EPLT Online

You’ve probably seen them around on flyers, posters, even TV shows! Those interesting-looking square designs with squiggly lines and all of that. You may have wondered what they are? Those are QR codes, codes that are becoming more popular by the day as a new way to interact digitally with print media.

In this episode, we examine the use of QR codes in Education, as there are tons of ways that they can be incorporated into the daily curriculum, from providing a link to course web sites to forum discussions and links to course outlines, the possibilities are endless.

Dave also interviews John Egan, course designer and lead instructor for ETEC 565 (soon to be getting a new course number), “Learning Technologies: Selection, Design & Application.” This course has been extremely popular among MET students, and John gets into how the course came about and just what is covered in it.

All of this, and we nerd out on George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” book series and, of course, the Walking Dead. Can we get through an episode without mentioning that? Keep listening each episode to find out.

Also don’t forget, if you’re in Vancouver and listening to this on Friday night or Saturday, we have the civic election on Saturday, November 19. Get out and vote!

We’d love your feedback on anything brought up on the episode, or just the podcast in general. Who knows? Maybe it will even get read on the air. Email us at podcast.eplt@ubc.ca

Find us on iTunes. (or just search for EPLT or Down the Hall in the podcast section of iTunes itself)

Or find us on Libsyn

Just a note that the views expressed in the podcast are those of the hosts, and not necessarily the views of either EPLT or the Faculty of Education at UBC.

More details, including the link to the episode itself and the time stamps, after the jump.

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Learning to read is important at a young age, and it’s also very important to have teachers with a variety of methods to help young children learn and grow as readers.

EPLT, the department of Language & Literacy Education at UBC, and the Vancouver School Board are joining together to offer a section of LLED 446: Teaching With Illustrated Materials, K-3: From Picture Books to Information Texts. This course will be located in Vancouver and will start in January.

From the course web site:

This course explores the use of illustrated children’s materials in early childhood education with particular attention given to the role of the visual modality in conveying narrative and concept information to young children. This course focuses on and explores the ways that illustrated materials support the instructional goals of early years education. This course aims to promote awareness and acceptance of diversity, our own and that of our peers, students and that of the creators of illustrated literary texts.

LLED 446 will be held at the Alliance for Arts & Culture building in downtown Vancouver, on six Saturdays beginning on January 7, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

Even better, this course can be used as part of the Early Years Education diploma program.

Register soon, as space is limited.

EPLT is proud to announce a unique new graduate program being offered on campus here at UBC, and is offered by the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy.

The Master of Museum Education focuses on teaching and learning outside of the classroom, bringing together museum educators, community educators, and teachers.

From the program web site:

This program will provide the necessary skills and knowledge for careers as educators in informal settings such as museums, locally and globally, and to support classroom-based teachers in expanding their use of the community as a learning site. The program model is one that recognizes the need for contextualizing museum education curriculum in both home country context (which has its own unique social and political context) and in the Canadian cultural context of museum education, in which practices may be conceptualized in other beneficial ways to that of the student’s own country of origin. The end result are graduating students that are then better able to influence the systems in their own countries with strengthened capacities to introduce beneficial reforms around museum education.

This program will be offered on the UBC campus, so you will need to travel to campus for your courses.

Here are the details of the program:

Location: UBC Campus

Start Date: September 2012

Application Deadline: March 1, 2012

An information session for this program has been scheduled for Tuesday, December 6, from 4:00 – 5:00 pm. It will be held at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, 1100 Chestnut St., Vancouver, BC. If you can’t be there, you can also join us online.

Please see the program web site for further information, including how to apply.

Are you a Special Education teacher, especially dealing with students with Autism?

Then this is the course for you!

EPLT, along with UBC’s Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, & Special Education, is offering EPSE 449, Education of Students with Autism, as a face-to-face course in Langley.

From the web site:

“An overview of the causative theories and intervention approaches related to the autism spectrum disorders.  Emphasis will be on strategies for including students with autism in regular classroom settings.  This course is broad-based and includes interventions from a number of theoretical perspectives. “

Please see the web site for information on specific topics covered.

The course begins on Thursday, January 5, and will run for 13 Thursdays until April 12 (March 15 and 22 will not have classes), from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm. The course will be held at the Langley District School Board office.

Finally, you can take the course for credit or for non-credit.

Please see the web site for further information.

We all like movies, right? As a society, we immerse ourselves in many forms of media, so much so that it’s only natural that we begin to study it, and its effect on us. Film studies has been a mainstay on college campuses for years, but what about studying media in the K-12 classroom? That’s the discussion topic for this week’s episode, as we delve into our past experiences as well as talking about the state of media studies today. There are some great resources out there for the teacher who wants to bring this to his/her class.

Jenny also talks to Teresa Milden, from the Vancouver School Board, about Gifted Education.

All of this, and the obligatory zombie reference too.

We’d love your feedback on anything brought up on the episode, or just the podcast in general. Who knows? Maybe it will even get read on the air. Email us at podcast.eplt@ubc.ca

Find us on iTunes. (or just search for EPLT or Down the Hall in the podcast section of iTunes itself)

Or find us on Libsyn

Just a note that the views expressed in the podcast are those of the hosts, and not necessarily the views of either EPLT or the Faculty of Education at UBC.

More details, including the link to the episode itself and the time stamps, after the jump.

Continue Reading »

We all know the stereotype. A classroom full of kids, all sitting at their desks, paying rapt attention to their teacher at the front of the room. There is no fidgeting, no sleeping, no kid texting on his iPhone under the desk.

At least the teacher would like to think that’s true.

Of course we also know what we grew up with. Teachers trying to control their classroom with constant admonitions to please be quiet. When that finally happens, the teacher starts his/her lecture, though inevitably some kids are whispering or doing other things  rather than listening. Heck, my high school Economics class was where I wrote some of my best short stories.

But is that the best way to learn, especially in modern times where there are so many interactive avenues of learning for kids and teachers to explore?

I understand that it’s almost impossible to learn in the bedlam that some of the kids I grew up with created in the classroom. But structured interactive activity, that also creates noise? Where kids are not hunkered down at their desks, either learning by rote or studying their textbooks with no interaction with anybody else?

I am not a teacher. I have not studied the educational system extensively, so I would not deign to suggest that I know what’s the best way for teachers to run their classrooms.

But it’s an interesting question. One that Royan Lee over at the Spicy Learning Blog brought up yesterday, in a post called “The Quiet Classroom.”

“I feel as though this is a practice that, like adultery or excessive gambling, we speak about in admonishing tones, yet flock to like seagulls at a beach picnic. In staff rooms, conferences, and lecture halls the world over educators nod their heads and appear to require very little clarification as to why the quiet class/staffroom isn’t necessarily the learning one.”

(Those who follow the UBC_EPLT Twitter feed have already seen a link to this blog, but I wanted to do a full post on it to bring it to more people’s attention)

He feels that teachers talk a good game about interactive classrooms, but then quietly go back to the standard “quiet classroom” model because it’s what they are familiar with.

Royan ends the post by asking “When’s the last time you had an interesting, never mind profound, learning experience with your fellow humans in which you couldn’t talk to one another?”

That’s a good question.

I really encourage you to go read the post, and also the very interesting comments that have been made on it already.

Again, I have no answers on this, and since I’m not a teacher, I have no real valid opinion on it either.

But it is an interesting question, and one that I would love to hear teachers chime in on.

Does school kill creativity? This week’s episode is inspired by a TED talk by Ken Robinson asking that same question.

Jenny’s back, and we get into a very good discussion of just how important creativity is to us as adults, and what we can do to foster that sense of creativity and play that adults seem to lose as they make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Why can’t adults let their imaginations run wild like kids can? This is a discussion that we would like to carry on and revisit in future episodes.

We also have an interview with Brian McAskill, a student (and soon to be graduate) of the TGU1 (Teaching Games for Understanding) Physical Education MED cohort. He tells us of his experiences in the cohort, using the Teaching Games for Understanding method, and what value he has taken from the cohort. We thought it would be useful for potential applicants to the second iteration of the cohort to have some insider perspective.

All of that, and the best science fiction show on television in the last ten years (in my opinion, anyway), Firefly. It’s on Netflix now!

We’d love your feedback on anything brought up on the episode, or just the podcast in general. Who knows? Maybe it will even get read on the air. Email us at podcast.eplt@ubc.ca

Find us on iTunes. (or just search for EPLT or Down the Hall in the podcast section of iTunes itself)

Or find us on Libsyn.

Just a note that the views expressed in the podcast are those of the hosts, and not necessarily the views of either EPLT or the Faculty of Education at UBC.

More details, including the link to the episode itself and the time stamps, after the jump.

Continue Reading »

We’ve got a different show this week, as Jenny is away and we have a wonderful fill-in performance from EPLT’s own Heather McGregor!

While we don’t have a discussion this week, you do get to hear Jenny as she interviews Vanessa Lapointe of The Wishing Star. Vanessa taught for EPLT at an Early Childhood Education summer institute this past July. They discuss assessment and support in early childhood education.

Finally, EPLT has lots of stuff going on this month, and Heather and Dave give you all the information you could possibly need about the numerous MED cohort information sessions going on (as long as you come back to this blog post for the links, anyway).

All of this, along with the death of Steve Jobs and a V-Con wrap-up. No, there are no pictures of Dave in a sci-fi costume.

Many thanks to Heather for filling in on the broadcast side, and to Sharon Hu (former producer and co-host for Down the Hall) for filling in on the editing side. That’s how important Jenny is. It takes two people to fill in for her!

We’d love your feedback on anything brought up on the episode, or just the podcast in general. Who knows? Maybe it will even get read on the air. Email us at podcast.eplt@ubc.ca

Find us on iTunes. (or just search for EPLT or Down the Hall in the podcast section of iTunes itself)

Or follow us on Libsyn.

Just a note that the views expressed in the podcast are those of the hosts, and not necessarily the views of either EPLT or the Faculty of Education at UBC.

More details, including the link to the episode itself and the time stamps, after the jump.

Continue Reading »

Registration is currently open for the latest off-campus offering of EDUC 432 – The Supervision of Teaching. Taught by Tony Clarke, this course will be held in Vancouver at Livingstone Elementary school.

EDUC 432 begins on Tuesday, January 4, and runs every Tuesday through April 3.

From the web site:

EDUC 432A is a course designed to facilitate the work of practicum advisors (both school and faculty).  Topics include learning theory, observation of practice, a language to talk about teaching, student teacher reflection, evaluation of teaching practice, and talking to experienced advisors and past student teachers.

You can find registration information, as well as a complete schedule, on the course web page.

EPLT is proud to announce a new M.Ed cohort in Special Education, being offered by the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology and Special Education.

This program is being offered in association with four separate school districts: Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Langely, Coquitlam, and Mission. The exact location of the cohort has yet to be decided, though it will be convenient to those four districts.

This is the second iteration of this highly successful cohort.

From the web site:

The Special Education area concerns the education of students with exceptionalities, such as students with visual impairments, physical disabilities, emotional or behavioural disorders, learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, and those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The Master’s program focuses on both research and practice. Topics addressed in the Master’s programs include cognitive, language and social development, learning and instructional design, cultural and individual differences in relation to students with exceptionalities.

Here are the relevant details for the program, though please see the program site for full details.

Location: TBA

Start Date: July 2012

Program Length: 3 years

Application Deadline: December 1, 2011

Information sessions have been scheduled for the following dates. Please see the program web site for specific details on location.

Thursday, October 20 - Coquitlam – 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Tuesday, October 25 - Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows – 4:30 – 5:30 pm

Tuesday, November 1 - Langley – 4:30 – 5:30 pm

Applications are now open, so apply today!

If you have questions about applying, you can also check out our 14-minute podcast on application procedures and things that you need to know, just recently posted on this blog.