How FIPPA may impact your professional practice?
Previous to this week, I had no idea of the strictness of FIPPA practices and their implications on Canadian teachers and students. I am a major fan of using google applications and have seen its popularity within the schools with things like google classroom. I now know that to protect myself, I would need to get the informed written consent from students to have them doing their classwork with servers that are located outside of Canada.
FIPPA regulations have me more motivated to find more Canadian resources so I can easier manage my classroom and not worry about things like waivers coming in and out from my students.
With this in mind I am adding this link with Canadian school resources that I could look to use in both my planning and carrying activities in schools.
Top 16 Canadian Educational Websites for Students, Teachers, & Parents – Oxford Learning
Administrator. “Top 16 Canadian Educational Websites for Students, Teachers, & Parents.” Oxford Learning, July 21, 2015. https://www.oxfordlearning.com/top-16-canadian-educational-websites/.
Furthermore, here is a video that looks like FIPPA and it’s direct input on the BC curriculum. The video claims that google has made a statement that it does not collect student’s information for the purpose of advertising. I plan to do more research in the future to see the legitimacy of these claims and their implications so I can be more aware of what apps I am getting my students to use.
Multimedia reflection
Reflecting on multimedia was very refreshing as it has led to some overlap between our psychology of adolescents course and multiliteracy course. One thing remains, using multiple modes or methods to reach students is extremely beneficial as students need to draw from things like visual, auditory and hands on tasks to take away the most away from a class. Media and technology can play a major role in that, especially in this day and age.
Even something as simple as adding pictures and other visuals to your texts resonates with me as I have sat through some presentations that have caught my interest because of the diversity of tools used, and on the other side for the lack of diversity in other lessons. This was something that was clearly mentioned in the video.
Mentioning students with disabilities was also nice to hear in the videos. I have worked with this population as a support worker and I have seen the need for visuals first hand.
Watching videos like these and reflecting on my work experiences will continue to provide real evidence of the importance of utilizing a multimedia or multimodal approach as I will be able to not only reach more students, but more effectively reach all of them.
This blog was made referencing Ray Pastore
What is Multimedia Learning? What is Multimedia? – YouTube
Interactive video reflection
My subject areas of PE and socials both have varying benefits of using interactive videos. Social studies have the obvious benefits. Videos are more commonly used in the social studies setting to watch historical films and educational videos with experts or primary witnesses. Adding interactive questions, polls or other pieces in the middle of the video can keep students engaged and motivated to pay attention to the videos. In addition, it can also check the classes understanding more often instead of solely relying on formal tests and quizzes. This also allows learners to better go at the pace they need and heighten the things that we love about using media in our classes.
Interactive videos also have their use in PE. As I demonstrate in the video below. Students can review footage of themselves performing a skill or game and either answer provided questions, or make the interactions to their own videos.
Here is a video demonstrating that I am familiarizing myself with Screencastify. Due to some technical difficulties during class time, we were unable to get the videos to be interactive.
Another tool that I found intriguing is the advent calendar. This is something I would never think to use in a classroom, but I could see it being a lighthearted activities for the students. Especially during the holidays when students may be more in the mood. These could be used as an attendance question every day, or it could reveal our daily discussion topic.
Here is the link from H5P website that allows you to customize your own: Advent Calendar (beta) | H5P
Week 5
This is the wonder banner that I created with Microsoft’s Designer AI tool. Although a microsoft account is needed, it is still a very interesting tool that can be found in here
In classrooms, I could see myself using this tool quite often in my power point presentations. Looking visually appealing presentations has always been a challenge for me, but this application leaves me no excuse to have PowerPoints that don’t look crisp, professional and appealing.
Introducing students to this tool could also be helpful because it puts them further ahead of the incoming AI curve that seems to be on it’s way to inevitably becoming more present in our society. With this being the case, we might as well take advantage of it and find the positives.
Week 6
As much as I do regret having to go through online school during my university experience, I can still recognize its benefits, and why some people may have even preferred it over in person school. The convenience and opportunity to connect with people around the world is something truly unique and online learning can provide that for us. It also forces us to become more technologically literate which becomes more and more relevant in today’s world. I can recognize that online learning can make school more accessible for all kinds of different people. This being people that are too busy to attend school in a traditional sense, or any person that benefits from learning that is often more at their own pace, in an environment that they can have more control over.
At the same time, I place a lot of stock in having that social environment where you can interact with people in person. While I understand that remote work and school is a big part of many jobs, I struggle with getting to know coworkers and other students to build professional and personal connections. Both of which I would consider to be just as important as the knowledge that we can gain along the way. Finally, I find that without those in person interactions and lack of relationship building, my motivation for course work lowers as well as sometimes my mental health. While I can see that online school can allow for more opportunities to get exercise in, I didn’t find that to be a reality for myself.
Week 7
Accessibility in education is something that I definitely find to be an interesting topic. As someone who has been a support worker for people with disabilities, it is challenging to figure out ways we can improve activities and lessons for people with disabilities because each person presents different needs.
However, there are things that we can make sure we are doing consistently to make sure that we are making our content more accessible. For example, I made sure that my video in my inquiry project had subtitles so more people could follow along. In the video we watched in class, we learned that there are simple ways to reach more students. One option could be giving a choice in which essay prompts they respond to so that they can play to their strengths.
That video (containing subtitles) is by Mohawk College, and can be found here
The main thing is having conversations with those students, because they are the experts on themselves and will have some ideas on what might help. Being more technologically literate can help us provide suggestions and meet their needs in various ways.
Week 8
When the consequences for failing are not seen as a big deal, then people are more likely to keep trying until they succeed.
That is a concept that has really stuck with me, because I have heard it through multiple sources throughout my education career. I first heard it when I taking part of a class that used contract grading. This means that so long as you did everything in the course outline, you got a 79%. You could improve your grade with an extension project. We discussed sensitive topics like Equity Diversity and Inclusion. While we were not getting graded for our work surrounding this class, we constantly recieved feedback from classmates. As a result, we were genuine in the work that we did and took risks in the content that we engaged with. If we didn’t nail something the first time, we could just try again instead of having to shy away from something to save our grade. Simply put, we engaged in the content more because there were little consequences for failure.
This concept is covered in this video below:
Week 9
This video from the lecture really spoke to me. As someone who has tried their hand at coding before and really struggled, I will be looking into this application. I recognize the importance of coding in the modern world. Introducing this tool to students could be a more accessible way for students could get into the world of computer science and allow them to find a new passion and possible career interests. It’s relevance in PHE is a little more challenging to find, but I could potentially be in a position where it would be beneficial to make a website for something like an outdoor club or ski club that I could be leading in the future.
Week 11
With the developments of AI, enforcing academic integrity has become harder than ever. The way I see it now, there are two streams to choose from. Either lean into the AI tools and encourage students to use them as they are now a part of our lives, so why not educate students to use them wisely and effectively. Students can show what portions of the research was AI generated and how they made changes to it.
Teachers can also force more in class assignments, and once teachers have a good command of students writing styles, then they can allow more take home assignments and will have a better eye for unnatural writing for the students.
in light of academic integrity and transparency, here are some ideas that chat gpt came up with that I liked.
- Clearly Define Expectations:
- Clearly communicate your expectations regarding collaboration, independent work, and the use of AI tools in assignments.
- Provide specific guidelines on when and how AI tools can be used, and when students should rely on their own understanding and skills.
- Assignments with Critical Thinking:
- Design assignments that require critical thinking, analysis, and personal input. Tasks that demand creativity and individual thought are less likely to be easily completed using AI alone
If I am benefiting from these tools, who can blame students for wanting to use them.
Final Reflection
It was great to get exposed to a bunch of new concepts in the tech world to consider for future teaching. Firstly, the SAMR model for is going to be really helpful framework for considering what bringing in technology is going to do for our students. The example of using google docs for text, pictures and videos instead of merely writing on paper was very clear for how I can think about making better and more impressive assignments for students.
I also found Mentimeter to be a tool that I could use quite consistently in my classes. The variety of functions makes it quite appealing, and as demonstrated, it has a place in any subject area. Taking things like Mentimeter and critically analyzing them with the SAMR model will be helpful in my classrooms going forward.
