Category: Weekly Reflections

We were asked to sketch note some highlights from the course. These are my highlights as seen below.

As you can see I focused on the positives, except for AI. My highlights were the Games and Inquiry based learning from PSII, which I found as the most important takeaways from this course. The major benefits of Games is the enjoyment of the students, it is an easy way to get the students engaged and interested in the topics. For Inquiry Based Learning I found that this was also the case, for students to get the most out of school they guide themselves and engage with what they want to do.

Today’s blog post is around online citizenship & digital footprints

What Are Online Citizenship & Digital Footprints

Online Citizenship is the concept of being identifiable as a citizen of the internet, or of the modern age. Some people are actively engaged in this, and create online profiles using social media or other apps, but others are online citizens simply by being famous or noteworthy. This ties in to a digital footprint, which is a record of your actions, pictures, and opinions online that is permanent. Some of this is stored in metadata, but some is stored on live websites that you can see at any time. For example this is a list of sd63 teachers at Parkland secondary school.

A screenshot of the Parkland Secondary school staff directory.

Reflection

At this point, almost all of us are online citizens whether we like it or not, there are too many socially expected things that almost require us to be online. We all have some kind of online presence, even by nature of taking this course, or in our future as teachers in the public system, our names will be online. This is positive, as it keeps us accountable to our words and actions. Modern “cancel culture” is actually a useful thing in my mind, it allows us to hold people accountable, and when they say things that are inappropriate it is not lost in the wind. That being said, I do also think that this is a major issue that will create a culture of extremely isolationist and homogeneous thought, some times there are good reasons to go against the status quo and having the ability to be wrong without any major consequence is a good thing for society generally. Additionally, the ability to search for any individual means that some things that people, even teachers, that they may not want seen by their students or the public means that we have no choice for certain subjects.

This week the topic we are reflecting on is Ed Camps.

What Are Ed Camps?

Ed Camps are participant led discussion forums, where individuals meet to discuss a topic under a general, educator provided, umbrella topic. These seem to be useful for generating ideas, having a blend of structure & inquiry approaches, and for online learning. They would be ideal for Pro D days or other inter-professional conferences.

Reflection

Ed Camps were an interesting idea, but the lack of structure seemed to be a limiting factor for the Ed Camp concept. I can see this being quite useful for professionals who do not have the time or ability to meet in person, however they do not seem good for working with younger students, or students who are not passionate about the subject. This may also work for grade 12’s who have elected to take the course.

Image from: https://digitalpromise.org/edcamp/

This week’s reflection blog post is on the subject of using coding and computational thinking, and gaming in the classroom.

Scratch & Coding

Above is a picture of the coding tool “Scratch” and my progress in a coding exercise. Using coding in the classroom seems to be an effective tool when it comes to presenting logical thinking. I can see the use in social studies as there are a lot of similar uses to computational thinking and historical thinking. Both have a lot of “if this than this” elements, and so there are many overlapping concepts and ideas.

I do think that there are also some major downsides to coding in the classroom. The use of coding is inherently one that can only be done with sufficient technology for the whole class, if you were to not have enough laptops it would be impossible for the whole class to complete the activity. In addition to the access, I’m not sure I think that encouraging students to code during a socials class really is the best use of the time, as students are spending more and more time on screens in other places, social studies is one of those times where it may be more beneficial to develop real social skills rather than online skills, such as coding.

Gaming In The Classroom

On the other hand, using board games or other kinds of serious games in the classroom, I think, can be a real benefit to both the teacher and students. Gaming can be a fantastic method of getting buy in from the students, as nowadays more students than ever play games as an outside of school hobby. Additionally, if serious games are used properly, the knowledge retained from learning through these games can increase dramatically,¹ with students having much more engagement with the ideas, and getting to actually play with the concepts.
For non serious games, board games can be a fantastic alternative to coding to try and teach different kinds of thinking. For example, this thread of teachers who used board games in the class to teach physics is full of great ideas and ways that several different board games were used in classes.

On the other hand, not everyone should use games, and there are downsides to using games. If learning targets are not clear, students may not retain much of the information. Additionally, there is always the risk that students will get bored, as with any class, and if you have a larger than normal proportion of students who dislike games, than perhaps using a game in the classroom is not for you.

1. Gundersen, Sindre & Lampropoulos, Georgios. (2025). Using Serious Games and Digital Games to Improve Students’ Computational Thinking and Programming Skills in K-12 Education: A Systematic Literature Review. Technologies. 13. 113. 10.3390/technologies13030113. ↩︎

Today’s blog post concerns the NFB presentation that I attended during the Pro D workshop day on Friday last week.

What is the NFB?

The NFB, otherwise known as the National Film Board, is a Canadian government organization dedicated to preserving Canadian culture and history through film, providing educational tools, and promoting indigenous and BIPOC voices.

Their presentation was on the use of digital tools that they have created in the classroom, they provide high quality pre-made educational plans for lessons on all kinds of topics.

Pros

There are many positive things to say about the NFB resources: They are high quality, they align with the curriculum, they are easily accessible and free, and they are a different kind of multimodal resource. All of these things are true, and I think that the NFB does a fantastic job at creating resources. I believe that using the NFB resources in the classroom would be a massive benefit for most teachers, as their lesson plans are easy to follow, and come with really easy to use guides for teachers.

Additionally, they have resources for students of all ages, there are blogs that are dedicated to walking teachers through what resources to use and when, to teach a subject that may be difficult. For example, this blog has a selection of resources to teach students about citizenship through animated films.

Cons

Unfortunately, there are some cons still. The first, and most prescient, is that if overused films can become the same as lecturing, students will only listen for short periods of time before zoning out and missing the point completely. Another risk is that the films may be seen as completely objective, regardless of who actually made them. If we are not careful in teaching media literacy, students may be at risk of blindly believing whatever is put in front of them.

Additionally, the use of technology is a problem, with students who have limited access to technology, assigning the NFB resources as homework may create equity problems. This may also be an issue for school districts in rural areas where there is limited funds available for technology.

This week there was no prompt given for reflection, so I will be talking about my experience at the Pacific School Of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII).

Inquiry Based Learning

PSII’s style of learning is based around the student with inquiry being at the core of their process. Students engage with questions about something that is close to them, that brings out their own curiosity, and then they are directed to research that topic. More about the process can be found here or in this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlwkerwaV2E

Pros

I think that the inquiry based model of learning is a fantastic model for some students, as it provides a frankly dramatically different model than conventional schooling. In my opinion, the students that benefit from this model the most can be broken down into two types of student: the overachievers, and the disinterested.

Personally, I know several students that went to PSII who have advanced degrees, largely spurred by the inquiry that they did at PSII. Before PSII they were also always overachievers, scholarship students and straight A students, but at PSII they were able to flourish and create fantastic inquiry projects, such as a full novel. The inquiry process allows them to not be hindered by traditional classrooms and keeps pushing the students further and further.

On the other hand, the classically disinterested students also found a place at PSII. Friends of mine that went to PSII that were generally considered “problem children” or “too energetic” and “hard to contain” were able to find their niche at school, and apply their energy to something that actually grabbed their attention.

Cons

Nothing is perfect however, PSII’s model does not fit for everyone. Unfortunately, a big problem for PSII’s model is that it requires a lot more individual support and attention, which means that the classic ratios of students to teachers needs to be a lot higher. I believe that the current numbers roughly work out to a ratio of 1:12 teachers to students, which is a significantly lower number than the usual public numbers. Another problem is drive and motivation. If students are not interested in schooling in general it can be hard, even with an inquiry based model, to fully engage those students in education, and having a school where there is the ability to do functionally nothing all day means that you will get some students who take that opportunity. The traditional schooling model provides checks and if you are not doing work all day, by virtue of being in classes it is easier for teachers to check in and catch those students.

This week for our blog post we have been asked to reflect on a few things, first to add our H5P video to the blog, and then to reflect on a couple questions about H5P/interactive video. Then describe how Multi-media Learning Theory and Flipped Classrooms can be used in our specific context.

H5P & Interactive Video

H5P seems to be a useful tool to create check in points for our classes. I can see it being quite useful if i was sick and had to record a class, getting some formative feedback from the class’s responses through the H5P software.

Video/Audio editing as an Assignment

I think that creating videos or a podcast could be a fantastic tool for students who are not comfortable doing projects that involve presentations. Additionally, I think that it could add a lot of personality to a project. I envision an assignment where students are required to make a radio show or video from the 1940s for a socials 10 class, the students could make anything from a radio segment to a “propaganda film” which would allow the students to choose something that interests them, while staying on topic. To make it engaging, the key would be to ensure that the students understand that they are not being graded on quality of video, but creativity and ingenuity.

Multi-media Learning Theory

Multi-media learning theory allows instructors to create much more effective presentations through online media. The theory has several precepts, but among them are some such as: Talking Heads are distracting, and “more text is not necessarily better.” This lets us be more effective as educators using the online videos easier.

Flipped Classroom Teaching Model

A flipped classroom at the grade level I would like to teach (socials 10) would likely involve me assigning readings from a textbook, or primary sources, for the students before a class. Then, during class we would go over the readings in much more detail. Some strengths include: students who are moving quite quickly will be able to go at their own pace and move far beyond the rest of the class in content and understanding. Some weaknesses are: that students who are not as engaged will slip further and further from the class and end up completely unengaged with the content or material.

I believe that for the socials 9/10 classes the weaknesses outweigh the benefits, as going through the content at the same time gives some accountability to the students, as their classmates will be all going through the same things at the same times. Additionally, the students that are much quicker and able to understand the material quicker will naturally able to help the students who are falling behind. Finally, this way of teaching exacerbates issues for students with disabilities, or who require more help. As they wont be able to do the prep work on their own time without help, which not all students would have access to.

At a higher grade level I can see this working a lot better, when students are taking the course as an elective rather than as a required class. Other teachers I have talked to, at parklands and at other independent schools, find that flipped classes work well for higher achieving students, but not as well for the majority of average or lower achieving students.