Category: Weekly Reflections

This week, we got the luxury to go and explore the SD5 Design Lab located in the basement of Kootenay Orchards Elementary School.

This was an amazing opportunity and I have so much to share!

Anatomy

Outdoors

Kits

Other

There was so much more there and I was just so in the moment that I did not get photos of everything.

More things:

• 3D Printer
• IPads
• Little Robots
• Lego
• and more

I feel so lucky to have this design lab in my backyard. I will be utilizing it a lot in my teaching career!

What is a Digital Portfolio?

A digital portfolio is an assembly of student work that is digitized. These are things like photos, videos, drawings, audio recordings, or documents.

How Can They be Used in the Classroom?

They can be used for SOO much in the classroom.

Digital portfolios are a great way for parents to have access to their student’s work in real-time. This can help parents build a connection with their child’s schooling and the teacher.

They also can help students feel a sense of pride in their work. When their stuff gets posted and their parent or teacher comments on it or brings it up at home, it makes them feel proud.

Seesaw can build independence within students. It is such an easy platform that they can make their own posts. Using an IPad, they can take a photo of their work, find their name, and post it!

It is also a place where teachers can mark student work and post assignments for them to complete.

There is so much more, so I recommend checking out the SeeSaw app!

My Experience and How I Envision Using it

Prodigy Education is an educational gaming website that allows students to work on their literacy and math skills through gaming.

My Experience

In class on Tuesday was my first time ever exploring Prodigy. At first glance, I think it is super cute. It gave me some peace of mind when it made sure students were unable to use an inappropriate name by giving them options they have to choose. It was also really cute how I was able to create my own little avatar! I played around with both the math and literacy options. The literacy one was not as fun for me. It felt like there was almost too much instruction. When I ran out of “energy” I had to answer like, 10 questions to get it back and I feel like that would turn students off. The math one though was a lot of fun. You get to battle other creatures and level up. The questions are spaced out more, so I believe it would keep students more engaged. Overall, I really like this website!

What it Has to Offer Teachers

This platform can offer a lot to teachers. I feel it could help students who may struggle behaviourally get their learning in by using a fun game. Another thing I thought of was for students who have a home life where they just go home and are thrown in front of a screen until bedtime. This game is something they could play in that time after enjoying it in class and would help them advance and practice their math and literacy. This platform also allows teachers to take a “break” to catch up on things. It is not just a useless game to fill time, it has lots of educational aspects easing the worry of if the principal were to walk in.

Benifits of Gamifying Math

Math is a difficult and not well-liked subject for many students. But playing fun games on the computer is an “easy” and well-liked thing for many students. Creating a game like this that is fun and helps with math skills is AMAZING. It is an easy way to get students who refuse or really struggle to get their practice in. Lots of students also have access to play this at home, giving them some outside-of-the-classroom practice as well.

Negatives

In my eyes, there are few negatives to this platform. The fact that it is a game can be a turn-off to parents and some teachers making them less likely to give it a try. I know that it is almost always a struggle to transition from playing on the laptops to classroom work, so maybe this is an end-of-the-day or before lunch activity. The last one I can think of is the fact that it is just a website online and there is a potential threat of pop-up ads or it crashing and not working.

This week in class, we explored cross-curricular coding and discussed something called pair programming!

Coding

When Allie first mentioned coding at the beginning of class I was like, “this is going to be horrible and super difficult” and “why would we teach elementary students this?”. Thankfully, all that was clarified almost right away. Coding is not just programming with super intricate letters and numbers and symbols. It can be fun AND easy! There are multiple websites that you and your students can use to learn to code. My favourite one that we explored was Scratch. On this website, we were able to play some games using coding. It was nice that we were given step-by-step instructions as we went on. Also on Scratch, we were able to animate our names using codes. It was tricky at first, but so cool once we figured it out.

Here is a link to my animated name:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/754638195/embed

Pair Programming

As described in class, pair programming is when two students work together on one computer. One student would operate the computer while the other student gives ideas on what they should do.

I did not attempt this during class as it is something that scares me. I am ADHD and struggle when things do not go my way. This is also why it worries me about using it in my classroom. On the other hand, I understand that being able to work as a team is a valuable skill for students to have. I think I would definitely try this out with my students once I got to know them well, so I could put them into partners that I could see being successful at this. I would also make sure that there was always time for each student to play both roles, so no one would feel upset if they did not get to operate the computer.

Personally, I prefer the idea of having a 1:1 student-to-device ratio because I feel it would help me avoid conflict within the class. But, I like the thought of trying out pair programming a few times here and there to work on teamwork with my students and allow the students who are strong in this area “teach” and others to learn.

Gibbs’ Reflective Learning Cycle

Description: On October 25th, 2022 our class had the opportunity to go to Marysville Elementary School and create stop motion videos with grade 3 students!

I was paired up with Jennie and we worked with three students. Once we were in our group, we got started on our stop motion. We used the Zing Studio 1.0 app to capture all the photos and create the video. The students each had “desk pets” which are little stuffed animals that we used as our characters. We were also lucky enough to have access to a plant and some other little props to utilize. Before we began setting up and recording, we created a plan. The students established who the characters were, where it was taking place, and what the theme was. Our video took place in the jungle and the characters were swimming, fishing, and sitting by a fire throughout.

The group of students Jennie and I worked with were amazing! They were super supportive of each other and were successful in taking turns!

Feelings: At the start of this, I was very nervous as I had little experience with the Zing app and was not sure how well my students would do working together and using an iPad. Once we got started though, my feelings changed. Being able to work with such an amazing group of students made the experience so much easier. I ended up enjoying myself and all I was thinking about was how great our video was going to turn out!

Evaluation: This experience was great overall. My highlights were watching my students work so well together and enjoy themselves, the actual creation process, and seeing the final product! The only “bad” thing I can think of was my nerves at the beginning and soon went away!

Conclusion and Action Plan: If I got this opportunity again, I would love some more time. My group was able to create two short videos in the hour we had, but If we had even more time I would have liked to have been able to add our own voices and better-fitting music. Another thing I would do is attempt it on my own, working with a group of students without another person’s help to see how I would do then!

Our Stop Motion Video

Here is the first stop-motion video we created. Scan the code to watch. Hope you enjoy!

Creating Graphics in the Classroom

Graphic creation is something very new to me. I felt like it was something that would be extremely difficult and time-consuming. Now that I have done some exploring, I feel the exact opposite. It is super quick and easy to create any type of graphic. This will be perfect for me to create posters to put up around my class and create themes for holidays and seasons. Graphic creation is also something I can easily teach my students and use as a way to make assignments more fun and allow them to be super creative! One fun idea I thought of was a group Science project. I would put the students in groups of 3-4 and allow them to pick from a variety of topics related to our unit, then I would instruct them on how to create a poster, brochure, or mind map explaining the topic they researched!

CANVA

Here is an example graphic I created using Canva. Canva is a platform that allows you to create your own graphics and has a wide range of templates! To create this graphic, I first went on Canva and used the search bar to search “classroom posters” and a boatload of templates came up for me to use! Once I chose my template, I began customizing it. I loved a lot of what was already there like the little people. I edited all the wording though, including the title and little blurbs under the photos.

Canva is such a great resource. I always thought the free version would be horrible and didn’t see a point in trying until I went on it during class time. Now, I plan to use it a lot.

This week we were given the opportunity to do an in-situ at Gordon Terrace Elementary!

The plan for the afternoon was for us to take a look at the makerspace, which is a space in the school that allows for exploring, creating, learning, and sharing using all kinds of things. The one at Gordon Terrace even had a green screen! We also got to hear from the principal, who provided us with some good insight into the need for technology in schools and how technological knowledge will help us in getting jobs in the future.

After exploring the makerspace, we got to enter a grade 1/2 classroom and work through Epic! Books with the students. Each of us chose a couple of students to work with and got them a laptop to share. I understood why sharing was necessary because of the limited numbers, but giving the students their own, I feel like would give them more opportunities to learn.

When it came to logging in, I accidentally just logged in for my students and later realized that it was important for them to learn how to do that, so I made sure to give them a lot of power with the rest of the tasks. Once we got on to the Epic! website, I explained to them what it was and allowed them to check it out and choose books. The students I was with seemed to really enjoy the animal-type books, so those were what we read. I had them take turns clicking the mouse to turn the pages. They loved that part!

We also explored the read-to-me books with headphones. It was interesting to see that they already knew how to plug them into the laptop. I was honestly surprised at how well my students did with sharing the laptop and taking turns with the headphones. To me, sharing and turn-taking are two very important life skills.

I really enjoyed this in situ. I felt like having the opportunity to work with only a couple of students was a really good starting point. Next time, I will be sure to not try and rush and log in for the students, but rather instruct them on how to do so.

Here is a photo of my students listening to a book about monkeys!

Using video to support learning is something that has interested me since I was in grade school. My early years of schooling did not have video use, but in 2nd grade, they added SmartBoards to our classrooms and a lot changed. Teachers were able to be more interactive and engage students with videos they created themselves or videos found online. Students, including myself, LOVED when videos were shown. They had us engaged more than when the teacher was just speaking to us while still being extremely valuable to our learning. The easy access to them must have also been a huge plus for teachers.

I love the idea of incorporating music into my lessons, but unfortunately, I am not blessed with a good singing voice. I can use video though!!! Youtube is full of educational, musical videos. Channels like Anchor Creative Education have produced boatloads of songs to teach things like tenses, alliteration, and more. Students love to be loud and using song videos gives them the opportunity to do so whilst still learning and I absolutely love that. I also find that songs help with memory, so the lesson is more likely to stick with the students.

Song videos aren’t the only great use of video in classrooms. I also like the ones that explain how to do math problems or science problems. Some students will struggle to understand the way I explain things and giving them a video that demonstrates a different approach is something I plan on utilizing. Videos that explain history and social studies in a storytelling form with reenactments or cartoons are another type of video I would like to incorporate. Learning through storytelling, like learning through song helps to engage students and have them enjoy their learning. I want my classroom to be somewhere my students are excited to come and learn and not dread. Showing fun educational videos is one of many ways I plan on doing that.

I realize that showing media off the internet comes with its risks like unknown ads. In class, we learned about safeshare.tv, which is a website that can remove ads, making the video safe to share with students and not have the fear of an inappropriate ad popping up. I will also be sure to NEVER show a video to my class that I have not previewed ahead of time. I am not comfortable taking the risk that a part of the video may not be suitable.

Social media has been a huge part of my life for upwards of 9 years. I started on Instagram when I was about 12 years old and my online life exploded from there. You might be thinking 12? Don’t you have to be at least 13 to join Instagram? Yes, but clearly there are ways to get around that. It was as easy as entering a different birth year and I was in. Looking back now, I see how dangerous that was. I would get follow requests from people I didn’t know, but accept them cause the only thing I thought of was “yay another follower”. After being on Instagram for a bit, I started to expand. I created Snapchat, Facebook, and TikTok accounts. Snapchat was huge for me, I loved being able to instantly send people photos and videos and have them disappear after just a few seconds. I used Facebook mainly for connecting with family and close friends. I loved posting my life! Selfies, sports photos, pictures with my friends, and of my pets. I feel now that I am older and wiser, social media has a lot of positives as well as negatives. The main positive for me is connection. It’s a quick and easy way to keep friends and family in the loop and show off accomplishments. The main negative is privacy. It is so important to understand that the things you post will ALWAYS be there and have the potential to get into the wrong person’s hands.

With the knowledge of social media safely I have now, I feel very comfortable with the idea of creating a professional teacher social media account. I see it as a great way to keep parents, colleagues, and students up to date and involved in a way that is different than your conventional mass email. I will be able to post photos and videos of activities and lessons done in my class and announcements about what’s to come. I understand the importance of keeping the content on this account strictly professional and only posting students’ faces if absolutely necessary and with parental consent. I look forward to bringing my professional and social media worlds together and seeing all the opportunities that come with it!