Last week I met with a colleague in my inquiry class who will act as my peer reviewer for the remainder of the second term. They outlined that I should begin planning my next steps as I head into the extended practicum, so that I might have some activities in mind that I could incorporate into my unit objectives and lesson planning. In this post, I will discuss some of my latest findings into what other teachers have been doing to build community in their classrooms using new technologies and digital media. In particular, I will focus on one blog post and two online articles that share how educators are using new technologies to create meaningful learning experiences for students. In addition to this, I will share a lesson I created myself and have dubbed ‘Vinespeare’.

Gaming in the Classroom:
I was particularly excited to find out that teachers are finding innovative ways to teach students through video gaming (Bristow, 2013). I remember as a teenager myself, my video games often taught me a lot about world history, as many of the games I played were created by studios that hired historians to provide historical accuracy to their games. This meant that I learned about ancient Roman warfare while playing Age of Empires. Teachers today are finding use in Minecraft (also a game I enjoy playing!). I recently came across an incredible article describing how students in a New Zealand school put in hours of work researching and building a virtual memorial to the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI. The project was so impressive, that a local museum is displaying the student’s hard work (Barns, 2015). Now if that does not show the meaningful application of technology promoting community, I don’t know what does. This could be extended to teach students about a variety of topics: coding, mathematics, comparative civilizations, geography, and so on. Unfortunately, my practicum school does not have Minecraft Education and so this idea will remain an aspiration for the short term.

Virtual Reality:
David Nield writing for The Guardian online, published an article on wearable technologies in the classroom and how they are shaping how students learn. The article talks about a new Google program called Expeditions, which allows teachers to take their students on virtual field trips (Holland, 2015). While I believe this to be the future of field trips, eliminating costs and potential safety risks taking students to see the real thing, one obvious problem is that not all teachers have access to VR technologies. I know this to be the case in my practicum school, which belongs to a district that has experienced some economic hardship in the last years. Nield cites research that points towards how wearable technologies are increasing student retention of learning and “widening the spectrum of accessibility” among students (Nield, 2015).

One of the mediums I hope to experiment with during my practicum is virtual reality through Google Cardboard. I purchased two pairs for my own use, so resources would be limited, but I remain optimistic. My gut tells me that most schools do not have VR technologies, because the field as an educational tool is yet to be truly developed for classroom instruction and districts desire safe investments. A long term goal of mine would be to take students on a virtual field trip to explore the remains of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, located at the bottom of the sea in the Northwest Passage.

Supporting my interest in wearable technologies in the classroom, a kindergarten teacher, Margaret Powers, has a blog titled 365 Days of Glass, where she documents her experiences using Google Glass in her classroom (Powers, 2016). Her findings are very interesting insofar as they have enabled her to connect her young students with resources that are otherwise inaccessible. In one activity, students studied dinosaurs and got the opportunity to interview a palaeontologist.

Vinespeare:
I thought of this lesson as part of a unit plan for an English methods course I took last term. The gist of the lesson is that it has a duration of two classes and requires student volunteers to have access to a reliable smart phone or tablet, which they can bring to class. It requires student volunteers to have the app VivaVideo downloaded onto their device, which will be used to record students acting out scenes from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 1, Scene 2). It is a very short, humours scene and I want students to embrace the laughter and performance of the play in a medium they are familiar with. Student groups will first storyboard their scene in six sections (one for each second of video), providing an image for each scene, as well as a few sentences for context. The object is that students will explore the difficulties in creating relatable and consumable content for their peers, while synthesizing important information and experiencing the joy in engaging authentically with written text. Although Vine was discontinued last year as an app, most people are familiar with the format – 6 second comedy narratives. After the activity, students will be given a Mood Meter handout to determine how the activity made them feel, as well as the extent to which it increased their self-efficacy. I am interested to know whether or not students enjoy these activities and whether or not they find them as meaningful.

Housekeeping:
I haven’t had an in-depth discussion with either of my SAs, because my practicum school is outside of the Lower Mainland region. Most of our correspondence has focused around getting myself set up and ready for January 30th. I have sent them an e-mail requesting an informal sit-down and discussion about their experiences with technology in the classroom, but they have yet to respond. I do, however, know that they will expect me to be able to effectively manage a class before permitting me to test out my inquiry ideas. In all likelihood, most of my digital media-based activities will occur towards the latter weeks of my extended practicum.

Until next time,
Alex M.