Meghan's Education Blog

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but rather the lighting of a flame.” - W.B Yeats

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Teach first, tech second

February 28, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

For this week’s blog we have decided to discuss the article “Technology in the Classroom no Shortcut to Success: OECD Report” from CBC News referring to the inclusion of technology in the classroom. This article states that technology is constantly growing and becoming more heavily relied on, therefore, technology should not be eliminated from the classroom. Instead technology should have limits. We strongly agree with this statement based on our previous research of the benefits of having technology shortcuts in the classroom in which we learned how technology should not take away the teaching in the classroom. This is stated perfectly in the quote: “technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology cannot replace poor teaching” (Glowacki, 2015). For example technology can help students’ grammar but cannot teach students how to spell. This article states that students who use technology more frequently have lower performances. The article also states that “when students use word processors instead of writing by hand, they write more and their writing skills are notably better” (Glowacki, 2015). However, nothing can replace a solid foundation in literacy skills.  Research is supporting our thoughts of how though there are some positive benefits of shortcut tools, it is important to ensure students learn necessary literacy skills before utilizing the technology.  If these skills are not in place before students begin using shortcut tools, then the tools become more of a detriment to learning rather than a support.

In next week’s blog we will discuss some of the negatives of utilizing technology shortcuts in the classroom.

This is the link for the article:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/technology-in-the-classroom-no-shortcut-to-success-oecd-report-1.3230587

 

Communication is key……building my helpful phrase book

February 27, 2020 / / 0 Comments

This week I have found a list of new phrases and words that I think will be helpful for my trip to Tanzania. I know I won’t have all of these memorized for before I go, but I am building a little booklet to bring with me where I will have helpful words and phrases handy to reference if needed.

I need your help : Ninaomba msaada

I’m lost : Nimepotea

Can I use your phone? : Ninaomba kutumia simu yako?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Help : Msaada

Leave me alone : Uniache

I need a doctor : Ninahitaji daktari

Take me to ______ please : Nipeleke _______ tafadhali

A table for one person/two people please : Meza kwa mtu moja/watu wawili, tafadhali

It was delicious! : Chakula ni kitamu

Can I look at the menu please? : Ninaweza Kuangalia menu tafadhali?

What time is it? : Saa ngapi?

Morning : Ashubuhi

Afternoon : Mchana

Evening : Jioni

Night: Usiku

How do I get to  ______? : Je, ninakwenda?

Embassy : Ubalozi

the airport : Uwanjawa ndegi

As I do more preparation for my trip, I find that I keep thinking about other words or phrases that I will need to know to make communication easier in Tanzania.  I know many people speak some English over there, but I also believe that when traveling to a new country it is important to try and speak in the local language as much as possible.  As a part of this inquiry I plan to put together a booklet that I can keep with me on my travels to help me communicate in Swahili a little better as I know I won’t be able to know all the phrases by heart.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I am also trying to learn more about proper enunciation when speaking Swahili but I am finding it difficult to find resources to help me with that.  I have learned how to pronounce each letter in the alphabet, but haven’t found more information on rules around word enunciation so I will continue to investigate this in the upcoming weeks.

 

Ukulele Midterm Videos

February 25, 2020 / / 0 Comments

It’s midterm time for my musical growth plan which means time to show what I have learned!  This first video is of me playing and singing “You Are My Sunshine.”  As I’ve mentioned before, the part that I found hardest for this song was putting all the pieces together (chords, strumming, and singing) and it was a little bit like patting my head and rubbing my tummy.  I spent quite a bit of time practicing however, and I am able to play it through fairly smoothly now.  Here goes:

 

I have been practicing putting the chords  and strumming together for my second song, “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz.  There is a lot more chord switching in this song than in “You Are My Sunshine,” and there are parts of the song where the chords change a lot quicker.  At this point I am able to play along with the song watching the tutorial video that I am using as it prompts me when to change chords.  I am also beginning to try and learn the lyrics of the song.  Over the next week my goal is to be able to strum the song on my own without the tutorial video, and to keep learning the lyrics.

The video below is me demonstrating the 5 chords that are played in “I’m Yours.”

Lastly, here is a video of my strumming “I’m Yours” along with the tutorial video:

Practice Makes Perfect……sort of

February 20, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Manja Vitolic on Unsplash

Ukulele practice has been going well for the most part.  It has been a busy last few weeks and so it has been a bit of a struggle finding time to practice as much as I should, but I have done my best.  I am feeling more confident with my final product of “You Are My Sunshine,” and the strumming pattern has been getting better.  That is still definitely the trickiest part of playing the song for me, but the more I practice, the easier it is getting.  For some reason it is the second verse that is throwing me off the strumming pattern because the lyrics don’t match the chords the same way as in verse one and so it throws me off every time.  If I slow down and really concentrate I can do it, but it still isn’t as smooth as I would like it to be.  I have started learning the extra chords for my second song, getting ready to start learning it this week.  I am a little farther behind in learning the strumming pattern for “I’m Yours” as it has taken me longer to feel comfortable with “You Are My Sunshine” than I thought it would.  In this next week my goal is to get the chords and strumming pattern down for I’m Yours and then start putting them together.

Swahili Pronunciation

February 19, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Andreas Dress on Unsplash

This week I focused more on proper pronunciation in Swahili.  I was finding that when I try to learn a word by reading it,  my pronunciation was not sounding the same as when I listened to the word back using the app.  A lot of Swahili is spoken as it reads, but there are some differences in the way vowels are pronounced, as well as different letter combinations.  I have been saying the vowels as they sound in English, but I found this explanation of their proper sounds in Swahili from https://www.swahilipod101.com/swahili-pronunciation/ which has been helpful:

  • -A: The Swahili letter –a is pronounced like the [a] in “car.” The word for “earth” is ardhi, and the word for “spoil” is aribu.
  • -E: The Swahili letter –e is pronounced like the [e] in “eight.” The word for “carry” is beba, and the word for “say” is sema.
  • -I: The Swahili letter –i is pronounced like the [i] in “ski.” The word for “bless” is bariki, and the word for “life” is maisha.
  • -O: The Swahili letter –o is pronounced similar to the [oo] in the bird “owl.” The word for “fear” is ogopa and the word for “schedule” is orodha.
  • -U: The Swahili letter –u is pronounced similar to the [uu] in the pronoun “you.” The word for “sickness” is ugonjwa, and the word for “inheritance” is uridhi.

I also learned that while Swahili uses the same alphabet as we do in English, it does not have the letter x or q, and the letter c is always paired with another letter and is never just on its own.

As I have been practicing the basic words and phrases from my first post, there were a few sounds that I wasn’t quite getting right.  I found this link for a website that explains the pronunciation of all the letters of the alphabet, and also has a video of a man saying many of the greetings I have been working on.  Being able to watch him say the words has been very helpful, as I can see how his mouth is forming the sounds rather than just trying to figure it out by ear.

This next week I plan to look a little bit more into the pronunciation as well as how you know which syllable to enunciate more.  Kwaheri for now!

 

Online safety and privacy

February 19, 2020 / / 0 Comments

In this weeks class we had a guest speaker, Jesse Miller, come and talk to us about online safety and privacy.  I found it very interesting and helpful to learn more about how and where our information is tracked, as well as things to keep in mind when having students work online.  I think it is so important for children to learn this kind of information as well before they start using things like social media or posting on YouTube.  I think that many kids don’t understand the digital footprint that is left behind anytime they post something, and the ramifications it can have in the future.  The earlier you can educate them and get them thinking about that, I think the more effect it will have on them being mindful and careful about what they post online.  Jesse’s presentation was a good reminder to me that while there are useful benefits of social media and other online tools it is important to ensure you understand their privacy agreements and be mindful about what kind of information you share when using them.

After Jesse’s presentation we also practiced video editing in iMovie.  I used a short video of Rich’s daughter and her goats, and learned how to trim, split, and add transitions, titles, and credits to the video.  I found it fairly straight forward to do because we were given very clear and detailed instructions from our teacher.  If I had had to figure it out on my own, however, I would have found it difficult as there were a lot of steps and it was tricky to find some tabs within the program.  I think iMovie would be a fun tool to use with students, but I believe it would be better for older grades like grade 4 and up.  Here is the video clip that I edited:

Learning Ukulele

February 9, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Raquel Moss on Unsplash

This term for my musical growth project I am learning how to play the ukulele.  I’ve chosen two songs to learn; You Are My Sunshine, and I’m Yours by Jason Mraz.  I had a bit of a frustrating start because the ukulele that I had borrowed to use had a string that would not tune properly and it ended up breaking a couple times.  Trying to figure out what was wrong with the ukulele, and then finding another one I could borrow for the term, slowed down my process of getting started on learning the chords and practicing the songs.  Now that I’ve got a ukulele that is tuning properly things are going fairly well as far as practicing goes..  At this point I have learned how to hold the ukulele properly, tune it using an app on my phone, and I can play You Are My Sunshine.  I found the chords for this song fairly easy to learn (C, F, and G), and am able to change between them smoothly.  Once in a while I have to pause on the switch from C to G as that is the trickiest transition but it is getting better.  The part of the song that I find most challenging is the strumming pattern which is down, down, up, up, down, up.  I can do it no problem when I am just practicing the strumming, but when I am strumming, changing chords, and singing all together I find it a bit like rubbing my head and patting my tummy and I get mixed up in the strumming.  For this song, it is taking me longer to get the final piece smooth than I thought it would.  I am really enjoying the process though and can definitely see myself using the ukulele in the classroom one day especially for the younger grades.

My own experience with shortcut technology

February 7, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

This week for our Tech Ed inquiry we have decided to share our own experiences with technology shortcuts and how they have affected our own learning.  For myself, I went through school before the age of technology took over.  Technology played a very small roll in my years of grade school.  I remember I was in grade 7 when my family got internet for the first time.  This definitely had an impact on my learning as far as research projects went because all of a sudden we were able to look things up easily from home.  Yet I still would turn to books first and it took a while before the internet became my go to for looking up information.  iPad’s, tablets, and Chromebooks were not a thing yet, so the only technology in schools were computers in the computer lab.  We didn’t have the learning games and resources that are available today.  Our computer time was focused on learning how to type properly, and learn how to edit our work.  I think there must have been a basic spell check in some word programs, but I do not have memory of using them a lot.  We still had to edit our work on our own even if it was typed up on the computer.  There was no talk to text or audio support for reading.  I think I benefited greatly from learning these skills before technology took over.  I learned how to edit my work before tech tools did it automatically.  I would  say that I have gotten lazy since technology has made it so  I don’t have to think about those little details anymore.  Whether it is a word I constantly spell wrong, or grammatical error I always make, right clicking to fix the mistake without having to think about it means I don’t experience the process of learning that happens when I have to figure out what is wrong and how to correct it.  There are grammar rules that I have forgotten because I never have to think about them.  While this technology is convenient and saves me time, it definitely hasn’t helped my intelligence!

Challenges of learning a new language

February 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Will Shirley on Unsplash

Jambo! Hujambo hamjambo?  This week I have been focusing on the words and phrases from my previous post.  As I am trying to practice and really learn the words, I have come across a couple challenges.  The first challenge I have encountered is finding the time to practice the words enough to really know them well and have them stick in my head.  Balancing time for learning Swahili with time needed for other homework is proving more tricky than I thought it would be.  I also don’t have opportunities to use my newfound Swahili with anyone else to really use it in conversation.

The second challenge I am finding is in the actual pronunciation of the words.  Swahili is a fairly easy language to learn as the words are spoken almost exactly as they are spelled.  However, in some words one syllable is emphasized a lot stronger that the others, and often the prominent syllable is not the one I would instinctively do so it throws me off.  I am finding it helpful on the Hello!Jambo, though, as there is an option to listen to the word to hear how it is properly pronounced.

My focus for this next week will be to learn a little bit about the grammar and structure of Swahili as I continue practicing my word list from last week.  I’m hoping to find a pattern or ‘rule’ that will help me know proper enunciation.

Khan Academy Analysis

February 4, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Our group chose to research Khan Academy as our tech topic today.  Khan Academy is an online learning resource that creates lessons and videos on a wide range of subjects and topics. It was created in 2008 by Salman Khan, and aims to provide free education for students everywhere. The website states, “Our mission at Khan Academy is to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.” The lessons are done in the form of videos, with an instructor drawing about and explaining the topic. There are also opportunities to be tested. The main courses offered are Math, Science and Engineering, Arts and Humanities, College, careers and more, and economics and finance. Within each of these topics there are more specific subjects.

Educational technology such as Khan Academy helps make education and support accessible to all learners. When using this kind of tool, it is important to consider the pros and cons, as well as privacy issues that you may need to be aware of. Here is a link to the Khan Academy website.

Pros:

– help teach students on their own

– easy to access

– wide range of topics/subjects

– you can learn at your own pace

– there are ways to test your learning

– many different questions to ensure you understand

– free, nonprofit

– when students need further explanation about a topic, if the teacher is not easily available for one on one help, Khan Academy can be a resource for that extra guidance.

– can be a good studying tool

-encourages UDL and individual pace of learning

Cons:

–  no real classrooms

– teachers are not present

– still very conventional (SAT MCAT prep)

– students must have access to an electronic device and internet connection

– innate differentiation between students

– sometimes you have to sort through many different examples to find one that suits your specific needs/learning style

– when learning from video examples, it can be difficult to replay the same video to go over a specific aspect of the video, as the system tries to move forward onto the next video, however if you access it from another source, the video will play.

– loss of collaboration

– only one teaching style

– the videos could be to fast for some students to follow

– cannot ask specific questions about a subject. The videos are good but if you are not sure about something explained there is no way to clarify

– Students can work ahead of where their class is if they have a strong interest in a subject and then when they are in class they are bored and can start causing disruptions

Privacy Policies:

https://www.khanacademy.org/about/privacy-policy

By: Lauren T, Alison, Meghan, Kiya

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