Month: January 2020

Whew! Today’s EdTech class was an exciting change up but it made for a busy day…

We took a field trip to PSII – Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry in Downtown Victoria. The school was founded by Jeff Hopkins and we got to listen to him speak about what makes PSII special and the importance of inquiry based learning. I grew up in Victoria and until today I had never known what PSII had to offer, in all honesty, I didn’t even know it existed. All in all, I had a really great experience learning about PSII today but I am left with lots of questions still. It’s important to remember that it is a high school and that the students that attend it are much older and more responsible than young elementary students.

I think that the inquiry based approach to conquering the curriculum is super cool! It allows students time and freedom to learn about what they want, not just what the teacher wants. Personally, I believe the model at PSII resembles the real world much better than a public high school does. For example, when students need help they are expected to approach the teacher and schedule an appointment that works for them. Students also get to participate actively in the community by going on field trips to local parks, gyms and other facilities. This model gives students the opportunity to be held accountable for their work, however, the model requires an immense amount of self-determination and diligence.

I love that the students get to work at their own pace whether it is individual, collaborative or under the guidance of a teacher. Realistically, this model would be impossible in an elementary school. Early elementary students rely on their teachers and the structure of a classroom. With that being said, there are definitely some take aways that would be a great addition to an elementary school classroom. I think that a guided inquiry project would be perfect for elementary students! Additionally, this model does not fit seamlessly into university. How can you go from having completely personalized learning to entering university and sitting in lecture filled with 200 other people?

I tried to picture myself at PSII and if I’m being honest I don’t think it would be a good fit for me. I love having a timetable and set classes. I would feel overwhelmed without having much guidance from my teachers. I love the idea of being able to choose what interests you in order to complete the curricular competencies but I definitely would need some teacher guidance to get me started. After a few classes on a big idea, I would love the chance to dive deeper into a topic that interests me.

I highly recommend going and checking PSII out. Here are some of the posters that highlight the core values that PSII focuses on. I wonder if you guys would have liked to attend high school like this? Would you ever like to teach in a model like this one?

See you next week!

Welcome back Carly’s Crew! 

Today in Tech we dove into the topic of Open Educational Resources. We began by watching a documentary called “RiP! Remix Manifesto Documentary”. The documentary followed a DJ who created mash-ups which brought up many copyright questions and issues. The documentary was pretty intense and really made me think about what is considered copyright infringement…I had never thought about the fact that scientific ideas, such as the cure to cancer, fall under copyright laws as well.

After the documentary we debriefed in small groups and then as a whole class. We learned how to search for creative commons images on Google and it was super easy! After quickly changing the settings on Google Images we were able to see what photos we can reuse without getting into legal troubles. Don’t worry though…all the photos on my blog are allowed to be reused! In fact, some of them are my own photos. 😛

Following along with the topic of Open Educational Resources, we were introduced to a new website that provides teachers with a plethora of educational resources. The website was a little tricky to navigate at first and I think it was partially because we were just playing around. If I were a teacher looking for something specific to share with my class, I feel like it would be super easy due to the specific search options. One thing I noticed was that the curriculum was only linked to the American standards so as a Canadian teacher it makes it a little tricky. Beggars can’t be choosers though and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to pull up the BC Curriculum and find what fits! Personally, I think that OER would be a super cool research tool to help students work on personalized inquiry projects. For example, if a student was interested in learning about the weather in different biomes, this would be a great activity to physicalize the weather! I chose this topic because I love learning about different habitats and ecosystems but in my elementary school all we ever did was create dioramas and that gets boring pretty quickly. I definitely will look into OER in depth before I begin my practicum this spring. 

See you next week! 🙂

Hi again everyone!

Today in class we set up Trello boards to document our inquiry process. I had an easy time setting up my board in comparison to my experience with setting up this blog. It is easily customizable and the website is pretty easy to navigate. Go check my board out! It isn’t perfect yet because I am still working to figure out all the small details. I have never used Trello before but I think it will be a great resource as I work through my inquiry into baking and as I research my EdTech topic. So far I only have good things to say about Trello but I will have to keep you updated as I use it more. One thing that I love is the setting to create a checklist because it is such an easy way to track your progress. Throughout both of my inquiry projects it will be crucial to stay organized and on top of it. The projects will require me to spend time researching or doing hands-on work every week so it definitely will be tricky to not fall behind. With that being said, I am excited and interested in both of these topics so I am ready to work hard and learn lots!

See you next week!

Hi everyone!

Today in technology class I learned how to start a blog. We followed step-by-step instructions to get our blogs set up and I was surprised at how quickly it all happened. It was interesting to see how long the confirmation emails took to be sent out; our whole class had to wait about ten minutes before we were able to finish setting up our sites! I am still in the process of setting up my site and making it look pretty with pictures, videos and other extra links but it is definitely trickier than I anticipated. There is lots of little things to sort it out and I am perfectionist so I am having some troubles. I will keep you updated on how the remainder of my set up goes.

I am guessing you’re probably wondering what this blog will be about! So here it goes.. I will be using this blog to reflect on different educational technologies and to share various inquiry projects with you! For example, in my music class I will be teaching myself how to play the piano and using this blog to share my progress through videos. It will definitely be an interesting experience so please stay tuned!

Blogs are a great tool in school classrooms, however, I think blogs would be most effectively used in a middle years classroom. This is because it can be quite challenging to set up and use the blog. Students need to have strong self regulation and problem solving skills and they need to be confident working individually without direct supervision of the teacher Blogs could be used in classrooms to facilitate personalized inquiry projects. Blogging is a fun and unique way for students to share their thoughts and research with their classmates. One thing that is important to remember is that here are many privacy considerations that need to be talked about before introducing it to students. On the other hand, blogs allow students to work at their own pace, students can write as much or as little as needed and then they have the opportunity to use secondary resources to support their research and share their knowledge.

I’ve always wanted to create a blog and I am so excited to go on this blogging journey with all of you. Talk to you next week!

Cheers!

Carly