources. I’m always looking to connect with more people on Google Wave so feel free to add me [mcfarljo@googlewave.com] or ask me for an invite. Also, let me know your thoughts in terms of Google Wave in education.

Google Wave 101 – Your one stop shop for all the Google Wave basics.

Google Wave Robots – A list of 100 robots in Google Wave.

How Google Wave can Change Education – Ideas for educational use of Google Wave.

The Most Important Wave Search – Showing you how to discover public waves.

My Google Wave Bookmarks – Everything I have bookmarked related to Google Wave.

Interview with Chris Betcher

mcfarljo — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:13:59 +0000

Recently I had the opportunity to conduct a skype interview with Australian educator and technology integrator Chris Betcher. Before the interview I had the opportunity to do some research on Chris by checking his blog and taking a look at his tweets. Chris has done some great things and after conducting the interview I got to see how great of a guy he is as well. It’s always nice when current educators take the time to help out those who are about to enter the profession. During the interview I asked Chris questions about educational technology in general, edtech in the future, cellphones in the classroom etc. The video below is not the entire interview but rather a summary including some key points and stories. The video is not the greatest quality right now so I may upload a higher quality video in the near future but nonetheless it has some great content. This interview is a great example of the power of using things like skype and how easy it can be to bring experts into your class from around the world.

Check out the video below and feel free to comment with your thoughts on some of the topics discussed.

Experiencing the Olympics

mcfarljo — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:44:40 +0000

Earlier this year, in late February to be exact, I was fortunate enough to be in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. I was very lucky as it just so happened that my basketball team, the University of Regina Cougars were in Vancouver for a Canada West basketball playoff series against the Simon Fraser University Clan. Unfortunately we lost the playoff series 2 games to 1. One positive thing is that we were able to experience the atmosphere of the Olympics in downtown Vancouver. Below I have included a video I shot with my iPod Nano. The video and audio quality isn’t great and the camera work is sub par but I hope that it will give you a sense of what the energy was like. I have attempted to make it into a bit of a digital story, focusing on the culture, excitement, and celebration.

I tried to take a look at the Olympics from an educational lense and thought of how amazing it would be to have a class there and experience it on some sort of field trip (most likely local schools). The olympics can relate to so many different subject areas. Here is a great resource for bringing the Olympics into the classroom. This tweet from my instructor Dean Shareski makes a connection between an Olympic sport and science. What connections do you see that can be made between the Olympics and curriculum? Now that the Olympics are over, what other major athletic events do you see having the opportunity to promote learning? I know that here in Regina, Saskatchewan anything involving the Saskatchewan Roughriders has a tendency to engage almost anyone. I also look at March Madness, the NCAA men’s basketball championship that is just starting and think how it might relate.