Category: Weekly Reflections

Today in class, we went outside to scan QR codes at Finnerty Gardens, which showed us videos about its history. It was a lovely time, and I had so much fun! Getting to see the ducks was a highlight for sure, and it was so much easier to be engaged in learning when you could run between places! I can’t imagine how wonderful it would be to implement these teaching strategies into Elementary classrooms, especially for students who have trouble sitting still. (Which might be most students, actually).

Kirsten Pierce was our guest speaker, who talked about technology and the outdoors. I found it interesting when she emphasized;

“Children, when watching and learning about things very far away, they get a very glorified (and valid) appreciation of those animals. But it’s important that they develop an appreciation for the animals around them and a sense of place.”

Here are some photos I took during the walk!

Kaori Lau and Niesha Blajberg from the BCEAccess Society came to visit class, discussing how we can use technology to be inclusive in the classroom. The BCEdAccess Society is a volunteer organization which serves families of students with disabilities and complex learners.

some tech resources for supporting students include:

• Text to speech
• Microphone
• Translators
• Subtitles
• Eye Gaze Systems
• Audio recorders

Some common challenges that may arise with trying to implement this inclusive technology into classrooms include a potential lack of access (whether that be from the school’s lack of funding, or families not having devices or reliable internet), a lack of support, resistance to change, privacy and data security concerns, and finally technology as a distraction.

Advocate for funding, loaner programs, and grants. Try to include assistive tech in Individual Education Programs. Ensure compliance with privacy laws, and normalize assistive tech and make it accessible for all people. Write assistive cell phone use into IEPs for clarity.

We still have a lot of racist and ableist resources in the school curriculum, which are often brought to attention by students and parents. If something is brought to your attention for being discriminatory, try not to be defensive! We learn from our mistakes.

Assuming the goal is to be independent of the use of technology

An initiative started by BCEdAccess in 2018 shows students with designations are being excluded from school and don’t have equitable access to an education.

I found this talk to be very informative, especially as I don’t have too much experience helping students with learning disabilities. I did find that when helping one student with dyslexia, text to speech was very effective however!

Things you can use an AI for:

AI can be used in the classroom by creating an alphabet out of something on labs.google “GENTYPE”

Making lesson plans, writing emails, saving time in general.

What do we currently know about AI?

There are “AI-detecting tools” or websites, which we will have to be accustomed to as students cheat assignments using AI. However, these often aren’t accurate, so you will often have to trust students.

Document Revision history: super important for identifying AI! available on Docs and Word. Perhaps it’ll be integrated into more as it becomes a wider issue.

We’ve had AI before, however they were mostly predictive (machine learning). What’s new is a focus on generative AI, with chatbots and artificial image generators.

AI (chatGPT) uses as much energy in a day that it would take to power the empire State Building for 270 days

Everyone in Belgium could flush the toilet to use the same amount of water from ChatGPT in a day. and estimated 10.58 million gallons of water each day

Ai has bias! Most data it is trained on is western data, so there is some reinforcement of stereotypes. However, Google’s efforts to include more diverse people represented in images resulted in historical images not being accurate either. Oops!

What about learning?

The space between asking a question and finding information can be a space for learning for students

Celebrate human creation:

Develop and cultivate skills that AI can’t do-emphasize the importance of your unique voice, and the value of personal attribution. I think with creative jobs and opportunities being taken by generative AI, as teachers we will have to work harder to make sure students can take pride in their work and see the value of their own creative visions. By emphasizing the story and personal history behind a story, song, or visual media, we can help cultivate an appreciation for human expression that isn’t seen within generative AI.

In this class, we discussed how as teachers we can be curators (similar to a gallery or a museum curator) but for digital media to use in the classroom.

Some resources to help curate digital media include:

• notion
• onenote
• goodnotes
• wordpress

Have some sort of intentionally when curating media- think of it like a “love letter to yourself!” Start early, so that you will be prepared in the future.

In class, we also partook in what was referred to as an “Ed camp,” in which the education and topics of discussion were curated by the class itself. In this activity, we were handed sticky notes, and then asked to write a topic of discussion we found interesting. Afterwards, we’d stick our notes on the wall, and vote with stickers for which we were most interested in discussing. The groups with the largest numbers of votes split off into discussion groups, where we would educate and learn from each other on the subject.

I found I really liked this strategy! I think by giving students some choice regarding what they’re learning they’re naturally going to be more participatory and engaged. One thing I could see going potentially wrong could be having students get distracted, especially if in a group with their friends. I think having a worksheet or something where they write out what they learnt in the discussion could go a long way in that regard.

Throughout school, I’ve learn lots from videos and was genuinely supported meaningfully through songs, dances, and other interactive videos, like quizzes.

Some video resources that helped me through Elementary:

-Bill Nye the Science guy

-PHE running activity videos, students love them!!

-Math Antics my goat

-Khan Academy

-Math songs, French songs

In order to teach in a way that’s fully accessible for all students, try to make sure you’re using captions! Youtube has an auto-captions feature, but you can also add your own captions if you’re making a video yourself.

The videos used for education follow this cycle:

Video you create to help learners – Video sourced online created by others to support teaching and learning – Video students create to demonstrate learning

Making videos

When making videos, try to keep them as short as possible for attention spans! Enthusiasm and energy are key!

Storytelling and humour can help keep videos entertaining. Also try to make videos reusable, so don’t be too specific about who you’re addressing in a classroom.

Embedding videos into websites is a good way to keep students focused as well, if you’re nervous about letting your students browse Youtube.

Guest Speaker- Introduction to Video Editing with iMovie or ClipChamp

Video use cases: Interviews, Athletic Events, Research, Assignments, Promotional materials

Videography tips: Beware of wind, test audio on location. (use an external mic or audio recorder)

Using graphics helps us understand far more than we would with just text. As teachers, implementing graphics into our lessons can further student understanding, as well as making classes more fun! (E.g, the bicycle example)

when making infographics for teaching, it’s important to keep these things in mind:

• colour coordination (having sections labeled with colours is an easy way for students to recognize and group things together)
• labels (when learning new things, having parts of a graphic labeled go a long way, and it’s important to avoid assuming students are already well versed in what a lesson is on)
• hiding info with slides/ppt (this is a fun way to quiz students! Some teachers make games of “Jeopardy” using PowerPoint, and by obstructing information, students may be more intrigued and engaged by the lesson)

Options for graphic creation

• Canva
• Gimp
• Ibis paint my GOAT
• photoshop (photo pea)
• Krita

Powerpoint is widely available at most schools! Try not make your students sign up for new services due to security concerns. PowerPoint has many wonderful features, like “Smart art,” which makes easy diagrams. Students learning about using hyperlinks in PowerPoint can also make their own “choose your own adventure” stories, which can be an exciting way for students to exercise creative thinking.

Last Tech class, Jesse Miller came in and talked about how we can use technology responsibly as educators.

How to Use Social Media:

as teachers, we have a responsibility to protect our students by not posting them on the internet. Miller shared many stories and examples on teachers failing to consider internet safety when using social media, like the teacher who had a photo of her class on her Tinder profile or the teacher who had their students use Instagram for an assignment. As teachers, we should try to keep social media free of our students and be aware of our digital footprint.

AI:

as teachers, we also have to prepare students for the technological future. According to Miller, we can integrate AI with the 4 C’s of digital literacy critical thinking.

• content: evaluating ai-generated content
• creativity: the act using ai to generate and refine ideas- learning tool
• communication: practice effective interaction with AI
• collaboration; group activities exploring AI use

School Expectations:

We should be aware of the school’s (the employers) expectations and policies surrounding technology, specifically…

• how we interact with the public/parents on social media
• how staff use social media
• how students are to use social media for school