Future Educator Located in Victoria, BC
This week I have been focusing on vocabulary. I am trying to branch out a bit from Duolingo, as I have relied heavily on it. In order to remember vocab I have turned to Memrise.
Memrise is particularly good for learning new words as it allows you to make your own flash cards, or go through theirs. The site uses repetition to help you remember and will automatically focus most of your time and effort on the words you’re struggling with.
This week in class we discussed different ways of learning. We looked both face to face learning and distance learning. As well as synchronous and asynchronous learning.
Synchronous Learning: the class happens at once place (digital or physical) at one time. Eg our tech class meeting every Friday in person.
Asynchronous Learning: the learning can take place whenever the learner wants to engage. Eg a MOOC class that’s accessible online.
In class we also looked at the usefulness of the explore function of Google Slides and below I show an example of what can be done with it.
This week I have tried to move on to learning some basic words in order to build a small vocabulary. Learning the alphabet has proven to be quite a challenge still. However, I am making some progress. Learning Russian has been a lot of fun and I am sad that I don’t have more time available to do it. Perhaps during the winter break. I find some of the letters that have a visual resemblance to the Latin script but are pronounced differently to be particularly difficult. I have continued to rely on Duolingo quite a lot. Спасибо за чтение!
This week in class we discussed a few different Technology integration models.
SAMR: SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. They represent increasingly intense changes to the learning based on technology. Substitution means moving a task to digital medium with no changes to the task itself. Eg using Word instead of handwriting. Augmentation means there is some added functionality in the new medium. Eg using a spelling or grammar checker. Modification means that the task is significantly changed, like going from film to editing digital photos in Photoshop. Finally, Redefinition is creating a new task with technology that wasn’t possible before. Eg creating an algorithm that helps you find sources.
TPACK: TPACK involves thinking of your knowledge in three different but intersecting areas: your content knowledge, your pedagogical knowledge, and your technological knowledge. All three of these knowledge areas support each other.
Constructive Alignment: Constructive Alignment stress the importance of keeping the goals/ the big ideas you want to teach in mind when planing your learning strategies and assessment methods. There is room for technological integration in how you align these things.
Here’s an image to help explain two of the models I made in PowerPoint
We ended class with an Edcamp conference where we formed groups based on our interests in certain topics and shared what we know collaboratively. I enjoyed this and could see myself using this as a lower prep high engagement activity when bringing in a new topic.
This week I have continued to try to get the alphabet down. It has been a challenge for me to get used to as it is unlike any other language I have tried to learn as it doesn’t use the Latin script. However, I have continued to appreciate Duolingo as a source as it doesn’t even feel like studying to use it.
Here is a fun video I found to help
To begin my language learning I have begun with learning the Cyrillic alphabet. The two sources that I have relied on most is Duolingo and LearnRussian.
Here is a screen capture of me working through a Duolingo lesson on the Cyrillic alphabet:
I have found the straight forward list style resource found on LearRussian useful for learning the alphabet while the engaging games of Duolingo useful for committing the letters to memory. This highlights the importance of offering multiple modes of instruction to aide student and my own learning.
This week In class we had guest speaker, Jeff Hopkins, in class. Hopkins is the principal of the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII). PSII is an independent school located in downtown Victoria that uses inquiry based learning. The 110 students don’t have a timetable or set classes. Instead they come up with questions about what they are interested in and teachers help them along the way. Hopkins said that he was inspired to create the school after feeling like he had to ignore what he knew about learning in order to teach. I really enjoyed seeing what inquiry based teaching can look like at a high school level. I experienced a lot of inquiry as part of the education program but it was nice to see a real world example of it working at a high school. I also enjoyed discussing what problems the school has faced how how they were overcome. I think when it comes to my own teaching I was inspired how PSII was able to incorporate any subject into the inquiry model. I would like to bring a number of elements of inquiry based learning into my own practice.
PSII also had some resources I found useful. I have listed them below.
PSII Assessment Framework and how it connects to the BC curriculum
This week in class we discussed graphic design elements and used PowerPoint as a graphic design tool. I found PowerPoint to be a particularly useful tool. Previously, I used Google Slides because I found it easier to collaborate with other students. However, after getting more familiar with PowerPoint I may make the switch. I really liked the ability to create a wide variety of common and useful graphics like pie charts, flow charts, and word maps. I also never considered using PowerPoint to create graphics to use elsewhere. I appreciated the conversation around the effectiveness of combining images and text to help learners. This connected very nicely to my classroom psychology class where we discussed dual processing theory, which is about how people learn better when information is presented to them through more than one medium.
Goals:
In my first update I would like to set some goals for myself. My goal here is not to somehow be fluent in Russian by the end of the course; I doubt that would be possible, even if I had nothing else on my plate. My first goal is to have a decent understanding of the Cyrillic alphabet. That is I want to know the names of all the letters and how they are pronounced. I also want to have a small vocabulary of basic Russian words, things like greetings, family, food, school vocabulary, etc… Finally I want to be able to construct basic, but grammatically correct, sentences. This includes knowing a number of common verbs and how to conjugate them. With that I have set out my goals but I am willing to modify them if I find my progress is slower or faster than I expected.
Resources:
For resources I have decided to only use free ones some of the useful ones I have put below.
Duolingo: This is a language learner app that I have used extensively before in order to learn Spanish. I find it very useful for becoming familiar with a language but it doesn’t always lay out information in a way I can fully master
Russian Subreddit: This is a subreddit dedicated to Russian language learners. It is useful for seeing what issues other learners have encountered and how they solved them. It is also good for sharing resources with others.
Learn Russian: This website outlines a lot of basic aspects of the language. It will be especially useful for learning the Cyrillic alphabet, and phonetics.
Russian Lessons.net: This website is similar to the above but has a few more complicated grammar concepts.
Memrise: This is a memorization program that will help with vocabulary.
Timeline:
October 15: have a decent grasp of the letters of the alphabet
November 5: have a good base vocabulary
November 19: be able to create a number of simple sentences written and orally
December 3: have more complex sentences and grammar along with more vocabulary
This week in class we had a guest lecturer named Rich McCue. He manages UVic’s Digital Scholarship Commons. This is a really cool resource that I was unaware of until now. It offers free courses in a number of different topics, such as Microsoft Excel and iMovie. It even offers “digital badges” that link to the course outcomes, which is useful for resumes and portfolios. I spent the bulk of the class working through the workshop on iMovie. It wasn’t too difficult as I already had a passing familiarity with the software from high school video projects I had done. I uploaded the video I created with some basic green screen and audio editing below. We also discussed screen capture software and the opportunities that it provides. For example, it can be a very useful resource for doing lectures online.
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