Pokemon Go and Learn!

Pokemon Go. It’s a thing, and I have some thoughts.

For the uninformed, Pokemon Go is the latest in viral mobile app games from our good friends at Nintendo. This is their first foray into mobile games, a previously untapped market for Nintendo despite the obvious connection between portability and video games. Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game that uses Google Maps to place pokemon – small cartoon creatures that “trainers” (you and me) must catch – into “real life.” Trainers travel around, following a meter that tells them when pokemon are nearby, and when one appears in their vicinity the hunted pokemon appears on the screen, using the camera to make it appear as though it’s actually in front of you. Once you capture it in a pokeball, those red and white spheres that are so familiar to children and 30-somethings alike, the pokemon is added to your arsenal. You join one of three teams and battle your pokemon against the pokemon of other teams in order to gain control of various “PokeGyms” that are scattered around the city.

For the purposes of this post, that’s all you need to know, but in reality there is So. Much. More.

I’ve seen a multitude of social media posts gently poking fun, expressing sheer delight, claiming ignorance, and sometimes just plainly ridiculing the people who choose to capture Pokemon. This is something new for the whole world – no other mobile phone game has affected the world like Pokemon Go; it has already surpassed Twitter in daily active users after a mere few days. If you choose to play or not to, or you’re wondering whether you should let your kids play it, I’d like to share some insights I’ve had after having it installed for 36 hours.

A Koffing I caught last night. He appeared beside me as I walked past, and it took me three attempts to capture him inside a pokeball. What a catch!

1. Physical Activity

I downloaded it on Sunday afternoon and, that night, while taking my phone into the neighbouhood for the first time, and only planning to check out the PokeStop closest to my house, I ended up walking through my community for over an hour. On day two, I walked another 5+ km searching campus and my neighbourhood for Pokemon. I’m not alone. I’ve met other “trainers” on my walks, and they all say they’ve been spending more time outdoors. In a world where we’re constantly talking about fitness and connecting with nature, using Pokemon Go as a catalyst for physical activity is not a bad thing. Here’s an article about people complaining about sore legs after playing:

http://gizmodo.com/sore-legs-become-pandemic-as-pokemon-go-…

2. Social Interaction

As mentioned above, on my Poketravels, I’ve met dozens of other trainers who are out doing the same thing. We talk, we share information about where the best pokemon can be found, we chat about which team we’re on (Team Mystic!), we learn each other’s names. Somebody dropped a lure at my local PokeStop last night, and within five minutes of me arriving there were at least eight of us standing and chatting on a street corner. Kids are even setting up lemonade stands at PokeStops and PokeGyms and dropping lures (attracts Pokemon to the spot, making them easier to catch, and also attracts other players) to raise money for charity.

http://www.dailydot.com/parsec/pokemon-go-feel-good/

UPDATE: According to at least one mother of a child with autism, Pokemon Go has helped her son socialize, look people in the eye, respond to questions from others, and willingly break from established routines. (See picture)

3. Mental Health

There are many reports that Pokemon Go has been helpful to people with depression, anxiety and agoraphobia. Some have said that it’s given them a reason to leave the house, which results in physical activity, which has been proven to have a positive effect on depression in some patients.

http://www.sciencealert.com/pokemon-go-is-reportedly-helpin…

A Pidgey I found outside Starbucks goes completely unnoticed by the dog.

4. Education and Learning

I have been thinking about this game through the lens of a teacher and I’m coming up with lots of ways that this game might not only provide learning opportunities for kids, but also act as an amazing and engaging classroom tool. It’s fairly accessible: a single classroom iPad would be sufficient for playing, and since the app is free (with in-app purchases, but it’s playable without) many students will already have it. There are ways around needing an internet connection that can be explored, including saving maps through Google Maps to play offline. Why not turn a neighbourhood walk into a Pokemon hunt as part of you Daily Physical Activity (DPA) requirement? Use these “hunts” to explore the community around your school, tackle direction and develop mapping skills (hitting several curricular points in the BC primary curriculum). Once you’re back in the classroom, you can use Pokemon Go in math activities like sorting and grouping different varieties of Pokemon (by type, by evolutionary family, by level, etc), graphing found Pokemon and using those graphs to look at probability (more primary curricular points). You can also work as a team to talk strategy, such as deciding how and when to use stardust and candies to power up and evolve your pokemon (a great way to introduce the concept of evolution). Have Pokemon information books and graphic novels for reading and research. The possibilities go on and on.

5. It’s just fun.

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Of course, as can be expected, there are some downsides to the game, such as coming across dead bodies, being robbed at gunpoint, and people walking into trees, holes, and injuring themselves. UPDATE: Man causes terrible care wreck on highway after stopping to catch a Pikachu. All of these things (except the dead body thing) can be easily avoided through common sense and discretion. Use it as an opportunity to teach your kids about moving around safely.

In conclusion, if you love it, rock on. If you don’t love it, the people who do love it don’t care so you can stop saying you hate it. If you don’t understand it, you can if you want (I was brand new to Pokemon when I downloaded Pokemon Go, and the learning curve isn’t sharp). As for those who say grown adults shouldn’t be playing it, you have to remember that Pokemon was first a thing in 1996, so it’s perfectly understandable that people from my generation are into it. It’s even getting families out spending time together as they search for that allusive wild Squirtle.

Pokemon on, nerds.

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Week 1 – Camp Fircom Nostalgia

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGhZe_zPQuf/?taken-by=ms.bayne

Camp Fircom is one of my favourite places in the world, so having the opportunity to volunteer with a society that is close to my heart and personal history had my week beginning with a deep sense of purpose and positivity. Having met with Abbie, our contact in the Fircom office, a few times before our practicum was set to begin, both Haley and I had a vague idea of what would be in store for us: the reworking of the marketing materials for Fircom’s Outdoor School to appeal to teachers and make the camp stand out from other local outdoor school programs that are successful. What’s unique about Fircom? What could students potentially get out a program there that might be lacking in a program elsewhere? After a little bit of sleuthing into the various other programs offered around Vancouver, I knew instantly what had to be done: the weaving in of First Peoples ways of knowing and learning into not only the curriculum of the outdoor school, but also into camp culture.

One of the biggest hurdles that teachers need to clear in the new BC curriculum is the addition of aboriginal content, and for many complex and nuanced reasons. Lack of access to authentic resources, fear of playing into cultural appropriation and pan-Indianism, and teacher ignorance of the First Peoples and their cultures all contribute to an air of anxiety surrounding this aspect of the new curriculum. Professional development hasn’t been speedy enough for many experienced teachers to feel comfortable with it, but what I hope to help people realize is that the incorporation of the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) into what is already happening in the classroom can be quite simple and straight forward. Haley and I, therefore, took it upon ourselves in week one to weave our knowledge of the FPPL into the marketing materials for the Fircom outdoor school so that teachers can be confident that their students’ experience at camp will be steeped in it, and teachers will be able to report on it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGiLiVqPQrQ/?taken-by=ms.bayne

Our first week ended with a day trip to camp, and boy was I feeling nostalgic! Fircom is progressive, inclusive, and is committed to social justice, all of which appeal to my personal and teaching philosophies, and I was brought right back to my teens where those concepts took root. If I, a woman in her thirties, can remain that connected to a place like Fircom after having not visited for over 15 years, then it’s possible for me to help students have an experience that they will remember forever.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGhuBfbPQri/?taken-by=ms.bayne

I look forward to spending more time at camp, and planning and executing the programming for an upcoming school group. On to week two!

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Three Great Things – Week 3

Week 3 is in the bag! 30% done and feelin’ great!

In honour of week three, here are three great things that happened this week!

1) One of my kids was walking like a robot on Monday morning, and though I really wanted to encourage Robot E. because she was being cute and hilarious, I had to send Regular E. to write in her journal. “That would be an interesting journal entry, though,” I said. “In what ways are Robot E. and Regular E. the same? You could do a Venn Diagram!”

A few minutes later, while I was sitting with another student at the next table, I could hear E. reading her journal entry back to herself under her breath. It was about Robot E. And she drew a picture of herself as a robot. And it was the cutest.

2) All my lessons went very well, and I feel like today’s was my best observation with Jim yet. He speaks so deliberately and every single thing he says to me I can learn something from; I can’t imagine a better person to be my teacher. I’m feeling more confident and sure, and though I have areas of improvement, I have the tools I need to make the appropriate shifts. Thanks, Jim.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDrNVr2PQnM/?taken-by=ms.bayne

3) I had a breakthrough with a tough but amazing student today. Because of him, I’m really learning what it takes to foster a relationship based on safety and trust with a child, and the importance of a trauma-informed practice in an inner-city school. That kid deserves so much more than he’s got and I’m so glad I met him.

I really hope all my cohort pals are having a positive practicum experience. I look up to you guys, as your perspectives have made me consider things about my practice that perhaps wouldn’t have occurred to me without you.

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The Inquiry Process

As I near the end of my term of coursework with my ten week practicum on the very close horizon, I find myself reflecting on my teacher inquiry and the process that helped me arrive at this point in time. Though the process was daunting, ambiguous, and vague at times, I found that when issues came to a head throughout, I had moments of clarity and things slotted into a logical place and pointed me in the next logical direction. My mood during this term definitely reflected the process of my inquiry, which I found interesting as well. These are all things to keep in mind as I continue my teaching practice!

In the course of researching my inquiry question “What does activism look like in the K-3 classroom?”, I noticed my notes were organizing themselves into several categories, and this helped me frame my presentation in a way that I found interesting, engaging and helpful to teachers who are interested in a social action approach to social justice education. Below you’ll find my presentation embedded, but here is a short summary for your reference:

Six Considerations for Teachers Who Are Passionate About Social Action in the Classroom

We must define, or redefine, social justice and social action
K-3 children are aware of social injustice and are able to make connections between the way things are and possible reasons why.
One of the biggest challenges to incorporating social action into the classroom is teacher fear, which stems from a lack of knowledge or engagement with social issues, curriculum problems and the possibility of conflicts with parents.
The various diversities that students have (race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc) are huge factors in a student’s ability to and desire for engagement with social issues.
Engaging in critical literacy as a cross-curricular exercise can help lay the groundwork for social action in the classroom.
The best way to incorporate social action into schools is to base it in the school and immediate community, and the relationships that make up that community.

Number 4 is the inquiry statement that most reflects where I want to focus my research on in the future, as I was constantly surprised by the statistics surrounding diversity and acceptance of social justice in children, and I believe it has bigger implications for society as a whole. In the study of students from the midwest United States mentioned in my presentation, socioeconomic status and race both had an impact on a student’s ability to understand social justice issues in critical literature. It found:

Students with a higher socioeconomic background were more likely to depict poverty in a positive light, or “exhibit a lack of awareness of the poor.”
Black or biracial students were more likely than white to demonstrate a negative outlook of poverty.
In both cases, the results reflect the children’s life experiences.

This is something I’ve been wondering about. As a TC in a low socioeconomic school, my students are more aware and engaged with social injustices like poverty because they live it every day. It’s almost like I’m preaching to the choir, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because young children still need help to process complex issues like this and I should encourage the consideration of other perspectives in all students regardless of background. My new focus question, then, is would the importance of teaching social justice to young children increase proportionally with the socioeconomic status of my students?

I’m constantly thinking about how I can translate my inquiry question into my practice, and I’m finding it difficult to imagine how this will manifest during a ten week practicum, especially since this kind of thinking has not been a part of the classroom culture. Since I’m doing a pond studies unit, we will be exploring issues of environmental justice, specifically access and availability of fresh water, with my grade 2-3s, and a big part of that will be looking critically at current social action around this issue and possibly designing our own social action campaign. In the future, social justice and action will be the overarching scope of my entire school year and I’ll be able to utilize student inquiry to focus on issues that are most relevant and important to them.

This is not the end of my inquiry; inquiry is more of a search for more questions than a search for answers. With the feedback from my peers, which was both encouraging and helpful, I have a direction to go in and a renewed desire to incorporate social justice education into my regular practice.

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Making the Scientific Method Crystal Clear

Explicit teaching makes me uncomfortable.

WHAT?! Isn’t that your job?

Well, yes, educating my students is my job, but think about a time you were sitting morose in a lecture hall as an ancient professor droned on and on in an explicit, “I’m the teacher, now learn,” kind of way. How long did it take you to switch tabs from your word processor to Facebook or, for you analogue-type people, to start doodling in the margins of your notebook instead of taking notes? Now imagine you’re eight-years-old sitting on a carpet where you are expected to sit and listen and pay attention and KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF, DAVID. No matter how relevant the information, if it’s not presented in an interesting, engaging and, ideally, hands-on way, you’ll lose the class faster than you can say, “make good choices.” So when I say it makes me feel uncomfortable, what I really mean is that I am reflecting the discomfort of my students.

In the spirit of engagement and hands-on learning, and my love of super fun and interesting science experiments, I presented the Savvy Shark Squad with the Scientific Method and the Borax Crystal Experiment.

Preparation:

On the board/Smart Board/chart paper, write the title “The Scientific Method” and list the steps in simplified terms (see image below).
Have a demonstration space ready to go, but do not put out the materials for the experiment yet. You’ll want to go over the Scientific Method first so that the students can make a connection between it and the forthcoming experiment.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBGabyTPQo9/?taken-by=ms.bayne

First, we reviewed the Scientific Method, having student volunteers read out the steps and explain, if possible, what they meant, with me providing any context or needed information as we went. I told them that every time a scientist wants to test out an idea, they have to follow these steps so that their findings will be accepted by the wider scientific community. Once I checked for understanding, I asked, “Do you think we can follow these steps?” The resounding answer was, “YES!”

I made sure not to tell the kids what the result of the experiment was supposed to be, and their predictions were smart, varied, and totally interesting. Some thought the pipe cleaner might change colour, others thought the fuzz would grow. One student even suggested that it would turn to acid and burn through the container and the table. Far-fetched, yes, but this prediction signaled to me that they were thinking about the experiment and the possible results. After sharing some predictions, with the help of our daily Special Helper, we followed the Scientific Method while completing the experiment. The next morning they observed the changes to the pipe cleaner and drew a picture of those observations.

The following week during my next class visit, after my SA informed me how interested and engaged the students were about the Borax crystals they had grown together, I extended it into a lesson about crystals. I researched some crystal facts and put them into a hat. The Sharks then took turns drawing facts and sorting them into a chart, classifying them into categories I had chosen. The students loved thinking about different ways of sorting the information, had discussions when there was a disagreement about which category a certain fact should go under, and learned some cool things about crystals while doing it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBYxQWIvQg2/?taken-by=ms.bayne

The most exciting part, though, was seeing the Sharks getting some hands-on time with different varieties of crystals that I borrowed from a geologist friend. They compared the shapes and colours of the crystals, looked at them through magnifying glasses, then recorded their observations by drawing a picture of a crystal and writing their favourite crystal fact in their learning logs.

Some great learning went on, wouldn’t you agree? The Sharks had the opportunity to immerse themselves in a topic rather than simply having it presented to them. They experimented, investigated, observed, sorted, organized, and participated their little hearts out. Most importantly, there was no discomfort because everybody was engaged together making their understanding crystal clear!

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Teaching with Activism: Resources for Teachers

Resources:

ETFO Social Justice Begins With ME – Literature-based resource kit for Early Years to Grade 8.

BC Teachers Federation on Social Justice – Social justice resources for teachers from a British Columbian perspective.

Articles:

Teaching for Social Justice Using and Activist Approach by Terezia Zoric – an article in the ETFO Voice outlining the reasons for taking an activist approach in the elementary school classroom.

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My Inquiry Proposal

The following is the proposal for my teacher inquiry project. The project itself is in its very beginning stages and, therefore, the proposal may be subject to change.

My entire life I was raised in a socially conscious household. My father was a municipal bureaucrat with his thumb on the pulse of the city, so I was aware of civil issues from an early age as they were often discussed at home. My mother’s passion for diversity and deep care for her students in the inner city was reflected in her teaching as she aimed for equity and inclusiveness above all else, and this drive not only steered me in the direction of teaching, but also helped to form my early views on race, gender, sexual identity and socio-economic disparity. Being involved in the youth movement of the United Continue reading →

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I’ll know you’re finished when…

My two week practicum is finished! What a whirlwind! My time in the classroom is far from over, but I’m feeling a little sad about returning to my own coursework at UBC on Monday. Those kids have got me hooked! The focus of my reflection for the first week of my practicum was on the class itself and its evolving dynamics based on observations I’ve made since first stepping foot into the classroom. This week, however, as I transitioned to teaching a 20% load, I’ve been reflecting more on my own teaching and areas of focus.

I’ve realized this week the importance of having clear criteria and sticking to it, both for myself and for my students, even during lessons where criteria can tend to be wide open. For example, in an art lesson I taught on Monday afternoon during which we took turns tracing each other into life-sized avatars, I gave them free reign on how they could decorate their avatars in a way that represents them as a person. Though we brainstormed ideas and I made some suggestions about how one might complete that task, I was not clear on what the criteria for completion was. Did the whole thing need to be coloured? Did it have to have a face? Could the students go a little more abstract and colour it like it wasn’t a person at all? Since I wasn’t clear on the criteria myself, there was no way the students would be either.

My SA gave me a great tip. When planning, make sure to finish the sentence, “I’ll know you’re finished when…” It seems so simple, but it fully had not occurred to me in this instance, art class, that not having clear criteria left it open enough for kids to not colour it at all, if they chose. So if I say those words to the kiddos, and follow up with clear, simple instructions and expectations, it will make enforcing attainable limits that much easier.

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Watching the Ripples

There’s this metaphor that keeps popping into my mind when I sit and reflect on my time in the classroom, and it encompasses and can be applied to pretty much everything I’ve encountered so far in my journey as a teacher candidate. Whenever I observe a situation, a student interaction (with work or with others), or consider my place in this wide world of education, the metaphor’s there in my mind, tugging at me and reminding me to be open and ready for anything. As I reflect on my first week of my two week practicum, the metaphor still rings true.

Throw a stone into a calm, still lake and watch the ripples flow forth, in all directions, predictable and totally random simultaneously. Cause and effect. Every action has a reaction. The thing is, we can predict that the ripples will appear, but where those ripples take us is where the unknown can throw us for a loop.

This week I watched this metaphor manifest in several ways.

First, by being present in the classroom every day rather than once a week, I can really see the dynamics of the class shift based on which students are present. I watch the kiddos swarm the Lego table one day and then, when one single student is away the next day, the Lego table is left to stand alone in the corner. Only once has there been a day when the entire class is present, and boy was that an eye opener! I’m beginning to predict the ripples of certain students and that’s making me feel less like I’m lost in the woods and more like I’m exactly where I need to be.

https://instagram.com/p/9pQFVbPQhG/?taken-by=ms.bayne

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