Category: Weekly Reflections Page 1 of 2

This week we talked about a topic that is extremely important in our time. In class today we talked about artificial intelligence. In the slides we saw in class today, AI is described as “a collection of computer technologies that are able to perform tasks that emulate human intelligence”. I learned in class today that we interact with AI in more ways than we think! For example Siri/Alexa, Web search, Google suite, zoom, and even facial recognition.

This image is showing how Alexa would turn on the kitchen light

This is the second last week of reflections for this course! This week we talked about inclusion. We started off class by watching a Shelley Moore video on youtube on her channel Five Moore Minutes. Shelley is also an expert on special education in British Columbia. We spoke today of making all students feel welcome in our classroom and the importance of a comfortable classroom community. We talked about the Social Model of learning which highlights that

1. Learners don’t need to be fixed
2. Environments can be planned
3. Barriers can be addressed
4. Full meaningful inclusion is not one off, but consistent for every learner in the class

For this week’s class we had a guest speaker named Chantelle Morvay-Adams over zoom. Chantelle is the secretary and on the Board of Directors of BCEDACCESS Society. The BCEDACCESS Society is an organization run by volunteers that helps families of students with disabilities in British Columbia. Chantelle was very insightful on the long way to go that the educational system has in terms of technology integration. For example, many families and schools do not have money to buy technology for their children/students. Chantelle also talked about ableism which is something I had never heard of before today. Ableism is the discrimination against people with disabilities.

For class in week seven we talked about technology integration models like SAMR, and TPACK. Bringing technology into the classroom can be extremely beneficial for certain students. By using technology in the classroom it allows students to learn technology skills at a young age. TPACK is an approach on how to introduce technology to students. The three categories in this concept are content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge , and technological knowledge. These three categories interact with one another to explain how a educator can effectively integrate technology into learning. SAMR is a framework that categorizes four different degrees of classroom technology integration. SAMR stands for the categories which are substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition.

This week, we had an introduction to EdCamp! Edcamp is an interactive seminar where teachers come together and decide what they would like to learn about as a whole. It is a great place to meet other educators and have conversations about what we are passionate about. I think Edcamp is a innovative idea and I will definitely explore it more in the following years. At Edcamp ideas are put on the front with sticky notes so everyone has the chance to have their idea heard.

In week five of our class we learned about Personal Learning Networks (PLN). PLN refers to a network of resources and people that can be used to further your education. We learned in class that having a PLN is important and we should start developing ours ASAP. A good way to start developing a PLN is by using social media to find creators and educators that appeal to your desired grade level. Pinterest is a good way to find a community of educators. PLN allows educators to continue to learn and grow from each other. Another topic we touched on this week is what life looks like for generation alpha. Generation alpha refers to people born within the years 2010- 2024. We learned about how life for children born between these years will be drastically different that any previous generation.

Hi! My name is Jessica Kranabetter. I am a second year Bachelor of Education student from the University of Victoria. Outside of school I am an avid social media user and twitch streamer. I will focus my free inquiry on my experiences each week with twitch streaming and a weekly update of stats from my stream. I am super excited to share my streaming experience with everyone as I have been doing it since January of 2021 and have achieved many things already that I will further speak on in my inquiry blog posts.

In week four we has another guest speaker, Jesse Miller. It was very interesting having Jesse Miller in the class because I had seen him on a TED TALK online. In the class he instructed, we learned about social media usage and online safety. We discussed the importance of educators keeping a positive image online. I was able to expand my educator handbook and note down some essential tools I will need to keep a positive online image. I thought it was interesting when he talked about how even if you delete a photo it is always on the internet after you post it because many people don’t know that. I liked when Jesse explained that we can have content on the internet that we aren’t proud of but we have to make sure we are taking responsibility and learning from it.

This week, we started off talking about what makes a good blog post. We talked about how pictures can add value to a post. We continued to discuss copyright laws. It was refreshing to get a full background on copyright laws and how we can stay within them. Eventually we moved on to talk about our social media presence and keeping a clean digital footprint. This means being respectable and professional on the internet too. Discussing our image on the internet was a place of interest for me because I have a large footprint on the internet already and I need to know how to monitor it and use it.