Category: Weekly Reflections

Today in class we were visited by Tracy and Kaori from BCEDaccess for a discussion about inclusion in education. More specifically we talked about some technology and how it can aid inclusion. To begin the class, Tracy did an exercise with sticky notes where she gave the majority of the class a pink sticky note, some of the class a green note, a small amount of orange notes and some people did not get a note. She further explained that pink notes meant we could stay, green meant they had to leave after a bit of time, orange meant they could stand in the hallway with supervision and no sticky note meant they had to leave right away and could not participate in class. We were all very confused, some questioned it while others (like Ben) just accepted it. Tracy clarified and said we were just participating in a demonstration of what some kids have to deal with in the school system and it was really eye opening. The idea of a kid not being able to participate in class activities simply because they lacked something that others had is a difficult concept to grasp. Instead of casting them to the side, the school system should be finding ways to better support them.

I think of integration versus inclusion is important to discuss. It is important to note that although a student may seem like they are included in the class, they might not be. The image on the left shows the difference between the two terms. Getting a kid that has a designation into the classroom amongst others is an amazing feat and should in no way be discredited. However, we should not stop there. We should try our best to immerse the student in the class content and amongst their peers in order for them to be truly included. Yes, it may be a struggle but it is worth the effort in my opinion. On the flip side of the coin, there may be times where inclusion just may not be optimal for the student, for the rest of the class, and for the staff. In my Link2Practice class, we have a student who has autism and is hardly engaged with the class. There have been efforts to get him both integrated and included but it just is not working right now. The staff involved have taken note of this and are responding with appropriate methods that work for him such as taking time in support rooms, allowing him to leave the class and go for walks, or being in the class without being heavily involved. Although you would like to see him in the class everyday with his peers, it just is not optimal right now and that is okay.

All-in-all I am thankful for the presentation we received today from Tracy and Kaori. What made it memorable for me was how they seamlessly brought in their own personal stories about their experiences with inclusion. It made the presentation much more human and it allowed me to be more engaged.

In class today we focussed on AI and the uses it could have for us as teachers. Michael showed us some example prompts that we could feed into ChatGPT and in my opinion the most interesting one was the lesson plan prompt. He asked the program to design him some lesson plans for a specific topic and grade and almost instantly was given an entire lesson plan. Also, if he didn’t like what he saw originally he could just click regenerate and it would give him a brand new plan. It certainly does feel like cheating but if it is a resource that is available, it is hard to not take advantage.

I have talked to a few teachers about using AI and they have all given me similar responses. They say something along the lines of, “it has many great ideas, but I don’t see myself relying on it.” In my opinion, eventually AI is going to be a pretty common tool in the world just like how the internet became readily available for people back in 1993. So people are weary of using it and don’t want to admit to using it because they don’t want people to think they are “cheating.” Eventually, that misconception will fade away and people of all professions will be using AI to make their lives easier.

There was also a discussion about the ethics of AI. I raised a question about AI potentially displacing people out of their jobs. The example I used was somebody who has the job of helping you find resources in the library. Why would I go into the library when I could just ask ChatGPT and quickly get the job done. Another argument for AI in this case is that ChatGPT is free and accessible. Hiring an employee to do the job is not. So if I was an employer, I would ask the question of why would I be paying someone to do a job that a computer can do for free? I know that sounds harsh but it is a harsh world. Another interesting point that I often ponder is how are teachers going to make assignments knowing that students can just get ChatGPT to do it for them. Michael made a great point in saying a way around this is to get kids to inject a human element into their projects. Human elements such as their own experiences, opinions or emotions. I never thought about that and will keep it in mind going forward.

I think today’s class was one of the most enjoyable classes I’ve sat in all semester. We started with a bit of a summary of what we did with Rich two weeks ago where we talked about ways to incorporate multimedia into our teachings to potentially make them more engaging. An example was finding a balance between pictures and words for a slide. Michael started to explain how to properly use a bicycle pump. The first method he used was a boring looking paragraph that step for step explained how to use the pump. No pictures were included, just words. That was not very effective. He then showed a picture of just a bicycle pump that was still in the packaging and that wasn’t great either because it was not engaging. The final attempt included a step by step diagram of a pump in action with descriptive text on the diagram. I found this to be a perfect and informative balance between text and picture. It was easy to follow the different steps of the pump but also I wasn’t overwhelmed with words. This part of the class was incredibly relatable as a university student. I have sat through classes where we just sit there and listen to the professor read off of a word document that only features words. It is by far the least engaging way to teach a class. We then moved on to see the power of PowerPoint and how it can be more than just a presentation tool.

We played around with the different tools and I had a lot of fun with it. I can totally see how kids would be able to use this. An example I thought about was students making a story and including themselves in it. They could easily grab backdrops off of the internet and post them into a PowerPoint all well including different pictures as the characters or the main focus. I think this might be too advanced for younger students but for students in grade 7 or 8 they would be able to figure this out. It is also very easy to teach. Michael showed us how to do it on the projector and I figured it out rather quickly.

The potential for easily making worksheets is there too. Some of our classmates took a more serious route and developed incredibly easy math worksheets using a few images. This is pretty cool to me as I won’t have to always rely on borrowing other teacher resources but I can just hop on to power point and quickly make a worksheet.

Today in class we had a guest speaker named Kirsten come in. Some of the things she discussed were very interesting. The first topic was how can we integrate technology into learning about the environment and eco-literacy. When she originally proposed this question, I was a little bit overwhelmed. I figured she wanted us to solve this massive issue just off the top of our heads but it wasn’t like that at all. She gave some examples and they were all very simple. The most simple being simple photography and video. Getting kids to go out into their environments and capturing the places they live and study in. She also brought up Minecraft and how that can be used as a tool to teach kids about different wildlife and biomes. Considering how excited kids get for Minecraft, I figure this could be a great resource. Google Earth was also mentioned and how you are able to rewind the maps to 10 or so years ago to see the development of the land.

Kirsten also brought up the concept of two lense learning. From what I understood, it is essentially looking at something in the world from the western point of view, but also considering a different culture’s point of view. The example that we discussed in class was an Indigenous point of view. For me as a settler, a tree will appear to just be a tree. It has bark, it grows leaves, it loses it’s leaves and so on. But perhaps for an Indigenous person, that tree has a story and important cultural ties. Now I am not saying that for all of Western society that trees are just trees however I don’t think I know too many people who would be able to tell me something important to them or their family with regards to a tree. I think that this type of learning is very important to be teaching students because it is important for them to understand that there are other world views outside of what they know. We need to be more cognizant of other cultures and their ties to the land.

Towards the end of class we ventured out to Finnerty Gardens to take in the environment and to think of ways that we could tie technology into the land. For me, it was pretty cool to head into the gardens and to see the different trees and bushes labeled. I read some names of plants that I had never heard of before so that was pretty cool. Michael then showed me how Google Lense works by taking a picture of a plant and running it through Lense. That would be a very cool thing for students of all ages to be able to do. To head out to their place of learning and photograph something that interests them and identify it would be awesome and maybe there is a sense of accomplishment there. Additionally, going into an environment like that progressively throughout the seasons would be beneficial for students as they would be able to see the same plantlife throughout the year and how it changes with the seasons

Here is my tutorial video for how to use and play the website 24/7 Blackjack. I know this is not exactly an educational resource but it was the first thing that came to mind. I was quite surprised with how easy it was for me to record this video and then upload it. And now that I have the software on my computer, it will be faster and easier every time as I don’t have to endure the setup process.

When thinking about whether or not this would be relevant in the grade I want to teach, I would say most likely not. I have really enjoyed my time in link2practice around the grade 1/2’s. The activities that we do in the classroom are very simple. They use building blocks, white boards, felts and crayons and much more. Their access to internet is basically none in the classroom. Even if I did use it to explain a concept to a class of kids that young, there is not much benefit with it as opposed to just explaining it to them in person. In fact, explaining something to these young kids in real time might be better because I would be able to see what and how they are thinking.

I do however think there are certain ages and certain ways that other multi-media can be used so that we can create more engaging lessons and tutorials. I think the biggest one would be the Powerpoints and how we have to try to balance the amount of words and pictures we use. If I was in a classroom, and the teacher pulled up a powerpoint that was all text and then proceeded to read the text word for word, I would be mentally checked out so fast as I could just read everything on the slide and then stop paying attention. In contrast, if the presenter included some main points but also pictures to support them and then was able to elaborate more, I would have to pay attention in order to catch everything.