NOTE: 1/2 the class will be going on a field trip this week to PSII. If you’re unsure whether or not you are in the 1/2 the class going on a field trip and doing your weekly critical reflection on the PSII visit, or if you are in the other 1/2 that will work through Topic 5 on your own, at your own pace, and doing your critical reflection on Topic 5, please check the Topic 5 class announcement in Brightspace which has all the information on who is doing what this week. If you are still in doubt, please email Rich at rmccue@uvic.ca.

Topic 5 Introduction

This week we are going to review how Knowledge Management tools can potentially be helpful tools to assist educators to collect and curate lesson plans, tools, and learning objects for their learners.

Topic 5 Learning Objectives

  • Describe to a colleague how Knowledge Management tools can help educators collect and curate lesson plans, tools, and learning objects for their learners.
  • Demonstrate how collaboration tools built for K-12 learning can assist teachers in both their teaching as well as adminstrative responsibilities

Self Paced Class Time

No lecture this week, so please work through the materials below at your own pace.

Knowledge Management Tools & Content Curation

Especially at the beginning of your career as a teacher, it can be overwhelming trying to keep track of all the great tools and teaching methods that we are introduced to in class and bump into as we talk to our peers. One type of tool that can be helpful to keep track of all these resources are digital note-takers/organizers. Some of the most popular organizers used by teachers include:

Over the years I have used Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, and Google Keep, but a few years back settled on Google Keep as it was free, and worked on my Mac laptop, Windows computer, Android phone, and iPad (all of them are cross-platform now). If you would like to use a tool for curating resources, please choose the one that you think would work best for you, but in my video below I’ll use Google Keep but the principles and features I demonstrate are typical of this class of productivity app. I also use RainDrop as my general bookmark manager. That said, all of these tools work in roughly the same fashion even though they implement their features in slightly different ways.

The infographic below is a great example of the process many teachers use for content curation. I personally tend to focus on steps 1 and 2, and unless I really, really like a tool I’ll skip #3, sharing.

The Basics of Content Creation Infographic

CC-BY-NC-ND – https://Teacher.Challenge.edublogs.org

Knowledge Management Tool Curation Demonstration (6 min)

PRIVACY REMINDER: If you use any of these tools, please rmember that most, if not all of of them, are hosted on servers in the United States, so you should not upload any information to these services with any personally identifiable information about your learners or colleagues. If you are unsure about how you are using any web based tool, please talk to your school district educational technology coordinator.

Classroom Collaboration & Administrative Tools

A number of class participants have specifically asked for some instruction on how to get started using Google Classroom for assignments and classroom management functions. There are other tools used by school districts for the same functionality, like Brightspace, Google Classroom is quite popular because of it’s tight integration with Chromebooks.

Common Instructional UsesDecorative

  • Centralized Resource Distribution: Teachers use the Classwork tab to post course outlines, reading materials, and supplementary resources (YouTube videos, PDFs, or website links) organized by chronological or thematic topics.

  • Assignment Management: The “Make a copy for each student” feature is the standard method for distributing templates (Docs, Slides, Sheets) to ensure students work in their own “digital locker” rather than a shared file.

  • Asynchronous Communication: The Stream functions as a social feed for daily announcements, field trip reminders, and homework updates. Teachers often control student posting privileges to maintain a professional environment.

  • Differentiated Instruction: Educators leverage the ability to assign specific posts or assignments to individual students or small groups, allowing for personalized support or modified curricula without the rest of the class knowing.

Assessment and Feedback

  • Real-Time Collaborative Grading: Because assignments are stored in Google Drive, teachers can open a student’s active document to provide live feedback or “private comments” before the final submission.

  • Gradebook Integration: Teachers sync Google Classroom grades with Student Information Systems (SIS) like MyEducation BC to streamline provincial reporting .

Administrative and Extra-Curricular Uses

  • Guardian Summaries: Many Canadian middle schools enable automated email summaries for parents, detailing missing work, upcoming deadlines, and class announcements.

  • Staff and Club Management: Classroom is frequently used to manage non-instructional groups, such as department meetings, sports teams, or student councils, allowing for asynchronous document sharing and voting.

How to get started with Google Classroom

Start by using your Google or Gmail account to create your own personal Google Classroom space, then watch the following video. If you have classmates also learning to use Google Classroom, you might want to add each other to your Google Classroom spaces as learners so that you can get a better feel for when you have students in your class to make assignments for and communicate with them through Google Classroom.

(10 min video below)

Learning to use some of the basic features Google Classroom provides you with a foundational set of technical and pedagogical skills that will be particularly helpful for you if you work in a school district that uses Google Classroom. If you start working at a school district that uses a different tool, don’t worry as most of the Google Classroom skills you’ve learned are transferable to different learning management systems.

Google Classroom certification is also an option if you’d like a more concrete demonstration to school district hiring committees that you can get up and running quickly if they are a Google school district. If you’re interested in this, please bookmark the links in the Google Classroom section of the Hands-on Lab Time below.

Hands-on Lab Time

Knowledge Management Tools & Content Curation

Feel free to explore one or more of the personal knowledge management and content creation tools below:

Google Classroom (Optional)

Decorative

If you’d like to become a Google for Education Certified Educator you can start by working through the Basic use of Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals which is a 2.3 hour professional development module “designed to equip educators with the technical competencies required to manage a modern digital classroom. Participants will progress through six core units—covering Drive, Docs, Gmail, Meet, Calendar, and Classroom—to master workflows for resource distribution, asynchronous communication, and automated assessment (Google for Education, 2023). By focusing on practical applications like real-time digital feedback and data analysis via Sheets and Forms, the course ensures teachers can streamline administrative tasks to prioritize instructional time and student growth.” Gemini (2026)

If you are familiar with Gmail & Google Docs for today you might want to skip down to the “Manage student work” unit half way down the module web page (21 min).

Google has a whole catalog of Google for Educator lessons and courses on a dedicated website.

Homework

  1. Weekly critical reflection blog post to document your learning in class and to document progress on your inquiries (incorporate audio, video, screen video capture, or other multi-media elements into your blog post this week).
    • Review the 336 Blog Post Rubrics to make sure you’re including all the minimally required elements for your weekly blog posts.
    • After you’ve drafted your blog post, OPTIONALLY you can ask a GenAI for suggestions on how to improve your post (hint: as a follow-up prompt you might want to provide the the GenAI with the assignment rubric to get additional relevant feedback on your writing)
    • Critically reflect on two or more topics today that you felt were important or were interesting to you.
      • Reflect on pros & cons for each topic even if the topic is mainly positive or negative in your view
      • Use the category, “weekly-reflection“.
      • Share your post with your learning pod at your next meeting (usually at the end of class time)
  2. Weekly Free Inquiry blog post:
    • Document the your progress you’ve made on your inquiry or what you’ve done in the past week to move it forward.
    • Employ a multimedia strategy in your post to help document your inquiry by using text and one or more other media to help make it more engaging (e.g., image, screencast, video, or other formats).
    • Utilize social writing strategies such as hyperlinks to blog posts (e.g., trackbacks) or to articles/resources consulted, including web pages, images, videos, etc.
    • Use the category, “free-inquiry”.