Category: EdTech Reflections

This week we had another Ed Camp. I spend most of the time in the curating information session. I learned about an application called One Note which you can apparently use to store and organize all of your notes. I would like to try this because I often have trouble staying organized. I think that when I am a teacher I will need to have a better system for organising documents. I was told that One Note is part of Office which we have access to as UVic students so I would like to try it.

We also discussed the possibility of curating all of the resources we find and make in our cohort so that everyone can use them. I like this idea a lot since I am worried about the lack of time we will have to create lesson plans and find resources. While doing my assignments for my courses in this program I have created lesson plans and unit plans. However, they all took a long time to create and I am worried about having to prepare for four classes a day, every day. I think that by sharing and curating resources we can make this at least a little bit more possible.

This week we had a guest speaker who came and spoke to us about assistive technology. I thought that this was a really great topic to discuss because it is important from a moral and legal standpoint but I did not have a lot of knowledge about it. Since so many people have some form of disability it is really important that we know how to use or refer the technology that could help them.

One type of assistive technology that I thought was really interesting was the pen you showed us in class where you highlight words and it will read it out loud. I was impressed with how well and how quickly it worked.

I also think its interesting that an iPad can be used as a piece of assistive technology. I wonder if there would be issues with other students getting jealous that only one student can use an iPad and not the others. I wonder if the student would feel like there is a lot of attention on them and possibly feel self-conscience.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the class on this day because this was the week where the class was at a different time and it was later than normal. I was going camping that weekend and so I couldn’t go to the class at 4(?) pm because we left too early. We went to Cowichan River and had a lot of fun.

This week in class we discussed the benefits and drawbacks of distance learning. We used a strategy called MAD TEA, where we stood in pairs in a circle. The pairs faced each other and discussed the questions on the board and then when the bell rang they moved to the next partner. I liked this strategy because it ensured that everyone in the class got a chance to speak their thoughts which might not have happened in a regular class discussion. Also, it would be good because students who are shy and don’t want to speak in front of the whole class can still have a chance to share their ideas. I think I would use this strategy in my classroom in the future.

I believe that there are a lot of benefits to online and distance learning, but there are a lot of drawbacks as well. In some situations, I think it has its place but I don’t think it should be the norm. For example, I think that during the pandemic it has been invaluable as a way for students to keep going to school and interacting with peers when they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. On the other hand, I don’t think that it is an adequate substitute for in-person learning and social interaction.

I think that google classroom can be a good resource for curating all of the PowerPoint and resources in a class, but I do worry a little bit about the lack of separation between school and home when school is always available on google classroom.

This week in class we did an Ed Camp. The idea of an ed camp is that all the participants suggest topics that could be discussed and then they vote on which topics will be part of that ed Camp. The different topics separate out different parts of the rooms to have conversations on the topic. Then the participants can move between the different conversations as they wish.

In our ed camp I stayed mostly in the conversation about how to incorporate nature and outside time into our classes. We talked about some of the examples where we have either been in or have taught classes that went outside. I shared that I was a TA for a biology class where we went outside to Finnerty Gardens during our plant week. I found that the students really liked going outside. They got to see the different environments that the different plants are found in, instead of just seeing them as cuttings or slides in the lab.

Some other people also shared their concerns with taking students outside such as the possibility that students would leave the class, get hurt, or not have proper clothing for different types of weather.

This week we had a guest speaker from the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. This is an inquiry based school in downtown victoria. They have about 100 students and try to integrate into the community by using the resources available in the city instead of building their own.

I like some of the ideas in this school but I do not think it should become standard. I think that it would be very beneficial for some students who might struggle in a traditional setting. However, while I think that having a very deep understanding of a few subjects is good in some aspects, its important for students to have a wider range of knowledge, even if that means the knowledge of each subject isn’t as deep.

I think that a good compromise would be to incorporate inquiry into classes some of the time while still having a bit more structure. Alternatively, you could have one class where students can do inquiry-based learning, but then the other core class would be a bit more traditional.

This week we had a class about photo editing. We learned about a few different apps to edit photos on like photoshop, but the one that I could see myself using most often in the future was PowerPoint. I had used PowerPoint for creating presentations before but it never occurred to me to use it for editing photos. I liked this idea because I’m not great with computers and was never interested in learning to use photoshop.

It was a lot easier to edit photos than I thought. I learned a few tricks that I didn’t know you could do on PowerPoint such as removing the background of a photo. I also learned that powerpoint has a gallery of 3-D images you can use.

I made a picture of a man sitting at a table. He spilt some milk and a cat is drinking it from the floor. I think I deleted the photo though. I got the images from creative commons to avoid copyright issues.

This week in class we had a visitor from the library come to give us a workshop on video creating and editing using imovie. I was excited because I had never done any video editing before because I assumed it was difficult. I was happy to find that it was actually relatively straightforward.

He began the class with a quick introduction to how we can incorporate videos, animations, and gifs into our classes. I agreed that videos can be very useful in class. In many of the classes that I took last year at UVic, the professors posted review videos or even entire lecture videos. In one of the classes that I observed last week, a biology teacher showed her class a CrashCourse video as a review at the end of the lesson. I think it was useful because the video summarised what she had said in a different way and also showed animations that shared the same information in a visual way.

After the introduction, he explained that the workshop was a flipped workshop where we would work through the activities independently. I think that this was a good method of teaching the workshop because the instructions were clear and easy to follow and I think we learned more by doing it ourselves than we would have by watching someone else do it.

I am happy that we took this workshop. Video editing was much easier than I expected. I think I will use some of the skills that we learned in this work shop when writing my free inquiry blog posts. For example, I think I will embed some of the youtube tutorials I used and I will possibly create a video where I show off my progress so far.

In class this week, we had a guest speaker come and talk to the class about privacy and internet safety. Jesse Miller of Mediated Reality gave us a lot of advice on how to talk to students about internet safety and privacy as well as how to navigate our own internet presence.

I thought what he said about network citizenship was especially interesting. I liked how he said that we should be teaching our students that while they might be able to do something (for example, take a video of someone), that does not mean that they should because they have certain responsibilities as the citizens of a network.

I also thought it was interesting what he said about how even though many people think that increased screen time has led to mental health issues in children, it is just as likely that the increase in mental illness is really just an increase in reported mental illness. We see more mental health issues now because people are more likely to get diagnosed than in the past.

I also thought it was interesting that he said that it was bad to take phones away from students. A few of my other professors have advocated for making sure that students do not use their phones during class.

While watching the introduction to the film “Most likely to succeed” which was assigned for our EDCI 336 class, I related to the narrator’s monologue. The situation that he described where someone graduates from university and is unable to get a job in their field leaving them either unemployed or underemployed is a situation that I have seen many friends experience. I was intrigued to see if he would suggest solutions to this problem during the film.

            When they started talking about the history of education and how our current system got its start because of the need for an organised group of people to be soldiers and factory workers I reflected on what our system was actually teaching children. I was a bit uncomfortable at the idea that this system was being used to create a controllable workforce because I had not seen it that way before.

            I enjoyed seeing the Socratic seminar because this was an activity that we are doing in one of our other classes in this program. It was interesting to see how the activity would work with younger students. However, it seemed like some of the students were quite shy and I wondered if this could be because the teacher seemed a bit gruff and impatient.

            I thought it was positive for the teachers to be able to teach what they were most passionate about because their enthusiasm would likely encourage students to become more interested in the topic as well. This was demonstrated by the excitement the students showed when they were starting to work on their ancient civilizations project. On the other hand, I think that there are some topics that are very important for students to know and I worry that the students wouldn’t get a well-rounded education if the teachers are able to pick and choose what they teach without aby guidelines.

            I thought it was a bit weird that they split up the class by gender to do the plays. I actually don’t have an issue with splitting up by gender in general because I’ve read that girls are more likely to succeed academically in an all-girls classroom but I thought their reasoning was weird. You don’t have to split them up just because girls weren’t allowed to act in 5^th century Athens. You can teach about historical inequalities without recreating them…

            When listening to the parent’s concerns, I found myself agreeing. I thought the math teacher talking to the mom sounded a little out of touch. While I think that there are benefits to High Tech High’s method, I think that a better option would be a combination of their project-based learning and traditional education.

            I also thought that the tone of the video was weird when they were talking to some of the students about their concerns regarding changes made in the math classroom. They asked the students a leading question about whether they wanted to get a good grade or really understand the math. The question seemed intended to put the students down for being concerned about their letter grades. My issue is that the students are still living in a system where the letter grade is important. By not recognizing this the teachers are doing their students a disservice. The students are reasonable in their concern about their grades considering this is what might get them into college. The teacher seems out of touch when he implies that grades are not important. While standardised tests might not be a true representation of learning, grades and tests are still important in the current system. The teachers seemed condescending and rude. If they want to change their student’s attitudes they need to change the entire system.