Author: sarahbjelde

Wow. On Tuesday, January 28th, the Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation provided our cohort with a concrete example of inquiry-based, personalized learning.

The Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation is a highschool that allows it’s students to “develop interdisciplinary pathways leading to learning activities that take them through a curriculum all their own, while also meeting or exceeding BC graduation requirements.” The school’s founder and principal, Jeff Hopkins, gave us a fascinating presentation on why he created this school and how it operates. He then answered many of our questions that arose after the thought-provoking lecture.

Hopkins explained how the school does not have set blocks during the day, classes split by grades, mandatory classes, or even homework. Learners go through an inquiry process to find a couple of topics each year that interest them. These topics can apply to many different subjects in the BC curriculum. They could also apply to optional “sessions” run by the teachers. For example, on Tuesday I saw a chemistry session on atomic orbitals. The school has a “collaborative space,” a science lab, multiple meeting/session rooms, a sensory room, a drama space, an art space, a shop space and much more that I didn’t get to explore fully. All of this inquiry-based learning takes place in an office building in downtown Victoria.

It was very exciting to see a school that encompasses pretty much all of the values that we have been taught to channel in our future classrooms. These values, thoughts, and ideologies include inquiry-based learning, personalized learning, flexible seating, collaborative learning, self-determination theory, the Circle of Courage, the Three A’s of Motivation, and multiage classes. Despite how interesting it was to see these models put in practice, this inquiry school does have some downfalls that may be tricky to implement successfully both in an elementary school setting and in general:

• Self-determination: some people who have attended “regular” school may not be used to having full control, autonomy and responsibility for their learning.
• Grade-oriented learning: students from “regular” schools are used to learning something to get a good grade. Oftentimes after they receive that grade, they forget what they have learned. Students are not used to the idea of mastering a subject for the sake of learning.
• Collaboration and Cooperation: although these learning ideas are emphasized throughout the new BC curriculum, students have been trained to be individualistic learners in competitive learning structures. Having to switch over to a cooperative and collaborative learning style may feel uncomfortable for some students.
• Specifically for primary years, having the drive, passion, and diligence to be autonomous over their own learning would be a big challenge. At this age, learners need guidance and routine to learn how to learn.

Despite some challenges that self-directed, inquiry-based learning may bring,  I believe it is a very valuable education style that should be implemented into every classroom at every grade level: it is up to the teacher to understand their learners and know the ways in which to do so.

During our class today in EDCI 336, we watched the “RiP! Remix Manifesto” documentary. Before this, Rich presented us with various apps and google chrome extensions that could be useful for us as future teachers. Diigo is a chrome extension that is useful for organizing and curating your bookmarked resources. I found it to be particularly useful because Rich outlined how we can create folders to put your bookmarks in and separate it by grade and subject. This would be particularly useful for practicum. I cannot find very many downfalls to this website other than, after some further research, I found that the extension was hijacked and all traffic was sent to different malicious websites. Other than this Diigo seems very useful and interesting.

“RiP! Remix Manifesto” documentary is about copyright laws. The narrator of the documentary talks about his favourite musical artist, Girl Talk, who mashes up many songs together to make album-long remixes. I actually know Girl Talk myself and my favourite album of his is “All Day”. The narrator outlines how a lot of Girl Talk’s music goes against many copyright laws and that the rights to the music that he samples “doesn’t depend on who made the songs, but who owns the copyright.” Intellectual property is locked up until purchase for the copyRIGHT and for the copyLEFT, there needs to be a global free exchange of ideas in order for our society to learn and grow. There was a main “manifesto” of the documentary that outlined 3 main truths. These included:

1. Culture always builds on the past. The film showed how the moral dilemma surrounding copyright is split into the public domain (freely build on earlier works) and private corporations. An example the film brought up was Napster (largest free library of human resources) – this brought power back to the people.
2. The past always tries to control the future. The copyright laws in place made 52 million US citizens copyright criminals. Lessig, a lawyer, wrote the manifesto that inspired this film. He claimed that there is “no way to kill this technology, we can only criminalize its use.” He explained how fair use is a copyright law that allows for free speech. small amounts of copyrighted material to make an argument. His and the documentary’s narrator’s main point is that “copyright is out of control and has been manipulated for profit at everyone’s expense worldwide.” Making mashups like Girl Talk is explained to be a form of “literacy for a new generation,” it helps build a different democracy and culture. Disney is revealed to be huge player in the story of copyright. Walt Disney himself was a “mashup artist” who was “always continuing the conversation of a culture.” He built on the past and then he died. His corporation then changed the law so that no one could do what he did again.
3. Our future is becoming less free. Record and movie companies want Canada to lock up everything just like the States.

My final thoughts about the documentary are that I agree with the point made about how it is hypocritical that people can cite literature works and then build their own work off of that but the same is not true for media. I also agree with the point that revealed the harm in scientists not publishing their data. This withholding of information could potentially be holding us back as a society from advancing with vaccines, biological data, etc. We need to move away from our current Eurowestern, individualistic, capitalistic beliefs and move towards a more Indigenous holistic and relational view of sharing art and science for the benefit of everyone, not just the chosen few CEOs at the top of society’s hierarchy.

After the documentary, we discussed copyright licensing, options for teacher/educational resources, and our personal thoughts on the film. I think for most teachers, avoiding copyright infringement can be hard because they may not have received education on what is legal and what is not. I will have to work hard to make sure I am citing materials that are not my intellectual property in my lessons. I can see how teachers photocopying worksheets and collaborating/integrating various lesson plans from many different sources can be tricky in regards to copyright. I will be using the resources brought up in class such as the digital scholarship commons and open education resources (OER).

In EDCI 336 today, we all set up our own Trello accounts. Compared to opened and WordPress it was a much smoother set-up process for me, although this might be because I have had experience following detailed website-making instructions from last week.  The email confirmation came extremely quickly from Trello which allowed me to set up my account and page in a prompt manner.

I like how the site is very easy to use and navigate. The only trouble I had was setting up checklists. This is because I was typing the checklists into the “checklist title” box. Once I realized where I needed to put the actual checklist information, it was smooth sailing from then on. Having the option to have checklists is very motivating for me because I always look forward to completing work and being able to cross it off my to-do list.

Another aspect of Trello that I enjoy is its wide range of high quality, beautiful photos that can be the background to my page.

Click here to see my Trello as of right now. I am excited to add to it every week and be able to see my progress in learning all about Sweden and attempting to learn some Swedish. My personal inquiry project is to prepare for my first practicum in Sweden this coming April. Trello is an excellent platform for me to visually see what I need to do and the ways that I can achieve those things.

The appealing visual design and ease of use of the website Trello, once you know how to use it, make it an excellent platform for individual or group inquiries. I think it might be difficult to use in a K-5 setting but with middle school years, it could be very successful. I can see how younger students would have trouble following the instructions to create their own Trello pages which is why it could be used for a classroom inquiry rather than an individual one.

I look forward to seeing where my personal inquiry, and Trello, will take me!

Today in EDCI 336, we learned how to set up and create our WordPress blog. Here I am writing the very first post on the blog!

The process to set up my blog involved following the instructions that Rich provided on a handout.  First, I went to opened.ca which is a website that I have never heard of before. It is a British Columbia made platform that promotes educational technology. It was a relatively smooth process setting up my page, however, I did have to wait around 7 minutes to receive my email confirmation about my website.

Photo by Flickr user jfchenier under CC license: BY-NC 2.0

This blog will be good for an educational setting because it will allow me to bring my blogposts, inquiry projects, resume, and materials/assignments for other classes altogether in one space. Some challenges that may arise from using this website include computer malfunctions, Wifi malfunctions, glitches, or hackers.

All in all, I am excited to explore the world of EdTech through my new blog.