For our group inquiry, Denee, Dane, Jessica, and I looked at using Apps in Outdoor Education.
Here is a screencast of our slides! Feel free to pause and look at the slides as you go!
Category: Exploring and Enhancing Pedagogy
The Great Pottery Throwdown is a BBC show that brings home potters from all over England to Stoke-On-Trent to compete to be top potter.
The show has been a really interesting resource for me as a new potter, as watching other people make pottery really helps with my ability as a new potter, being a visual learner as I am.
The entire first season can be watched on youtube.
I also have found a book at the library that the BBC made that goes very in depth into the history of pottery. Looking at the history of pottery would be a really interesting lens to look at human history, culture, and art. So many civilizations made ceramics. Some of the only information we have about ancient civilizations has come from finding fragments of clay pottery. If students made their own pottery and learning about the history of pottery they would feel a much greater connection to history and the richness of pottery in this way.
Keiro’s presentation – stop-go animation
stop motion (can be downloaded)
used imovie to fade into the graphic
Photo shop
- twinning (allows you to take two photos and then it will make it stop go in between)
Pros
- can be used in any subject to make it fun and engaging
- hits all core competencies
- simple concept that can be taken deep
Cons
- limiting technology available
- its a slow process and then technology can be difficult
- takes time and error can occur
Things to watch for
- camera stability
- time is really needed
- have fun!
REsources
- makerspaceforeducation.com
- iste.org
- onf-nfb.gc.ca
- wiobyrne.com
- waldprotfolio
- education.microsoft.com (lessons for all grades!)
- giphy.com
Google Geographic Products
Google Maps
- google: My Maps (can make own maps including points of interest, save in layers (stores, parks), can colourize icons, can share & collaborate, can change to satellite images)
- can add photos and videos of places, could upload audio and link it to places
- map out: different places in the world using language of place, map fictional settings.
- Street view : can look at natural wonders, talking about being able to go through museums
- Google Cultural Institute – information about cultures, arts, natural wonders, repository of historic documents
Google Earth
- experience – high resolution 3D imagery, can be used for immersive experiences in the class
- find your house – to get them excited about looking at the world
- flight simulator – flying around
- view the past – going back 15-20 years, looking at development land-use change, agriculture, growth
- Layers: different data can be looked at over layed on maps
- Im feeling lucky – click button and get sent to a place
- google moon (immersive interactions with apollo missions, landers, narrated by astronauts), mars, and sky (planets, galaxies, view from telescopes around the world)
- Voyageur : nasa, the bbc, jane goodall, and sesame street teamed up (narrated tours of places around the world)
Lesson Ideas
- 20-questions (pick a place, ask questions have students guess)
- math – maps, measuring, distance
- explore different environments
- can make own tours
- scavenger hunts (coordinates, clues, pictures)
Lessons – My Maps
- Grade 4 curriculum;
- following routes travelled during Euro-western exploration
- make own road trip
- add journal entries in my maps, historical timelines, distances measured
Privacy
- Google can track you if you don’t opt out
- corporations selling information to sell you products
- benefits – convenience
- creation/erasure of national boarders
cartography has nationalism built into it. Originally the way that countries were delineated.
Digital Literacy
Information Literacy
-
-
- what is fake and what is real? how to recognize, quality and credibility
- awareness and critical thinking. who benefits from what is being said, is there bias?
-
Ethical use
- citing, use, etc
Understanding digital footprint
- what are you sharing, cookies, ip address, passwords, service provider, etc
- what are you leaving behind when you use the internet?
Protecting yourself online
- you have to be critical or what is offered and what you want to leave on the internet.
- vpns, data encryption and hacking
- self-regulation, awareness, screen time
Handling digital communication – cyberbullying
- the internet is a public space
- don’t be a dick
- there is a history of what you say
- would you say what you are about to say to peoples faces? if not, don’t say it
Pros & Cons
Risks
Strategies, Tips, and Best Practice
- Crash Course ; youtube series – navigating digital media (10-11 videos in series), media literacy (amazing for middle school – more intellectual)
- fact checking – double check your info and teach students how to do this
- lateral reading – when discovering new information, looking into who is writing articles, when was it written, is there corporate backing/who published this?
- evaluating evidence
- Mediasmarts.ca
- Canadian specific content (know Can Law, applicable to Canada and BC) includes resources for all stakeholders
- some outdated information
- Choice & Voice
- creation v. consumption (more creation = more interesting, increased awareness)
- multimodalities (diversify, diversify, diversify) – pick meaningful things, but many
- collaboration
- accessibility – make sure learners are given skills to use technology (physical) and apps, go over them
- crowd-accelerated learning (citizen science – using people’s brains to categorize and process; ie NASA sorting galaxies) – involve outside school that are meaningful and authentic
- social learning – spend time on this peer-to-peer interaction, acknowledge role as a social guide.
Parents and Dig Lit
- assume ignorance, figure out parents involvement in their child’s digital life
- is part of BC curriculum (21st century citizens)
- communicate with parent so they understand
- digital engagement family night (class or school wide)
- risks and benefits – be compassionate, explain why, patience
Sex, sexuality and the digital world
- lots of misinformation, single stories, confusion, and shame
- awareness of this, provide positive digital resources where they can find real true information
- internet can be a safe place for all people as they explore sexuality
- common sense education
House hippo – media smarts
On Monday, October 21 our ED 336 class went to Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt’s class to have a look at her classroom set-up and speak with her about how she implements inquiry learning into her public school classroom. Rebecca Bathhurst-Hunt and Trevor Mckenzie co-authored a book in 2018 titled Inquiry Mindset, a book designed to help teachers encourage “dreams, wonders, and curiosities in young learners”.
I was unfortunately unable to attend the classroom tour but have been working my way through her website and the multitude of other resources that have been provided by my fellow classmates and Michael, who recorded the audio of her talk and has posted it on our classroom website!
I am so inspired by Rebecca and her implementation of Inquiry based learning into her classroom practice.
Jesse Miller Recap
The use of information that technology users provide is often used for another purpose.
Important to remember that technology is embedded in our colonial, patriarchal, capitalist society and to use with caution.
Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry Recap
I wonder if having a deep dive into Inquiry before we do an inquiry would be helpful? A very useful question posed by Katrina
Inquiry definition – in the reading, first time seen, as people who are all grown in a scholastic environment of tests, assignments, products, and grades this is really uncomfortable.
Book recommendation
- Dive into Inquiry – Trevor Mackenzie
Inquiry can be a meaningful way of incorporating Indigenous People’s Principles into learning.
Some words we used to describe the students at PSII were:
empowerment, eloquence, courage, enthusiasm, inventiveness, variety of skills, depth of knowledge
Rebecca Bathhurst-Hunt
Using Inquiry in the classroom – Great ideas start with a Question, Wonderwall
Trello
Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes projects into boards.
App on phone
Good for keeping inquiries or ideas organized.
Screencastify
- for screen capturing and sharing videos and photos online
Notion – similar options
Graphics
Pixels – dots
Vectors – how computer stores information, can change size, has clear crisp lines. mathematically based, so just grows as size increased or decreased.
Graphic creation options: browser based – easy access for students/learners and often free or open source.
GIMP – often used, tries to replicate photoshop, but just slightly more annoying
Pixlr – right in browser.
Powerpoint
- can be used to create short video and photo graphics
- everything created in PP can be exported as an image (this is powerful)
- Can make jpegs, edit images, change images, insert text, build posters, create logos, SMARTART, vectors
- building activities – interactive, conversation, incorporate powerpoint in class room
Apps
Screenshots
Prisma – filters
Mirror Lab
Comica – turn photos into comic strips
https://bryanmmathers.com/ – Visual Thinkery
https://remixer.visualthinkery.com/
On October 11, my ED 336 class went to the Pacific School for Innovation and Inquiry (also known as PSII, pronounced “sigh) to learn about Inquiry based learning.
This school, PSII, is, in my humble and professional opinion, so excellent and effective.
Inquiry is a beautiful process of learning that motivates students, provides an exceptional foundation for future learning, and prepares these young minds for the high-level executive functioning that is required to be successful in this modern world.
The students at this school start their year off by learning how to ask meaningful questions and spend their first week coming up with questions and then narrowing those questions down to topics that interest them and areas they would like to explore. Once this is done, students are provided tools, support, and time to delve deep into their inquiry projects.
Inquiry is unique in that it is a learning style that emphasizes the process of learning, as opposed to the creation of an end result, which is the goal of project based learning or most traditional schooling models. If a students inquiry no longer interests them or they have learned a satisfactory amount they can let an line of inquiry be dropped. This often happens and is seen as part of the inquiry process.
The unique and authentic learning that occurs at PSII is inspiring. I hope that this model becomes more common place in our learning world.
I went back to the pottery studio recently, and oh boy, did I learn some new things!
I got there and the first thing I had to do was trim my pieces from the previous throwing session! Which was news to me, but I learned it is a very important step in the process of making pots.
Trimming is the process of removing the excess clay from the bottom of your piece. This happens after your pieces have dried to a leathery texture. This step is completed on the pottery wheel and requires a few key tools and materials. Here is a picture of my pieces pre-trimming with the tools I used to trim them.
It really helps when your pieces are smooth on the top, but mine were not. This made attaching them to the wheel a bit more difficult. Pieces are attached using extra, wet clay to hold the pieces in place. The wheel is then turned on and the tools are used to remove the excess clay from the bottom of the pieces. This clay naturally builds up when you are forming the pieces on the pottery wheel. Bottoms can be trimmed to be flat or have fancy shapes. This process is also important for making a piece more uniform, removing excess clay so the pieces aren’t so heavy, and to enhance the appearance of the piece.
Once this process is completed the pieces are ready for their first round of firing in the kiln! Such excitement!
A great watch!
I love the idea behind High Tech High and their practices of project and inquiry based learning. I want to implement these forms of learning in my teaching practice and this movie took away some of the ambiguity around how it looks and what it entails. I still wonder about how well it will be received by parents and the students, but I believe it is a worthwhile endeavour and a risk that will pay off.
I also loved the combination of topics as I believe that the division of learning into subjects taught in isolation without even acknowledging the cross over is outdated and unhelpful to learners lasting knowledge. I believe context is so key to knowledge synthesis and the intersection of art and science helps to create richness of understanding and relevance of content to learners.
This video is worth a watch. If you would like a preview check out the trailer at:
Recent Comments