Category: EdTech Reflections (Page 1 of 2)

Who knew there was a dinosaur civilization that buried their dead? The monuments and buildings had all disappeared in the metamorphic rubble of geological time, leaving few traces but the skeletal frames and carbon reserves humans used to terraform the planet millions of years later. But now we knew that there was history before history, stories of love lost and pinnacle achievements to span the ages. Only, they didn’t because we couldn’t read them after so much change. We were not the first, we homo sapiens, and we began to realize the learning had just begun, even though it has always been emerging.

Ever since the Archea arrived, time has become like a river current that we can swim and sometimes even traverse with enough energy. After a couple generations of contact, field trips are no longer the same. Yes, the present is still present in a way, but now we have business interests strewn across the ages and most of the jobs involve outposts and community-building projects millennia ago. Students no longer expect to be hampered by a singular timeline, and instead their career opportunities look in multiple diachronic directions. The schools have had to change to accommodate these new market forces, and the field trip has forever become a thing of the past.

At first when the Archea came, some were particularly concerned about timeline purity, but every time we went back we realized that we had apparently been there all along. Just nobody ever noticed because the signs would get warped in so many ways. The only periods forbidden now are those human-dominated eras of the past ten thousand years. People have broken the rules, of course, but only a few ever managed to pull off something impressive. Who knew that Leonardo da Vinci was born 700 years later than the fifteenth-century records which attest to his brilliance? And yes, he was legitimately brilliant, since most of us cannot handle the strain of passing for ancient folk.

So what do we do now? Well, I guess that question is simultaneously antiquated and forever relevant. Needless to say, temporal adverbs are much more confusing to teach. Never before have we always been like this. Welcome again to Foreverland.

Out of the six topics available for discussion in class (Gamification, Coding, Knowledge Curation, Simulations, Homework?, Online Art), I focused on just one: Gamification.

What we noticed was how gamification can bring game mechanics into the classroom on two levels. First, it can involve using games to teach concepts traditionally unrelated. Examples might include teaching history through period games that illustrate key events and principles through their gameplay, one possibility being Papers, Please. In this game, players must make decisions as passport clerks within a totalitarian regime. By following the rules, they cause harm by splitting up families, but by protecting people they lose their job, thus causing harm to their own family and loved ones who depend upon them. In the classroom, this game could be used to explore the ethical quandaries that face citizens of totalitarian regimes, thus bringing to life whole historical eras. Thank you, Nick, for showing how this example would work!

The second way of incorporating game mechanics into the classroom is to change the structures of the classroom to reflect gaming principles. An example would be to transform the grading system into an RPG system of leveling characters through experience. Assignments might be like quests, each of which contribute points towards a leveling system when complete. In games, higher levels give players more freedom and privileges, meaning this process would require some form of extrinsic-rewards system to make it valuable. Kolton brought up the possibility of allowing students to forgo the final exam should they achieve a certain mark on a precursor comprehensive exam. The prospect of finishing the course early can motivate students to study thoroughly and possibly perform better than they would have otherwise. In other words, students still learn the material, and those who struggle the first time have a second chance to improve.

What both forms of gamification do is support learning by transforming otherwise boring processes into rewarding and exciting activities. Instead of struggling to pay attention, students engage with ease. As Mark Rober suggests, gamification allows us to trick our brains into learning:

Certainly worth trying out!

Today we had the opportunity to hear from Tracy Humphreys, founder and chair of BCEdAccess. Lead by volunteers, this grassroots organization has over 4,200 members, all of whom have disabilities or have connections with folks who have disabilities. The purpose of this organization is to advocate for students at two levels: directly with the government and in connection with families. Here are some highlights from her presentation:

What Parents Say

• Denial of tech needs continues in our schools
• Much of the tech available is outdated and frustrating to use
• Access remains a barrier for many students
• Without a central hub, parents have few resources to support their inquiries
• Families are not receiving the education and training they need to participate in tech-support programs

Ableism

Ableism is a set of attitudes born out of ignorance that produces barriers for people in the same ways that racism or sexism do. Some frequent examples include:

• Are they disabled enough to deserve that support?
• Why do they get to have this support while I do not?

One strategy teachers can adopt to resist ableism is to design lessons in ways that everyone has technological support. Doing so mitigates the potential for envy when students realize others have different sorts of access to technologies.

Technological Supports in the Classroom

Some common technological supports that teachers can incorporate into any lesson include:

• FM Systems
• Captioning on videos
• Audiobooks

Key to all of these approaches is that technology should honour and strengthen student abilities, allowing them to participate along with everyone else. Teachers can also learn about student needs by asking EAs, families, and the students themselves, especially the latter. By working with students directly, teachers can show that they care.

Universal Design for Learning

A big part of Tracy’s message was that teachers need to design their lessons for students on the margins. This pedagogy, famously known as Universal Design for Learning, suggests that doing so allows everyone to succeed, since the supports that help students with disabilities and exceptionalities will also help everyone else. In other words, teachers need to stop aiming at the middle, lest the students who are hardest to reach are left behind.

A great proponent of this message is, of course, Shelley Moore, with her wonderful bowling analogy:

Final Thoughts

Although I have heard many of these insights in the past, hearing them from Tracy Humphreys was particularly moving. Her experience as a parent, individual with autism and ADHD, and long-time advocate for inclusion in education shows through in her measured tone and concrete stories. What she provides is more than just theory: she provides those critical anchor points to which we as educators can turn when we are unsure or confused. Theory is useful, but only insofar as it bears witness to real lives and people. Tracy Humphreys grounds our reflections in those stories and allows us teachers to become better for it. Thank you!

Trevor MacKenzie joined us to discuss inquiry as a methodology of teaching. A teacher at Oak Bay high school, he has written numerous books on inquiry-based teaching and made numerous appearances on podcasts. Needless to say, his message has wide application and people want to know his thoughts. Here are some highlights of the talk:

Reflect on Your Own Educational Experiences

Trevor started off by asking us what school was like for us. Over a series of follow-up questions, he had us explore on our own what worked for us and what did not, whether we liked school or whether we hated it. The purpose of these questions was to remind us that each of us has reasons to learn, but that school has been traditionally a profoundly rigid and soul-killing machine of conformity. For us to be effective educators, therefore, he suggests we need to move towards personalization and student-centred pedagogies, which he calls inquiry-based teaching.

Levels of Inquiry

He also provided us with a spectrum of inquiry-based teaching that illustrates the levels of engagement teachers can have as educators in the work students produce:

• Structured inquiry
• Controlled inquiry
• Guided inquiry
• Free inquiry

The idea is that there is a spectrum of control over students’ learning, and thinking about our lessons in this way allows us to consider the ways we support student inquiry. None of these forms of inquiry is inherently better than the others, but the spectrum shows the dramatic range of possibilities for education.

Students as Active Learners

Key to his philosophy is that students should be active participants and agents in their own learning processes. By reflecting on inquiry, teachers can optimize possibilities for co-designing the learning with students, giving them agency and ownership over the process. Once students have and feel ownership over their own learning, their motivation shifts and they can develop resilience as they overcome obstacles and pursue lessons with conviction.

Some Strategies

At the end, Trevor answered questions with a lot of insight. One way to get students not to obsess over grades is to conference with them about the process. By doing so, students can feel heard and involved, and many will be shocked when teachers allow them to influence their own grades. Doing so also removes some of the problems of subjectivity and bias that plague marking; by speaking with students and allowing them to advocate for themselves and their work, teachers can learn to see what students were contributing more accurately. In other words, inquiry-based learning requires constant dialogue and conversation to be effective.

What does it look like to lead a course using Google Classroom? So far I have been a student in one course, meaning I have some experience with the platform, but to use it as a teacher does require some practice as well.

For fun, I started a fake course of my own:

Turns out you need to sign a release to do so, since an actual school system requires additional security:

I designed this one to fit the needs of memory techniques:

For my first assignment, I decided to make a brief memory quiz:

The process of forming questions works as follows:

Each question has a variety of options, ranging from multiple choice to short answer. To test it out, I invited a colleague to practice the digits of pi by sending him the Google Classroom course code:

What is strange, however, is that his attempt does not register. I witnessed him complete the quiz, so the fact that nothing appears is concerning. To see what happened, I tested it myself:

Despite completing the quiz, I was unable to find this submission either. For some reason the files do not appear after the quiz is completed. I will have to test the platform out some more to work this out!

Along with the theoretical standpoints on using technologies within classrooms, Michael shared with us a particularly simple and effective strategy for transforming simple graphics into interactive lessons or activities. I decided to try out this feature, though I added animations to make the transitions smoother:

I got the images from the Victoria City website and the Snohomish Health District. Both were simple to use, and I can imagine going through this process with either of them, depending on the lesson.

Jeff Hopkins presented today on the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry, an independent high school he developed after feeling disgruntled with the forms of education available in the public system. Having run a school district before, he was able to navigate the bureaucratic processes required to develop an accredited institution, and the results are phenomenal. What is so great about this type of schooling?

Student Agency

He designed his school with the Strong Start program in mind, a type of schooling in which children generate their own learning opportunities in carefully curated environments. Student agency is therefore central to his model of education, and it anchored he planned for a school location, the modes of instruction, and the methods of assessment.

Located in downtown Victoria, PSII allows students to be in the hub of human activity. For Jeff, this location allows him to generate authentic learning opportunities for students. Students can participate in real community work because of their proximity to the institutions and businesses that define the working world.

Free inquiry defines the mode of instruction. Students decide themselves what they want to produce, and the teachers provide guidance and support in achieving results. The school does not run on a particular time table but shifts and changes as students plan meetings and sessions for exploring topics of interest. Central to this process are two questions: (1) what would we like to do together, and (2) what do we need to accomplish separately?

Finally, teachers provide assessment by supporting their learning goals (formative assessment) and connecting what students do to the BC curriculum. Although teachers have to provide grades, students largely drive the pace of assessment, and teachers are responsive to how students are progressing at any given moment.

Results

A big part of Jeff’s presentation focused on the results this kind of schooling has for students. Some questions pertain to accessibility and how well such forms of education fit with neuro-divergent individuals, and he has strong responses for all of these concerns.

For example, he notes that people with high anxiety tend to thrive in this environment because of how much agency they have in the process. Likewise, their students tend to succeed well and move into other contexts with ease, even if they approach those contexts in ways differently. Some students, for instance, have gone to university and dropped out after they have learned everything they feel is applicable to what they want to accomplish. While they may not achieve an undergraduate degree, they are typically already ahead of the game and running their own businesses. Hence, the degree may not be as important given their ability to navigate the business world with skill.

Tuition costs are probably the most prohibitive dimension of this school. While they try to fundraise as much as possible, as a private school they cannot guarantee spots to anyone. Likewise, the school is limited and has a long waiting list, meaning many youth cannot benefit from this style of instruction by definition.

Overall, the program sounds lovely and practical, the most important component being the way it combines authentic learning opportunities with student agency. Perhaps with more provincial funding, models like this could become wider spread.

Removing Backgrounds

I had used PowerPoint to play around with images before, but I was excited to try out unfamiliar features. For example, I had not realized you can remove the background from images using this software. For fun, I also thought I would showcase this process using the Google Chrome extension, Screencastify.

The most finicky element by far was the background-removal feature. Despite allowing for some precision, the program clearly “guesses” what to remove according to what you select. I am not sure whether it uses colour values, but the tool is far from perfect. I can imagine other programs would have superior means of removing the backgrounds from images.

Nonetheless, I was able to play around enough to get this:

Artistic Effects

To clean up the image, I tried a few more features in PowerPoint. In particular, I used the “Artistic Effects” tool to create a more holistic picture. The result is actually pretty impressive!

After these modifications, the final product looks like this:

Image Links

Please find links to the images below, as per the Creative Commons licenses:

Black Cat

Orange Cat (Right)

Orange Cat (Left)

Base Picture (including Black/White Cat)

The Process

The process was fairly easy, and I could follow all the steps. Thank you to UVic for making these tutorials available! However, certain features were beyond my control and the free software can be finicky at times.

One thing I struggled to use was the “fade-in-fade-out” feature. While I could get the process to work for middle clips and transitioning between segments, I could not seem to fade in or out of beginning or end portions.

Another element that was difficult to control was the zooming function. I could not really tell what exactly the effect was in the finished product, except for a shift towards a somewhat closer view during the specified segment. I am not confident I understand precisely how the software augments the visuals in time.

Videos

That being said, the process was enjoyable, and I can see using this software for simple videos in an educational setting. The videos I made during this process demonstrates some interesting features, to say the least:

I also tried to use some music from the Free Music Archive under their Creative Commons licenses. Unfortunately, many of them had restrictions on modification, so I could not use them for the video. However, I found a few for which I only needed to share alike. For my second try, I used the start of Swan Song by Paper Navy.

I look forward to practicing a few other features and using them for these reflections in the future. Out of respect to the artists whose music I used in this post, please follow the following Creative Commons license for this post:

I had to think a little about Jesse Miller’s presentation on web safety and adolescent education. His ideas challenged some of what I took for granted: that confiscating cellphones would be a good idea, or that scaring students into web safety will work. Both turn out to be wrong, or at least a little misguided without some critical caveats.

Smartphones

So far I have heard conflicting advice about smartphones in the classroom. Some say they discourage or prevent students from using them, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of everyone else’s learning. To make classrooms free of such devices is to provide a sanctuary from their potentially toxic impact. Doomscrolling is not just one of the big 2020 words, it is also a practice credited for the emerging trend of adolescent anxiety about climate change.

Others have said they feel uncomfortable with the idea of policing students’ use of smartphones in their classroom. Confiscating devices can be dangerous, especially if the teacher breaks the item accidentally. Because many devices cost hundreds of dollars (if not thousands) today, any potential damage can cause financial stress. Questions of liability are also concerning.

Needless to say, we need a balanced perspective with strategies that allow students to learn how to live and focus without their phones, albeit without costly side effects to their property.

Paternalism

The other issue pertains to strategies for supporting youth as they use online media to express themselves. Originally I would have thought it useful to tell horror stories about stolen identities or mob mentalities on the web, if only to start conversations about Internet safety. Jesse Miller challenged this misconception, however, by suggesting that such an approach can come across as paternalistic, especially since most students are probably already intimately aware of these dangers.

Digital Citizenship

A strong alternative seems to include providing guidance on ways to act as a digital citizen. Here is an example of engaging the discourse at this level:

While I appreciate this video, the approach may be a little too general. Brevity can be fine, but teachers should also model what it looks like to think through online decisions and provide students with opportunities to curate their online presence in conscientious ways. In other words, this advice should implemented through student work in the classroom, albeit with due respect to legal requirements and thoughtful consideration of how to protect student confidentiality.