Month: November 2022

Digital Portfolio

26 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

A Digital portfolio in the classroom is a great tool to enhance communication with parents or guardians. Apps like seesaw are able to aid in creating a digital portfolio in a very quick and simple way.

What does a digital portfolio look like in a classroom?

A digital portfolio is a tool which can be used to store documents, photos, videos, and other files in an online space where teachers, guardians, and even students can access.

Why would a digital portfolio aid in a classroom?

The first and most obvious reason is how having good communication with guardians of students, this is great for building more learning opportunities for students at home. when parents know what they are learning in the moment they are able to encourage and develop more learning moments. This also allows guardians to communicate more effectively with students letting students create better conversational and emotional skills. Students will also be able to go back and look at their previous work in the class and see how much they have improved.

What is seesaw?

Seesaw is an app which makes the digital portfolio setup and maintenance process easy and simple for teachers. The app can be downloaded on phones and laptops and has a great user interface so beginners can find their way around the app easily. Seesaw provides so many tools to make the organization and implementation process very easy for students, teachers, and guardians to use. Seesaw also allows students and guardians to comment on their kids/classmates work (it first has to be approved by the teacher) letting parents and friends express their joy for each others learning.

Overall having a digital portfolio in the classroom is a great way to simply communicate with guardians. With an app like seesaw there is very little extra work load and for the amount of benefits that can come with it, it is definitely something I will use in my classroom.

Completed Videos

23 November 2022 / zperreault / 1 Comment

The first video I made for the free inquiry project was this which is a street skate part of myself. It took me from the beginning of classes to just last week to get all the clips in this video and edit them. I was hopping to get a few more clips but the snow came just a little too early for me to do that. I am very proud of how this video turned out and I hope I will be able to make a new one next year. Through this project I learned some basic tools which I used further in my second video such as colour correction, black and white clips, and messing with audio.

My second video took me a much longer time to edit and create then my first one but I am equally as proud of it. I did not have the necessary time to fully complete the video but I do plan to do this over winter break. What I did complete is the intro, 2 full parts and a b-roll transition from one part to the next. New things I tried in this video include using titles and transitioning them in, video chopping, lots of colour correction especially in the Intro, and special effects. The part of the video I am most happy about is the introduction, going into this project I could not see it turning out as well as it did.

The areas I still need to make to complete the video I envisioned is more B-roll transitions which will lead into the other parts I will make, as well as finding an actual name for it, and making a outro/credit part of the video.

The B-roll clip in-between the videos was also very fun to make but took a very very long time. This is due to me using strings to have the board and Po flying which i then had to crop out in every photo. In the end it was worth it though as it filled a vital spot in the video and was a very good learning opportunity.

I hope you enjoy the videos!

Design Lab

23 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

Being able to go to the design lab and district resource center was a great experience and will help me so much going foreword in my practice. We were bale to see so many cool resources in the district resource center allowing us to better know the resources available to us in the future and during our practicum. With some super cool resources like an eye model, egg incubators, outdoor sitting chairs, a hawk mini robots there is sure something in their that I will use in my future practice.

District resource center: https://www.sd5.bc.ca/resources/drc/Pages/default.aspx

The design lab had so many cool pieces of technology which could be used in so many different ways. Instead of choosing one piece of technology I tried most of them or at least watched other people trying them so I could see the usefulness of everything. Some of my favorite pieces were the Lego board which simulates an earthquake, the iPad and the amount of different learning opportunities they have on them, the little circle bots which would follow lines and complete certain tasks when a color patter was drawn, the 3d printer, and the laser cut out.

Here is a video I found on the SD5 video which I assume the kids made the robot able to complete a rubrics cube and a kid who is very impressive at rubric cube. When the presenter was speaking and watch this video I am so impressed by the capabilities students have with technologies, students can really excel in this field and blow all of our expectations. I am very happy students are getting this opportunity more and more as its a great way for them to show their creativity and skill within a new field more rarely used in the classroom.

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”
John Dewey

This is a quote which has been shared with us multiple times throughout this semester. I have loved this quote since the very beginning but it is never more apparent then right now. Technology is so important in our everyday life and their are so many new job opportunities within these fields. It has taken schools longer then it should have to implement more technology within our classrooms. Now with the understanding that it is important to teach kids good technological literacy we have so many new opportunities to give to our students.

group presentations

16 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

VR with Bradly and Jake

brad showed us PlayStation VR and the learning opportunities that may come with using it in the classroom. He showed us a trailer based in Titanic VR and showed us how this could be used in the classroom. Brad explained some cons of the PlayStation VR including the expense and a lack of educational resources at the moment. However with the technology growing very fast more educational resources are being produced at an exponential rate especially on the Meta/Oculus Quest 2 which Jake presented.

Jake started off by showing us a few VR apps/games that have more learning based opportunities including Librarium, which a student is able to customize a study area where they can then comfortably study with less distractions. Afterwards Jake finally showed us his VR setup and played “Hand Physics Lab” a game with different types of puzzles with multiple learning outcomes which could be used for many grade levels.

Virtual field trip with Chelsea, Morgan, and Kim

Chelsea first showed us a video of a virtual field trip in a zoo and an extension on Boom Cards with questions related to what you may learn through the virtual field trip. Next she showed us KaiXR an enviroment creator where students could make the enviroment select animals live in.

After Morgan showed us a Mt St Helen virtual field trip showing what it looked like before, after and during the eruption. She then showed us supplemental tools such as Jamboard, YouTube, Quizlet and Kahoot to extend the learning of students.

One very cool idea they shared is having a virtual field trip Friday creating excitement and engagement in students to learn more. This idea also allows students with physical disabilities to join in which may not be possible with a real field trip. This technology allows classes and students to experience places they would never be able to in the classroom such as the international space station.

Creating an Inclusive Classroom Using Technology with Sarah, Morgan and Emily

This group presented their technologies using a video, in this video Emily started by talking about immersive reader. Immersive reader is a technology based in office apps which can have speech-to-text, create more spacing between letters/words, change background colours, etc.

Afterwards Sarah introduced virtual classrooms and explained why they could e helpful in a classroom. Her main point was that when students miss a class they are able to easily catch up as all the information can be found on the online classroom page. This can also be helpful for students who are struggling on a certain area as they are able to go back and find information.

Lastly Morgan showed Nearpod a online service which can help make lessons more engaging for students. Nearpod allows teacher to add so many unique effects and features to their lessons. This just as virtual classrooms allows students to work at their pace as they can revisit older questions.

What Makes a Good Classroom Blog/Website with Lauren, Kelly, Alannah, and Cassidy

This group decided to make a very informational infographic for their artifact. In this infographic they wrote about class Dojo, google sites, Jot form, and seesaw.

for all these platforms they talked about Cost, Access, Privacy, and other information such as communication between teachers and parents.

Technologies to Help Diverse Learners in the Classroom

15 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

For our EDtech presentation we decided to look for online technology that can help diverse learners in a classroom. Here are the technology we looked at and a short definition:

Jennie-Seeing AI: Seeing Ai is a app which can downloaded on a smartphone, this app can scan documents and then will read the text, this can help students with reading difficulties. This app can also describe the your surrounding if a photo is taken and will point things out such as cups, animals, peoples, etc.

Zac-Eye Gaze Technology: This technology tracks users eye movement while looking at a computer scree. This Allows students without the ability to write or use a computer a new form of independence within their lives and allows them to communicate in a new way.

Claire-Immersive Reader: This is a technology imbedded in word, PowerPoint, and other office platforms. Immersive Reader will use text-to-speech to read to users, it also offers many different technologies to help students struggling with reading.

Karis-Breath think do with sesame street: This is another app which can be downloaded on a smart phone and will help students through tasks they are struggling with. While there isn’t a wide range of tasks the app offers this app will help students calm down through interactive breathing exercises.

First part of the skate video completed

14 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

(viewer discretion is advised: Language)

This is such a massive win for myself as I was finally able to complete a full section of the video letting me better view how the video will be organized. This lets me better plan what I need to do and what I have done.

Using this I can see what parts of the video I have completed and where I may need to focus my energy throughout the next few weeks. I Believe the focus moving foreword will be placed in brainstorming and executing b-roll ideas. I will also try to begin another part after sorting the videos I have.

Coming up with b-roll ideas is definitely the area I have been struggling with the most so far. Most ideas I have take much larger budget and equipment then what is available to me. One way I will begin brainstorming these ideas is by talking with friends about more ideas. I have found recently how working with other people allows me to better extend my ideas and with the help of others have better places to start from.

Prodigy in the classroom

8 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

What is prodigy?

https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/

prodigy is a game math game designed for students and teachers to learn/teach within a classroom. Prodigy is a great example of gamifying the classroom, It is interesting and engaging yet has great learning outcomes. Prodigy allows students to collect pets which they can then use to beat villain’s and collect more pets. Too beat these villain’s students are required to answer math questions to use their powers. Students can select between their own character or the pets they have gained. There is also a game for language arts although I have not explored this yet but from reading a quick definition on this game it seems great as well.

Pros of prodigy in a classroom

Prodigy has a great deal of customization for the students, I believe this can encourage engagement for the students as they will want to continue collecting more animals and customizing their characters. The platform also gives great customization too teachers. Prodigy allows teachers to view their students progress and customize students learning outcomes based on where the classroom is at and based on where students individually are at. I believe this platform will engage students too the point of students playing the game outside of school time.

Possible Cons of Prodigy in the classroom

The biggest con that I have thought about is how students will develop a love for the game and not the math. While this will create engagement and most likely lead students to more learning there is one thing that is bad about this. We have learned throughout the year how giving students prizes after completing tasks can become ineffective in later years as students wont be prized from their actions and will fall out of love of reading, math, etc. This could happen with prodigy as without the extra dopamine students would be familiar with using prodigy they will not want to do math without an extra prize.

Another possible con is it may become distracting for students. due to the amount of customization students may become distracted and focus on this part instead of the math. However to unlock items students must answer math questions, this may encourage the students to continue with the math to know the outcome is the ability to costumize their character more.

Additions to Intro and my favorite skate movies

6 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

Through this week I was able to get what I think will be the ender for my skate part but that cannot be shared until the video is done. I was also able to record and add a few more videos into the intro to the movie, which is what I am sharing with you know. If the snow which recently came doesn’t melt I will be unable to get more street clips for my skate part meaning it is very close to completion. Due to a busy week it has been hard to work on skate videos an adequate amount so instead of showing the little progress I made I will instead share my favorite and most influential skateboard parts.

Starting this off with my favorite skate movie of all time is RDS/FSU/2002

This is the video which got me reallllly into skateboarding and especially making skateboard videos. RDS or red dragons is a Canadian skateboard company based in Vancouver BC, this means all the people and places they skateboard are from Canada making this video feel even more important to me. Recently skateboarders part of the RDS team came to Cranbrook and the choice shop and gave out 100 free skateboards to youth in the community. all this has made this video feel extra special to me making it my favorite of all time.

Another one of my favorites is Fully Flared by Lakia. This video has the most iconic intro in skateboarding and was one of the first skateboarding movies given an actual budget to work with. The intro is so iconic due to the many explosions but especially Mike Mo’s switch flip down the stair set as this is already a very very hard trick, adding an explosion meaning he had to get it first try makes it even more impressive. This video includes some of the best skateboarding of all time and was so ahead of its time. With this there are also so many cool b-roll sections and transitions making this video even greater.

The last movie I want to talk about is an actual movie called street dreams.

While this movie is very corny and includes some very bad acting the plot of the movie is very interesting and keeps you intrigued the whole time. The part that makes this movie really cool is how it was written, created and acted by professional skateboarders. The movie follows Derrick Cabrera try to be a professional skateboarder, he struggles to do this until he is able to land a nac (360-flip back crooked grind) (not a chance) at Tampa-am one of the biggest competition in skateboarding

Coding in the classroom

2 November 2022 / zperreault / 0 Comments

This week in technology class we focused on coding, this was a great opportunity to learn something which is what I did. Using Hour of code I was able to learn my first bit of python a very popular coding language. This was a great experience as I was able to create a mini basketball game, while it wasn’t very groundbreaking and was a very simple game creating it myself still made me feel really good.

The game I created: https://www.codesters.com/curriculum/hour-of-code-2019/Basketball/22/

This is a great resource to use in class as I believe there are many students who don’t have the access to technology like this and wouldn’t have looked into coding without a class centered on coding. Using scratch even students in younger grades can create a game. Scratch uses block coding instead of the usual algorithmic way, while this isn’t as in depth or used at higher level of coding it still gives students skills that are required for coding with HTML+ or python. This is a great opportunity for students of all ages to show some creativity in something new, letting students who may have not found their “niche” a new opportunity to discover something their very passionate about.

Here is my name card I made in scratch (press the spacebar): https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/754639152/embed

Coding fits into many parts of the BC curriculum, listed here are just a few of the ways it connects with a grade 4 classroom:

Ideating: Choose an idea to pursue: there are so many ways students can use coding for, this lets them come up with an idea an attempt to create their idea.

Prototyping: Construct a first version of the product, making changes to tools, materials, and procedures as needed: Coding is a long process, it is likely students will fall into roadblocks, making changes to their ideas and tools may be necessary for them to accomplish their goals in coding.

testing: test the product: While coding their is a lot of trial and error until ending up with the final product. Students will have to test their product to see where they need to make changes to pursue their idea.