Edtech Camp Part Deux: The Re-Edtech-aning. I will post screenshots from the mural that was generated from our discussion below along with some links of interest. I was in the simulation discussion group. Though we ended up talking quite a lot about Ai and augmented reality. I brought the idea of process theatre being a form of simulation that is utilized in the real space as opposed to the digital space. We talked about our concerns about how much we may come to rely on digital simulations. However, we also discussed that there really isn’t a replacement for the real thing. Additionally, we discussed simulations as a form of access for learners who may not have access to certain real spaces. As I type that, I find it unnerving how more and more I have to differentiate between the real and the digital space. Honestly, I blame Mark Zuckerberg.
I went to Tracy Humphrey’s BCedaccess session. However, I am just now reading about Damon Kirsebom’s story at https://unitedforcommunicationchoice.org/damon-kirsebom-when-people-see-me-typing/851/
I’ll get into the session later. I just wanted to comment on how beautiful and inspiring this young man’s story is. I think it encapsulates my understanding of access, which is giving equitable access to all students to both learning, and the world around them.
I know I really struggled in school. Though I haven’t been diagnosed as of yet, I know I have ADHD. I didn’t realize what shaped my experience in elementary and high school was my neurodiversity. I didn’t understand how I was different but I knew I was and often found myself struggling against both my nature and the school system. However, getting an assessment back then would have meant being put in a program that wouldn’t end with a dogwood so my parents opted to not have one. (My older brother was assessed and his high school experience was even worse than my own).
After our session with Tracey, the system does seem better but it is nowhere near where it should be. We talked about utilizing techs such as FM systems and AAC (Augmented alternative communication, much like what Damon uses in the video above). However, one of the main points she discussed was near the end. She emphasized that IEP’s can be very valuable, so long as the teachers use them.
Finally, we talked about stigmatization. I know, from my own experience, there was a stigma around ADHD. While I knew I had some sort of learning disability early on, I never asked my parents or the school to look into it (In primary elementary I was placed in a specialized learning group for a couple of weeks because I couldn’t focus in class. It was short-lived because they determined my reading was actually at a higher than average level.). Again, this was partially because of my parents worrying I would be treated like my older brother. However, it was also because every show I watched (mostly the simpsons), every comic I read (a lot of MAD), and the news I watched (Chek, weird for a kid – I know) characterized ADHD kids as vibrating little monsters who would be fed pills until they were zombies. Now I know it’s different, and it can be better. Not only for me but my future learners.
This reflection will be on Liberating structures, Online vs in-person learning, and open annotation.
What are liberating structures? From https://www.liberatingstructures.com/
“Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in hands of everyone.“
Basically, they are the way to promote brainstorming, discussion, collaboration, and participation in non-conventional ways. We fall into routines and conventions of interaction that can lead to stagnation. The website above offers a shwack of ways to avoid that. The title page says 33 structures can be found within the website. The one we used to practice was the mad tea exercise whose instructions can be found below (Pulled from Edci 336 slides made by Michael Paskevicius)
We discussed the best and worst parts of online learning during the mad tea exercise and were able to have a quick and engaged discussion! A fantastic tool I will carry forward with me.
Additionally, we looked at open annotation and https://web.hypothes.is/ which to me seems like another fantastic way to stir discussion and assess engagement.
Though to be honest I don’t have any user experience. I hope in the future I’ll have more time to explore and understand the site. Until then, it will remain safe in my resources bookmark tab!
This reflection will be on my first experience with Edcamp through Edtech. The model is simple. There is a theme and the users generate topics related to the theme. Then they all vote on the topics and whatever topics are in the top spot become the discussion topics. The main group then splits into smaller discussion groups to talk about the topics.
The two topics I spent the most time at were integrating arts into STEM and updating sex education in schools.
Firstly, during the Stem + art talk, I came across the acronym STEAM which I was unfamiliar with. According to my other group members, visual arts and stem subjects seemed to be heading toward a joined future which is great. This wasn’t necessarily a topic I had strong opinions about but I very much enjoyed hearing everyone else discuss their opinions and share their information.
The next topic I joined was updating the sex education curriculum. And from the sounds of it, it could probably use a strong update. The methods to teach it seems archaic to a modern sensibility.
We talked a lot about how we still have a lot of stigma around sex education and still teach sex and STI’s through a negative lens. Additionally, consent education needs to start young and be ongoing. Understanding their and others’ boundaries is crucial. One of the things we all concluded is, that for something that is so fundamental to human existence and interrelation – two weeks a year is not enough for teenagers. They need properly educated persons and more time spent on the topic each year. However, it sounds like Alaya will be pursuing generating change in a positive direction once she becomes a teacher. That inspires hope in me that there will be a change.
To conclude, it’s fantastic how Edcamp, with such little setup, can generate such interesting and engaging topics. Not to mention how much I was able to learn from my peers!
This week Trevor Mckenzie talked to us. While I had already bought into the Inquiry model this was the first time it really clicked. We talked through how our learning experience will inform our teaching experience. Spoiler alert, it really affected the way I see myself teaching. And while I see that as mostly a good thing, he did remind us to be wary of our biases that are created through our experiences as learners. Well, he said not to just be wary, but to be interrogative of our practice. He really does seem like someone who actively practices his growth mindset. And that reflects on the way he styles his pedagogy.
One of the questions he told us to ponder was, “am I doing something for my students that they should be doing themselves?” and that’s going to stick with me. Task delegation is one of my weak points as teamwork so I am sure that, if I am not careful, that could inform my teaching practice.
Additionally, a lot of what Trevor said just made sense. The idea of negotiables and non-negotiables being a part of how we design the term for our students really clicked.
He uses this image of a pool as a metaphor for his inquiry model,
And while it seems like a linear progression, what he insisted was that learners can go back and forth between stages. From my understanding, a lot of what Trevor is saying is to give as much agency as you can to the students to help them grow. However, another Trevor quote is ” The depth of agency does not equate to the depth of learning”. Which, again, makes sense, we want to give our learners the best opportunities to grow not arbitrarily give them free reign or structure because we think it’s the best methodology.
This leads to what strikes me as the foundation of good inquiry-based learning. Building relationships with your learners. You must know your students to know what’s best for their learning. One of the techniques he shared with us was for having the students set a personalized competency goal with a bitmoji sticker to track their progress.
Another other thing Trevor touched on was the subjectivity of marking. A statistic he gave us was there can be +/- 10% difference in assessment between two teachers
All in all, the information was accessible, he seemed genuine, and I really appreciated the sweet moment he had Professor brown.
This week was all about Jeff Hopkins and his inquiry-based independent school PSII. This class was interesting as I have strong notions and feelings about independent schools. However, after listening to Jeff, I was a little more favourable – at least to his situation. Jeff took us through what happens at his school and the model he uses. But, and I think as importantly, he took us through the process he had to take to bring this school to life. His struggle to have the creative freedom to pursue his pedagogical principles is inspiring. And the fact that affluent parents were willing to spend a lot of money to send their children to his school really means something. I hope that as he becomes more grounded he will struggle, as had as he did to create his school, for creating access to that style of learning for less affluent learners. It’s important we try our best to create equitable opportunity or we are failures as educators.
It sounded like all of his students did quite well. The evidence of the learning and creativity they brought to their inquiry projects was just astounding. I, personally, feel the inquiry model is the best model for creating self-regulated learners with a high level of self-efficacy and agency. Additionally, it’s the model I tend to do my best work in here in post-secondary. Back to Jeff, I was particularly blown away by the business acumen of the student who created the site for selling her fellow students’ art. I, however, can’t find the link that I had thought I had bookmarked if anyone knows what I am talking about feel free to comment below. My only critique is that I can’t seem to find a mention of it in my notes of community work. The student’s projects that were shared with us were a lot about innovating their own businesses and projects. I hope that is just the fact I was loose and fast with my note-taking or Jeff failed to mention it. Because, just like equitable learning, students should be focused on building community and connecting with the humans around them.
Jeff has done some amazing things and Jeff’s school is still young and well, so is Jeff. I hope he continues to refine his model into one that is accessible for all learners and keeps the students thoughtful of how they can help those around them as much as they can help themselves.
Edtech for this week was on image creation and editing. I have a fairly extensive history with editing images in any way I could that didn’t involve learning photoshop. I will share my efforts from MSPaint, some work I have done in class, My favourite avatar creation site, and an Ai for making fun art. So to start, for your amusement, here’s an example of one of those MSPaint creations. It’s an old profile pic from some social media site circa 2007ish.
Along the vein of my MS paint creations, here’s my favourite brightspace submission ticket. It’s for when profs need me to submit something in place of an assignment.
Enough horsing around Rick, here’s an example from some work I did in class making a poster with Canva.com
I really enjoyed using Canva and look forward to using it for creating graphics as I need them for classes in the future. Additionally, being a theatre/drama candidate means I’ll need something to make the posters for the shows… Of course, I will get the students to do the work of creating, but having this tool in my back pocket to share with them will be super handy.
Now, I also wanted to share my favourite avatar creating site: https://picrew.me/
It’s a Japanese site, so you’ll need Google to translate it for you, BUT here are some examples of my creations…
And for my final image creation trick, I will share with you https://www.wombo.art/ an ai that creates art from prompts using some themes.
For this post, I am going to talk about the boogie-woogie. It’s the first song I learned on guitar. Or rather, it’s the first song I learned on guitar on this journey. I learned the Aerials by System of a Down pre-chorus riff back when I first picked up a guitar when I was 14. Unfortunately, I forgot how to play that in the nearly 2 decades since.
Anywho, the Boogie-Woogie has a long history in music and it was the first thing my guitar teacher sent me off with. I’ll talk first a little bit about the Boogie Woogie then I will talk a little about my experience learning it.
“Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities in the 1870s.[1] It was eventually extended from piano, to piano duo and trio, guitar, big band, country and western music, and gospel. While standard blues traditionally expresses a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly associated with dancing[2] and Boogie-woogie dance.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie-woogie
As you can see from the intro the wiki article the boogie-woogie is primarily three things, Bluesy, Dancey, and Been around a long time. According to my guitar teacher, The Boogie-Woogie fits into the category of 12 Bar blues which is a very important chord progression in music. It’s important because it can be found in tonnes of music and is foundational to jazz and blues musicians. I’ve linked to a website that has a list of popular songs that use the 12 bar blues.
For my own learning, the Boogie-Woogie was a huge step for my self-efficacy. I struggled for hours the first day I went home with the tab. And I made a horrific racket. I wasn’t able on that first day to start and finish the entirety of the bars that I had been given. I wasn’t even able to successfully do the first couple of notes fluidly. However, the next day, like magic, my fingers just started to find their way. It was only the second day after my lessons and I was shocked that I was able to make some progress. Granted I did put in a couple of hours! It definitely left me with the feeling that “I can do this”. Which is very motivational as you begin a new Hobby. I included a recording of me stumbling my way through the boogie-woogie. It’s been a minute since I played it haha!
Blog post three or me and my ed-tech adventures-ee. On this day we examined the use of educational videos and also had a tutorial on video editing software by Rich McCue. Side note: Rich McCue has led two of our tutorials. He just has that calm tutorial demeanour and tone of voice that could give Bob Ross a run for his money.Â
Carrying on, firstly, we examined the use of educational videos. I love good educational videos and often will use youtube as a launch point for my own research. I hope to seamlessly incorporate them into my classroom. We can all remember the lame videos that we were forced to watch in high school. The CRT, motorcycle strapped to a cart, with VHS’s that felt so old that they were more keyed toward our grandparent’s generation than our own. Though, to give credit to my high school teachers, I have experienced how difficult it is to find a good video that balances entertaining with education. I had to teach a class on mime and I found the most informational ones to be from 1975. However, I tried to balance it with some modern dance to draw a comparison between the two. The students still hated the older film despite my best efforts I’ll link it below so you readers can groan like my students did.
âś…Marcel Marceau I Bip As A Skater [1975] by CIRCOFRENIA on YOUTUBE.COM
I understand they can be so much more and have an archive of videos I enjoy. I hope to continue building my library with more modern examples so the students are so removed from the content. Or, at least, I am able to provide videos that I am passionate about so I can sell the students on the content.
Next, we had Rich McCue as a guest. He lead us through a tutorial on Openshot and I, personally, found this workshop the most useful so far in regards to tutorials. I was able to instantly apply the knowledge to another class for an introductory video. I will undoubtedly use this software in the future and the short video-making format. Heck, if I can’t find the educational video that I want to use I could always make it. And now, I have the ability to do so. I’ve linked the video I built for the other class below!
The War on Drugs was a failure. Lots and lots of research and data have proven this(https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/reports). Likewise, abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work. Again, lots and lots of research and data have proven this(https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(17)30260-4/fulltext). So why, as educators, do we take this approach to social media and modern digital technologies? The war on Tik Tok, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram has to stop. It’s unwinnable. The students won’t abstain. So, it is us who must adapt.
We had Jessie Miller in as a guest lecturer. He told us about the influence and integration of mobile tech in education. One of the early points he talked about is how society has now integrated modern technologies so deeply it’s part of our social infrastructures like roads or phones. He argued for the adaptation of these technologies into education instead of denying students access during class time.
Photo by ModelTMitch from Wikipedia page “Ford Model T”
After hearing Jessie speak, I certainly won’t be separating students from their devices unless they are using them for racism, bullying, or other more extreme behavioural issues. One of his key arguments against denying access to mobile technologies to students during class is the anxiety it produces. To be honest, while I had no intention of doing something as drastic as collecting phones from students, but I hadn’t put much thought into my mobile phone policy in class.
 If the phone is just a distraction, that’s probably on me and my lesson. But, unfortunately, anything can be a distraction. While observing students in class, this became abundantly clear. I’ve seen students dissecting whiteout tape dispensers, counting change, and whittling pencils. So, back to Jessie’s point, educators should be working with this technology instead of fighting against it because its use by students is inevitable. You can’t stop a metaphorical river, but you can have some control over the direction of its flow.
I’m old enough to remember the mid 90’s and having computer blocks once a week in elementary school where we could have access to the internet. The schools saw this new technology, this new way of communicating, as something children needed to know how to use safely. For some reason, education stayed at that point while technology kept moving forward. We, as educators, need to catch up. We don’t need to know the ins and outs of every platform out there. The students will always know more than us. However, we should understand how to model being an “empathetic and ethical user.” (J. Miller, personal communication,  September 24, 2021)
