Category: Weekly Reflections

As someone who did not jump on the AI train right away, it is still a bit scary to me. while I don’t know if it something I will use regularly, I have come to find that it can be useful for certain tasks.

For instance, if I was for some reason tasked with subbing an art class and wasn’t given any direction by the teacher I could ask Chat GPT for some ideas. So that’s what I did… this is what I asked “could you give me some ideas about a single class project I could do with a grade 10 art class in a painting unit”

What it produced was 10 examples that I could introduce, having very little training. It also gave me a list of supplies that I would need which, as someone who is not a art teacher, is something I hadn’t thought of.

The example I liked best what this one:

2. “Emotions in Color” Abstract Painting

Objective: Explore the connection between color and emotion.

Description:

• Students are asked to paint an abstract artwork that expresses an emotion (such as happiness, sadness, anger, calm, etc.).
• They choose colours that they associate with the chosen emotion and focus on using color and shape to convey their feeling.
• No specific subject matter, only colour and form.

Learning Focus:

• Emotional expression through color
• Abstract techniques
• Composition and design

Materials:

• Acrylic or tempera paint
• Brushes, palette knives, or sponges for texture
• Canvas or thick paper

Digital Curation is an interesting topic for me as one thing I have noticed since entering the program is that I have become increasingly aware of where I save items and how I access them.

From silly things like a customized Wordle for the class…

Wordle Class Challenge

Not to mention activities created on free online platforms that don’t let you save within their site.

As someone who was used to just saving most things on my computer entering this program was a real wake up call in terms of how much space I actually have on my hard drive. What I have found is that online data storage tends to be a more effective way of saving large files so they do not slow down and take up all the room on your computer. I have personally started using Google Drive more often as well as the Microsoft version that we get through the university for especially large projects like videos that need editing or large form podcast audio. While neither method is perfect on its own, hopefully through a combination of creating multiple versions and saving to multiple locations I am at less risk of losing all my data and documents if something were to happen to a single drive location.

Until Next Time… Safe documenting!

This week’s guest speaker Trevor highlighted how students learn better when an environment is curated to prioritize their needs. Much of Trevor’s presentation focused on centering students and collaborating in the creation of personal and class goals which fit their chosen definition of success.  

Trevor explained that to cultivate a curious classroom there must be a shared understanding of the role of the student in facilitating their own learning and growth. One way that Trevor does this in his class is by co-constructing or co-designing the criteria for success for a given concept or assessment. In situations where students have the choice to pursue their own interests, this model is helpful in centering the students learning. By co-designing the criteria for success, students feel like their input is valuable which makes them more likely to continue to engage in class conversations.

I also found that Trevor has a Youtube channel with many short videos like this one which can serve a a reference or refresher for teachers looking to implement inquiry in their classrooms.

Trevor’s website is also a useful resource for teachers as he has infographics that can encourage teachers to apply and inquiry framework as well as explain inquiry to kids.

As educators in a society increasingly influenced by the digital world, it has become evident that at some point we will be forced to manage the use of technology in our classrooms. With the introduction of a province wide cell phone ban in classrooms earlier this year, the role of technology in education has become a at times contentious topic. Some educators are of the mind that technology and cell phones in particular serve as distractions to learning, other educators argue that tech is a tool facilitates greater learning and engagement in the classroom. In class, guest speaker Jesse Miller shared his experience as a technology consultant in education, highlighting the way that tech is being used in schools and how it is forcing both the student and educator to adapt. Some aspects of his presentation that I found particularly useful were the topics of digital identity, digital rights, and digital literacy. Jesse noted that tech is integral to the everchanging demands of the future, and that as educators we must prepare our students to navigate the future of tech.

While Jesse shared some valuable information about how tech makes educational resources more accessible and can facilitate connections between young people, I do question the perspective that tech in the classroom is inherently positive. I wonder if the point of view that technology like cellphones enables student learning is a bit naive to intentions of students in the classroom. From my limited observations in schools I have already noticed how students who are allowed to use their phones spend a large portion of their time on social media or playing games, not on the intended class topic. Even when given time to do an assignment on a class provided computer, students would play games or search unrelated content. I do agree with Jesse that there are certainly productive uses of tech in education, however I am left with a number of unanswered questions that will likely guide my interactions with tech in the classroom going forward.

Some of my Questions:

• How do we create an environment where tech is a tool and not a distraction?
• Is tech making this activity more or less accessible?
• How is tech fostering creativity or collaboration in this activity?
• How is tech hindering creativity or collaboration in this activity?
• Who or how is this tech helping?

In reviewing the content from the first 3 big ideas that we learned about in class, I was particularly drawn to the idea of consent an open copyright. When thinking about FIPPA and how it protects both students and teachers, I think that the parameters of sharing images or information on social platforms are extremely valuable. In particular, the section about how any content that you share in the school then becomes property of the district or school itself , reminded me of my first year at UofA when I was entering in to the school as a student athlete. I can recall having to sign a media contract, which granted permission to the university and sporting conferences to use photos of us in any of their social media channels, websites, or promotional content. While at the time I was excited to enter into my university journey and was satisfied with the brief explanation of the contract, looking back, I wish I would have at least read it in order to better understand how I still might be tied to it.

At first glance, the concept of copyright guidelines and open source content seemed daunting. However, after interacting with open resources and reviewing the fair dealing guidelines, the prospect has become more manageable. What I gleaned from my investigation is that, as educators, the fair dealing framework allows us to access and use a portion of copywritten material for the purpose of education. As I understand it, the copyright guidelines do not exist to prevent us from using content, but are instead in place to ensure we have left our fingerprints on the content we has accessed and to give credit to the original source creator.

Lastly, I have found the open source image search websites like “PEXELS” and “UpSplash” useful in finding images that suit my various assignments and presentations.

Before proceeding with this first blog post, we expect you to consider your privacy preferences carefully and that you have considered the following options:

1. Do you want to be online vs. offline?
2. Do you want to use your name (or part thereof) vs. a pseudonym (e.g., West Coast Teacher)?
3. Do you want to have your blog public vs. private? (Note, you can set individual blog posts private or password protected or have an entire blog set to private)
4. Have you considered whether you are posting within or outside of Canada? This blog on opened.ca is hosted within Canada. That said, any public blog posts can have its content aggregated/curated onto social networks outside of Canada.

First tasks you might explore with your new blog:

• Go into its admin panel found by adding /wp-admin at the end of your blog’s URL
• Add new category or tags to organize your blog posts – found under “Posts” (but do not remove the pre-existing “EdTech” category or sub-categories, Free Inquiry and EdTech Inquiry). We have also pre-loaded the Teacher Education competencies as categories should you wish to use them to document your learning. If you would like to add more course categories, please do so (e.g., add EDCI 306A with no space for Music Ed, etc.)
• See if your blog posts are appearing on the course website (you must have the course categories assigned to a post first and have provided your instructor with your blog URL)
• Add pages
• Embed images or set featured images and embed video in blog posts and pages (can be your own media or that found on the internet, but consider free or creative commons licensed works)
• Under Appearance,
  • Select your preferred website theme and customize to your preferences (New title, etc.)
  • Customize menus & navigation
  • Use widgets to customize blog content and features
• Delete this starter post (or switch it to draft status if you want to keep for reference)

Do consider creating categories for each course that you take should you wish to document your learning (or from professional learning activities outside of formal courses). Keep note, however, that you may wish to use the course topic as the category as opposed to the course number as those outside of your program would not be familiar with the number (e.g., we use “EdTech” instead of “edci336).

Lastly, as always, be aware of the FIPPA as it relates to privacy and share only those names/images that you have consent to use or are otherwise public figures. When in doubt, ask us.

Please also review the resources from our course website for getting started with blogging:

• WordPress resources
• Using RSS feeds to read blog posts from your networks (e.g., Feedly)
• Privacy resources
• Copyright resources
• Finding images you can use