Technology in Education Initiative
For our technology initiative, Megan, Tamiya, Reanne, and myself, co-taught a grade 10 ELL/English class at Reynolds Secondary. For the lesson, we needed to book chrome books for every student in the class. Prior to this experience, none of my group members or myself had worked with technology in the classroom in this way before. The technology we decided to use was Voicethread, a website application whereby you can combine different types of media (voice/recordings, photos, videos, text, etc.) and have a final product of these types of media called a Voicethread.
For the assignment, the teacher had the students compose a written piece (in this case, about their personal heroes) and record themselves reading what they had wrote, as well as add photos to the Voicethread. To do this, we used the Voicethread website.
To prepare to facilitate this project, we first needed to find an appropriate app that would do what we wanted. After sifting through several different options, we decided Voicethread was the most user friendly, as well as compatible with the chrome books. Prior to the lesson, we made personal accounts to play around with the app and teach ourselves so that we were prepared to facilitate and demonstrate the day of the lesson.
To begin the class, we showed an example of a Voicethread that Megan had made. After the students saw what a potential final product could look like, Tamiya did a step-by-step demonstration to the class on the projector. From there, we broke into smaller groups and worked hands on with students, assisting their use of the platform.
The main challenge that we encountered during the activity was time. To be able to facilitate this lesson start to finish in 80 minutes was quite the task and required some serious teacher-power. There were the four of us, the teacher, and an EA, and the students finished just at the nick of time in the 80 allotted minutes. This was in part because the students required a considerable amount of guidance during the activity. This is something that needs to be considered while lesson planning obviously, but especially with things like technology when you are not sure how your students prior experience will affect the learning curve. Overall, the lesson went well and the students could work together and with us to make their own Voicethreads. The context of having an ELL class was also difficult, since we spent a good portion of the class editing, proofreading, and practicing their pronunciation and spoken word to record.
After the lesson, we debriefed with our sponsor teacher, and she was very satisfied with the lesson and is going to use Voicethread for another project later in the semester, which is great since the students now have a pretty solid foundational understanding of the app. After gaining confidence with the app in a smaller activity, they will now be able to apply their learning and use it towards a larger project. She was surprised with how well the students did and how quickly they understood and used the technology. She also noted that the co-teaching atmosphere was essential for this lesson’s success, as it required a lot of assistance and guidance.
This technology and lesson acted as a redefining of a task to create something not previously possible, per the SAMR model. Without this technology or one similar, students would not be able to partake in this type of task or learning, which is both hands-on and engaging. Additionally, this project emphasized the importance of collaboration while working on a project, as well as the value in co teaching lessons that may require more hands-on guidance, especially working with a new technology not previously encountered by students.
Voicethread can be accessed at: https://voicethread.com
Core competencies for teacher education:
- demonstrate an understanding of the complexity of teaching and learning.
- practice working collaboratively and collegially as well as independently.
- implement pedagogically context-appropriate sound practices linking assessment for/as/of learning, planning for learning, instructional strategies and approaches to engage all students in relevant and personalized learning.
BC Teacher Standards:
- educators implement effective practices in areas of classroom management, planning, instruction, assessment, evaluation, and reporting.
Reflection
This weekend, I got stuck in the rabbit hole of Ted Talk on YouTube- an addicting yet informative and strangely satisfying hole to get stuck in. I found this interesting talk on our society's current beauty standards and how we value appearance over what you would think to be more important traits. Of course, our female youth are not exempt from this, rather, they may be actually more susceptible to scrutiny over their appearance by not only each other, but themselves. Ramsey touched on the state of our youth's psyche around appearance, and stated a staggering 1 in 5 female youth would not even attend school on days they felt "less than," appearance wise. This struck a chord for me, and made me consider how our society impacts our school systems, and vice versa.
I think as females in this day and age, we can all relate to the media and society's current climate around beauty and appearance. It is everywhere, and is virtually impossible to escape. Instagram, magazines, Twitter, and TV all feature picture perfect bodies, faces, hair, and clothes. We are so impacted by these models of what beauty "should" look like, and it is controlling our actions. We put beauty on a pedestal, and our intelligence, values, morals, and personalities below it.
I think that recognizing this is so important as an educator. We have to realize that our students, while they want to learn, are constantly being impacted by outside pressures and these pressures work their way into our students insecurities and mental state. We need to be aware of our students wellbeing, their demeanour, and what they may not be showing at all. We need to create classroom and school environments that are inclusive, and ensure that even on a "bad" day, they are still important not for their appearance, but for who they are.
This concept ties into the BC Teacher Standards, specifically 1 and 2, which are:
1. Educators value and care for all students and act in their best interests.
2. Educators are role models who act ethically and honestly.
The first standard is relatively easy to understand in this context, as we need to value our students wellbeing and mental health just as much as we value their learning. We need to prioritize how they are as a person, just as much as we need to value their development. The second standard is more internal; as teachers, we need to set the standard for behaviour. We ned to behave in a way we want our students to mirror and value, which means we ourselves need to have positive body image and practice healthy behaviours.
Overall I think that Ted Talks, while addictive, are a really beneficial tool for teachers to gain insight and knowledge, as well as a tool to use in the classroom.