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End of Semester Reflections

As I have reached the end of the semester and more importantly, the end of my practicum, I am left with a lot of growth, development, and ideas about incorporating technology, including AI, into my teaching practice. My mentor teacher has shown me a lot of tools, techniques, and mindsets to utilize when using AI in teaching. The most important thing when it comes to using AI is viewing it as an assistant or employee, and you, the teacher, are the supervisor or the employer. Using these tools can be beneficial in assisting certain aspects of teaching whether it is planning lessons, assessing learning, or making learning fun, but it is still ultimately the teacher's responsibility to check through the work the AI did and verify that it is appropriate for teaching. Very often, you may have to make edits or change certain parts of the work to better fit your intentions or to be more suited for student learning and outcomes, but when you are not letting it be the teacher and only using ...
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Coding for Kids with Scratch

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 Coding with Scratch https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/newspaper-headline-and-article-about-climate-change-in-a-rainy-marsh-gm1467864838-499541295 Scratch Climate Change Lesson Plan As I reflect on creating this lesson plan, I like to think back on my own experiences in school when I was exposed to coding. The only time any sort of coding or computer science was integrated in my learning was for option courses, like informational science. Now that I get to see ways that coding can be taught and integrated into the core curriculum, I think I could find myself using it as an engaging, motivating, and fun way to teach content while also teaching a new skill to students. This also introduces students to the idea of coding and considering it as a hobby or perhaps a career choice.  I can definitely see myself utilizing this lesson plan in my future teaching practice, as well as coding in general. It is a unique way to enhance and deepen student learning, as well as a unique method f...
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Teaching with Technology

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 Teaching Space and Planets with Technology Space Song SpacePlace App   Grade 4 Space Lesson Plan When facilitating this lesson on space and the planets, I found that using technology, such as videos with music, was extremely engaging to students. It served well as a good review and introduction to the lesson, which allowed for smooth transitioning into the main activity students would do. It also gave surface level information which the main activity would support and dive deeper into. It did help that the app we used is built in-browser, so it did not require any downloads or signing up, which can often cause confusion and frustration among students. This lesson that we facilitated did not leave our small group of students with many questions, especially with navigating what to do or for accomplishing tasks, but this could differ when teaching this lesson in an elementary school setting.  I can definitely see myself using this exact lesson in teaching space in my own cl...
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My Digital Story

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 My Digital Story I got the opportunity to create a digital story on an Indigenous community, and I chose to look into the Tsuut'ina Peoples. Below is a link alongside my video where you can learn about their history, language, and what lessons can be learned from them. My Digital Story
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X/Twitter Usage in Schools

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  My Twitter Page Using X/Twitter in the classroom When I think about using Twitter in my future teaching practice, I always think about how I've seen many teachers from my own childhood experience and my field experiences. Many times I often see teachers use Twitter to showcase what students in their classrooms are up to, such as special projects they are working on or unique field trips they are taking. It was a unique way to showcase the school community and document the content that students were engaging with, as well as be a firm way for parents to see what was going on with their own children at school. In my own teaching practice, I am not sure if I'd use Twitter in my classroom for the students, as I think there are both upsides and downsides to using it. I find that the user interface for Twitter can be difficult to navigate as an adult, and I can only imagine how difficult it could be for a child to use. Furthermore, while I was finding various school communities and...
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Blog #1 - Beginning of the Fall 2024 Semester

 Although my experience with using AI in my own personal work, school work, or field experiences have been minimal, I do have experience with working with AI applications used in these areas. Over the summer, I volunteered to assist doing research, social media advertising, and providing feedback for an AI application that focused on generating optimal report cards, Make Progress AI. Some of the work I did was researching the Do's and Don'ts of different provincial report cards, provide feedback on the presentation of the website, spend extended amounts of time playing and tweaking the tool to improve the quality of the report card comments, and even got to share this application with my colleagues in my second year course for assessment practices.  In my practicum so far, my mentor teacher has also shared some resources involving AI that he uses to help enhance teaching, such as Magic School AI and Kuta (Pre-Algebra AI). Other technology used in the classroom that I have noti...
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