EDCI 336 Online Portfolio
Lauryn, Judy and I met with our pod (pod #8, Kathryn and Zoe) on the 1st of April and presented our ‘Engaging Technology Platforms to Use in the Classroom’ topic. Below is the link to our presentation, as well as a link to the Pairs and Pods Sign-Up sheet.
Engaging technology platforms to use in the classroom presentation
It’s coming to the end of this free inquiry but that doesn’t mean Daisy is going to stop learning! From this experience Daisy has learnt her name, how to sit, lie down, leave it, up and with difficulty Daisy has kind of learnt how to spin. For myself, I have learnt the basics of how to train a puppy and while it does not have much to do with elementary education it definitely did better my patience. Soon, Daisy is going to join a discipline training program which is going to be a great experience for Daisy as she well get to meet more dogs and people. Hopefully through the training program I will also be able to have a stronger understanding of the best way to support Daisy in her training. One of the things that I hope to have help with is teaching Daisy not to eat things off of the counter, recently Daisy nabbed a daffodil from one of the flower vases and unfortunately became quite sick for a day.
Daisy and I say thank you for this opportunity and Happy Easter!
This week we learnt about coding, during the class we split out into breakout rooms and I had the opportunity to work with Scratch! “Scratch is a block-based visual programming language and website” (Maloney, J., et al, 2010) that is aimed for students ages eight to sixteen. Users of the site can create projects on the web using a block-like interface. Initially, I had quite a bit of difficulty with the program but I found it very fun and interesting to experiment and try to create animations. If I were to use this program in my future classroom I would definitely need to have a stronger understanding of the program, which I would achieve through fiddling with program and watching tutorial videos like the one below.
Kahoot, is an educational platform learning game that allows students to showcase what they have learned. It is a fun competitive game between the whole class on material they have learnt or are currently learning. Questions are either answered through multiple choice or true and false. The goal of this game it to be the fastest one to answer the correct question.
Kahoot, is a great way for students to engage with the material they are learning about in the classroom because it makes them have fun with what they are participating in. It is a nice way for students to not feel insecure about the answer they are choosing because their answers are anonymous – only they know. This game also allows students to interact with each other and the teacher; creating engaging and educational class discussions.
Kahoot, is beneficial for teachers because it gives them a good understanding with what material students understand or what needs to be discussed more in class. It also gives teachers the freedom of making the quizzes how short or long they would like. This game also encourages for class discussion between peers and teacher after each question and it makes for a fun experience throughout the whole classroom environment. A bonus is that this technology learning game is free and easy to use.
There are also some issues that teachers need to be aware of when playing this game in the classroom.
What is it?
Kidblog is a safe and secure platform for students to publish their writing, audio recordings, or video projects. Teachers can also use this platform to connect their students’ learning with their parents. Additionally, it can be used as a class blog to send out announcements about classroom updates and happenings. Although the platform is geared toward children, teachers, teacher librarians, or school administrators must moderate it.
Why use it?
Benefits of blogging for children:
Getting started with blogging at a younger age also lays the foundation for safe internet use.
How to Use it in Your Future Classroom
Here are a few ideas that I found from reviews that elementary teachers left about Kidblog:
Edmodo is a free online learning management website that was made in September 2008 by Nic Borg, Jeff O’Hara and Crystal Hutter. The platform is aimed for kindergarten to grade 12 teachers to use in means of communication, collaboration, and teaching of lessons with their students. In terms of communication, Edmodo provides students with a safe space to academically communicate with their peers and ask their teacher questions, through use of Edmodo parents are able to make an account and quickly ask their childs teacher questions. In regards to collaboration, Edmodo provides students with the opportunity to collaborate and work together on academic projects/assignments with their peers. The educational platform also allows the opportunity for teachers to collaborate with their colleagues, which can be beneficial in creating cross-curricular lessons. In relation to the teaching of lessons through Edmodo teachers can add their lesson slides and classroom content to the website so that students/parents have access to the material outside of class time. Despite Edmodo’s inclusivity for students and parents it is a teacher-centric platform when it comes to its layout, philosophy and how you can only access the site once invited by a teacher.
In this weeks class we talked about distributed learning. From my understanding distributed learning is what the majority of Canadian university students are doing right now, i.e. doing school online and from home. In breakout rooms during class we discussed the positives and negative of online schooling, I will attach a screenshot below. For me, online learning has its ups and downs – I get to spend more time with my pets, wear sweatpants, eat during class, and I don’t have to commute to UVic. But there are still quite a few negatives that sour my online experience – same place/same thing everyday, teachers/classes that can’t adapt to online learning, and no time for relaxation. While the previously mentioned are my personal feelings towards online schooling it was good to hear that my peers were having similar experiences.
Daisy is almost back to her normal self! She’s still pretty floppy and sleepy but she has definitely perked back up. This week my plan was to teach Daisy how to spin but due to her floppiness (and laziness) it has not been going as well as expected. I am not following any instructions for the trick ‘spin’ and I am instead attempting to figure it out by myself. I have been using treats and encouraging Daisy to follow it with her nose while I move the treat in a circular motion above her. Once Daisy completes the spin I tell her that she is a good girl and give her the treat as a reward. I believe that this will work when Daisy is more motivated but as of right now Daisy is simply sitting down and following the treat with her head/eyes. If my method does not work I hope to find a helpful video by Zak George, who has published the majority of the dog training videos I have used. To recap Daisy has mastered ‘sit’ and ‘lie down’ but still needs some additional work on ‘up’ and ‘leave it’, while there are still many tricks to work on I believe that Daisy is doing very well for being only four months old!
This week we had the chance to listen to and talk with Tracy Humphreys. Mrs. Humphreys is the founder and chair of BCEdAccess, which is a volunteer-run organization that helps students with disabilities and their families. I found this discussion to be extremely interesting because I am very passionate about inclusive education. I believe that for all students to thrive, to achieve their personal satisfactory education goals, and to become contributing members of society schools/teachers need to have a better understanding of the benefits of inclusive education and the role in which technology plays. Something that stood out the most to me about Mrs. Humphreys talk was how students are still being taken out of the classroom as a result of their disabilities. That is something that I will explicitly not be doing in my future classroom as I believe that is not beneficial to anybody, especially not the student being removed. After completing this Bachelor of Education program I am hoping to be accepted to the Masters of Special Education at UBC where I will learn the best ways to make my future classroom inclusive to all and how to support all of my students.
This week Daisy had the week off because unfortunately a few days after a visit to Doggy Daycare we discovered that Daisy managed to get conjunctivitis, i.e. pinkeye for dogs. Because of this Daisy took the week off and mostly practiced ‘sit’ and ‘lie down’ which both typically ended up in Daisy taking a nap! Daisy has been feeling quite sorry for herself and sleeping anywhere and everywhere. I am currently giving her eye drops every 12 hours for a week, as well as lots of hugs, treats and attention so hopefully by next week Daisy will be back to her usual self and we will be practicing the trick ‘spin’!