Category: edci337 blog

What a spark of inspiration this week’s topic is! I am a huge fan of using games and elements of play in the classroom and, although few, I have great memories of participating in gamification and game-based scenarios when I was in late elementary and middle school.

After reading and watching the learning resources this week, the comedic panel game show, Taskmaster, came to mind. In a recent episode, the contestants participated in a “choose your own adventure”-type group task, in which they had to make a choice of which task card to select, then complete the task on the card to continue on to the next assigned location/task.

I imagine this kind of fun, interactive game-based group activity but with questions or tasks catered to a given unit or lesson. The scale of the game, the questions/activities themselves, the technology incorporated, and the points systems (if you were to choose to have one) could be completely flexible and open for modification to meet all learners and subjects. But ultimately, the game could remain an exciting active learning experience, as the students would be discussing, problem solving, and working together to complete the objective (What Is Active Learning, n.d.).

With elements of both gamification and game-based learning, the hope would be that the intrinsic motivation for students to want to participate in the learning would be high (Why Games?, 2021).

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References

EdSurge. (n.d.). Gamification vs. play-based learning. Microsoft. https://education.microsoft.com/en-us/course/9f02325a/2

Taskmaster. (2021, June 3). Taskmaster – Series 9, episode 2 | Full episode | “Butter in the microwave”. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huB67xaX47A

What is Active Learning? (n.d.). Queens University – Teaching & Learning.  https://www.queensu.ca/teachingandlearning/modules/active/04_what_is_active_learning.html

Why games? University of Toronto Libraries. (2021, January 2). https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/c.php?g=448614&p=3505475

This week’s readings and videos were fantastic in prompting me to think about how I think about technology and have been planning to use it in the classroom.
Reflecting on the activities and tasks I’ve thought up over the past year of schooling that integrate tech, there are a few that fall under the Modification and Redefinition of the SAMR Model, which is where the tech learning gets taken to the next level. But admittedly, the majority are Substitution or Augmentation. Making this realization didn’t feel great, and was an obvious result of my lack of tech comfort going into teacher education.

While I was able to pinpoint this an an area to improve on, it was reassuring the hear Ruben Puentedura, creator of the SAMR model, speak of how to use it and how it is most often used.

All of the examples he offers are fabulous at putting the different levels into perspective, but what is the greatest comfort after my initial panic, was him mentioning that sometimes using Substitution or Augmentation makes the most sense for a given activity.

To further this clarifying perspective, in the following interview with Puentedura he gave an example of the “fancy robotics” project that he saw students working on. He explained that it presented itself as Redefinition and that the final result was technologically impressive, but he noticed that the learners were simply looking at instructions in a text, not truly understanding what they were doing with this machine. Because of this, it cannot be said that the technology integration was truly transformative.

To me, this drove home the duel purpose of the SAMR model; to support learning through integrated tech, as well as avoid meaningless integration of technology. Through hearing him speak more on the topic and how to use it effectively, I feel this model is one I’d like to keep in mind when bringing technology into my future classrooms.

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References

Common Sense Education. (2016, July 12). How to apply the SAMR model with Ruben Puentedura [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQTx2UQQvbU

Terada, Y. (2020, May 4). A powerful model for gnderstanding Good tech integration. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/powerful-model-understanding-good-tech-integration

What Is The Purpose of School?. (2020, May 31). Demystifying SAMR with Dr. Ruben Puentedura [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9h9ePoXqS8

During summer, and casually throughout the year, I am lucky enough to have the amazing job working at a children’s art studio. With planned lessons and activities, but ultimately the freedom to create what they dream up with the given materials, I have very often witnessed the state of flow during these classes. What starts out as a excited, buzzing room of 6-10 year-olds, turns into a concentrated, almost silent space where imaginations and skills are on task to create.

After reading more about flow, I’ve been able to identify why this happens so regularly in this setting. First, and most obvious, is that this is an extracurricular kind of activity that the learners already have an interest in. This certainly helps them get into the flow more easily. Offering them more complex art materials to play and experiment with increases the difficulty of the project, but keeping the lesson and examples achievable helps find the sweet spot where learners are able to push themselves, and still achieve their creative goals. As shown in the diagram below, offering a challenge and catering to the right amount of skill can help find and maintain that state of flow within the activity.

Screencast

I’ve done screencast recordings through Zoom, but this was my first time creating one with Screencastify. It was simple to install and use, and I loved not having the little video of myself in the corner (like Zoom does), as I often find it distracting while I record.

Augmented Reality

This week’s readings were very exciting for me – the idea of augmented reality is not something I’d ever explored and I had a blast learning about it, diving into the examples shared, and thinking about how I could potentially use these as a future teacher.

While I came into this topic wide-eyed and eager to learn, I was not naïve the reality that being able to use these types of tools in a classroom may be a challenge. It was for this reason that I was struck by the simplicity of Google’s AR capabilities.

Personally, I have used Google Lens a few times to identify plants in my garden, but it never struck me that this was a form of AR! Similar to how I’ve used it in the past, I can imagine this being a great tool to use with students to explore, identify, and gather information about things around them (local plants, insects, etc.), perhaps in the form of a guided inquiry.

What really stuck me, though, was Google’s ability to show your google search in a 3D way. In the Android video below, you can see the ability to manipulate and view searched items in detail and at all angles. Even more impressive, it has the ability to place these objects, to scale, in your environment. To be able to make a bison, for example, stand in your classroom to show learners the scale in an environment they’re able to reference is an incredible, almost tangible way to share a part of a lesson like that.

After exploring Google’s AR, it became clear that these types of tools can help meet some of the Principles of Learning.

Effect: Presenting information in a new, exciting way through AR can help create a positive, memorable experience for learners.

Intensity: Creating an intense and exciting learning experience can help with student understanding and appreciation

Freedom: In the example I gave of how Google Lens might be used, this would offer students the freedom to learn while giving them options in their actions and choices while using this tool. (Principles of learning, n.d.)

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Inforgaphics

In keeping with the theme of learning about bison, I’ve taken what I’ve learned in the Canva tutorials and applied it to an infographic.

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References

Android. (2019, June 27). AR in search: A new way to learn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK7kPiknrBY

Creative Commons Licensed Workshop Curriculum | UVic Libraries Digital Scholarship Commons. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2021, from https://oac.uvic.ca/dsc/workshops/lessonplans/

Principles of learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Principles_of_learning

Thanks to a past class I took, I have become acutely aware of the negative effects a bad PowerPoint presentation can have on it’s audience – My peers and I were certainly subject to “death by PowerPoint” (Phillips, 2014). The kickers in these particular presentations were: too many (or disorganized) elements and words, strange choice of fonts, scattered presentations, and even slides with no title or indication of the content being presented. For me, this resulted in struggling to pay attention, difficulty absorbing and remembering the information being presented, and ultimately contributed to me not enjoying the class. Essentially, all of the truths that David Phillips joked about in his TEDx.

Even with this awareness, there are still elements mentioned in the above video and the 6 dos and don’ts article that I identified as doing myself.

Font: I’m such a sucker for a serif font. Garamond is my go-to, as I find it the most aesthetically pleasing, even though a sans-serif choice would be easier to read.

Slide busyness: While I am conscious of limiting words and charts to only what is necessary, I love an on-theme slide style. Usually pulling from SlidesGo, I gravitate towards fun themes that fit my presentation topic, which could result in graphics/colours overboard.

Storytelling: With a focus to fit in all the info, I have often failed to incorporate the more engaging part of presentations, like storytelling.

After identifying these trouble areas in my own slides, these are points that I
am conscious of in this week’s hands-on activity and will keep in mind going forward when putting together presentations.

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References

Miller, A. (2019, June 13). 6 dos and don’ts for next-level slides, from a TED presentation expert. Ideas.Ted.Com – Explore Ideas Worth Spreading. https://ideas.ted.com/6-dos-and-donts-for-next-level-slides-from-a-ted-presentation-expert/

Phillips, David JP. (2014, April 14). How to avoid death by PowerPoint [Mp4]. TED Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpi1Lm6dFo