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Brenda
Dyck, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada
(Contact
Brenda) |
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Brenda Dyck graduated from the University
of Calgary with a Bachelor of Education degree and received a Masters of
Educational Technology degree from the University of British Columbia in 2005.
Brenda has taught in both public and private schools and in 2006 became an
instructor of pre-service teachers in the Faculty of Education at the
University of Alberta and in the middle school program at Red Deer College in
Red Deer, Alberta. Brenda’s courses focus on Social Studies Curriculum and
Methodology and the use of technology to extend thinking and learning. Brenda
is the moderator of MiddleTalk, a listserv sponsored by the National Middle
School Association (NMSA). Her "Click Here!" column is a regular feature in
NMSA's magazine, Middle Ground and she writes a bi-monthly Blog for Education
World, an education e-zine. Brenda’s first book, The Rebooting of a Teacher’s
Mind, was published by the National Middle School Association in 2004. Brenda
travels throughout her home province of Alberta and throughout the United
States as a conference speaker and workshop leader covering topics related to
middle level education, telecollaboration and the effective integration of
technology.
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Brenda became a MidLink Magazine editor in 2000
and has contributed such telecollaborative projects as We the Children…,
Stories from the Streets, Beyond Wild Justice, The Eleanor Rigby Project, Come
Fly with Me, Statistics: A Curiosity Factor and most recently, Hidden Stories
and Find a Story, Map a Story, Tell a Story.
“We the Children…” was a winning entry (in the
11-15 year old category) at the 2004 Global Junior Challenge in Rome, Italy.
Brenda's project about homelessness, The Eleanor Rigby Project, won second
place in the 2005 ISTE SIGtel Online Shared Learning competition and was
chosen as a finalist project in the 2007 Global Junior Challenge. Brenda was
listed as one of Surfaquarium’s Top Online Educators in 2005.
Some of Brenda's articles and commentaries are linked -
MidLink Editors Publishing Section of MidLink Magazine.
Brenda's goals as contributing editor continues to be
- To help teachers and students discover how
technology can be used as a mind tool to promote deep learning and enhance
teaching and learning.
- To expose teachers to various tools that
when used will challenge students to implement higher level thinking skills
while participating in online project learning.
- To maintain a collaborative project called
"Hidden Stories." Through this project students will learn about the power
of digital storytelling to share stories from history. Students will develop
their ability to search digital archives, to think critically about
historical events, cite primary sources, create historically authentic
narratives and use technology tools such as Windows MovieMaker, Microsoft
Photo Story or iMovie to house these important stories from history. Student
work will be posted on the Hidden Stories project web site.
- To introduce teachers and students to the
use of digital mapping tools to teach geographical and historical thinking.
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