Internship

I am currently an intern for the Digital Human Library (dHL). It is an amazing resource for teachers to use and access. There are so many incredible resources available to support networking and educational topics. Click this link to have a peak at some great resources dHL!

Final Months with dHL

It is crazy to think that my internship with the Digital Human Library is wrapping up and this school year is coming to a close. Working as an intern with dHL has been such an incredible journey and I have gained many experiences that I will take into my future career as an educator. There are many things that my partner, Emily, and I have done these past few months as interns that have opened our eyes to our teaching practices and what we can do to enhance the educational experiences our future students have.

Podcasts

From the beginning of 2019, we have recorded two more podcasts that were very interesting to Emily and I as aspiring teachers. Our podcasts were recorded with two amazing people that are experts in two totally different subject areas. Mark Cheverton and Rachael Bell-Irving were our two guest speakers on the dHL On Air podcasts. Mark talked about his expertise in writing novels on Minecraft and how a video game can be used in an educational setting. Rachael talked about how she connects with classrooms all over and how talking about the ocean can be intriguing and educational for students. Throughout the process of recording these two podcasts, we developed our podcasting skills and looked at how we could improve the echoes in our podcasts. After playing around with a microphone we determined that it enhanced the sound of our final podcast. We improved our knowledge of using Zencaster and Garageband as we recorded and edited our podcasts. As we finished our fourth and final podcast, we talked about how each one got easier and how we felt more comfortable recording the podcasts as time went on. I am excited to take my experiences of podcasting into my future classrooms.

Networking

When Emily and I weren’t podcasting, we spent our time researching and starting to develop a curriculum about networking. We looked at six global competencies and why they are important. The competencies with researched are:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Creativity
• Critical Thinking
• Citizenship
• Character

When researching these global competencies, we did a SWOT Analysis for each of them. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. All of this is important in order to teach students how to network and why it is beneficial for them, especially as 21st Century learners.

Showcase

To wrap up our internships, our course coordinators hosted an internship showcase for us to show off our internship organizations and all of the work we have done throughout this school year. It was very interesting to see other people’s internship work and how their internships were similar and different from ours. Informing others about dHL and all of the resources that are available through dHL was a great opportunity for Emily and I. We enjoyed sharing our knowledge and spreading the word about how amazing dHL is and all of the things that dHL offers.

Lastly, I would like to thank Leigh for all of the hard work that she has put into enhancing student’s education and support she has for everyone involved. Leigh has provided Emily and I with a lot of guidance and support throughout our internship. The experiences we were provided with has helped Emily and I to become better educators, and for that I am forever thankful. dHL is an AMAZING resource for teachers to use and help educate their students in a hands-on digital way.

Podcasts

While working with the Digital Human Library I had to opportunity to create two podcasts so far. The podcasts are recorded with experts that work with the dHL and offer amazing educational experiences that break down the walls within a classroom. Recording these podcasts took me WAY out of my comfort zone! I was extremely nervous to record the podcasts both times but looking back it was such an incredible experience. Being able to connect with a stranger and talk about educational experiences and programs out there that help students to deepen their knowledge is amazing! You can listen to the podcasts here!

Experiences with dHL

Being an intern with the Digital Human Library has been an AMAZING experience! I have learned so much and stepped outside of my comfort zone! Throughout the past 2 months I have done a variety of tasks. I have created many graphics to promote educational programs, researched networking to be applied to a networking curriculum, and recorded podcasts with educational experts. Creating graphics falls within my comfort zone as I have made many before and enjoy creating graphics and images for a variety of purposes. I have never made graphics for the sole purpose of being shared on social media so that was new for me! Researching has been a large part of my post-secondary education, but networking is something that is of more interest to me as a topic, so I enjoy doing this research and it helps knowing that it will better enhance the educations of students in the future. Recording podcasts is something that is entirely new to me and I have really enjoyed stepping outside of my comfort zone.

When Leigh (founder of dHL and my internship coordinator) asked me if I wanted to take on the task of recording podcasts with experts I was SCARED! First of all, hearing my voice recorded is not a pleasant experience (no matter the purpose of the recording)! I really don’t enjoy listening to my own voice, but once I got over that, I faced my next fear of recording podcasts… talking to strangers about topics I may know nothing about! This was something that I struggled with overcoming until our first podcast was recorded on October 10th. The expert that was interviewed for the podcast was INCREDIBLE and made Emily (my internship partner) and I feel extremely comfortable! After recording the podcast and editing it all together, I was so happy and content with the experience and how everything went so great (shocking to me considering my nerves were crazy up until the moment the podcast ended)! A week after our first podcast was recorded, we recorded a second podcast (October 17th) and it went super as well! It was such a relief having our podcasts turn out great! There was, and still is, a lot of new learning for me that comes with recording and editing podcasts. Working with new digital resources (Zencaster) was included in the learning curve. We needed to understand how it works and then using iMovie and GarageBand to edit all of the audio pieces together. This is something that I will take into the classroom with me! I am looking forward to incorporating podcast learning into a classroom with older students. This can be done in SO many ways cross-curricularly and I think that students will have fun with it, just as I have!

Some successes that I have had while working with dHL include creating a variety of graphics that showcase the amazing things dHL has to offer! The graphics turned out amazing and they are all different in their own way, even though the purpose for all the graphics is the same. Another success may include recording our first 2 podcasts and becoming more comfortable with them. There have been many challenges in regards to the podcasts, such as editing multiple audio pieces together to flow nicely, talking to strangers over the internet (only hearing their voice and not seeing who they are is an odd feeling to overcome), and making the podcasts seem conversational. We had an outline of questions that we asked the experts throughout the podcast. I found it challenging to have a conversation including those questions instead of just asking the questions and having the experts answer them. This is something that has improved with practice but still can be a challenge. Being more fluid and flexible while recording the podcasts is important and helps the podcast conversation flow instead of being so questiony.

Next term, I am looking forward to exploring the networking curriculum more and seeing what I can do to help contribute to it. I am also looking forward to using social media as an educational/business platform to share the graphics I have made this term. Putting more thought into social media posts is going to be something new to me as these social media posts are going to be more purposeful than my personal social media account posts.

Overall these past 2 months have been very educational and inspiring to see what can be done within the walls of a classroom that help break down the walls in a theoretical sense. I am looking forward to continuing my internship with dHL in January!

More Graphics

These are more of the graphics that I have been creating for Live Learning Canada, which is a part of the Digital Human Library. I really enjoyed creating these graphics to help promote all of the amazing partnerships that dHL has to offer!

 

 

Podcasts

My internship partner, Emily, and I are creating podcasts with dHL experts to be broadcasted on VoiceEd Radio. Our first one was with Doug from InkSmith, a 3-D printing company. It was an amazing experience that had me step outside of my comfort zone.

Graphics

Here are some of the graphics I have made for social media to promote Live Learning Canada and everything it has to offer!