MsMcLarensLearningJourney

For my Sketchnote Reflection, I decided to take a journey through the blog posts that we created and what we learnt each week. This course has helped me feel more confident in using different technologies in the classroom to aid comprehension as well as add different elements to my teaching. I appreciated how we covered both digital technology as well and more conventional classroom technology.

This week, we discussed digital devices and their role in the classroom. When we began this class, I became very aware of my usage of my phone and how much I rely on it for entertainment and to fill the gaps in my day when I am not doing anything. I intentionally moved my phone away from where I was so I could focus on the class and what was being said instead of being distracted by it just being there. I think that this is something that teachers in Middle school would have to deal with as their students get cell phones. This connects to the cell phone ban that has been implemented in SD61 schools.

Take a look at this link of the Code of Conduct Update regarding Cell Phones and Personal Digital Devices

It would be both a distraction and a tool at the age level that I am looking at teaching, Grades 2-4. You can find many tools online that can improve students’ learning and aid in their understanding of certain concepts. However, these devices would need to be monitored so that the students would not navigate away from the app that they are using and use it for other things.

EDCI 336 Weekly Reflection

This week, we had a guest speaker, Brittany Johnson, who is a Grade 1 French Immersion teacher at Macaulay Elementary in Victoria, BC. She shared and discussed what it is like to work in her classroom and the strategies and classroom management tools she uses.

We first discussed routines and expectations, she mentioned how these are helpful to get everyone on the same page as the learners step into the classroom. This also allows for the teacher to have an understanding of where each of the students is at the beginning of the day so their individual needs can be met. She mentioned having a chart on the door with just colours that represent how they are feeling as they enter so no words are needed if they are not in the headspace to communicate.

We went into depth on online portfolios and how they are tools that can help share students’ work with parents and change how report cards are done. Throughout the term, she takes photos of students’ work, either an example of a specific competency such as reading, writing, or numeracy and displays their work online in this portfolio. She will then write notes regarding how the student performed and include the rubric they used to evaluate the work so they can have the chance to self-assess as well.

It was a very informative class, and I appreciated how much we learnt about her classroom and how she manages the class and is there for her students. It was really interesting to hear her real-world examples and strategies and how they have directly helped or impacted her teaching and her students.  

In class this week we learnt about coding and educational games. Coding is something that I have a little bit of experience with, my dad introduced me and my siblings to CodeAcademy (https://www.codecademy.com/). Through this website, you can learn different coding languages and create games or other fun tasks with code. This is what code academy looks like.

However, in class, we learnt more about how to apply learning code in a more academic way as well as games that can be used to learn new things. During our hands-on class time, we were able to play around with coding through different games. I chose the Frozen-inspired coding game where you use different directions to tell Anna and Elsa how to move around the screen and at the end we designed a snowflake. It took a lot of computational thinking, which is something we learnt about, to process how to use the code in the most effective and efficient way. There was one step that I remember working through where instead of using the bracket to repeat the same step multiple times, I just copy and pasted the step multiple times. This was a moment where I had to rethink coding and how much I need to think it through before I think I am done.

One thing we learned that I found really interesting was computational thinking. This is the process of analyzing all information, recognizing patterns, and then developing a way to deliver the information. An example we had in class was the Peanut Butter and Jam video, where a father asks his children to write step-by-step instructions on making a sandwich. Through this activity, the kids were able to learn who you need to be when giving instructions in order for someone to preform them how you would like. This goes for people and machines. Machines and coding are both very literal and will do exactly what they are told. This video we were able to learn how specific we need to be when writing code for it to execute exactly what we want.

Check out this link to see what I made in the end! https://studio.code.org/c/2347473754?qr=true

I unfortunately missed this class but I did it on my own time and this is what I got from it.

First, we learnt about the SAMR model which stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. Substitution is just changing the tech that is being used without changing anything. Augmentation, on the other hand, improves the functionality of the tech. Modification is when there is a redesign and Redefinition creates new tasks with tech. The SAMR model helps teachers reflect on and evaluate if they are using technology effectively. The second acronym was TPACK which involves intersections between Technology, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge. I think that TPACK overlaps with SAMR but also dives deeper in to how technology can be merged with teaching methods to create a better lesson.

The next part was sketchnoting which was about “ideas and not art”. To combine images, words, arrows, boxes, lines, and any other elements to create notes that help the learner remember more. Some things that you can use sketchnoting for include language learning or summarizing articles.

There was a hands-on portion where everyone practiced sketchnoting and I tried it myself but I found that I used more words than pictures. I also tend to want to make things look right instead of just being in the moment and noting things down, so I get caught up in the drawing of it and miss parts of the lecture because of that. This is what I did following the links and prompts on the UVic library website.