Author: Ms. Paysen (Page 2 of 3)

My class notes for our lecture on graphics:

Pixels: small ‘pixels’ make up a larger image – have a limit to how far you can zoom in to keep quality

Vectors: a mathematical equation to make up a specific shape. Expands mathematically as you zoom so the quality stays.

Photoshop costs money the more you get into it

Pixlr & Vectr can be used right in your browser

GIMP is a good free version of a photoshop-like tool

Powerpoint is a great tool to edit graphics – and is widely available to learners

• everything you create in powerpoint can be exported as a picture
• you can ‘save as’ your powerpoint as a different type of media (pictures or pdfs)
• cropping tool can be useful for changing the focus of a photo or rearranging a photo altogether
• can insert a screenshot and edit that

Powerpoint can also be used to create graphics

• can use shapes tool – all vector shapes, so keeps same resolution no matter the size of the shape
• can save all different shape/text components by selecting all of the area you want and ‘grouping’ them
• can also move different layers of shapes ‘to front’ or ‘to back’
• can save the ‘logo’ all as one by selecting and ‘save as picture’

SmartArt:

• pre-made graphic that you can then edit and add text to
• great way to make a quick ‘professional’ graphic

Apps:

• google photos automatically creates photos/videos you might like
• Prisma to edit photos
• Mirror Lab – takes a photo and can give it a kaleidoscope effect
• 8Bit photo
• Comica – gives it a comic-strip effect (sketched, coloured, b&w, set it up in panels to make a strip, can add text bubbles

bryanmmathers.com – Creative Commons graphics inspiration

Here is a personal graphic that I made using the tips and tricks from PowerPoint:

Our perceptions of Jesse Miller’s talk:

• Inquiry IS an indigenous way of know — kids are able to dive into questions that matter to their own communities
• black mirror – addictions
• extreme examples of how tech can get teachers in trouble
  • scare us into protecting ourselves
• need to think about not only our own preferences, but also those about the ones of the people we post. All of our followers then have access to these photos that we post.
  • kids with consent
  • what the apps we post to do with the content we upload
  • custody issues — if someone is tagged in a specific location, then that could be seen by the wrong people and could find out where those people frequent
• how important gaming is to children, and how positive influences

Our perceptions of our visit to PSII:

• inspiring, all kids seemed so motivated, eloquently spoken, mature, and self-motivated
• all learners come up to uvic to sit in on university level classes
• doesn’t work for all learners
• ***the book – ‘Dive Into Inquiry’ – Trevor MacKenzie*** – great resource for teaching inquiry
• sense of empowerment for the learners in the school

We got the absolute pleasure of getting to take a tour of the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. The principal of the school met with our entire class first to give us a low-down of what the school is all about and how it works.

PSII is a fairly small independent school, with a current student count of 95, and does not follow the standard BC curriculum model. Instead, they are based around inquiry, and students work through their time in highschool following their own inquiry questions in whatever direction they’d like. This is PSII’s 7th year of operation, and they are finding it to be very successful.

Tuition is $7200/year for each student — included in that is a YMCA membership for physical education, and a laptop they can use for 2 years. Many students go on to continue their education in University or College settings, or many also take on their own entrepreneurial ventures.

A lot of us had questions for how such a free model sets the learners up for their future ventures into University, should they so choose; and we learned that almost every student is able to audit at least 1 university course (usually at UVic) during their time in highschool to prepare them for a more standardized way of learning. Many of them also do a university bridge program, and begin taking first year university courses in their grade 12 year. Something that differs between PSII students, and those students graduating from the public school system, in my opinion, is that the inquiry based process leaves them more independent in their learning, so many of them go on to follow entrepreneurial ventures right after graduation.

It seems as though this model, fostering more independence, collaboration, and self-driven research, sets students up for success in today’s quickly evolving society.

Here is a link to their website with some more wonderful, in depth information on the school.

And here are a few pictures I snapped during our tour of the facility:

Today in class we had the honour of having Jesse Miller join us for a presentation on Social Media & Mobile Technology: Professional responsibilities,  Personal meets Public. I found it to be a whirlwind of heavy content, and left my head spinning with a lot to consider as I move forward in my career as a teacher.

I thought I had a distinct plan put in place for creating a separate “professional” online presence that could be accessed by any students, parents, employers, or coworkers; but after today, I find myself questioning this entire decision. Is it best to just cut myself off from social media in my professional setting altogether to protect myself. Not that I necessarily post anything that I wouldn’t want to be public anyways, but the way that things can be shifted by the perception of the public is a very very scary thought to me.

This will be something that I will personally have to continue to consider and decide what approach I feel is best for my professional career vs my personal freedom. Definitely a lot to think of moving forward…

These are my notes from the presentation in their raw form.. Feel free to peruse them, or not. They’re here just for my own personal reference.

• Finished highschool and didn’t know what he wanted to do — internet didn’t exist then like it does today
• First job was with Vancouver PD – Bait Car Program
  • Then went on to working in sex crimes
  • Then at the emergence of facebook, shifted to giving presentations in schools
• Masters work — technology in education
• Social Media & Professional Responsibilities
  • @mediatedrealty (twitter)
  • Capchas – 40 million times per day instances of confirming you’re not a robot — google what captures do
    • helps with self driving cars
  • malahat introducing photo radar next year – tickets in the mail based on time to take to get to point a to point b
  • funny videos online – why do videos of gym people exist on the internet – FIPPA
  • People do things on the internet without knowing why they’re doing it: ALS ice bucket challenge
  • “private accounts”: all your followers can still screenshot and pass along
  • Networked Citizenship:
    • What is your digital identity?
      • multiple versions of yourself
      • facebook
      • primary instagram account
      • Things on the internet that you dont want your students seeing, or your employers, etc
  • Digitial rights: someone screenshots something and sends it to a thousand people, do they have a right?
    • up until 2014 no laws against sending on photos or messages that people send to you
    • now sending someone else’s pictures is a punishable offense
  • Digital Literacy: 1/4 of all US relationships started on social media last year
  • Security of self: are you actively maintaining your personal accounts to ensure you’re keeping your personal and professional life is separate
  • Should your child have a social media account?
    • gender biases
    • media biases
    • targeted to moms – pinterest
    • Tween brains are not ready for navigating this 24 hour communication/life of affirmation
    • Headlines are designed to get people to click
      • Videogames cause violence: data does not support this — most kids that are violent in schools have domestic violence in their homes
  • Has social media shifted society: for better or worse? both? double edged sword
  • Kids who enjoy sports never think about checking their phones — need to make classrooms engaging so that they also feel the same way
• Amy Orben : emerging data on kids going back to face to face needs – have experienced being ignored by parents on their phones, so dont want to continue that cycle.
• erasebc.ca — erase bullying
• Social media & youth
  • need to know the policies around appropriate communication between teachers and students–each school district has different policies and are changing all the time
    • ie. having students phone numbers
    • texting students
    • having students on social media
    • opportunities for success vs. opportunities for conflict
    • need to balance your wanting to be empathetic and help children, also need to keep proper boundaries with students for professionalism
  • Entitlement piece attached to your phone – because is like our modern diary
  • All struggling with communications balance – use of personal phone for school vs. getting a phone from the school district
    • district has access to what you do on your personal phone when on the wifi
• 3 potential critical audiences for media use by educations
  • • public – ie. parents
    • staff/coworkers – do you need to befriend all coworkers on your facebook/instagram
    • students – if they somehow get access – what they see and what they can do with it
  • Teachers must not share student info/image on personal social media accounts
    • Make sure any content with students remains within canada
    • make sure you delete photos right away
    • FreshGrade is hosted in BC
    • Fostercare **
    • Uploading any negative pictures online
    • be wary of crossing lines – boundaries
• E-sports
  • Highschools now have e-sports teams
  • nation building – diverse group of competitiors
  • competitive e-sports players will have the same resting heart rate as a person playing 90 min soccer game
  • gaming interest into art design, computer science, etc
  • 3D opportunities
  • Shouldn’t be shaming kids based on interest – based on cultural norms
  • need to have a diversity of extracurriculars
  • can get a business degree in e-sports
  • forest fires – can dig trenches

After yesterday’s Link 2 Practice Professional Development seminar hosted by SD 62 & UVic Teacher Ed, there was an excited buzz about our inquiry questions from all Teacher Candidates. The seminar helped to shape and focus our inquiry questions, and to really get us on our way to prepare for our November Inquiry Gallery Walk.

One thing that has been stressed time and time again by every experienced teacher that speaks, is the importance of collaboration in teaching. Not only in lesson planning or ideas for activities, but also in teacher’s own inquiry projects. Two heads are better than one, and will always give a more well-rounded outlook to any wondering you’re looking to answer.

In today’s class we went over ways that video can be useful to help our teaching. We went through Rich’s blog to discuss different programs to use for visual and audio (see link below), and worked on creating our own videos.

Some notes from class:

First Video ever created: A horse running – 1878

• helps to see what the naked eye itself can’t actually see

Other ways video helps with this:

• slow motion/time-lapse

Ways we can use video to replicate what we do in the classroom

• like writing on a chalkboard : Khan Academy

Rich created a very useful blog to help us in our Video ventures. Click here.

Lastly, here is a copy of the video that I edited in this class:

Some notes from our class on Open Educational Resources. Lots of open resources listed below to check out!

• Used in remote areas (South Africa)
• Embeddable content (youtube/tweet)
• Wed resources
  • some have copy rights
    • copyright is applied by default
  • fair dealing — for teaching
    • for the purposes of education
    • can share a single page of a book, but copying an entire book would fall under copyright
      • can look at the guidelines through class slides
• Public Domain – copy right no longer held after a certain amount of time
  • ie. Moby Dick
• Creative Commons: a licencing tool for people who want to share materials
  • Content with the CC logo is openly allowed to be reused and copied WITH proper attribution
    • Wikipedia – just need to cite where you got it
    • Phet: downloadable interactive simulations for students
    • flickr
    • Vimeo
    • Internet Archive
    • Khan Academy
    • OER Commons (oercommons.org)
    • Curriki
    • Siyavula (entire textbooks)
    • Archive.org
• Teachers Pay Teachers : teachers create resources and sell them to other teachers
  • not open technically
  • curriculum
  • lessons
• Movement in BC towards creating free opensource textbooks
• creativecommons.org/openeducation??? (see slides for video)
• For google searches, you can go into Settings –> Advanced search –> Usage rights –> free to use, then will bring up openly licensed resources