Category: Weekly Reflections

This week our focus was on video gaming, and how to use and implement it in a K-12 classroom. 

Incorporating game elements is great for learning about friendly competition, creating play in the classroom, teamwork, problem solving, learning technology, and having the students interested and engaged on the topics they’re learning.

Luke showed us several great resources that we as teachers can use in our future classrooms. This includes, but is not limited to –

• Socrative –This organizes and assigns homework, as well as facilitates communication with classmates and teachers.
• Minecraft subject kits – this is through the Education Edition of Minecraft
• Quizlet – an engaging way to practice cue cards and gain knowledge
• Kahoot – is a great way to create competition as well as individual growth. This one I particularly like, as it’s a very simple and easy platform to use.

This week, we discussed the importance of Artificial Intelligence in our daily lives.

You may not know it, but you use AI everywhere and every part of your daily life. Every time we open our phones it uses facial recognition to unlock the phone, using AI. Every time we scan a QR code in Covid times, we use AI.

In our classrooms, we utilize artificial intelligence to help our students in their learning process. For example, when teaching French or Spanish, students can use the language learning app Duolingo to practice. When they use Duolingo, students speak into a microphone and the “Owl” will assess how well they said the phrase. As well, Siri is a form of AI. 

Our world is moving into more and more of a technology based environment. This is why it’s so important to prepare our students with skills on how to utilize AI to serve them in the best way possible.

I found this fascinating video on how to teach AI to our students in the future, linked down below.

For this week’s class we had a guest speaker named Chantelle Morvay-Adams, who is the secretary and on the Board of Directors of BCEDACCESS Society.

This week we focused on the topic of technology and inclusion.

Technology is an important tool to guide students who may have different learning needs and/or disabilities.

For example, students that struggle with handwriting and fine motor skills can utilize technology to type out their work instead of writing it with a pencil. This will help the students focus more on the work they are doing rather than struggling with the writing part. In addition, I believe this helps the teacher as well, so they can focus on the content of the writing rather than deciphering messy handwriting.

If you have a student with an IEP and believe tech could help that student succeed, the first step is to engage the family. They may have ideas that could help you teach the child. Next, engage and discuss with the student. The student can offer suggestions that work best for them, this will help you learn what works best.

After you have talked, you can decide what kinds of technology that is appropriate, and connect with the district. 

This class brought more awareness to me on how useful technology can be in the classroom, especially to students with different learning needs.

Today in class, we discussed “SAMR”. This encourages teachers to evaluate how they set up their lessons and how they integrate technology into their classrooms.

The “S” stands for substitution, which means that tech is a direct tool with no functional change.

The “A” stands for augmentation, meaning that tech is a direct tool with functional improvement.

The “M” stand for modification, which means that tech allows for task redesign.

Finally, the “R” stands for redefinition, meaning that tech allows for new tasks that were not possible without it. 

SAMR encourages the use of tech in elementary schools, because it allows for students to explore their creativity and critical thinking. We watched the video in class on students creating a story board, and acting their story out in front of the camera. This is beneficial because they learn how to make their movies and learn how to edit, cut, and clip videos. 

Today in class, we had a discussion with our pods. My pod chose the topic of cyberbullying, which I think is very important and relevant in this day and age.

I found this very interesting article on AI used to prevent cyberbullying – it can detect when harmful words of pictures are being spread and it will prevent it from even being posted.

While I think this is great and important, I also think that we should work at preventing cyber bullying even before it happens. How do we do this? By spreading awareness. An emphasis on the permanence of what you post online and how it can affect your future and bring serious consequences, is enough to set anyone straight.

This week in class, we touched on the topic of generational differences that will impact our future classroom. We will be teaching “Generation Alpha.” This generation grew up surrounded by technology, and is one of the first generations to have grown up with it from birth.

I actually think that this new generation of teachers as a whole has a better understanding of what technology can and can’t do for us, and it’s pros and pitfalls. Although this will be an interesting generation to teach and watch grow up, I feel confident and equipped to do so.

This week we had the privilege of having a guest speaker, Jesse Miller, come to our class. He spoke to us on how to be mindful and careful on the internet, especially in a world where everything is becoming so digitalized. I think it is especially important to know that everything we post on the internet is permanent. Sometimes people, myself included, forgets that everything online, even after you delete it, can still be found.

He showed us several extreme examples of teachers in BC being extremely unprofessional when it comes to social media, including instances of revealing children’s faces and information. Although it was shocking to me and my peers, I realize we are more in touch with social media safety and etiquette because we grew up with it. This is why social media training is important not just for students, but for teachers as well. Many of them overshare, or worse, reveal private information.

Though I already knew some of this safety information, it was a good refresher and reminded me to stay mindful from now on.

Our first in-person tech class was held in the MAC lab in Maclaurin. I really enjoyed doing this class in person, I always found in-person class to be more engaging to me.

Our guest speaker Rich McCue joined our class to teach us how to screen record and post a video. We utilized the tool ScreenCast. It was very informative. I think it’ll be useful for me to have as a teacher because I will want to post tutorial videos for subjects on a website if I do end up teacher an older grade.