In our EDCI 336 class on September 28th, we had a very special guest join us, Jesse Miller from Mediated Reality.

Jesse gave us a wonderful presentation on Digital Privacy and Safety on the internet. He enlightened us with the different views and opinions of cellphones within the classroom, and how many schools are addressing cellphones with their students. Some believe that cellphones do not belong within schools, while many believe that cellphones are now a part of today’s reality and should not be discouraged but managed within the classroom and even used as an educational tool. The point was also made that children learn and develop habits from their parents and the people around them. If they see the adults in their lives constantly checking their devices and spending enormous amounts of time being active online, then they will follow suit and do the same once they acquire their own devices. This instilled a sense of self-awareness in me. How often am I on my phone? How will I present this to my future children? How will I address device usage in my future classrooms?

The sense of self-awareness grew greatly when we delved into the topic of our own online presence on the internet and through social media. Having many teachers in my life, I have been pretty careful about what I present online and how public my accounts could be. Despite this, I know that there was a time in my life where I was much younger, social media was new, and the thought of becoming an educator wasn’t there. How safe was I being then? What could I have shared or put online in the past that may affect me now? What might friends or acquaintances tagged me in that may not be appropriate now? We were instructed to search our names online and see what came up – to perform an audit of our digital footprint. Thankfully, I couldn’t find anything about myself other than my name being up on the website of my workplace.  I went a step further to insure my privacy and safety and double checked that my social media accounts were indeed set to private. I also went through the content that I have shared, and looked over what has been linked to my accounts to insure that I am portraying an appropriate and respectful image.

I recommend that you, too, perform a quick search for your name. What came up? Is it what you would want your image to be? Let’s work together to make sure that our online presence relays a positive message to others and to future students who may stumble upon our content.

This past EDCI 336 class, on September 21, 2020, opened my eyes as a future educator in regards to online content. 

We covered the difference between Copyright materials and the various Creative Commons  licences, as well as going into the Fair Dealings Guidelines. It was my previous understanding that Copyright materials couldn’t be reproduced, sold, or altered. I did not know that in reality Copyright materials could be used if only 10% or less of the original copy was reproduced. This is incredibly important information for teachers to know so that they follow the legal guidelines when creating and distributing resources.

In addition to Copyright materials, we also covered Open Education Resources. Open Educational Resources are created and put out there so that individuals and educators can freely access materials without spending a fortune on resources and textbooks.

One site that is often used (and I’ve used myself for resources for kids’ camps) is Teachers Pay Teachers. This site is an excellent resource for lesson plans, activities, and various other classroom resources. One downfall of TPT is that many of the materials do cost money, but you can find some useful items for free. Teachers Pay Teachers is also a great place if you wish to possibly earn a few dollars off of the resources that you have created.

Other OER sources include OER Commons, Khan Academy, and our local elementary digital library from BC’s School District #61. Ben Koning, the teacher librarian from Tillicum Elementary, shared the digital library link to us. While looking through the library one can instantly see how this site can be a useful companion when creating lesson plans and collecting resources for students. It’s neatly organized, easy to use, and up to date. A site that I will certainly use before and after I become a teacher!

Our first EDCI 336 class on September 14, 2020, was an introduction to what we will cover and explore in regards to Technology Innovation in Education. We covered course activities such as our weekly course reflections, our Free Inquiry Project, our educational resource and presentation, FIPPA, and the introduction to our learning pods.

After our class, we were assigned with the task of attempting to create our very own Word Press site and blog! I personally had never set up a site before, nor am I super tech savvy, but I did thoroughly enjoy the freedom to create and design my own online space.  I know that I spent way too much time looking through background and header images, and I am still not content with what I have chosen. I spent majority of my time looking through Unsplash. Unsplash has a fantastic assortment of high quality photos that are free to download and are perfect for backgrounds, headers, and accent images.

A challenge that I experienced while working on my blog was remembering to press the “Update” button after editing a post. After taking some time to write out a reflection, I highly suggest pressing that very important button. I did not, and I found myself having to rewrite the reflection for a second time. Not ideal, but it is all part of the learning process!

I am excited to see how my own, and the rest of my cohort’s blogs will look at the end of this semester. It will be interesting to see how each has grown and developed, with the inclusion of our individual Free Inquiry projects, our post from EDCI306A, and our class reflections.