Category: Weekly Reflections

This is one of the hotly debated and contentious topics present in education as of late. Thus, this was in turn one of the reasons I was most excited for this class as a whole. After spending A semester observing different teachers’ classrooms and how they either promote or dissuade students from using AI, I want to talk about one way we should look at it’s place in education and how we should go about working with, not around it.

Students are going to continue to use AI in many many ways, this is not going to be stopped. The question remains then, is how do we go about educating students in using it correctly, and not harming their own education in the process.

To go about this, one stance we could take is showing them the positives of using it. The ability to create worksheets and review guides for themselves and present new concepts and ideas for various projects they have is incredibly useful. Even for the simple purpose of overcoming writer’s block and coming up with a new idea that they can, in their own thinking, extrapolate out from is very powerful and beneficial. However, at the same time, we should caution them against using it to plagiarize, not only for the sake of getting caught cheating, but their own education moving forward.

To sum this all up however, I believe that the best way we should treat these technologies in the classroom and the way they should be handled around students is not one of restriction or ignorance through lack of teaching. It is instead we should attempt to educate them into using it properly, and for their own benefit.

Image taken from: https://apuedge.com/artificial-intelligence-in-education-where-are-the-laws/

This week we covered a bit on the process of digital curation. Digital curation is the process in which and individual or organization actively seeks out sources of information and other digital resources across the internet. The aspect of this I want to focus on is that of how teachers can use this to help enhance their lessons.

The internet has a vast array of resources for teachers to draw their lessons and activities from. But because of the vast nature of the internet, these resources need to be properly vetted to ensure they are both accurate and effective in conveying what a teacher wants to convey throughout their lessons.

Because of this, teachers wanting to sift through these resources must be able to appraise them correctly, something noted in the process of digital curation. So by cross referencing them to sources that have proven value and/or effectiveness, one can use this to help kickstart this process.

Image taken from: https://www.dcc.ac.uk/about/digital-curation

The use of multiple forms of media types throughout education can help students engage better with the lesson. Not only can this be used for the purpose of enhancing a lesson, but multimedia theory can also help students that may struggle to engage with certain media types.

Carrying on along this train of thought, by expanding our fidelity into more forms of media during our lessons, students will have more ways of engaging with them. This could take many forms, be it oral, visual, tactile or something else entirely.

Some examples we could use for this would be lessons that incorporate videos alongside the actual lessons, or even potentially more interactive forms of media. A good example of this could be formats such as Minecraft: Education Edition, or other such software designed for these purposes.

Image taken from: https://www.digitallearninginstitute.com/blog/mayers-principles-multimedia-learning

This day’s topic continued along the theme of using technology to enhance education through the use of inquiry-based education. Our speaker, Jeff Hopkins, founded the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry base on this principle. Through the use of a student’s discovery of the world with the use of inquiry, the ideal is that they receive a more holistic and sophisticated education that appeals to their needs and interests.

Many of the technologies used within this institute revolve around helping these students achieve their goals in their pursuit of educations. As these constantly vary, so too must the technologies and the knowledge of how to leverage them. Because of this, the educators working with these technologies and students’ need, ensuring that they must be incredibly adaptable in their work and teaching.

Image taken from: https://www.slideserve.com/kinsey/the-pacific-school-of-innovation-and-inquiry-powerpoint-ppt-presentation

Reflecting back on the types of inquiry-based education brought up by Trevor Mackenzie, I find myself thinking that many of these types drastically depend on the student/students ways of learning. The whole one-size-fits-all approach obviously does not work for inquiry based project as they depend on the the learners’ levels and interest.

This same logic also applies to the approach an educator takes to inquiry based education however, much the same way as choosing a project for a project-based approach does. Some students may get a lot out of a project-based approach, while others may struggle with drive and thus will get less out of this. So, then the question remains, is it feasible to have an educator run not just a singular approach for inquiry based education, but multiple cocnurrently for each student to what benefits the best?

Image taken from: https://cdn.classpoint.io/wp-content/uploads/7-Types-of-Inquiry-Based-Learning-Infographic.png

The usage of phones in classrooms has always been and remains a highly controversial issue. Even with the recent province-wide ban of these devices, they still remain prevalent as a major source of distraction in the classroom. This seems to come down to a lack of consistency in these rules being upheld, enforced and explained in most classrooms. As it seems the actual application of this ban falls almost entirely on the teacher, it begs the question of what the right application is, if there even is one.

On one hand, teachers risk significantly decreasing their student’s ability to concentrate, retain information and succeed in their class by allowing phones. This also applies between classes as from my observation I found that a singular teacher that was non-proactive at enforcing this rules lead to the standard being set for that student, causing them to lose focus in other classes as well. However, the argument could be made that learning to manage ones time and attention is an important skill to develop and that learning this while still having access to their phone may be a benefit.

Image Taken From: https://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/academic-matters/articles/using-students-personal-mobile-devices-in-class/

Open Education provides a way for teachers to easily share, knowledge, resources and sources between themselves for the betterment of education as a whole. Through this, especially at a global level, knowledge can be more easily shared between educators which in turn can lead to advancements in the field as methods that work for teaching can quickly disseminate across the globe.

Open education in theory also provides a safeguard against monopolies or corporate interests pervading classroom environments. Without the pressure to pay for monetized resources, teachers can more easily teach exactly what is required/wanted, without the worry of how much the resources to do so would cost.

Image taken from: https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/oer/, Gulia Forsyth, 2012