Kevin Berna's Learning Portfolio

Joanna Lake: Creating relationships with your class

Joanna Lake’s presentation was very polished. I enjoyed her tone throughout the presentation and her enthusiasm was contagious. Connecting to our principles of a good presentation that we discussed in Week 5, I think her visuals were on point. She transitioned to and from her videos fairly easily and those asides were helpful and supported her points, rather than distracting. One distraction: during question period, our presenter neglected to re-state the questions so that her answer was contextualized for our group that was attending over Zoom. Both classes asked good questions though, and I think Joanna’s attitude motivated us to inquire further.

Some good takeaways: Feel Good Friday and Tea time to build crucial relationships with students. A teacher won’t be able to correct (gently) if you’re not connected, so get started right away in September. I’ve already thought of a game I want to play with practicum students, and I received some helpful writing instruction tips in the presentation as well.

Google Science Journal, in cooperation with Arduino technology (sensors)

This science tool is useful for a grade 7/8 science unit that I am in the midst of planning for my practicum. It can be downloaded to the iPads that I’ve seen the students use already in class and the students will have an easy time engaging with Arduino because it is very user friendly. I plan on using the tab that uses the technology inside handheld smart devices to measure the strength of magnetic current. This will be useful during my electricity unit, and maybe one day I could acquire the more sophisticated circuit boards to measure strength current. I think the main question I need answered before using it is: Are my students able to be responsible with expensive equipment while experimenting? I think digital science tools are really convenient, especially for a visible demonstration of an invisible (atomic) concept. See PHET Simulations to see what I mean.

FreshGrade seems like a tool that will become even more popular in years to come. I think the design of the app itself is a great idea because it brings something that is somewhat unknown to a parent (their kid’s day-to-day activities at school) to light by utilizing a smartphone, a tool with which a majority of parents are already familiar. I think for it to reach its highest level of utility, both parties need to be committed to posting and checking (respectively) the app on a consistent basis. Reference the app or posts in an all-parents emails to gently remind parents that this is a way they can connect with their child’s academics and keep track.

Before class

The pre-class activities were a good introduction to this mode of teaching and learning. I found the first-person account from the teacher employing a flipped classroom teaching model to be very revealing, in terms of the initial time (and possible financial) commitment. She says that her kids watch videos before the lesson and I think that’s really important because it allows students to come to class with some prior knowledge. The teacher can then more easily focus instructions for those who need the in-person support.

Multi-access Learning

This class is well-constructed HyFlex learning. The flipped classroom is being implemented because we have pre-class activities that ‘steel’ us for the tasks of that day. As well, EdTech is flexible because we can follow down the outline for each week and engage in the class activities section if we are not physically present; the instructions are clear. Having done this, I think it is a good way to improve work habits and good habits of mind as learners.

None of these tech tasks have been particularly easy, but staying calm and following through brought learning that I used in that class and in the future. I persisted (#1 in the above image). Finally, we are always learning from our experiences (#16).

After the presentation by Ms. Nicole Kent and our class discussion, I think the main advantage is that it allows students the choice of modality. The new normal is likely going to make form of hybrid learning common in many schools, and this class is giving us opportunities to gradually gain more experience providing online learning options with screencasting and video making. Online learning can also involve the family in their kid’s education. I once heard a teacher say that a family asked them to send home homework or class activities because the student would be away for an extended period. This teacher didn’t believe in doing that, instead telling the family to enjoy their time and “just play some fun math games when you can”. I think having learning tools online can make this situation easier for parents because if they know what their kid is learning they can infuse casual conversation about the curriculum into daily home life.

One drawback is that students can become distracted when they are on the computer, therefore affecting their learning time. Also, it is a lot of work for teachers—everyone including professor and our presenter agreed on this during our class discussion. Practice makes perfect though, and we will never have online tools if we don’t start somewhere. And they be easily retrieved and used in future classes year after year.

Tinkercad

This was a great introduction class to Tinkercad, the topic of my future EdTech Inquiry with my friend Elizabeth. Tinkercad can be used in class to help students understand angles because designing object that requires multiple shapes likely requires some to be rotated. Tinkercad has a very clear wheel defining the angles so students can visualize the acute, obtuse, and reflex angles they are learning about in math.

A drawback, similar to last week’s discussion about coding, is that students can become frustrated. Creating something with multiple shapes also requires locking objects into place so that they aren’t misaligned with one wrong click of the mouse. But this is a good wrap up to this reflection because again it shows how online learning modes and digital tools require students to practice good habits of mind.

Coding

I have begun to understand coding better as we move through this class. During EdCamp a couple of weeks ago, a friend in the other cohort lead an inquiry discussion (which ended up turning into the most helpful expert talk/demonstration) on Scratch. Check out their blog; they give a great breakdown of the research around CT (computational thinking).

There, I learned that CT is broadly about breaking tasks down into steps and it connects to algorithmic thinking and problem solving. Coding and CT-like activities are beneficial to elementary and middle years students because programs like the ones we used in class today (Scratch, mainly) are something they are familiar. Although the language used is semi-technical—the if, then, when type statements can be hard to organize—the process of moving a widget about a plane can be a way to support the habits of mind that we want to cultivate in students.

A teacher can justify engaging in coding and computational thinking activities because they supplement the creative and critical thinking work that comes in the form of inquiry projects and group work. The purpose is not for coding to replace these rich tasks, but rather to add another element to their school work; coding requires a different type of thinking and most importantly a lot of patience, which might be why I only reached level 6/12 in our in-class activity.

As a component of critical analysis for this blog post, it is worth noting that a possible drawback is that some students could be completely uninterested in this type of work, or become too frustrated that the task has little benefit. A lot of students like video games, but they might have trouble finding the utility in making a character move when they to give it directions. If someone reading this hasn’t seen this video of the persistence required to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, give it a watch because it is an apt visual of what could happen if a a child becomes frustrated (the ones in the video didn’t, but the activity was fun and they were being filmed).

Coding and math

The Anna & Elsa game can be a good way to visualize degrees. I had trouble turning right in the game, so I began telling my character to turn more than 270 degrees to the left in order for them to end up in the direction I wanted them to go. I understand degrees well, but I imagine this is a good activity to show the relationship between acute, obtuse, straight, and relfex angles in a 360 degree circle. Some Scratch games specifically use an x – y axis and ask a character to move using negative and positive values. I think these could be cool culminating activities.

If you are reading this and have other coding and math connections, please drop a comment! Thanks for reading!

Accessible photos

Reflection prompts responses

Previous to this degree, as a high school and undergraduate student who benefited from increased ability in the academic context, the extent to which I understood digital accessibility was including subtitles in a movie to give more people the opportunity to experience the media no matter their different abilities.

I found one cite that has examples of multimedia learning objects—click here to see an example of an interactive story map that guides the user through history. I think the accessibility component of text is being addressed here because the headings are clearly defined by movement across a map, helping the user make chronological sense of a lot of information. I think this tool is helpful when the topic doesn’t require a lot of words to transmit the information. I don’t think it is particularly visually accessible, and I welcome comments and links to examples of more visually accessible information sharing because I think it is something that is often not accounted for by myself and others.

I was surprised to learn that making a media accessible includes using the right colours to improve contrast for everyone’s viewing. I enjoyed my learning pod’s exploration of the web accessibility evaluation tool and I will use that in the future to consider students’ learning needs.

I think the fact that students with different abilities are often designated education assistants is a reason why accessibility practices are not used often enough. It is on my agenda to keep these in mind for my teaching in the future.

Accessible video

I believe the subtitles should be in this video I created for my inquiry blog post—click the CC button underneath the time bar to show the text. Tanks for reading!