Category: Weekly Reflections

I inputted: “can you make me an image of students outside in a forest looking around using their phones to help?” into Chat GPT to get a photo for this blog entry and this is the image I got:

I didn’t really like how crowded the image was or that the forest wasn’t really local, so I then asked Halle to ask Chat on her computer this: “can you make me an image of 4 kids in a forest (in Pacific northwest) with one kid using their phone to take pictures” and she got this image below:

Anywaysss today we had a speaker come in and speak about how technology can be integrated into outdoor education. She showed a bunch of apps that she likes to use in her own class including:

• iNaturalist
• Merlin
• Moon pro (I think I’ll be teaching a unit in my practicum on the moon and sun, so this could be fun to use with the students and check in on the moon phase everyday, it has good visuals and data)
• Skyview
• Leafsnap
• Chatterpix
• Bookcreator

She also discussed how you can use google earth to show students where a certain area is that they are learning about. It was also mentioned how google maps can be used to go back in time a bit to see how an area has changed, either where the school is, or a neighbourhood. The speaker also talked about how she’s used google maps to take a picture of an area, say Victoria, and then printed it off, given it to students, and had them find the Indigenous names for the areas and write them on the map. I think these are really good ideas because they help students understand the idea that the land changes overtime and to develop temporal awareness. I also think it helps students understand what has come before and the history of the area, allowing them to engage with topics like colonization.

We didn’t do the scavenger hunt with QR codes that was planned because it was raining which was too bad but I think this is a really good idea that students would really enjoy. It gets them outside and moving, while also engaging with the educational content.

Yesterday in class we had two speakers join us from BCEd access to talk about tech and inclusion.

They discussed how important IEP’s are for students to get the support they need at school but that getting an IEP only happens once a student can be assessed, which often takes incredibly long.

They also discussed the term ableism, in other words, the idea that people with disabilities need fixing. As a teacher, being aware of the way in which we treat our students with disabilities is so important to make sure they feel welcome and understood within the classroom. We should never assume that the goal is for a student to be independent of the use of technology or other aids and we should make sure that students with designations are not being excluded from activities or opportunities. The speakers also noted that we as teachers can help our students by making sure we fully read the IEP’s as well as ask the student and family how to best meet the students needs.

Some other tools they mentioned to help students with designations where to:

-use movement breaks

-foster peer support

-play to the students strengths and interests

-look for available district and provincial resources

Overall, I found the talk to be very informative!

Today’s topic was AI use in education and so I used Gentype to create a title for todays’ post, using the prompt “pencils and kittens”. This is what it conjured up!

Not too bad if I do say so myself. I think this tool could be fun to use to make a title page for a slideshow or something like that to get the students laughing or intrigued before beginning a lesson.

It was mentioned in todays talk that in 1993 the internet became accessible to non-experts and in 2023 AI became accessible to non-experts. It’s crazy to me how much has changed in so little time. The fact that the internet and AI have both become such engrained parts of our day-to-day life in such a short period is crazy. For example, we don’t even realize how much AI is a part of our technology today. It’s in everything from Netflix, to Spotify, to google, to Siri, and beyond and it’s only going to continue to be more engrained in our day-to-day life.

While I use AI fairly regularly for idea generation for lesson plans, to better word emails, and such, I had no idea that AI could be used for things like podcasts, videos, or songs. We listened to a bit of a podcast in class and the voices and dialogue sounded so real, I would have never known that it wasn’t real people talking. I thought it would be fun to try this on my own and see if AI could make a decent song. I used Riffusion and my input was “a country song about teachers learning how to use technology in the classroom”. This is what it came up with in less than a minute, have a listen!

It’s shockingly good. I’m excited to use this in the future, I think you could make funny or educational songs for your students with this!

AI can be so fun and such a great way to engage students or encourage students to be creative. With that said, we also talked about the downfalls of AI which are incredibly important to know as a user, but also to teach to our students so they can make informed decisions. Some of the downfalls we discussed were that AI:

1. can provide false and misleading information
2. is often biased (based a lot on western resources) which can then reinforce stereotypes
3. produces tonnes of carbon emissions
4. uses huge quantities of water (in a time where water resources are only getting scarcer)
5. has no regulations (policies have not caught up with the tech)
6. may be infringing on copyright
7. promote a culture of mistrust between students and teachers (not believing that students did work themselves)

Overall, AI is another tool in tech that we as users need to use with care. Teaching students how to use AI, how to detect AI images/audio/writing, and the costs and benefits of it, can allow students to make informed decisions on when and how to use it.

Today we learned about EdCamps which are user generated conferences. In other words, what happens at the conference is decided by the people who attend it, they decide (through voting) on a common list of themes or topics to explore. It was discussed in class how EdCamps can be an alternative to the normal professional development days that often miss the mark by not discussing topics that teachers actually want to know more about. We practiced this in class, voting on topics and seperating into 4 different groups based on the topic we’d be most interested in. I decided to join the group who were discussing teaching on a budget. We talked about different ways we can save money while getting the resources needed to set up a classroom and have supplies for activities. Some ideas we came up with were:

• thrifting books, decor, outdoors clothes, toys
• amazon wish lists (posting online for people to donate)
• asking parents for small amounts of money for specific resources to pool together and use for the whole class
• buy supplies in bulk
• use teacher stores or catalogues (they are often cheaper)
• doing fundraisers as a class (bottle drives, coupon books, etc)
• look for free resources, free museum trips or activities
• communal supplies (students share resources, every kid does not get their own thing)
• share resources/trade with other teachers

Overall our discussion was very helpful. The only thing that I think would have made it more informative would be to have decided the discussion groups earlier before and then we could have had a guest speaker come in who was an expert in the area to help enhance the discussion.

I really like the idea of EdCamps and I think it is something you could use within the classroom as well with your students, perhaps integrated into the start of an inquiry project or something.

Last week, we talked about the value of having a digital curation or collection as teachers where you can compile all your resources in one place. It was discussed how digital collections are often a lot better than physical collections or files because they can often be accessed from different devices (eg. Google Drive you can sign into on other devices), you do not have to lug around a bunch of papers, and the searchability is much better. For example, with physical files you would have to rifle through a stack of papers looking for what you want, whereas digitally you could simple search the file name and find it almost instantly. I think going into practicum, having a digital curation system will be incredibly valuable to keep track of all the lesson plans as well as to have a place to store all the resources we are learning about in lectures that we might want to use during practicum. Up to this point I just have a file on my computer for such resources but because of this I decided to create a google drive, as seen below. It makes it easy to separate resources into categories and as previously mentioned, can be accessible from multiple devices, so far I’m liking it. I’m planning on adding more categories as I gain useful resources. Some other good digital curation apps (more for note taking) were mentioned including Obsidian and Google Keep and Notion.

Aside from digital curations, we also talked about the value of educational videos. They can be used as a supplementary component to a lesson to further encourage student learning. I know that for myself, educational videos like CrashCourse or Kahn Academy have been very useful in helping me understand a concept I was struggling with and they could be similarly useful for younger students. Other things that were mentioned that could further engage student’s in learning were computer simulations, gifs, and virtual reality. For example, if you were teaching a lesson on earthquakes you could show a computer simulation of the fault lines or the plates hitting one another. Simulations allow important processes that are not normally visible, be made visible to students. Virtual Reality, whether through 360 videos or actual headsets, can also help increase learning. One example I thought of was if you were teaching a lesson on ancient civilizations you could show students around the ruins of Rome or inside an Egyptian pyramid. In our science class, we are planning on creating a lesson plan to teach Grade 6’s about the Northern Lights and are considering starting the lesson off with a 360 VR video of the lights as a way to peak their interests about the topic. There are really so many cool things you can show students that can help them engage more with their learning!

I’m excited to possibly use some of these resources to improve my own teaching.

On January 31st, we talked about creating graphics and how this can be a useful tool to use as a teacher. It was discussed how powerpoint or google slides can be used to easily create worksheets, mood checkers, math sheets, and more for our classes. I think this is a good reminder that of how easy it is to create resources that meet your needs. You could also use Canva, I’ve used Canva before to make simple writing worksheets or word searches and have found it very easy to use.

We also learned that there are a lot of effects on powerpoint that you can use to edit photos or make collages like blurring photos, adding frames or borders, remove backgrounds or crop photos. We then got to make our own collages which was super fun. Here’s mine, super random but it was cool to make!

Some of my peers made collages with pictures of themselves and their interests to use for a first day introduction in their own class or practicum. I thought this was a really good idea and I think I will make one of my own as well!

On February 7th we had a guest speaker come in and go over more ways of editing, but instead of static pictures we went over editing videos or podcasts. This was super informative and we got to play around using Audacity and iMovie. I think this will be useful for our group assignment in this class as well as in EDCI 413.

Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV: https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-boys-using-laptop-in-the-classroom-11025019/

This week we had guest speaker Jessie Miller come in and chat to us. Something that really stuck with me is the idea that we should be promoting digital and media literacy in our students because the internet & AI are not going anywhere. Instead of ignoring these topics within the classroom or forbidding their use within the classroom, teachers should be open and willing to have conversations with their students so that students can think critically about what they are seeing or hearing on the internet. For example, Jessie mentioned a story in which a teacher was mad at a principle and so he created an audio using AI to make it seem like the principle was saying racist comments about students. He also mentioned another story where someone was altering photos of classmates in inappropriate ways using AI. As more and more of these issues pop up, it becomes increasingly important that students can think critically about what they are seeing or hearing and consider wether or not it is real or AI generated before jumping to conclusions.

To help students become more digitally literate, Jessie spoke about the 4 C’s of digital literacy as a sort of guide on how teachers should/could engage with AI in the classroom.

The 4 C’s are:

1. critical thinking (showing students how to evaluate wether content is AI generated)
2. creativity (allowing students to use AI to generate and refine ideas)
3. communication (modelling and practicing effective interactions with AI)
4. collaboration (promoting group activities to explore AI use)

I appreciated him mentioning this because I think in the future I could use this as sort of a guideline on how I can promote digital literacy in my students. It is also a good reminder to not shy away from having conversations with our students about AI in the classroom and that AI can even be a beneficial teaching tool/point!

This TedTalk below reinforces how we need to adapt to the changing world with AI, that it is not going away, and not to shy away from it as both a tool for teaching our students and teaching point. Take a look if you’re interested!

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

In class this week we learning about copyright and creative commons and why it is important to have an understanding of these topics as educators. I will be honest and say that my understanding of copyright previous to this weeks lecture went as far as: copyright = bad, don’t steal from others! and the phrase “creative commons” was not one that I had heard once in my life. In other words, my understanding on such topics was rudimentary at best.

I learned that copyright is automatic and assumed on anyone’s work no matter who or what it is, wether that be a video, a photo, etc. I also learned that if you see a “CC” underneath an image this essentially means the owner of the piece is allowing others to use their work for projects or assignments as long as they are attributed. I also learned that all the material on Wikipedia is under Creative Commons and can be used freely and that there are a wide range of websites that are full of photos under CC that you can use at anytime without risk of copyright.

This all may seem like very obvious information to some, but to me it was all new, and information that I have been meaning to learn more about for a while. Obviously as a teacher I am going to have to use pictures in lecture slides, or want to use resources online, and so knowing confidently about what I am legally allowed to use is very important. As well, modelling proper internet/technology use to my students is incredibly important. I plan to read up on Canada’s Copyright Act so I can learn more about these topics that we touched on during the lecture and become more informed.