Mary L's Teacher Ed Portfolio

Category: EdTech (Page 1 of 2)

Group Presentation Round-Up: VR, cell phones, and more

November 26, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Digital Storytelling

Photo by Howard Lawrence B on Unsplash

Meg shared benefits of creating and sharing stories digitally, including relevance to students and the fact that digital content may last longer and be easier for students to share. When she asked us about the usefulness in our subject areas, I reflected that it could be a good option for students in Art with disabilities around fine motor skills.

She focused on digital storytelling options for poetry that I would like to keep in mind for English Language Arts. They look fantastic.

Digital poetry ideas:

Virtual Reality

Photo by Giu Vicente on Unsplash

Jake showed us what’s coming up from Google Earth virtual reality – increasingly high quality visualizations of places we might want to explore on the planet. He explained a couple of headset options (headsets being required), and acknowledged that our likeliness of using this feature with students rests with the resources in our particular high school.

David focused on language learning with virtual reality. He shared that research and application is taking off in Asia, including in high schools in places like Hong Kong. My favourite part was his personal experience of having a classroom of students in Japan build a world though Second Life with another high school cohort in another country – all in the medium of the English language. Based on how much fun I had playing Minecraft, I can imagine that being really engaging as a learner.

Eric focused on the why of virtual reality – the fact that we are truly convinced by it, so that we react physiologically, become incredibly present, and change our attitudes. These effects can be mobilized in lots of neat ways, including developing empathy for vulnerable or marginalized populations. Eric notes the benefits also to people with mobility issues.

Cell phone bans in the classroom

Photo by Oleg Magni on Unsplash

The “ban them” argument, by Graham

  • “Bans bring results” – One study in the UK shows test scores increase with bans
  • “Presence is a menace” – One study showed some loss of cognitive capacity when university students had cell phones just present on a desk or in a big

The “let there be phones” argument, by Sasha

  • Accessibility – for students with autism, for English language learners, for students with reading impairments, and more.
  • Broad student engagement – students already use phones for self-expression, collaboration, and joy; teachers can use this authentic, existing engagement to bridge to class work.
  • Situated practice – classrooms are places to practice and exemplify best practices around phone use. If we don’t take this on, we are missing an opportunity.
  • Bonus: they can be used for “audience response models” such as Kahoot, which research shows can make class more fun and engaging.

Geoff wrapped up by sharing observations and teacher attitudes from Belmont, where there is an ostensible cell phone ban. He also asked us for our own reflections.

My own reflection: I hope we can earn students’ attention. If what I am doing is meaningful and relevant for students, then I would expect their attention, except for the same level of distraction I experience myself. And I would hope to have real conversations about cellphone addiction and our options for practicing self-efficacy around choosing our engagement.

Making safer spaces for students online

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Nat led a presentation on creating safer spaces. I think the most interesting part was the discussion at the end, which turned toward the question of when we create community rules/guidelines. There was general consensus that we need to build rapport with and among the students before opening up that activity, which involves values and vulnerability. I would also note to myself to consider using an anonymous (at least to other students), digitized portion in the creation of those guidelines, to capture the voices of people who might not feel comfortable speaking up.

Podcasts in the Classroom Presentation

November 26, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Siddharth Bhogra on Unsplash

Presentation day

It was nice to bring together our ideas for a short classroom presentation last week. What had we learned about podcasts in the classroom? I focused on the social aspects of podcasts – the fact that we share them with friends and acquaintances based on our own experiences.  We reviewed some ways to use podcasts in the classroom.

Purposes for podcasts in teaching

  1. Connect with students
  2. Share content
  3. Create our own podcasts
  4. Focus on oral storytelling form
  5. Develop ourselves professionally as teachers

Co-Creation

We used our presentation to have the class participate in two activities:

Compilation of favourite podcasts

Screenshot of the Google Doc where classmates listed their favourite podcasts and reasons they like them.

Compilation of podcasts series or activity ideas using podcasts, by subject area

Reflections on the inquiry

As I mentioned, a major realization is that people like to share podcasts in a socialized way. Relatedly, we enjoy sharing what we love (or like, or are curious about). Dave wrote a blog post after our presentation about the realization that we could use podcasts to connect with students. I’m glad that that idea came home (which we modelled with the first activity above). In Multiliteracies, we have recently been focusing on the importance of knowing our students in order to be able to assess them (or work with them in any meaningful way). In my first year of teaching, if I use podcasts in only one way, I hope I choose this one – as a way to know my students better.

Games in the classroom & some happy memories

November 19, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Screenshot from https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/bonsai-biomes

Intro to Minecraft

Two weeks ago, students from Colquitz Middle School helped our cohort explore the world of Minecraft, a new world for most of us. A friend recently described it as “legos, but digital”, and I think that captures the aesthetic. My favourite times playing were when everyone shouted out to each other, to ask questions, or joke with each other, or to express our excitement or alarm about something happening. The room had never been so happily noisy. The experience made me think about my own experience with games.

I actually love games

Although I don’t think of myself as a gamer, I have actually loved video and computer games. During my undergrad, I fell hard for the Sims, and spent blissful early mornings playing, before I had to walk to class. With my brothers, I played Age of Empires on the family desktop, and of course the classic console games of Mario Kart and Duck Hunt. My dad bought me King’s Quest, which I adored, and together we explored the world of Myst.  I remember going to friends’ houses to play computer games that I now can’t remember… there was one where you landed planes on different coloured runways in space.

Benefits to games

Weeks ago, I watched this TED talk by Jane McGonigal – The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life.

She describes a specific mental health app called Super Better, but she also talks about the incredible benefits of games, and in particular their unique abilities to light us up with happiness – the very thing I felt in our class when we played Minecraft together.

Games in the Classroom

I don’t plan to make Minecraft a part of my classrooms right now – the required infrastructure alone is more than I am willing to take on. But I am definitely intrigued to include games in some form in my classroom. Again, I am sent down memory lane, now recalling my own positive experiences with games.

In fourth grade, my teacher Mr. Chin incorporated games in a way that he truly seemed to enjoy, and it was infectious. We played  the classic game Frogger on bulky computers (during breaks? as a reward? I can’t remember), laughing at each other’s efforts to cross the river. We also played Oregon Trail, using one computer. Mr. Chin created teams in which each member was given a specific role. As a team, we had to roll the dice and make decisions to survive. Would we use our money to buy a space wagon wheel, or to stock up on medicine? Again, the effect was noisy, happy, collaborative fun. We were valued both for our individual contributions, and for our ability to make decisions as a team.

As an English language teacher, I definitely saw the class energy zoom up when we played games of any kind, and people’s concerns about being wrong go down.

Going forward, I would like to look for opportunities to insert games, or to gamify activities.

Working with images

November 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Playing around with digital images

In class we reviewed a couple of things. First of all:

  • Pixel-based software vs. vector-based software

My main takeaway was that pixel-based software means that you may end up with big, grainy pixels, whereas with vector-based software, images can be expanded without that side effect. *This knowledge came in handy, as I’ll explain in a minute.

Second, we looked at some

  • Recommendations for accessible image editing software
    • Pixlr (use online through an app)
    • GIMP (free and open-software)
    • Prisma
    • Mirror App
    • And…. PowerPoint! / Google Slides

Google Slides experimentation

I have to admit that I am a bit slow on the technology uptake. Rather, I won’t learn something until I need to. Playing around with possibilities just for the sake of it doesn’t appeal to me. Since I already use Google Slides a lot, and I know that students do, too, I figured I would play around with Google Slides for image editing, much thanks to Michael’s demonstration and own enthusiasm for this hack.

Here are some screenshots of Google Slides that I put together and edited, also using the Explore tool (the tool in the bottom right, which handily offers slide compositions).

I wanted to use Google Slides to make a website header image for this blog.

It took several attempts and playing around to land on this (which may or may not stay as the header image):

Trickiness explained:

  • You can download individual slides as JPEGs or PNGs, but these, when uploaded, get grainy (pixel-based! boo)
  • You can download individual slides as Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) (vector-based!), but you can’t upload those to WordPress (boo)
  • In the end, I downloaded the slide as an .svg, opened it, took a screenshot, and uploaded that screenshot
  • The result is a little grainy, but not as grainy as the original JPEG or PNG
  • Is this the best approach? Probably not, but it does work.

Review of 3 Podcasts on Teaching & Learning

November 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I wanted to take the time to review the collection of Podcasts on Teaching and Learning posted on our course website. In my experience with podcasts, I only listen to new ones based on references from friends and acquaintances. Since I haven’t gotten podcast references from teachers yet, I have to go outside my habits and look for something new. Here we go! Read on for my hot takes on three teaching and learning podcasts:

10 Minute Teacher Podcast

https://www.coolcatteacher.com/podcast/

Pros: Topics range all K-12 subjects, though there’s a tilt towards tech and innovation. A new 10-minute podcast goes up every day Monday-Friday, so the ideas are definitely current. The episodes are stand-alone, so you can skip or choose depending on interest.

Cons: American focus. Host Vicky Davis has a strong southern accent – it might grate on some people.

K-12 Greatest Hits

http://www.bamradionetwork.com/k-12-greatest-hits/

Pros: Curated content. New episodes every 2 weeks, so not so overwhelming. Issues are quite contemporary, e.g. the most current today is “Knowing when to say yes and when to say no to education technology.”

Cons: Again, American focus.

The Five Moore Minutes’ Podcast

https://fivemooreminutes.podbean.com

Pros: Shelley Moore is a British Columbian local celebrity, so yay for local content, with a focus on inclusive education! She keeps it quite real on the podcast. If nothing else, the podcast might prompt you to keep exploring the resources on her excellent blog.

Cons: It is a chatty podcast, so you have to settle in to enjoy.

Reflection

Podcasts are so social! It’s weird to listen to a podcast without someone recommending it. I don’t really know what I’m listening for. I don’t have a sense of faith that I will “get into it”. I feel like it’s unlikely people will listen to these just because I reviewed them. This blog post has really just reinforced for me the importance of having a “professional learning network” or a “community of practice” –  a bunch of professionals interested in the same things – to access new resources and ideas.

Edcamp in the classroom

October 29, 2019 / / 0 Comments

What is Edcamp?

Based on my understand, Edcamp is both an organization based in the States, and an approach. The idea is that users/attendees/participants can flesh out a conference, rather than receive teachings from experts or consultants.

I think it’s interesting to note that (according to the map on the website, anyway) there are official Edcamps in Tunisia, Bahrain, and Armenia, and of course a ton in the States, but only a couple in Canada – in the grand cities of Winnipeg and Quebec City.

Map of Edtech conferences coming up. Screenshot from https://www.edcamp.org/

Experiential learning in class

We demo’d this in class today.

What went well:

  • Talked to people I don’t usually talk to
  • Got to discuss an idea (potential benefits of hands-on activities for students to keep their hands busy while they listen in class) in a casual, but valuable way
  • Was nice not to feel overly managed by a teacher

What I would do differently:

  • Let people “pitch” their workshops to make the subject more clear

Could you do this in a high school classroom?

Yes!

Make your own Edtech conference

Here are the steps for making your own Edtech conference happen in a classroom (with some elaboration from my own facilitation brain):

  1. Introduce the concept. Explain scope, timing, expectations, how this will go.
  2. Invite ideas for workshops. Have folks write ideas on large stickies or bright coloured pieces of paper. These should be workshops that people can either lead or start a conversation around. *This might be good to let people think about in advance.
  3. Sort ideas into time blocks. Will you have two workshops per time block? Three? Four?
  4. Let folks “pitch” their workshops. This way, attendees will know what to expect.
  5. Go! People facilitate and attend workshops according to the schedule.

Optional add-ons:

  • Include a requirement for when the group comes back. e.g. 3 main takeaways, a sentence that summarizes the conversation, a new question, etc.

Pacific School of Innovation & Inquiry: Wow

October 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Orest Yaremchuk on Unsplash

Converted

‘Skeptical’ described me best, before I started to research the Pacific School of Innovation & Inquiry. Was this just a fad school? My conversion began, though, when I researched a couple of things at the school: the inquiry process flowchart, and the Google calendar of daily classes. I would want to go to school there! The classes looked truly interesting. And to attend them for curiousity and to support my own research, rather than for a mark? Amazing. Then we got to visit the school itself, which confirmed that the school is on to something.

Fast facts

  • “Learners”, not “students”
  • 95 students, approximately
  • 7 full-time teachers
  • Learners pay about $7,000 a year
  • The school is independent, but still falls within the BC system, so it does get audited, and the teachers have to convert the learners’ work into standard course grades.
  • Learners use Trello to manage work
  • The school has its own digital portfolio system

What really stood out

  • Learners are liberated. One of the learners, a ninth grader, happened to wander into the room while Jeff Hopkins, the founder and principal, was introducing us to the school. She talked about her former school being like a “cage”. She said that even on a bad day, she learns more here than on a good day in public school. She talked about the excitement of learning from her peers. I think she did a better job of selling the school than any adult could have. It really made me think about the harm that traditional education can do to people. There’s a lot of constraint creating pressure. It’s quite a leap of imagination to consider scrapping it and creating something new, like PSII, but… hey, the current educational model is a made-up social construct, to begin with.
  • Teachers are liberated, too. Instead of spending most time on class prep, “classroom management”, and marking the same work by multiple students, teachers get to support unique inquiry projects. As Jeff said, there is still a lot of work, but it’s very different work. To me, it looks like teachers get to focus on being continual learners, and connectors.
  • Jeff Hopkins is enthusiastic. This isn’t a joke or a dig. He has a quality that reminds me of en entrepreneur or an NGO founder – a real excitement that fuels ongoing work. Sadly, I don’t see this very often with teachers. I see people who are content, or good-intentioned, but also often downtrodden, tired, lacklustre… focused on the constraints of their jobs. It’s refreshing seeing someone bring so much enthusiasm to the field of education.

There is more I could talk about – like the entrepreneurial qualities that seem to be developing in the learners, too – but I want to end with a reflection on a good question that a peer asked of Jeff: considering that most of us will end up in the standard public system, with time blocks and similar constraints, what can we do to advance this approach, recognizing that it does seem to be better? Basically: weave in inquiry and innovation where we can; advocate for a shift (as Jeff says, he wants to go out of business by having all BC schools pick up this approach); and hey, maybe tap him for help in creating a new school like this. He did say they were at capacity, and looking to support new versions. Maybe a forward-looking town somewhere in British Columbia…? 🙂

Jesse Miller on online identity & responsibility: 4 takeaways

October 15, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Josh Rose on Unsplash

Last week Jesse Miller of Mediated Reality gave a guest lecture on online identity and responsibility. The talk generated discussion among our cohort later, including critiques and pushback. Here, however, are my takeaways – things that resonated with me.

  1. Kids don’t check their phones while playing soccer. This was an anecdote at the beginning of the talk. My takeaway is that when we are really engaged in in-person, offline activities, then yes, we don’t have the urge to check our phones. In small classes with authentic conversations, presentations, or activities, yes, I feel the same. For example, in my teaching art class of 10 people, I never check my phone during class. But what about big classes? It’s hard to engage a huge group.
  2. Classrooms are an ideal place to engage with questions about online activity. This ties into another takeaway, that expectations and boundaries can empower students. I think we all want to know what is expected of us, and what we can expect from others. Choosing norms and culture around phones and social media, for example, can help support the social “container” of the classroom.
  3. Engagement and entertainment are very different. If students are going online to entertain themselves, especially during our classes, something is missing. If students are going online with intention, to use tools, communicate, share, research, etc., then they are developing themselves. I can feel that difference myself. Entertainment can feel good, but not all the time.
  4. Understand school expectations to avoid being broadsided. This is an ongoing lesson that is coming up in multiple classes – err on the side of clarity. Find out what your district, school, and fellow teachers expect in terms of online behaviour, communication, and communication with parents, and ask for permission from admin and parents when doing new things. This will mean that as teachers we can avoid being broadsided by an unexpected reaction.

Reasons to be… into podcasts

October 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Ed Miliband, British MP and co-host of the podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful

“Guardian of the interests of future generations”

I was biking to campus one morning this week, listening to the podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful, and I got a little teary. The episode was about future generations being represented in governmental decisions, and the challenges of short-term planning due to electoral cycles versus the long-term planning that society really needs. Anyway, I learned that Wales has a Commissioner position for just this. There is actually a person charged with being the “guardian of the interests of future generations,” as she described it. Her job is to question decisions, including budget decisions, based on long-term costs and benefits. A recent highway build was canceled, due to her intervention. Just knowing that this position exists made me tear up. It’s so obvious (as many Indigenous people might remind me), and yet obvious does not always make it into reality.

The connection to podcasts: unplanned encounters

I also thought, as I got off the bike, about this magic of podcasts – that they can introduce us to things we would never even know to look for. I only listen to the podcast because a British acquaintance recommended it. I didn’t know anything about the hosts, one of whom is Ed Miliband. Turns out he is the former leader of the UK Labour Party. I love that even as an MP now, he makes times to do a weekly podcast, in which he and Geoff Lloyds “talk to smart thinkers from around the world”. So cool.

An author on democracy wrote that for society to support a real democracy, there need to be: 1) unplanned encounters and 2) common experiences. If I remember correctly, he meant both unplanned encounters between people, like “Hey, neighbour!” or “Hey, fellow human who is joining me in public space and willing to connect on something!”, and unplanned encounters between people and information, i.e. learning about things you didn’t go looking for. Otherwise we end up in the death spirals of echo chambers, basically.

In short, I like that podcasts introduce me to things I would never even know to go looking for, by kind of easing me in with a familiar format and host, and providing enough context and depth that I can actually integrate the new thing.

p.s. Ed Miliband seems like a really nice guy, so I don’t think he would mind me using that photo of him. I got it through searching on Google with the “advanced settings” set to filter shareable content only. Here are a bunch more awkward photos from the same source.

Collaboration in learning technology

October 2, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Photo by NESA by Makers on Unsplash

What else can we be practising while we are practising hard skills?

Today in class we learned and practised some technology programs with Rich McCue, an excellent teacher and fellow dog-lover.

Specifically, we worked with:

Technically, everything went fine. I have used iMovie for projects, but I learned a few things, including how to edit green screen video clips. Screencastify I will likely use. Audacity I will keep in my back pocket if for some reason I can’t use GarageBand.

I wonder, though, about the usefulness of straight technology learning, at least if it isn’t paired with something else. Because in some ways, even the ability to use these programs is a bit like “content” in curriculum – it’s something I can Google. Indeed, whenever I run into a technical problem or question, I Google my question and find YouTube videos, instructions, or message boards with the solutions.

Communication, collaboration, collegiality

The teacher/facilitator in me can’t help but wonder what it would look like to do the same thing, but with learning support groups assigned at the beginning. i.e. Here are 2-3 people that you should ask questions to as you go, and with whom you will share your mini products. Maybe add a goal of making your group laugh?

People already started doing this this, but informally, randomly, probably distracting some people and making others feel left out.

I think that the teacher competencies, which are not so different than the core competencies we are meant to develop in students, are better served with some emphasis on those multi-syllabic c-words… community, communication, collaboration, collegiality.

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