Category: EdTech

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Week Eleven: Coding

In this week’s class, we learned about coding. The idea of coding is very new to me so I was excited to learn about it. I know that coding is becoming more and more prevalent to the BC curriculum and consequently, I have seen a bit of it already in schools. In high school, my science classroom had a set of sphero’s. At the time I just thought that they were fun little robots to race around the hallways of the school. I just now learned that they are classified as coding. It is so amazing that you can use these in schools with just an iPad.

Programmable Robot Ball: Sphero SPRK+ | Teach STEM with Sphero

In my field experience at Lochside, I was introduced to Scratch. It was used as a rewards system for two boys with behaviour differences. At the end of each day when the rest of the class would go to PE, they would stay back and head to the computer room. One time I was able to supervise them and it was so inspiring to see their engagement with the site. They had so much fun coding their own little creations and were so proud to present them to me.

Overall, I think coding is something that I really want to learn more about so I can implement it in my future classroom. I think it benefits children a lot when it comes to problem-solving skills, creativity, collaboration, and overall technology literacy. I also think it directly applies to the idea of inquiry-based learning because it encourages independent learning.

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Week Ten Reflection: Distributed Learning

This week in EDCI 336, we learned about distributed learning. Distributed learning means that students and instructors can be in different non-centralized places but still engage in the same instructional material. Like many this past year, I have transitioned to full online model of learning. During class, we headed into breakout rooms to discuss what we think are the positive and negative aspects of online learning. Personally, one pro for me is that I have much more time on my hands to get assignments done. But, at the same time, this can be a con because I find it difficult to decipher how much time to spend on school and how much time to take to myself.

Some strategies that I have taken to help me through online learning are:

  • Making a checklist of things I want to get done everyday and stopping ice I have finished
  • Planning out my day so that I have time to do a workout or go for a walk
  • Eat meals without any technology in front of me and use it as a break

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Week 8 Reflection

This week we had the pleasure of meeting Tracy Humphreys. Tracy is both the founder and chair of an organization called BCEd Access Society. This society is run completely by volunteers, most of which are parents. They work to support children and youth with disabilities and diverse learning needs to reach their fullest potential in both school and life.

Tracy Humphreys, Founder and Chair

tracyblue

Tracy is a mom to three children with disabilities and she herself has ADHD and other invisible disabilities. She has been an active volunteer in BC schools for over 20 years, as a board member on her local PACs, the District PAC in Victoria (VCPAC), and as a BCCPAC representative for VCPAC. She also served as Board Vice President of Elizabeth Buckley School for 3 years. She is currently a consultant CEO for beauty companies, a partner in CareQuadrant, and winner of the 2019 Victoria Community Leadership Award in Lifelong Learning for her work with BCEdAccess as a full time volunteer advocate for families of children with disabilities in British Columbia schools since 2014.

I really appreciated Tracy’s presentation style. Although she was a tad nervous, I think she was still extremely engaging! She shared information with us from the point of view of both a parent and a professional. She was really open with both her own educational journey and her children’s. She explained that when your child is first diagnosed with a disability, you are convinced to trust the public school system to make the best decisions for your child’s success. But, the system was not nearly supportive enough of her child. She had to pull him from a public school and instead enrolled him in the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry, where he is now flourishing. With that being said, she urges that you must push back and fight for what you think is right for your child.

Before class, we watched an inspiring video of a boy named Damon Kirsebom. Damon is a non-reliable speaker who with the help of text to voice electronics, is able to communicate with other. It was so cool to see how technology has helped Damon in such a drastic way. I think it helps us realize that although technology has in many ways hurt society, there is still so much good in it.

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Week 6 Reflection- Inquiry High School

This week we had the pleasure of listening to Jeff Hopkins showcase his Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. He did a really amazing job of conveying the importance of inquiry-based education. I appreciate how he highlighted the power we have as elementary school teachers to follow inquiry-based teaching methods in our classrooms. I was inspired by his story of how much hope and trust he put into this school when founding it. I was even more inspired when he said “we hope that we go out of business” when referring to his hopes of the ministry of education switching their curriculum and ways to inquiry-based learning. I think it truly showed his dedication to this topic.

When Jeff showed us the website that one of the students has designed for selling local art, I was totally inspired. It was so amazing to see someone at such a young age doing such amazing things already. This girl’s accomplishments prove how unique inquiry-based learning is since, in a traditional school, students would not have this autonomy over their learning. Overall, I have really appreciated these last two sessions as they bring life to the book I am reading for my free inquiry (Inquiry Mindset).

Here is Jeff Hopkins’ school site: https://learningstorm.orgĀ 

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Week 5 Reflection and Inquiry Update

I really enjoyed this week’s class which was lead by a guest host Trevor MacKenzie. Because my free inquiry project for EDCI 336 is based on his bookĀ Inquiry Mindset,Ā it was really cool to be able to meet him “in person”. He began the class by introducing the four types of inquiry; structured, controlled, guided, and free. He then shared with us an image of a swimming pool that depicts the structure of these various types of inquiry. As I have already learned about the types of inquiry through reading Trevor’s book, I understood its relations to the gradual release of responsibility. Basically, as you move into the deeper end of the pool, responsibility releases from the teacher.

Photo by Trevor MacKenzie on @trev_mackenzie

SinceĀ Inquiry Mindset is more focused on elementary ages, it was interesting to hear Trevor hone in on the high school side of inquiry. He provided us with examples of provocations and how he uses them in his English 12 class. I was really grateful that he gave an example of a provocation because I had a hard time grasping the idea while reading the book. From what I now understand, a provocation is any image, gif, or video that provokes thought about a topic to deepen understanding of a topic through exploratory talk.

Photo by Trevor MacKenzie on @trev_mackenzie

I am really passionate about inquiry education and am so excited to bring it with me through my teacher education journey. I think it connects with me on a personal level because if I were brought up in an inquiry-based school, I believe I would have enjoyed my school years much more.

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Week Four Reflection

In this week’s class, we had a guest speaker, Jesse Miller. In both elementary and high school, Jesse visited to host sessions on internet safety and cyber-bullying. So, I am familiar with his work. Although, it was really interesting to listen to him from an educator’s point of view. He addressed photo consent, which is something I have always been curious about. I follow many teacher accounts on Instagram that post pictures of their children at work and don’t even blur out their faces or put an emoji over them but then I also follow teachers that do. I would often look at their posts and wonder how the consent works for that. What I picked up from Jesse was that it is an individual process and there really isn’t a widespread rule. Some teachers might send out forms to parents to ask for photo consent and if all agree, those children can be posted on Instagram or it could be verbal consent from parents before the pictures are posted.

I also shared my personal experience with the class of a high school teacher including a photo of me in her TED talk without my consent. I remember when I first found out about the video, I just thought to myself how it was weird that I never knew about the video and then I was in it. I didn’t think too much of it until I told my mom and she was furious. When my Mom spoke to the teacher who hosted the TED talk, she told me that I agreed to it when I allowed her to take a quick picture of me observing the bark of a tree behind our school. So, she thought that me saying yes to a quick harmless picture of working meant that she could include it in her TED talk that would be posted for anyone to view.

Looking back on this situation now as a Teacher Candidate, I realize how unethical her actions were. If anything, I think I can grow from this experience and know that I will take consent and the right surrounding technology much more seriously in my future classroom. I really appreciated Jesse coming into our class and found it really engaging.

Thanks for reading,

Lauryn

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Week Three Reflection

This week in EDCI 336, we learned about multimedia learning theory and editing images. At the beginning of class, we were asked:

ā€œPeople can learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words aloneā€ (Mayer, 2009).

I really connected with this quote as a visual learner. I think it speaks to how we as teachers need to incorporate so many different aspects into our teachings in order to invigorate the minds of our students.

We also got the chance to create our own photoshop images. I decided to tag along with this week’s trend of the Bernie Sanders at the Biden Inauguration. My meme was Bernie sitting at Pam’s desk from the tv show The Office.

I think this information will be extremely helpful when incorporating technology in my classroom.

On Instagram, I have seen many educators using their own bitmojis or creating other bitmoji people to use all around their classrooms. Here is a link to an article about using bitmojis in your class. https://www.edutopia.org/article/educators-turn-bitmoji-build-community-and-engagement.

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Week Two Reflection: OpenEd Resources

This week’s class was focused on Open Educational Resources (OER). Alongside OER comes copyright laws, which are extremely complex but important. I had some prior knowledge of copyright and properly sourcing images used on your website. In the CSC class I took, I found using my own photos was so much easier than applying the creative commons filter to google images. I am excited to learn more about easier ways to use photos on my website and how to properly cite them. To relate this type of situation to retrieving learning materials, it is extremely relieving to know that there are educational resources out there that are so accessible. Up until this week, I have only ever heard of teacherspayteachers.com. So, it’s nice to know that there are free resources for my future self to use.

Creative Commons Discussion

In class, we split into different breakout rooms to discuss resources relating to different topics surrounding open educational resources. My group researched the Creative Commons. We discovered that creative commons holds images thatĀ canĀ be copyrighted and distributed within the specific copyright laws. This means that the owners of these creative resources are allowing others (like teachers) to use their work. This is really important to me as a future educator because I now know how to find legal resources (ie. worksheets, images for presentations and lessons) to use in my classroom.

 

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Week One Reflection

As the first week of Spring classes come to an end, I am already feeling the reality of being in six courses. Although I am having a hard time keeping up with when each of my six million assignments is due, I am proud to say I have been putting my health first. Last year, like most first-year students, I put my schoolwork before my physical and mental health and really felt the negative effects of it. Every day I make it my goal to get outside for a breath of fresh air, even if it is just to stretch my legs. I found that this has really been improving my overall mood and motivation to do schoolwork.

To reflect on this EDCI 336 class, I have so far really enjoyed it. I have never been in a class that allows for so much freedom, which is really appreciated during these odd times. I am really excited about my free inquiry topic and the learning process of that. As far as the class readings/viewings go, I think the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) reading was a really important piece to read. I have a personal experience with a senior science teacher showing images of me and my work in her TED Talk without my permission. So, I understand how integral it is that we as future teachers read it. Although FIPPA is mainly focused on protecting personal online privacy, I think it still draws parallels with protecting my future students. I really enjoyed the filmĀ Most Likely To Succeed.Ā In grade nine, I remember our humanities teacher showed us a website calledĀ Will Robots Take My Job? Ā I typed my future job in (teacher) and felt pretty safe after seeing that it was “highly unlikely” that robots would be able to become teachers. Since discovering that site, I have remained interested in this epidemic that we’re facing. So, I was super intrigued by this film and how it broke down technology and education. It did an amazing job of showing the problem that not only the American school system is facing, but also the Canadian. I also made a connection to this film in its relation to my inquiry topic on inquiry-based learning. This film outlined the benefits of personalized learning. For me, the connection reiterated the fact that inquiry teaching is likely the most realistic future of our education system.