Miss G's Blog

Last Tuesday, my EDCI 336 class had the opportunity to visit Rebecca Bathurst’s kindergarten classroom and learn about how she incorporates technology and inquiry with her students. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend in person as I was in Vancouver that day, however, I had the opportunity to view her speech via video and hear her perspective. She began her presentation by discussing a bit about her background in teaching and her experiences prior to teaching at George Jay. 

One of the first things Rebecca discusses is her “educator heart”. Her “educator heart” is essentially the morals and values that she upholds as a teacher. The image below shows a diagram of some of her core beliefs and goals that she aims to express in the classroom. 

Rebecca then began to discuss how she implements inquiry-based learning into her classroom. With the students this year, they began with a guided/controlled inquiry which was much more structured than my original interpretation of an inquiry project. The image below was in Rebecca’s PowerPoint and I feel that it gives a great visual of various types of inquiry.

The first inquiry that the class did was on their families. From there, she discovered that her students were passionate about dinosaurs and then created a guided-inquiry based on them. She also discussed how she used provocations by providing an experience that would spark curiosity in the student. An example could be taking the students on a field trip then asking them “what they see, what they already know, and what they want to know”. This would be the starting point of the inquiry project and from there, the students would work towards answering their inquiry question. 

The last thing I noticed while watching was how beautiful and natural Rebecca’s classroom was. The class had lots of wood-based items and things that create a calming space. She also had lots of dinosaur items for students as they are relevant to the current inquiry project the students are studying.

Overall, I really liked how Rebecca incorporated inquiry-based learning in her classroom!

-Ms. G 🙂

Today, we had a guest speaker come in to teach us about online safety in the classroom. His name is Jesse Miller and he specializes in online safety and helped to develop the “erase bullying” program. He also started a company called “mediated reality” that evolved from his master’s research. 

He began his presentation by discussing the difference between generations and how technology is different in today’s society. He suggested that in today’s time, we need to consider the quality of content we are looking at as opposed to focusing on the duration of time we spend on technology. He highlighted three major components about network citizenship which include the following: digital identity, digital rights, digital literacy. He highlighted that it is important as professionals to set up your personal and professional divides between yourself and your career. 

He further branched into the conversation about how parents view children using technology and social media. One key point he discussed was how authentic headlines and articles can send false messages to the general public. People often share their opinions without any evidence or with little evidence to state the opinion they want to hear. 

Social Media:

What is social media worth to do? Jesse throughout his presentation highlighted how companies sell your information in return to provide an opportunity. As teachers, we have to be extremely cautious about the way in which we use social media. You cannot post a picture of any student on social media without proper consent. We have a duty of care and responsibility to ensure safety with our students. I thought that Jesse’s presentation was very eye-opening towards our actions on social media and how we need to be aware of how we are perceived by the public. I think moving forward I will continue to be mindful of my digital footprint.

After his presentation, we had the opportunity to practice our video editing skills on iMovie. Click on the video below to see how I used the green screen feature to put chickens in the ocean!