For my third teaching opportunity I was lucky enough to be able to peer teach an entire lesson to an ELL English 10 class. For our tech class at UVic, we were tasked with working with a teacher to help them integrate a technology of their choice into their classroom. In order to complete this assignment we could have simply sat down with the teacher and explained to them how to use a technology or took them step by step through a technology that would help them to accomplish a specific goal. However, when we talked to our teacher, Laurel Brach-Richey at Reynolds, she asked us if we would teach her class how to use a technology that would record a student’s voice and allow them to add images to the audio clip, in order for both her and her students to learn how to use it. The lesson we taught was done in a group which included Jenelle, Reanne, Tamiya and I, and our lesson took place during the entire 80 minute block.

            Overall our lesson was very successful and there are a lot of areas that we did well in, but there were also a lot of areas for improvement. To begin, we had quite a lot of difficulty finding an app that would allow for both audio and images to be used, but that did not record video. Most of the apps or websites that are available are movie making programs that require you to have video as the primary media. Additionally the devices that we had available for this lesson were Chromebooks which meant that our technology had to be online and not a program to be downloaded, and that all the images that the students were going to add were allowed to be accessed off of google drive. Many technologies that we explored required images to be uploaded from a computer and did not allow for images to be imported from other online sources. The process of finding a technology was proving to be too difficult to find without having a Chromebook to try it out on, and so Tamiya and I decided to go to Reynolds before our lesson in order to play around with a Chromebook.

            When we arrived at the school, we were hoping to talk to Laurel about our troubles finding a technology but as she wasn’t there we decided to go straight to the library to work with the Chromebooks. Upon asking for a Chromebook, we explained to the librarian what we were using it for and he suggested that we try the website Voice Thread. This technology was perfect and we quickly realized what an amazing resources the librarians can be when it comes to technology. Tamiya and I spent about an hour playing with the technology and becoming comfortable with it. I made an example Voice Thread to show the class, and Tamiya prepared a step by step lesson for teaching the technology. The next day the two of us taught Jenelle and Reanne what we had learnt and we made sure that everything was working properly. While we were not 100% confident of the program, we felt prepared to do our lesson.

            Our lesson was very successful overall. Following our example video and brief overview of the Voice Thread program, we each took 3-4 students and walked them through the technology again. We began by proofreading the paragraphs that the students had written that were to be recorded and practiced saying the paragraphs allowed in order to build the students confidence. Once we were ready to go I took the students through the process of using the technology step by step. While my directions were effective for most of the students, working in groups of 3-4 students allowed the students who were quick in picking up the steps to explain it to their peers in their own language. We tried to use English as much as possible but as Laurel explained to us that when teaching complex topics such as this for the first time, it is very effective to allow students to work in their own language for part of the lesson.

            I feel that overall I was very clear in my directions throughout the lesson and was patient as each of the students worked at a different pace. I really value those two things in a teacher and so I was very conscious about being patient and clear throughout. If I was to teach this lesson, or a similar lesson again I would make sure that I was not just prepared to teach the skill but that I was confident in my own abilities with the technology. While I felt that I knew how to use the Voice Thread program for the purposes of this activity, there were several elements of the program that I hadn’t explored and as such, if there was to have been a problem with uploading photos from google drive for example, I would not have known any alternatives. I think that I was prepared enough to teach the lesson if it had gone exactly as planned, as it did, but I would not have had the skills to deal with any major problems with the program or Chromebooks if something went wrong. At the end of the lesson, Laurel gave us very positive feedback on our preparedness and ability to lead the lesson but I still would have liked to have more time to practice using Voice Thread.

            Doing this lesson taught me a few other important skills. First of all I became much more familiar with using Chromebooks in the classroom as I was able to figure out the specifics of how they worked, as well as their limitations. Of course, I also learnt how to use Voice Thread and I believe that it is an amazing technology that I will use in my own classroom. I also learnt that the librarians at schools are a wealth of knowledge beyond just books, and that they have a lot of experience working with teachers and technology. Finally, I learnt that there is a difference between being prepared and being confident. While it is not always possible to be fully confident in your lesson, this lesson showed me that spending a few extra minutes preparing can make a huge difference in your comfort with the material being taught.