Update Week 3

 

Welcome back readers!

 

We are now ending week 2 of my genius hour project and I will be sharing what I have learned so far on my project of: How to Travel on a Student Budget! I created a pinterest page and have been researching others blogs as well as taking notes comparing all of the tips and feedback. I have looked at a variety of different websites, and blog posts to gather my information!

Check out my pinterest post to see where I have collected information from:
 

 

New Findings:

I have recently looked into and learned about the currency and exchange rates for various locations. I compared them with the Canadian dollar. Here is what I found:

1 Canadian Dollar =

·         0.76 U.S.A. Dollar

·         1.54 Belize

·         0.61 British

·         421. 33 Costa Rica

·         2.88 Turkish dollar

·         14.36 Egyptian pound

·         1.31 German

·         5.23 Chinese Yen

·         37.93 Philippians

·         86.59 Japanese yen

·         465.61 Central Africa

·         12.5 Argentina Peso

The Canadian Dollar is however equal with Australia’s, but Australia is an expensive place to visit!

This information was found by going onto Google and searching an exchange rate converter and Google has one for you where you type in the amounts and search every area of the world. If you want to see any other rates you can simply check out Google! I just found ones that were most applicable to me and this genius hour project.

Online Travel Blogs

Did you know you can use your student ID to get you discounts all over the world!? It does pay off on being a student, and this shows that you are able to travel as a student. Here’s how!

        I found this great blogger called: girl vs. globe. She has been travelling all over and she is a student like you and me! She found there are even student discount cards that you can get. They are $20 but they can save you hundreds on travel, clothes, hotels, food, and transportation while you travel! Also as a student you can attend museums and landmarks all for free with your student idea! Can you imagine checking out the most famous museums all over the world for FREE!! You have to mark that one down on your bucket list! Another tip girl vs. globe suggested was to skimp on nights out and to drink more at home then you won’t spend as much money on alcohol too! Another helpful tip would be to look into studying abroad if you still have more time as a student left or look into getting a work VISA that lets you get a part time job overseas to make money while you travel! I have a few friends in high school who went to other countries and worked as an Au Pair and cared for children. The family paid for everything as well as gave you money for watching their kids. My friends got to go on vacations with the family, and had their own rooms too! That is definitely a great option to look into!   

To check out more about her and her tips check out:

http://girlvsglobe.com/2016/01/how-to-travel-the-world-as-a-student.html

 

Stay places for FREE

 

Another thing you can think about when selecting the travel destination is where to stay. Where do my family and friends live? I have quite of few friends all over the world including: Germany, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, England, Florida, Sweden, and Denmark. My mom even has a pen pal in Ireland that she has had since grade 4 and they still keep in touch to this day, I can definitely work my way to staying with her at some point! One thing I also learned about where to stay is how cheap hostels are, and you can bunk with other travelers in them. You get your own room but will share a bathroom, and kitchen/common room. This is another great way to meet people who are adventurous and crazy as you are, and you can share travel tips and ideas!  

Next Steps:

The next steps I will be taking is to go through the data I have collected so far and to pick the top places to visit on a student budget! I would love to visit so many different places, but it will definitely come down to the amount of money I have, and will be willing to spend! Then I will go further by beginning to collect data by interviewing my best friend who has a lot of experience travelling and she is still a student! I will also be looking at meeting with a travel agent the week after and talking to them about tips for travelling on a student budget.

The one obstacle I encountered was....to be honest after looking at all the amazing places I WANT TO GO TO THEM ALL!!! This definitely makes staying on a budget a hard thing to do! I need to remind myself I am still a student and I have a tight and strict budget. I am going to do more research on free things to do and look into walking to places vs. Taxing.

 

Educational Technology Tip for Teachers:

Today is class we used an educational technology resource known as Plickers. This resource was something that I had never seen before but was so AWESOME! My teacher handed pieces of paper that had a shape on them and on different sides of the shape was the letters: A,B,C, and D. Then my teacher asked our class a series of questions and we answered them using our shapes. All of the questions were multiple choice formats and we would flip the picture to select the option we agree with whether it was A, B, C, or D. I would recommend using this in your classrooms as it is a great tool to see how students are feeling, it is anonymous, only the teacher can see who responds, and it gives the teacher feedback on their lessons/activities while using 21^st century technology! I will definitely be adapting this in my future lessons! The best part is this app can be on your phone and you create the questions!

Thoughts and Feelings:

Overall I am beginning to feel more comfortable including technology in my lessons as a future educator. With all of these different resources I have discovered and been exposed to I am more than excited to try them all out. I won’t know until I try if I like the resources but the hardest part is if you are willing to even give them a chance! I sure am! I love a good challenge!  

Tavia Wright. (November 29, 2012). Teaching with Technology the Wright way. Pasco County Schools. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYowyQ-o4oQ

Thanks for reading talk to you next week!

Cheers!

Week 2 Update!

Hey readers!

Here is an update on how my genius hour project is going so far. After all my research on travelling I have done so far, I think I have caught the travel bug and want to go more than ever!! Every place that I have not been too (which is a lot) looks so exciting and beautiful, and I want to go to them ALL! What types of places do you want to travel to? What would you do when you get there? Are you more about the adventure or relaxing?
 

 

 

Unknown. (January 2009) Travel mail. Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-618576/Top-travel-destinations-2009.html

 

What have I learned so far?

Travelling is something that will occur in my near future, maybe even after I graduate in June. If I follow my own advice I can make this happen by then. As my project is a lot of research based I have found there are a million different sites to go through and check out what other people are saying about how they have saved money or been able to travel on a tight budget. What I am going to share with you is all of the combined knowledge and information on this genius project after going through all of the sources and sharing only the best advice for my readers! When you are thinking about travelling and saving up for a trip you need to think: This is not a question about money it’s a question about priorities. You need to put saving first and how to save, you need to be strategic with your planning and I am going to find out the deep secrets that make this possible. 5 tips that I have learned so far include:

1.       Make a plan (this includes where you want to go, and how long you want to go for) These are your goals for yourself.

2.       Save! (automate your savings so you trick yourself into saving more!) One way to so this is to set up an account for travelling and every month or week send over a few dollars a great app to use is called: Digit

3.       Save your singles! (save all your change don’t spend your bills)

4.       Save found money!

5.       Play this or that! (every time you go shopping pick this item or that, not both, do you really need this or that?) That TV that you want that’s $1000, could buy you a flight, and that new Kate Spade purse you had your eye on that’s $200 can buy you a few nights at a hotel! You decide!

Do you see this pattern with all the times I have said the word save above?? SAVE YOUR MONEY!! I will keep you posted on other great tips I find as I continue my research to travel on a student budget!

Challenges

So far everything has been smooth sailing in regards to researching for my genius hour except that I have so many different sites to visit and pick out the valid and reliable tips. This is something I am going to understand more of when I talk to someone who is an experienced traveller and a travel agent. Lucky for me my best friend has been travelling for a long time and she is willing to provide me with all of her insight as well. Stay tuned for more in my next blog posts! Do you have any questions or concerns with challenges you think you will come across in regards to travelling on a student budget? Contact me by commenting on my blog or send me a message.

 Now let's think about my future classroom how can I use technology in it? Which ways work best for me? Which do I like best?

Tech-enhanced classroom activity that could be useful to use in my future classroom

A few great tech-enhanced activities that I will be using in my future classroom would be twitter and pinterest. Twitter and pinterest are great to keep connected with students and get to know their interests. On twitter I could create my own class where we can tweet about homework questions, interesting resources available that could link to class work, and any upcoming work or events that occur at the school. It will be a great site to assign homework to the class and the students will always know what Is up coming. They can also use this on their phones and computers or tablets. I like to idea that if you forget your agenda at school then you are still able to know what you have to do for homework! That will cut all excuses for students not getting anything completed! NO MORE EXCUSES: MY DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK, MY BROTHER LIT IT ON FIRE….GONE! Pinterest is a great site to start out sharing information on interests from working out, games you like, to your favourite dish. I can learn so much more about my students without directly asking them. As a teacher building relationships is very important with your students and this can be done using pinterest. BONUS! I can also find some great teacher resources and lesson ideas on here as well! One great lesson with pinterest is having the students create a board called ‘ALL ABOUT ME.’ This board can have pictures of all of their interests and then each student can share theirs and talk more about why they chose those pictures, there are lots of great stories to hear behind each picture. A picture really does speak 1000 words!

 For some more great tips check out my twitter located in the side of my dashboard: paige_harris11

And my pinterest page for more details! Alright fellow readers now it’s your turn I challenge you all to make your own ‘ALL ABOUT ME BOARD’ on Pinterest and share them with me! Time to get pinning!

https://www.pinterest.com/paigeharris11/genius-hour/ 

Cheers!

Genius Hour Post 1

Hi Viewers!

My name is Paige Harris and I am doing a genius project on the topic of: How to travel on a student budget. This is something I am very interested in doing once I graduate from school in June and before I start my real career in teaching. Have you ever wanted to travel but do simply not have the funds? Let's work together and make this goal reality through genius hour!!

My goals for this project are:

1. I want to attain a budget and learn the cheapest and safest way to travel to a unique location in the world

2. I want to visit at least 3 different places that I have never been to before

3. My timeframe of this trip will be 2-3 months

 

Check in next week to see how my research is going!

 

 Today I am going to share with you a little bit more wisdom on genius hour and virtual field trips. I took a technology course while studying at Brock University and I learned all about virtual filed trips and about a neat activity called genius hour! In the class we went through a virtual filed trip on what one would look like. This gave me a lot of insight to write this blog post so share with my fellow readers. After reading my blog today you will know what a virtual field trip is, what field trip I participated in, and what I personally have learned about genius hour. This is a great teaching tool to use in the classroom for all of you future educators! I hope you find this blog post as helpful as I do!

What is a Virtual Field Trip?
 

A virtual field trip is an internet-based trip to take students individually or as a group. It brings the world to our students in the classroom by taking a trip online and is an effective way to expand education and save money as you can take a field trip but are staying in your classroom. The teacher is the tour guide for their students and how they engage the students is up to them! There are four elements of a virtual field trip, these include:

1. the pre field trip activity (introduce your students what virtual trip is and what will be exploring)

2. post trip activity (clarify, collaborate, share, discuss and give feedback on the trip)

3. made by others (maybe students missed parts) (students share what they found/did)

4. teacher created (teacher shares their adventure with their students)

 

Virtual filed trips Stretch old paradigms, as the students must use a wide range of critical and creative thinking skills, as well as information skills to use a virtual field trip effectively. Why should they be used in the classroom?

Consider the following

 

Virtual field trips allow for a variety of different points-of-view and perspectives of the trip by every student in your class, as it caters to all of their individual needs. Students are able to explore and judge authentic information, while weighing all of the evidence presented to them to make those decisions. They can also compare ideas and views with the rest of their peers through interactions and discussions right in your own class. The teacher is able to keep an eye on every student during this time to make sure they are all on task and making appropriate decisions, unlike field trips where students can go where they please. What are your thoughts on doing a digital field trip in your classroom? Where would you take your class? What classes can you take your students on a digital field trip in?

I would take my class on a art field trip to the MET in New York City! (I've always wanted to go to New York!!) They could go to the #METkids cite and view all of the art work through the virtual museum they have on their website. There are also lots of activities and videos on the cite which my students can use their selves under my supervision. They can do all of this with no costs at all! FREE! Did you say FREE? I sure did! What field trip is free now a days? I can't think of any can you?

Have you ever wanted to go into space? HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE? Below is a great video to show more about what your students will experience!

Space Explores. (Jan. 14. 2010). Your Virtual Field Trip Begins Here! Retrieved at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYdEAXciJW8

Why call it Genius Hour?

Genius hour is an activity that allows students to explore their own passions! Students choose the topic within reason on anything that they are interested in. This will encourage creativity in the classroom, show individuality, and you as teachers will learn more about your students.  It provides students a choice in what they learn, and is very student-centered, and hands-on learning. Students will work on passion projects, and will learn what they want to learn about. This is a dual teacher role as the teacher and students will be teaching one another. The learning therefore will be split 50/50.  Students will all become genius's on their individual topics! This also creates a sense of collaboration in the classroom, as well as an interactive learning environment. The pace is built to be flexible for a variety of different learners, and the assessment is created to be authentic. There are multiple names for genius hour a few you might of heard of are:   Passion Project, 20% Time, and Innovation Hour. What other activity let's you get that involved with your students and helps you as a teacher get to know each one individually? This makes learning fun, and that is a huge part of education in the 21st century! 

Where can I find Genius Hour resources?

 

Check out the list of resources below, as they can provide you with even more information about genius hour! You can also check out twitter and search the hash tags: #genius hour, #passionproject, or #techknowteach to see more stuff my class has done on these projects.

 

-> http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=829279

-> http://cybraryman.com/geniushour.html

-> https://geniushour.wikispaces.com/Student+Resources?responseToken=0d1f64dc63979d18b5d93af8a0fb93211

 

When creating your own genius hour what sort of questions can you ask, what questions should you not ask? What will give you the most information that is both reliable and valid? I created my genius project on HOW TO TRAVEL WHILE ON A STUDENT BUDGET! Check out the rest of my pages to learn more at the top of this blog!

 

Now it's your turn, what kind of genius hour project are you going to do? Can't wait to see what all of you creative people come up with!

Cheers!