Hello again and Happy Saturday (or whatever day you end up reading this)!
This week on the chop and block, we talked about teachers as content curators, as well as having a guest speaker, Joseph Gamble give us a presentation on his time as an Ed Tech Lead at an Ontario French school (I think it was private because most French schools in Ontario are, since their official language is English, fun fact: New Brunswick is the only province whose official languages are English AND French).
I like the idea of seeing teachers as curators but I’m also painfully aware of how unsustainable it is for one sole person to be curating their whole unit/lesson plans by themselves. Maybe it would be best to call teachers collaborative curators because I believe we’re all working off of each other’s ideas, perspectives, strategies, and solutions.
Learning about the categories of “dumpers” was interesting, it made me think about which category I might fall into. To be honest, I know which one I am, I know I’m a hoarder (ugh) I wish I was an organized queen but I am not. I have a hard time labeling things because if something fits between two different categories I made; I tend to make a new one and then I’m left with folders on folders, which makes seem organized but it’s more chaotic than anything else.
I liked that the class got introduced to different platforms that can help with content curation; I ended up using Padlet. I like that I can use it as a space for my learning pod to share ideas and information. you can see the one I made here:
The learning pod I’m a part of is looking towards doing our educational technology presentation on virtual reality (VR) and possibly looking at artificial intelligence (AI) as well. Our overarching theme (as you can see in our Padlet above) is seeing if VR can help make education a more equitable place for all learners. Especially regarding field trips and experiences that are too expensive for a public school to fund. We discussed how we’ve seen schools take students on VR tours of museums and famous landmarks around the world, like exploring the mysteries of the pyramids or going into outer space. We think this technology can not only help students but enhance their learning experience.
I enjoyed listening to Joseph Gamble’s advice, I like that we can chat with educators who are currently in schools teaching or supporting, I find some professors are UVIC haven’t taught in an elementary, middle, or secondary setting for several decades (or never in their life) and it shows. So I appreciate Joseph for giving us his time to answer our questions. When he mentioned Deepl my little Quebecer side got happy, I LOVE using Deepl when I was working with Francophones. It’s so much better than Google Translate (sorry not sorry Google). I remember working at a call center and having the most atrocious French-speaking skills for a Quebecer, Deepl saved me from so many potentially angry Francophone Quebecers.
I hope you enjoyed reading my reflection this week, you won’t see me next week because it’s READING BREAK WOOHOO!
Kimiko
