Miss Schwarz

This week in our Internet for Educators class we had guest speaker Rennie Reddekopp join our zoom call. He brought us a great amount of knowledge around the topic of digital citizenship and going beyond just the surface of the topic to really understand being responsible online. I was surprised with a lot of the information he presented us with and it has made me really start to think about my own digital citizenship over this past week.  One of the biggest facts that stuck with me through Rennie's talk was about how much energy just one single google search draws. He had mentioned that on average each google search used the same amount of energy it took to light up a lightbulb for 17 seconds. That may not seem that drastic, but I started thinking about how much I use google each day. I will simply google a word just to see if I spelled it correctly. I was completely unaware of the energy needed for each search and used it as if it was an endless and continuous resource. Rennie als...

Podcasts can be a great and convenient way to broaden your knowledge on any topic you can think of. No matter what you are interested there is most likely a podcast that will correspond with that. For this tech task, I chose the podcast called Teacher Tired. A just starting out Kindergarten teacher discusses the importance of self-care in a profession that can at times be exhausting. Like the title suggests, the idea of 'Teacher Tired' is a real thing and Jo Trewartha talks about her own struggles within her first years of teaching and how she hopes that other teachers can use this to create a community to build off of one another and generate positive self-care techniques. This podcast was a great taste of reality about a profession that is dedicated to looking after others and not necessarily ourselves. In the first few episodes of Teacher Tired Jo talks about her personal struggles with her first job that made her contemplate almost entirely giving up on a career that she t...

Identity can be defined as characteristics or personality traits used to describe a person, but what is Digital Identity? Well, it can be described as the way a person appears online. I began investigating my own digital identity by googling 'Joanne Schwarz'. The top result was a website of a successful-looking businesswoman with a very appealing website. This would be very satisfying if that was my personal digital identity but one has to keep scrolling in order to reach that. What I found was me, Joanne Schwarz exists online but submerged in a sea of numerous other Joanne Schwarz's. Many linked-in profiles, obituaries, or Facebook accounts. I found that my digital identity consists of some old profile pictures and a few sports achievements from years ago. Is this how I want the internet to portray me? Is having very a little online presence better than a large in the spotlight one? What could be done to create a presence that I was happy with? Would future principals be p...

This week in our internet for educators course we had a guest speaker. Andrew Mead virtually gave us a presentation about social media and education. Andrew Mead is the principal of Mitchell Middle School and recently has taken on the job of principal at Manitoba's Remote Learning Center. Andrew began by explaining the way he used social media as a school principal. For some reason, I have always had this idea in the back of my mind that social media and schools were kind of like oil and water, they  do not mix very well. Andr ew brought light to the situation and gave us many reasons as to why social media can be a great tool to use in the classroom.  One of the most influential ways that social media can be utilized in the classroom context would be as a means of communicating with parents. Not direct communication, but as a way of displaying student work on a platform easy and accessible for this generation. Many of my classrooms spoke on this and said they really enjoyed o...

Hello again, this week we were able to discuss some pretty interesting topics in our Internet for Educators course through a presentation from Kristen Thompson. The biggest concept that we tackled through this discussion was the idea of individuals being replaced with machines in this ever-changing society. I appreciate Kristen and everything she shared with us and it made me ponder many things. Let's dive into it, shall we?  I really liked that Kristen brought to our attention the word 'niche', and that alone is just a fun thing to say. What she talked about was how teachers all have something that they bring to the education table that can be both interesting and awesome but cannot be replicated through a machine. It made me really think and wonder about what my particular niche may be and how that quality can be a defining factor of what makes someone a great teacher. This niche is something to be proud of but there are also many other aspects that are necessary for educ...

Hello everybody, I thought that I would start my blogging adventure off by introducing myself. My name is Joanne Schwarz and I grew up in, small town, Glenboro, Manitoba which is about 45 minutes South-East of Brandon. I loved the town that I grew up in and had a very positive educational experience through my K-12 journey, which I believe to be part of the reason why I decided to become an educator. Throughout my schooling at Glenboro, playing sports was such a huge part of why I have so many positive memories looking back. I tried to play as many sports as I could but, volleyball, basketball, and fastball were my main focus. I loved being active and competitive at this level but ultimately I think that being apart of a team was truly what drew me in. In my grade 12 year I was lucky enough to be presented with an opportunity to continue my education as well as my athletic journey at a small school just south of Winnipeg. Providence University College is where I completed my undergrad ...