Ella's Corner

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Category: Weekly Reflections

This is the category to apply to your Weekly Reflection posts from the course.

Reflection 2!

September 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

As useful as H5P is for older students, I think it is much to confusing for primary aged children. As an adult I struggled figuring out how to use it, so I cannot imagine someone with no technology skills, trying to use it. I believe a software like IMovie is much easier to teach younger kids. When it comes to introducing topics like screen capturing and video editing, I find it’s important to not overwhelm students. With confusion from complex programs comes bad experiences, which only pushes the student further away from wanting to do those activities in the future.

Photo by Bas Peperzak on Unsplashed

I hope to teach primary aged students, K-3. With those slightly older kids starting off teaching things like stop motion. First giving the students the assignment of writing a short story, giving them a base to start their videos with. Then give options of items like Lego figures, glass beads, or Play-Dough. Get your students to re-create their stories using stop motion. Let your students take all the pictures, maybe giving a lesson on basic camera angels first. Then do a guided lesson using screen capturing, showing them a step by step on how to import, and move images around in an editing software like IMovie. Letting the students bring their stories to life, brings a level of engagement, a more structured assignment might not have.

LINKS: https://www.webkinz.com Music: Monkeys Spinning Monkeys · Kevin MacLeod · Kevin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPdgPZ0u3zQ

Little me! Taken by Valery Puetz. (My Grandma)

Week One Reflection!

September 15, 2024 / / 0 Comments

When it comes to the way our education system has been standardized, I think there will always be room for improvement. Due to the standardization of education, it becomes hard to do anything outside of that box. The standardization is also based in giving all students equal learning opportunities, as well as to prepare them for post-secondary education.

When I think about ways to re-imagine the education system it always comes down to adding more options, rather than taking options away. Students are individuals, with individual interests. I would rather be able to cater to students needs, giving them a positive experience in a school setting, by modifying activities to better pique my students interests. Rather than force them into a style of learning that turns them off from school. I believe there’s always a way to modify an activity to better suite your classroom needs.

With re-imagining our education system, we would need to rethink things like university application requirements, and what we as a society see as a “successful student.” Which is something I’m not even sure how you’d approach. All and all I believe there is room for improvement with education, but it is most definitely a team effort.

Modern day takes on education excite me. A lot of my own schooling was done in a semi non-traditional way; whether it was outdoor education through hiking and canoeing, or more self guided learning like inquiry fairs. I don’t feel as though I have gaps in my learning, rather that I have a clearer memory of all the times I was allowed to do non-traditional activities. That being said I did spend many years in a more traditional setting as well, so the outcome of a completely non-traditional education is foreign to me. That new education style could have major impacts on post-secondary education, which is something of concern in a world where it seems you need a degree of sorts to survive.

image showing person walking in pre-painted footprints
Photo by Flickr user jfchenier under CC license: BY-NC 2.0

Welcome and Introduction

September 9, 2020 /

Before proceeding with this first blog post, we expect you to consider your privacy preferences carefully and that you have considered the following options:

  1. Do you want to be online vs. offline?
  2. Do you want to use your name (or part thereof) vs. a pseudonym (e.g., West Coast Teacher)?
  3. Do you want to have your blog public vs. private? (Note, you can set individual blog posts private or password protected or have an entire blog set to private)
  4. Have you considered whether you are posting within or outside of Canada? This blog on opened.ca is hosted within Canada. That said, any public blog posts can have its content aggregated/curated onto social networks outside of Canada.

First tasks you might explore with your new blog:

  • Go into its admin panel found by adding /wp-admin at the end of your blog’s URL
  • Add new category or tags to organize your blog posts – found under “Posts” (but do not remove the pre-existing “EdTech” category or sub-categories, Free Inquiry and EdTech Inquiry). We have also pre-loaded the Teacher Education competencies as categories should you wish to use them to document your learning. If you would like to add more course categories, please do so (e.g., add EDCI 306A with no space for Music Ed, etc.)
  • See if your blog posts are appearing on the course website (you must have the course categories assigned to a post first and have provided your instructor with your blog URL)
  • Add pages
  • Embed images or set featured images and embed video in blog posts and pages (can be your own media or that found on the internet, but consider free or creative commons licensed works)
  • Under Appearance,
    • Select your preferred website theme and customize to your preferences (New title, etc.)
    • Customize menus & navigation
    • Use widgets to customize blog content and features
  • Delete this starter post (or switch it to draft status if you want to keep for reference)

Do consider creating categories for each course that you take should you wish to document your learning (or from professional learning activities outside of formal courses). Keep note, however, that you may wish to use the course topic as the category as opposed to the course number as those outside of your program would not be familiar with the number (e.g., we use “EdTech” instead of “edci336).

Lastly, as always, be aware of the FIPPA as it relates to privacy and share only those names/images that you have consent to use or are otherwise public figures. When in doubt, ask us.

Please also review the resources from our course website for getting started with blogging:

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