This week’s topic was super interesting! It was also relevant to my partner project, as we’re creating a digital escape room! Discussing it as a group in class would’ve been great, but we ran out of time. Although we only touched on digital escape rooms a little during this class, I found seeing an example of a digital escape room in class helpful.
It was also great to try a digital escape room out from a student’s point of view, especially using it as a tool for review, which is what my partner and I are planning on creating! Until I viewed Rich’s digital escape room, I had planned to only create an escape room on Google Forms. After viewing Rich’s escape room, I think I want to try to create a “room” component for my digital escape room on Google Slides!
This week we worked on 3D printing using Tinkercad! Following along with Rich’s tutorial made creating a keychain a lot less intimidating than it seemed at first! Rich also introduced us to Thingiverse! This website has readymade models to import into Tinkercad, which I think would be useful for implementing in a K-12 classroom!
As a future English Language Arts teacher, I think a great use of this would be to include it in a novel study, especially at a middle school level. Students could use a 3D printer to create a few artifacts that are important to a character, and then explain their significance. We had a similar component, minus the technological aspect, for a book report assignment when I was in grade six. I think incorporating 3D design and printing would be an interesting way to help them build new skills while engaging with text!
This week we had the opportunity to participate in an EdCamp! I’d never heard of EdCamps before this class, and I was really interested to see what they looked like! Instead of a typical conference where presenters give lectures, EdCamps are more participant-centred. For our EdCamp, we had a list of possible themes, and then chose between the top four topics. While we were allowed to move between groups, my group stayed the same throughout the discussion.
In my group, we talked about the use of storytelling in the classroom. As a future English Language Arts teacher, I’m obviously interested in this topic! I also wondered how colleagues with different teachable areas would approach this theme. During our discussion, we agreed that storytelling could be incorporated into all disciplines. Taking the opportunity to tell a story can make a personal connection with the students, as well as motivate them to be more engaged in class.
Giving students the opportunity to tell a story can also empower them! One link I shared with my group was for the Victoria Storytellers’ Guild. They not only provide storytellers who will speak to classes, but provide resources on how to tell a story. This could be helpful for encouraging storytelling in the classroom among students!
We had the privilege of a guest speaker coming in to talk to us last week. Jeff Hopkins is a former school superintendent and the founder of the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. We took a (virtual) tour of PSII, and then had a question and answers section with Jeff Hopkins. Students at PSII learn through inquiry projects as opposed to traditional methods, which affords students more choice than in a typical classroom. Another interesting aspect of PSII’s model is that students are not given percentages or letter grades, but are assessed based on a model that the school created.
Inquiry based projects give students the opportunity to customize their learning. By being given the power to choose, students feel empowered, take risks, and learn to take responsibility for themselves. Students are also more engaged, due to being able to choose subject matter that interests them! One thing that gives me pause, though, is that learning is completely based on inquiry projects. Many of our education courses have stressed the importance of giving different kinds of assignments and instruction, to both engage students as well as support the different ways students learn. I wonder if only having students learn using inquiry projects can hurt them in some way.
Jeff Hopkins mentioned during our question and answers session that many of his former students would share their university experience with him, and they felt that university was boring. Learning via inquiry projects became the norm for them, and deviating from that left them not feeling challenged in their courses. While this could show how well they’re prepared for university, as many students struggle to acclimatize to university, this does not ensure they’re prepared for success. Boredom in the classroom can translate into apathy towards what they’re studying, as well as low marks. For many students, academic performance determines whether or not they receive scholarships or the ability to participate in work study. This leads us to the question: is there too much of a good thing?
Inquiry based projects give students the opportunity to customize their learning. By being given the power to choose, students feel empowered, take risks, and learn to take responsibility for themselves. Students are also more engaged, due to being able to choose subject matter that interests them! One thing that gives me pause, though, is that learning is completely based on inquiry projects. Many of our education courses have stressed the importance of giving different kinds of assignments and instruction, to both engage students as well as support the different ways students learn. I wonder if only having students learn using inquiry projects can hurt them in some way.
Jeff Hopkins mentioned during our question and answers session that many of his former students would share their university experience with him, and they felt that university was boring. Learning via inquiry projects became the norm for them, and deviating from that left them not feeling challenged in their courses. While this could show how well they’re prepared for university, as many students struggle to acclimatize to university, this does not ensure they’re prepared for success. Boredom in the classroom can translate into apathy towards what they’re studying, as well as low marks. For many students, academic performance determines whether or not they receive scholarships or the ability to participate in work study. This leads us to the question: is there too much of a good thing?
This week we learned about using Screencastify and incorporating h5p into videos to create interactive quizzes. We also completed a video editing worship or audio workshop, depending on whether or not we felt comfortable video editing. A few of us previously attended this workshop to create introduction videos for one of our other courses and found it really helpful! I wasn’t happy with what I created after this workshop, so I’ve attached what I made in the first one!
As a future English Language Arts teacher, I think it would be interesting to see what students could do for novel review using video editing or h5p.
Rather than checking students’ comprehension of a section of a novel by using a quiz or test, we could encourage them to use technology! Students could demonstrate their knowledge by creating a vlog as a character in the novel, describing what has been happening in their life so far. To incorporate h5p, students could select quiz questions about what they’ve said.
Thanks to dole777 for sharing their work on Unsplash!
We learned about our digital footprints this week! Our class found it really interesting; the speaker who came definitely had a long Q&A section. After our homework and Jesse Miller’s talk with us, I think all of us will have decided to incorporate discussions on digital footprints with our future students.
Whether we like it or not, employers often do search up job candidates online, and students should be aware of this. Common Sense Media has digital literacy lesson plans which are divided by grade level. Media Smarts also has lesson plans, as well as digital literacy standards by province/ territory.
As important as it is to warn learners about the potential consequences of what they’re posting online, it’s also important to remind them how it can benefit them. A LinkedIn profile that shows their achievements and their volunteerism would be beneficial for scholarships and job applications. Artistic students might find use in creating a digital portfolio to showcase their artwork. Teaching students about digital literacy can also focus on the positives of a digital footprint!
Our current public education model was modelled after factories, but our aim is no longer to create a factory worker. Instead, we want to create global citizens who think compassionately, creatively, and critically. Shouldn’t our education system reflect this? In 2016, British Columbia’s Ministry of Education moved towards this by implementing a new curriculum aimed to “modernize education.” Although it is not perfect, it is a positive step forward. British Columbia is nottheonlyprovince that believes there needs to be some kind of reform to the curriculum.
While everyone has different ideas of what reimagining education would look like, even when education is reimagined, such as in British Columbia’s case with the implementation of a new curriculum, what we imagine is not always put in place. We can focus on personalizing education and integrating project based learning in the curriculum, but does that make a difference if teachers do not integrate these ideas into their classes? Education does not only need to be reimagined on a systemic level, but teachers are responsible for this in their classrooms every day. I think it’s important for us to remember this when we consider our future classrooms. We want our students to know we respect them and that we see them as people, not empty knowledge receptacles. We need to show them that by respecting their voice and listening to it, especially when it comes to their educational goals.
NOTE: This reflection was written during week one, however, it was not posted now due to technical difficulties.
Hi! Welcome to my blog! This will be the first in a series of weekly reflections that discuss some of the technologies and pedagogies covered in EDCI 336!
We‘ve just started, so I will be reflecting on what I hope to learn in this class.
Rather than set a goal of learning how to use a specific tool, my goal is to evaluate the technologies we are exposed to in class, how they can be accessible or inaccessible to different learners, and how I can possibly integrate these tools in an English Language Arts classroom. For me, setting a goal like “learn how to make video projects in iMovie” would not be an effective goal for me because it seems incomplete. I wouldn’t feel a sense of achievement, instead I would be wondering: what next? How will I integrate this into a classroom? What will I do with this? In this scenario, a more appropriate goal for myself would be to consider how iMovie could or could not be used (considering disabilities, student interest, and whether the school had devices that run on Mac OS), and to come up with a classroom activity students could complete.
