For my free inquiry, I have made some time to finish the song My Little Sunshine. I was hoping to finish another song, but I am happy I was able to carve out some time for this one! I was able to borrow this ukulele from UVIC until April, so I hope to continue working on it. See the video below to hear me playing:
I made a plan of my goals I hope to accomplish with my ukulele progress. My plan for next semester is to continue on with that in my free time before having to return it. I have had so much fun with this free inquiry project and hope to be able to do something simikar with my future students!
It is the last week of the semester! I have learned to much about technology in education over the past couple month, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be creative with my free inquiry. I have taken a large interest in 3 things specifically, Chat GPT, citizenship online, and student privacy. Prior to this class, these are things I have never really thought of. Now, Chat GPT has become such a useful tool for me in my education, and thanks to my group project, I know appropriate ways to integrate it into my future classroom. For me, I have found it most useful in making plans, correcting work, and to help with brainstorming. For online citizenship and student privacy, I have learned the importance of my online presence, realizing some posts that I thought were okay may be crossing the line.
Below is my sketchnote I made of the big ideas I mentioned above. As you can see, Chat GPT has the biggest fireworks, indicating that it has been the biggest tool for me, and then my digital footprint and student privacy.
As for my free inquiry, I have made some time to finish the song My Little Sunshine. I was hoping to finish another song, but I am happy I was able to carve out some time for this one! I was able to borrow this ukulele from UVIC until April, so I hope to continue working on it. See the video below to hear me playing:
This week for my free inquiry of playing the ukulele, I have not been as regular with my progress as I should be! I have continued practicing the short verse of You Are My Sunshine, but have not learned too much further. Thanks to the extra time focused on the verse though, it is sounding much better and more cohesive than before. I am not very musically inclined, so even though I have not learned the whole song so far, I am still very happy to have made an improvement.
Here are the lyrics to the song!
In this video, she is explaining different strumming patterns you can use in this song. I have been using the second, down, down, up. I am excited to keep on working on this!
This week in our class, we discussed the pros and cons of technology in our own study and in elementary classroom. I found it very helpful to here about how all my classmates use technology in moderation while getting work done. For example, some put their phones on do not disturb, leaving the phone in another room while studying, or turning off notifications. We also got to play around with Arduino Science Journal. I learned that the Arduino Science Journal is designed for fun and interactive science experiments. You can use it on your smartphone, tablet, or even pair it with an Arduino board for extra functionality. Think of it as a digital notebook that lets you gather data from the world around you using your device’s built-in sensors, such as light, sound, and acceleration.
I enjoyed learning about the helpful aspects and limitations of technology because now I feel more comfortable knowing appropriate ways to incorporate tech into my classroom. Specifially learning about ways of engagement, accessibilty and personalized learning strategies. I am excited to work with technology as I continue my learning as a student teacher.
Above is a breif group project video about generative AI in the elementary classroom. Check it out to learn more about the benefits, challenges and strategies of this tool!
This week, we had the opportunity to learn from Britnay, a guest speaker who shared many valuable insights on classroom management techniques. Her presentation covered key strategies like establishing routines, incorporating SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) check-ins, implementing soft starts, modeling behavior, fostering inquiry, and setting clear classroom rules and expectations. It was helpful to have all of these concepts clearly outlined and explained, especially since I’ve observed many of them in action during L2P and my own classes.
I enjoyed learning about soft starts and transitions, as these are techniques I haven’t encountered as much throughout my education. Ideas like using Play-Doh, kinetic sand, and musical tracing maps stood out to me as creative ways to ease students into the day. Britnay’s presentation also included lots of practical templates that I’m excited to try out, especially for developing an inquiry and strength-based approach in the classroom. I did a bit more research on soft starts, and found lots of other teachers posting their experiences and techniques with this. Check out this one from Jenna Kimber.
Having written resources is very helpful for me, I feel that it supports my learning and planning process very well. I like the idea of starting with broad goals and inquiries for the class, then breaking those down into specific, individualized goals for each student. This approach feels both intentional and supportive, and I’m excited to practice applying it in my own teaching.
Through out this past week of learning the ukulele, I have been focused on learning with and from my peers, playing games and sharing our progress. Outside of this, I have been trying to find music games for children to help me learn, and create a music resource package for when I am in practicum. Thanks to my L2P teaching days this semester, I learned about Music play Online, which I could not find more helpful. Seeing how the kids are engaged playing the music games is great. It has also been extremely helpful for me to listen into the students music class to help me learn different keys, notes, and they sound on different instruments. On this website, you can create a musical staff, and select which instrument you want the website to play. When I do this, I put in the notes of the song I am learning, to break it down step by step and hear what it sounds like correctly.
While practicing strumming, I was using the photo above as guidance. Hearning the lyrics also helps keep me on track!
This week in our class, we learned about coding and gaming in education, and got to play some games to practice coding on our own. I chose to play a coding version of flappy bird, called flappy code. In this game, we are given prompts and options for different actions to happen. For example, the prompt “when hitting an object,” I chose to select “end game.”
This is what you earn when you finish the coding game!
This is what the game setup looks like, suitable for grade 2+.
Because coding is becoming a large part of education, it makes me wonder if computation thinking can help learners become better problem solvers? As we discussed in class, certain games can help students develop skills such as problem solving, identifying patterns, and critical thinking. We can use resources such as Hour of Code , where there are suggested grade levels, as a tool to help students learn these skills in a fun and engaging way.
Along with this, gameplay can be used to as a tool to make traditionally less popular topics engaging for learners because they are actively engaged, learning through mistakes and intrigued by intrinsic motivation. Often times, people are more engaged in online games of visuals, the way they tell a story, and people are often motivated by rewards such as point systems and levels. Especially with websites like we used today, there is a vast amount of different games, and people can choose something that they are interested in, or personalized to them.
Taking all of this into consideration, gameplay is a great and engaging way to teach students, but could present some equity issues. Depending on school funding, technology may not be accessible. Along with this, many games may not resonate with certain beliefs or may be biased. For myself as a future educator, I will be useful for me to have this tool where students are able to create their own games, such as the one above.
This past week I have been reaching out to classmates and working together to study and memorize musical notes, sharps and flats. We played a vareity of games such as musical snakes and latters, and rolling a dice, being shown musical notes and having to name them out by memory. This was very helpful for me as even though I am learning how to play the ukulele, it will be very helpful for me to read music to help my future students.
Here some photos below of the work we did:
Next week, I plan on practicing playing the ukulele with classmates to get feedback and see if theres anything I can learn from them. By the end, I plan to record and submit my strumming and my progress on My Little Sunshine.
Hello everyone! This week was a very informative week in regards to sketchnoting, canva and learning skills. We learned about TPACK (technological, pedagogical, and conent knowledge) and SAMR (subsitution, augmentation, modification, and redefination) and their similarities and differences. TPACK and SAMR are both frameworks used to evaluate tech integration in the classroom, but offer different approaches. SAMR categorizes tech capabilites into 4 levels, and TPACK offers a more interconnected approach. As for sketchnoting and canva, it was very interesting to see how they both have very different benefits, and possible shortcomings. For example, sketchnoting helps us remember what we are hearing as we write. The process of having to summarize in our brains as we write is believed to be helpful in recall. As for tech notes or canva, they are very aesthetically pleasing and is a way of writing notes, it could be a way of transription typing. Without the process of summarizing, it could be going straight from your ears to the keyboard. In class today, we had the opportunity to practice our sketchnoting, check out mine with a theme of elementary school!
As for canva, there is many great benefits for making projects, and as a future teacher, could be very helpful in making engaging lesson plans for students. We didn’t have time to make our own canvas in class, but it is definetly a tool I am excited to use going forward. In another class, we need to make an infographic tool to share in our L2P schools on a free inquiry topic of our choice. Thanks to todays class, I now feel inspired and ready to get creative on canva!
Here is a video uploaded by Canva to help get started. I plan on using this when I start my next canva project!
