A Teacher Education Journey

Tessa Webb

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Pottery #3 – Youtube

October 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I have been delving into the world of Youtube videos to aid me with my pottery techniques.

Here are a few I have found that have provided important and useful information to achieve more efficient and functional technical skills for some of the following: throwing, centering, pulling, how to use a rib, trimming and how to make a handle. A big, huge THANKS to these amazing people who are willing to film and edit and share their knowledge via youtube!

Centering – This video addresses some of the issues you may encounter as a beginner when centerring clay

How to Make a Bowl – Useful demonstration of pulling and how to use a rib

 

Trimming and handle making! – gets very advanced at the end, but also very inspired!

 

October 18 – Class Highlights

October 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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/

Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation – A Field Trip

October 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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.

 

 

 

Pottery #2 – Trimming

October 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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!

 

 

Oct 4 – Class Highlights and Reflections

October 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Guest Speaker – Jesse Miller @mediatedreality

https://twitter.com/MediatedReality

Jesse Works with Social Media, having the conversation with teachers and students to help them understand the internet.

Here are some interesting highlights of his talk today:

Internet/App By-Products

This can be easily looked up on the internet. All (?) but definitely most things that occur on the internet have by-products that are saved and used for another purpose. Google “internet by-products” “saved information from free apps” to find more information

An Example of this:

Captcha (Prove you are not a robot by picking all the cars in this 9×9 grid)

  • by-products of when people verify that they are not a robots are in fact used to teach computers (Artificial Intelligence) to recognize objects, people, lights, powerpoles, etc to be used in self-driving cars in the future.

 

Sometimes the conversation around the internet will only focus on internet safety, but we need to talk about our networked citizenship.

It is important to ask yourself – what is your_______?: 

  • Digital Identity – online; multi-versions of ourselves.
  • Digital Rights – screenshots & sends to a thousand photos (2014) – intimate images act; can’t show photos to people legally.
  • Digital Literacy – people and behaviours changing, what is “normal dialogue around technology,internet”
  • Use – Personal, Professional, and Social
  • Safety
  • Security of self

HEADLINES – designed to get people to click  by causing an emotional response.

Some examples of headlines:

Should Your Child Have a Social Media Account?

This article is BIASED but this is a questions that everyone should be asking

  • differentiated between needs and ages.
  • how is media being used? what platforms, apps, media do people  choose based on their use and preferences

Why Social Media is Not Smart for Middle School Kids

  • good science, under developed and not prepared. don’t have enough data.

The Kids (Who Use Tech) Seem to Be All Right

  • anxiety linked to social media

 

“We shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us” – John Culkin

 

A Double Edged Sword

Media and technology can be a positive addition to our lives but also has a lot of potential to be misused.

August 1941 – movie horrors & radio crime – “radio is causing nightmares” – content is what is the problem, not the technology, how did that technology shift society. double edged sword.

Cyber Bullying – important to know how to deal with bullies, who to talk to, how to avoid providing opportunities to a bully.

#teacherproblems

teachers fired over social media incidents

check with your school and district about appropriate communications. Understand policies and expectations.

any social media issues, texting, communicating – the more discussed and boundaries and expectations set the better it will work. Think of social perceptions.

Continue reading

Sept 26 – Class Highlights and Reflections

September 29, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Today in class we learned about video editing and audio recording.

Rich McCue lead this class. He posted instructions and links on how to use a couple different platforms for video editing  and audio recording on his blog which can be found here:  https://richmccue.com/

We discussed a couple ways that humans have historically used video for learning:

  • slowing down to see things we can’t see with the human eye.
  • speeding things up (taking multiple frames) to see a long process in a short amount of time
  • Khan academy – videos of math problems for repetition and ease

 

Audio Editing

I recorded a small clip on Audacity, which is a free open-source cross-platform audio software. It, and more information about it, can be accessed on the website https://www.audacityteam.org/

Here is a small sample recording I made in class (the first 5 seconds are silent) :

 

 

Video editing

There are a couple options for video editing which are listed below.

Today was the first time I had ever used the program, imovie. I was able to successfully figure out how to make the following  video. I used files provided to us by Rich Mccue. The first clip was of chickens in front of a green screen, the second was the fish swimming in the coral reef, and the third file was the audio file of the ocean sounds. I learned how to splice them together and add audio.  I found this platform fairly user-friendly and though not intuitive for me I was able to sort through the steps and make it work.

 

Sept 20 – Class Highlights and Reflections

September 29, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Today in class we talked about:

Tech Inquiry

Twitter

Trello – Lists, emails, questions for Michael

Open educational resources, content creators and educators, creative commons (licensing tool for sharing material), teachers pay teachers (creating content and trying to sell it to other teachers).

Open Education: creativecommons.org/openeducation concerns: quality, who’s work is being put in this forum – (often teachers not being credited), who puts this together?

copyright – seeking permissions, fair allowances, open source, Copyright Act and Fair Dealing in Canada (Bill C-11).

Think about practice, have a good practice of giving credit to model good practice. Why is it important to copyright?  – give credit where credit is due, people want to be acknowledged for their work.

bit.ly links – at bit.ly dot com put in the url so that you can more easily copy and share the link.

Pottery #1

September 20, 2019 / / 0 Comments

And so it begins!

My free inquiry project is to learn the vast and varied art of pottery, and I went had tried my hand at it this past week.

The theory behind this activity is that I will take blobs of clay and turn them, literally turn them, on a wheel into vessels. In theory it seems so simple. But in reality it is much more difficult and much more messy.

I now know this as I went for my first pottery making experience Monday evening and I am both delighted and apprehensive about how this inquiry will go. See pictures below.

I have decided to explore pottery making at Yunomi, a pottery studio downtown Victoria, that is tucked away in a fairly industrial looking building. The studio website is as follows:

http://anncoleman.ca/

I had done some research over the last few months, mostly anecdotal, regarding where in Victoria pottery making is available, especially for someone who is brand new to the art. Yunomi was a studio that came highly recommended on a number of occasions by a variety of people. It is not the only option though. I was also recommended to the Cedar Hill Recreation Centre which has a fully equipped pottery studio in it and another friend mentioned a place called Hands On Pottery. Hands on Pottery is also located in the heart of Victoria and, from what I can tell by their website, also looks highly respectable.  But I chose Yunomi and after my first experience I feel very comfortable with that decision as it is bright, welcoming, and close to my home for ease of access.

Another factor in this decision was that a friend and colleague offered to teach me the basics of pottery and she practices at Yunomi. For this I am endlessly grateful. Thanks Katrina! This was both a fun and slightly daunting prospect as I do often experience crippling self doubt which I find exacerbated by the presence of those who’s opinion I value. Alas, it was fine.

Having gone into the studio and tried my hand at throwing clay on a wheel, my queries have grown.

I wonder about proper technique and what does that entail? What are the properties of the different types of clay? Where does this clay come from? When was pottery first invented? and by whom?

On a more How much of pottery is art and how much is science? in pottery and in life. What is the perfect ratio of clay to water on the wheel? What is the perfect wheel speed to optimise efficiency? perfection? Is perfection something to strive for? What are the possibilities and applications of this art? In my life? In the classroom? In general?

This just being after having tried my hand at this once, I am sure to have many many more questions. and this hasn’t even touched the process of firing and glazing.

I believe I will find in pottery a beautiful intersection of art, science, society, and personal peace and growth.

I am so excited to be a beginner in this world of potting. To be completely at a loss of how to achieve what I want to achieve but to have the desire burn brightly inside to make it happen.

Photos:

“Most Likely To Succeed”

September 20, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5XRrfetu4

Welcome!

September 17, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I am so excited to be starting on this learning journey. Thank you for joining me.

 

Passion.

What in your life is calling you,
when all the noise is silenced,
the meetings adjourned,
the lists laid aside,
and the wild Iris blooms
by itself
in the dark forest,
what still pulls on your soul?

-Rumi

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