Category: EdTech

In my exploration of Twine I found it to be really fun. I thought that the idea of creating a choose your own story would be a fun unit of creative writing. This software could be used after reading one of the “Choose Your Own Adventure books”. This way students would understand the nature of the software.

Creating the story was easy. Making the spider web of pages was fairly intuitive, but I did have trouble when inserting pictures. This did not work for me. I am not really sure why. Also saving the story did not work on my computer. It just saved a really long PDF of all the back end coding that made up my story. Therefore, these two functions would need more explanation.

The audience that I feel is best suited for this software would be grade six and above. Other wise this would be really confusing. For younger students to explore this website they could have a mentor student help. Having an older buddy help a primary level student make their story would foster a sense of community in their school as well. The older student could navigate the website while the younger student could write the story and help select the pictures and such.

Overall the software has a cross-curricular aspect that is intriguing. The intro level coding, digital literacy and literacy all align seamlessly in the function of this software.

When weeding out what to show your class in terms of video content it is important to realize a few things. Make sure that the resource is reliable, age and content appropriate and really teaching what you are wanting to teach. Sometimes due to these things it is just easier to make these thing  yourself. Here is my experience in exploring a ways to create my own resources.

Firstly I explored Screencastify. Through this application you can record your screen as you explore various pages. You can record audio and a video of yourself while doing this. In the editing portal you can edit the audio and video, as well as make marks on the actual footage. Here is an example of a provocation that could be used in a grade 3 science lesson exploring ecosystems.

Secondly I explored Audacity. This is an application to make podcasts. This application was a bit confusing to download and utilize. Unfortunately my computer server did not support the application which could be an issue for some students. It is an interesting tool to use in the classroom and a fun way to engage students as podcasts are really in right now.

Both of these tools area way to extend the inquiry style of teaching that we heard about last week. The screen clip could be a starting point and then students individually or in small groups could then make a podcast talking about their findings through the inquiry process. It could be a different form of assessment as the end product is more of a spoken thing rather than a written or presented product as inquiry projects often are.

Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt talked about how she has implemented inquiry into her kindergarten

classroom. Stepping into her classroom I was immediatly in love with it. She utilized many natural materials, a neutral palette and kept a clean/ natural aesthetic throughout the whole class. There were really interesting and inspiring toys and manipulatives scattered throughout the class that allowed for such an inspired and imaginative play. The setting itself oozed inquiry.

Within her speech she talked about her “teacher heart” and the aspects that made it up. Through this she explained the key elements that were important to her and her classroom that she continually fell back on as she built her practice. I really liked this idea. She continued by explaining the inquiry steps starting with a guided inquiry and ending in free inquiry. She breaks the school year into trimesters and has a different level of inquiry with a different topic in each term. This instantly reminded me of my elementary school where we utilized a Scottish style of teaching called Storyline. I actually did my free inquiry project on it last term. Within this we had three different topics of inquiry throughout the year. It was always a decided topic such as a point in history or a book. Topic wise it stayed within guided inquiry but in the things that we did there were many sources of free inquiry.

I like the idea of inquiry especially in kindergarten as they are naturally in a very inquisitive stage of their life. It felt like it molded seamlessly with the curriculum and their abilities. I will definitely try to implement parts of it in my classroom and will try to make my classroom look as beautiful as hers.

In class today I was reintroduced to iMovie. This is something that I had a lot of experience working with in my latter elementary years, but I have forgotten a lot of the skills. It was fun to revisit this and to look at it from an educator’s perspective. The application feels like you are a film maker and would be super fun for students to make their own films. I like the idea of using it as an alternative format for projects, for example instead of a writing assignment maybe making a video instead.

Here is a quick video showing the skills that I learned.

Additionally in class today Jesse Miller came to talk about social media, privacy online, how online identity is important and the digital literacy changes in people through time.

The talk that Jesse gave was a really thought provoking as it made me think of my role as a future educator and how I will utilize technology in my classroom, but in how my online presence could affect my ability to be hired. I am lucky in the way that I never had any form of social media other than Pinterest (if you even count that) until my first year of university. In this way I feel that I am pretty protected when it comes to my online presence as I was not an immature teenager with the entire internet at my finger tips. It did make me more aware at the things that employers will look at and I will be treading more carefully in the future when it comes to what I post online.

IMOVIE FEATURES

• Make trailer or movie 
• Choose themes 
• Add photos or video clips from your device 
• Rearrange clips 
• Can extend or shorten clips 
• Add audio clip 
  • You can delete audio from clips
  • Add voice over 
• Add transitions 
• Text and titles 
• Import music from Itunes (be aware of copyright)
• Add audio clips from the application 
• Export to many places/ in many formats 

https://www.macworld.com/article/2066991/constructing-an-imovie-project.html?page=2

EXAMPLES OF IMOVIE BEING USED

• Book trailers- an alternative to book report projects 
• News Report (current events)
• Interviews (ex: family or community 
• Documenting experiences through clips they filmed during the experience (ex. Thoughts on a fieldtrip)

DRAWBACKS OF IMOVIE

• The trailer format doesn’t leave a ton of room for creativity in terms of videos editing, which means projects can be completed quickly but will be relatively formulaic 
• Students experiencing technical difficulties may get easily frustrated and unmotivated 
• Not all students enjoy performing/ acting and may feel uncomfortable showing their video trailers to their classmates 

BENEFITS OF IMOVIE

• Multimodal ways of sharing knowledge – videos, pictures, audio and words
• Interesting to kids, spices up their lives !!
• Teaches photography/ video skills 
• Allows students to document experiences, which, in turn, can help teachers see the world through their eyes
• Students can work individually or collaboratively

At my visit to PSII, I was initially drawn to the setting. It was very different than anything I have ever experienced. Coming from a small town the idea of an urban school is new, let alone one that is a very untraditional setting and vibe. The common space seemed like a relaxing and chilled space that fostered a sense of community and seemed to allow for students to be able to work at their own pace and with the help of their peers. The space felt instantly comfortable and like a safe space.

One of the interesting things that Jeff talked about was how the school seemed to work well for learners with autism and depression and/or anxiety. As it is a system that is so different from the traditional school I feel that this could be true but it could also be that it is just that, different. It may not necessarily be the PSII way but that it is a setting and community so different than the one in a traditional public school that allows certain students to thrive more.

I was struck by the confidence that many of the students had. They held conversations well and seemed very passionate about the school and its vision. With such an open-ended curriculum I think that it will naturally lead to more innovative thinkers, people who are surer of themselves and their identity, and people that have a more curated passion that they wish to explore in the future.

One initial drawback is whether the PSII system would create well-rounded students. Jeff talked about writing report cards and how they combine inquiry topics and different aspects of the learning that had taken place to come up with a percentage mark, but what happens if someone is not interested in physics but it is a required mark to graduate. How is a passion-driven inquiry process can a student learn enough about that topic?

Overall the school was intriguing. There were a lot of positive things but there were some red flags. Before teaching in this setting or recommending this school, or those alike, I would need to learn more about it.

Remixers were taking old music and combining them in new ways. They created a new frontier of music with the use of technology that was never seen before. It was a new experience that left the original artist and the new creators in a morally gray area about who was the true owner and if it was okay for the new creators to make money and market the “old work” as their own. The original artist  “saw a supermarket and they wanted to get paid”. They thought that because the original song was used, even if it was heavily changed and reformatted, it was a copyright infringement. If it was to be used then they needed to at least be paid for the use.

Even the use of happy birthday was not free. If it was ever played in a public place then the royalties would be given to Warner Chapel, the owner of the song.

Originally all things were in the public domain. The printing press was made using the public domain as the idea were free in the world and it was perfected by the creator, thus the machine. Ironic as it was used to spread and copy ideas from page to page, arguably a copyright issue.

Napster was one of the first instances of a copyright issue on the internet. It made music accessible  to anyone and everyone for free. It was a way to share music and create huge libraries of music and made everyone “distributers”. This took the power that would be in the record labels hands and put in the hands of the 52 million who had subscribed to Napster. The money that would have been the record labels forced them to sue people who had unknowingly made a copyright infringement. People who had jumped on the band wagon that was the new trendy music service were now being sued.

Even thinking about Disney. Every story was based off an old fairytale, remade for modern day. Steamboat Willy was based off the already made Steamboat Billy. Everyone turned a blind eye to this. But when another cartoonist tried to prove the point of Disney holding too much ownership over Mickey by drawing a series of his own cartoons containing Mickey, then he was taken to the supreme court. Even a daycare was sued by Disney because there were Disney charters on the wall.

In today’s world you can use anything before 1920. Disney copyrighted many stories, songs and more; then using their power changed the copyright laws so no one can could do it again.

Many people who are pro-mixing and see the art in it, make the argument that other artist are not regulated. Mixing music is just another form of this so why then is it so regulated and controlled. It is putting a choke hold on creativity and holding back the future of music. The new frontier is being held back.

This idea of intellectual property is one that is still widely debated today as the internet and its many forms of sharing ideas and content continue to grow. It is an unresolved issue that has no end is sight.

Here is the video that is being referenced in the post: https://www.nfb.ca/film/rip_a_remix_manifesto/

Open Education Resources:

• copyright applies to all work created
• copyright is assumed automatically
• Fair dealing gives a protected 10% for educational purposes
• One end is copyright and one is Public Domain- everything before 1940
  • In-between the two: Creative Commons Licenses
  • there is a ranging scale in this area as well
• Resources:
  • Open society
  • Open Source Software
  • Open Data
  • Open Educational Resources
  • Open Science
  • Open Access Research
• Attributes to make it an open education resource:
  • Educational curriculum, materials, or mixed media 
  • Discoverable online as they are shared freely and openly 
  • Openly licensed (usually Creative Commons)
  • Can be legally used by anyone to repurpose/ improve and redistribute
• OER Commons
  • a good place to get open domain education resources
  • Can export to google docs/classroom
  • have to create an account to export
• Curriki
  • Finds lesson plans in open domain

Upon using OER for the first time it seems like a really useful sight. It is a great way to make the stress of teaching a collective effort and to have a sense of community online through lesson plans.

Trello is something that as an individual can be really beneficial. The ability to create many lists and create checklists and tasks within each list, could have the potential to be a beneficial tool in organizing tasks. As a student and/ or as someone working, Trello serves as a digital replacement for the traditional planner. While this is the preference for some people it is not mine. Call me traditional, but there is something about the weekly planner that just works. I like to be able to see my week or even month and plan out when I will accomplish certain tasks. Due to this, I feel that Trello would be useful to me as a place to curate all of my tasks but not a place to budget my time. However, this is just personal preference. The site could work for someone who likes to see their list of tasks and each day decide what they will tackle.

Another aspect that can be helpful is the ability to share boards with other users. This can help to aid group projects in dividing tasks in a clear and concise way and to give an avenue to communicate.  I also can see this application used in the classroom as teacher as a way to divide tasks in group projects, to organize unit plans and to keep organized in the grand scheme of things.

        VS    

The creation of this blog was simple when there were instructions provided. That being said, if these had not been present then the creation would have been difficult. This sight is not a very intuitive, but I think after a few times on the sight it will become easier. However, when I think about potentially giving this sight as a resource to students I am not keen. This particular platform would be better for an older student body but I think students in the elementary age range would not be able to navigate the process without a lot of help. In one of my student teaching opportunities, for a grade four five split class, one of the things that I helped with was technology time. This was lead by the librarian focussing on online safety. It was surprising by how long seemingly simple tasks like changing a password took. In a day and age where technology is integrated into our lives from a young age I forgot that all of it is learning process. It is not overnight that we learn tools to navigate the online world. As teachers we need to be patient in this process and technology is a very important part of modern society and is a tool that should be taught in order to make successful future students and adults.

I do think that blogging is a beneficial tool for learning. I think a simpler sight would be required for a younger audience, but allows technology to be integrated into the classroom in a way that fosters interconnectedness inside and outside of the classroom. Having a place where students can interact outside of the classroom in a safe regulated place introduces students to what it is to be online and how it can be used in their future.