Welcome to Week 2 of our class! The first week or so is always a learning curve as we set up our various tools and get oriented to BOTH the pedagogy of this class as well as the technology. I will support you through this process and plan to meet you this week or next in 1-1 meetings to talk about your free inquiry topics.

As you’ll notice below, I’m including the learning outcomes for the week in my weekly topic outline in order to help you better understand what my expectations are for the class each week. I will continue to include Pre-Class items to be completed before our class time each week.

The class outline covers what we will work on in face-to-face class. The homework section is a list of things that I’d recommend you complete in the 3 days after class so that when the Weekly Topic email arrives on day 3 you’re ready to start on the pre-class work for the next class. Here is a visualization of the new weekly format:

Weekly Routine

We will discuss this new format at the beginning of class this week, so if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please bring them to class with you.

Learning Objectives

  • Describe the key points of BC Privacy laws as they relate to education
  • Discuss the pros and cons of the pedagogy used by the school in the Most Likely to Succeed documentary
  • Identify the differences between a Lesson Plan and a Learning Plan
  • Describe the difference between Free Inquiry & Guided Inquiry in relation to the major class assignments
  • Discuss the pros and cons of using ChatGPT in K-12
  • Setup PLN feed in Twitter or other social media platform
  • Create blog posts for this course using the provided rubrics, including a critical lens when reviewing educational technologies & pedagogies, that include hyperlinks, images, videos, and attribution
  • Signup for a learning Pod and Participate in your first Learning Pod meeting

Pre-class Activities

Please complete the following homework in preparation for our class this week:

  1. Grab some popcorn and watch Most Likely to Succeed Film (96 min). Please take notes on what you find interesting, and questions/critiques you have for our in-class discussion.
  2. Watch Education as if people mattered TED Talk video by Jeff Hopkins (12 min):
  3. Think strategically about your free inquiry topic (Assignment 1) and education technology interest (Assignment 2) for sharing & feedback with Rich in your 1-1 meetings via Zoom this week or next. 

Class Time

(No need to work through this unless you are unwell and not able to make it to our class time)

Most Likely to Succeed

Think about the “Most Likely to Succeed” Film, and if possible discuss the following questions with a classmate (5 min):

  • Do you agree with the film’s assertion that we need to re-imagine education, or is the status quo more or less satisfactory?
  • What do you think stops educators from shifting to these approaches?
  • What might this look like in your context?
  • What concerns or excites you about this approach?

In your mind what is the difference between Lesson Plan vs Learning Plan (2 min):

Free Inquiry & Educational Technology Presentation Q&A

Lab Time

Setting up your PLN/Managing Feeds (optional)

Why Personal Learning Networks (or PLN’s)?  

Twitter as PLN infrastructure. Optionally set up an X account (formerly known as Twitter):

After logging on to X (or optionally creating an account) follow #edci336 #edci336news #edtechbc #bcedchat #bclearns and perhaps others like #uviced #uvic #edchat #edtech & districts like #sd61learn #sd63 #sd36learn (see the video below on how to follow hashtags in TweetDeck).

What interesting topics are being discussed in the feeds you’ve subscribed to?

Open Educational Resources

What is an Open Educational Resource or OER?  “Open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone. Resources should be published in formats that facilitate both use and editing and that accommodate a diversity of technical platforms.” – Cape Town Open Education Declaration

Where can I find OER lesson plans or activities that I could use in my classroom?

  • An example of a general K-12 OER portal website is the OER Commons. Please browse around the OER Commons website, and search for lesson plans and activities for the grade levels you’d like to teach and subjects you’re interested in. You might want to bookmark this website!
  • PLN via X is another great way to find resources from like-minded teachers.
  • An example of a subject-specific OER website is the Hour of Code. It has hundreds of lesson plans, not only for math and coding skills, but most lesson plans are co-curricular, so include a coding component, and additionally language arts, social studies, art, or science-based elements.

Images for blog posts: Finding royalty-free images you can use free of charge in your blog posts and elsewhere – Unsplash, Pexels, The Noun Project, Public Domain Vectors (5 min video):

Learning Pod Time & Homework

Learning Pods

Homework

Weekly blog posts to document your learning in class and to document progress on your inquiries.  (30 min)

  1. Weekly Reflection Blog Post (if you didn’t have time to do it in class):
    • Review the 336 Blog Post Rubrics to make sure you’re including all the minimally required elements for your weekly blog posts.
    • Here is a on the topic and/or technology of the week.
    • Please incorporate a personal or properly-attributed CC image into your blog post.
    • Blog prompts (use three or more):
      • Do we need to reimagine education?
      • What obstacles to educators face when they try to change pedagogy?
      • What concerns you and/or excites you about this approach?
      • Pros & cons of Lesson Plans vs Learning Plans?
      • What are the potential benefits of developing a robust PLN?
      • What are the potential benefits of using Creative Commons-licensed images in my blog posts?
  2. Free Inquiry Blog Post startup thinking assignment:
    • If you haven’t chosen a topic yet what are some topics you are considering?
    • With this assignment, is there anything that you are excited about? What are you unsure about?
  3. After you’ve requested your website, and know the web address you’ve requested, it is very important that you fill out the Learning Pathway & Consent before our next class.
  4. Review Trevor McKenzie’s Inquiry-based learning posters. The posters are very helpful for free inquiry projects (5 min).
  5. If you haven’t already, please use PSII tools to start to plan your inquiry (and select a topic or two to choose from if you haven’t already) 
  6. If you haven’t already, please Book a 1-1 Meeting  with Rich to discuss your individual Free Inquiry and group Guided Assignments.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash