Kiya's Blog

I wonder if I put a few words here?

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Progress (Il Mio Progresso)

Come February 10, I will have been studying Italian consistently for 2 months. I have currently finished all of the Duolingo lessons up to the first checkpoint and a good number after that, and what I have learned is a lot of basic vocabulary and sentence structure. Many words are similar to their French counterparts, as I mentioned in the previous post, so I am picking up vocabulary rather quickly.

I watched a movie with my mom and sister on Sunday night, and they happened to choose Only You. It is not a good film, by any means, and the characters are absolutely ridiculous, but it was interesting to see Robert Downey Jr. in one of his earlier roles. My point is that this movie is set in Italy, so I was able to put my comprehension to the test. I wasn’t trying to test myself seriously, but I did try to listen to the Italian parts. My abilities were on par with my expectations, meaning I could understand basic vocabulary, and the gist of the Italian portions in context. 

From this experience I can tell that if I were there, I would need to ask people to repeat themselves, or speak slower quite a bit (which I am sure will be the case even with improvement). Considering I have not been studying Italian for long yet, I am happy with this conclusion.

It is encouraging that my Italian was better than the main character’s (who spoke no Italian), and almost on par with Robert Downey Jr.’s character (who is also an anglophone American).

The duolingo lessons are starting to move toward more verbs and tenses that will be useful to me, so I’m hoping that next time I listen to Italian conversation I will understand more of the vocabulary. While the basic vocabulary is good to know, learning tenses and verbs will help me more than knowing animal vocabulary.

TechEd Inquiry 2: Pros and Cons of Cloud-Based Servers

Here are some pros and cons of three of the most popular Cloud-Based servers.

Google

Pros

  • Free 15 GB of storage
  • Cost-effective ($2.79/month for 100 GB)
  • Expanding offices into Canada
  • Easy to navigate- categories, folders, recent (if forgotten to sort), search bar
  • Easy sharing/collaboration
  • Option to set sharing preferences (who can edit, only view, public or private file)
  • Commenting, chat in documents
  • Most versatile free platform
  • Databases around the world to back up & secure information
  • Documents can be modified without wifi
  • Easy access from almost any device
  • Google account can be used to sign into multiple websites, apps, and services

Cons

  • Databases around the world in countries with different privacy laws
  • Documents do not automatically save to device for offline use
  • The smartphone apps are more difficult to navigate
  • At risk of crashing & losing information (like any cloud-based system)

Microsoft

Below are the Pros and Cons for Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office has been around the longest and is still running so it’s safe to say Office is a successful software.

Pros

  • Applications for all needs: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, One Note
  • Other applications for more business services: Publisher, Project, Teams, Visio
  • SKYPE is a very popular microsoft application for video calls and conferences
  • Work on your documents from anywhere with access to the internet
  • Boosted productivity: easy to use, team collaboration (office co-authoring tool), regular automatic updates to the software
  • Reduced security risks: encrypted email, data loss prevention, mobile device management, advanced threat analytics
  • Around since 1988 and is most used cloud-based software (i.e. great reputation)
  • Multiple flexible plans catered to businesses of all sizes

Cons

  • Need a microsoft account to use the services
  • Subscription based payment (as a Uvic student we get these services for free)
  • If internet is down you cannot access your document from another device
  • Competition with other cloud-based services in schools ( SD63 is using google exclusively)

https://blog.goptg.com/blog/2016/03/31/the-pros-and-cons-of-office-365-for-business

Apple

Below are some of the Pros and Cons of Apple’s iWork system and the devices themselves. iWork was first introduced in 2005 and has grown since then.

Pros

  • Applications for all needs: Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and iCloud
  • Other applications on the Apple System include iMovie, Garageband and Photobooth
  • Free for all iOs and macOS customers
  • Applications are intuitive for beginners
  • Has started using peer-collaborating on documents (only for other mac users)
  • Apple works with educators to promote technology use in the classroom

Cons

  • iCloud storage space is limited (only 5GB for free)
  • iWork is not supported on other devices (such as Windows or Android)
  • Apple products can be pricey for schools/students

 

By Madeline, Catrina, and Kiya

Reignite the Passion (Trove la Passione)

This week I have continued in my Italian lessons and some things I have noticed are that I am retaining more vocabulary, but after almost 60 days of studying, I am starting to get bored with my daily Duolingo lessons. Because of school, work, and extracurriculars, I don’t have much free time, so it is easy to push tasks to the back-burner. At this point, I feel like I should continue to practice sentence structure and grammar, because I think I can remember and guess enough vocabulary to get by. In my opinion (and from my experience of learning French), it will be the lack of connecting words that will confuse me in a regular conversation.

In a recent music education class, we were studying musical terms, some of which were very similar to Italian, because of their Latin roots. Although I have learned music theory before, it was interesting to be able to look at these terms through a different lens. 

As a student, it is easy to get stuck in a rut of repetitive studying that doesn’t hold much significance, so the challenge I am setting for myself is simply to be reinspired. As much as I would like to set a goal to learn grammar and do it, I know myself, and I am geared towards understanding. For me, passion is required for learning in a way that I retain and understand material.

I am still enjoying using Duolingo, but I think I will try to challenge myself again in the coming weeks with another test of my comprehension, which means listening to some more authentic Italian.

 

Image result for italian pizza"Photo by Nadya Spetnitskaya on Unsplash

The first complete sentence I learned: Dov’e posso mangiare una buona pizza? (Where can I find a good pizza to eat?)

Research & Prepare Technology Showcase: Khan Academy

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.

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

TechEd Inquiry 1

Hello! This is Maddie, Kiya, and Catrina for our group Ed Tech post. We have decided to look at the benefits of different cloud systems in schools. We are doing a deep-dive into Microsoft, Google, and Apple. 

 

What is a Cloud-Based System?

Cloud-based information systems are generally a new way of transferring information from the user to a server. These cloud-systems can allow people to access documents and applications across different devices, as the information is located on an external server and is managed by the service providers. For more information on cloud-based systems, click here. For our purpose as educators, we are more focused on the different applications these cloud-based systems host and some of the benefits and drawbacks of the system. 

 

Apple

The first example of a cloud-based system is Apple’s iCloud. iCloud was launched in 2011 and is used as a platform to share photos, documents, and music. However, iCloud has been developed and improved upon under many names such as iTools when it first launched in 2001. Apple’s system uses Pages as a note-taking and word processing application. In addition to Pages, they also use Keynote for slideshow presentations and Numbers for spreadsheets.

 

Microsoft Office

Another example of a cloud-based server and probably the most commonly used one is Microsoft Office developed by Bill Gates in 1988. Microsoft Office features a variety of applications for different uses. The most commonly used apps by businesses are Microsoft Word for word processing, Microsoft Excel to create and edit spreadsheets, Microsoft Powerpoint to create presentations, and Microsoft Outlook to manage personal information. 

Musings (A Prequel)

Music is omnipresent in my life; it is woven into my everyday tasks, my work, my leisure, and my subconscious. In elementary school, I was eager to be involved in choir, auditioning every year for the solos at my school. I took a brief hiatus in seventh grade, giving art class a shot instead, but switched classes in the last two months of the year because the choir needed more voices. In high school, I dove into the performing arts, and they constituted a large part of my many creative outlets. I formed many meaningful relationships through performing arts and it helped me develop socially, emotionally, and beyond. I started leading the band at my church in high school, which I still do regularly and thoroughly enjoy. I lead from the keyboard and sing and organize the band and setlist with the help of my mother. 

Like most people, musical or not, I listen to music every day. However, unlike most people, I spontaneously break out into song and dance, and I am genuinely trying to figure out if it is acceptable in public spaces. I also love to express myself by writing songs, even though I’ve never played my songs publicly. This could be due to the combination of my songs being deeply personal, and music production being an entirely uncharted territory, but it is likely because I am a recovering perfectionist who struggles to finish projects. Because of this, I crave constructive criticism. 

This is an area that I wish to continue working on, but in the meantime, I will be learning to play the guitar for a music and education class. I currently am learning the chords in the keys of G and D, and working on my technique so that I learn correctly. I am also practicing playing while singing, which is something I would like to be able to do. I am glad to say that I am enjoying myself, and the learning is going well so far. I hope you will join me on this journey on because I look forward to sharing it with you.

Kiya

PSII: My Introduction to Inquiry-Based Learning (EdTech 2)

PSII is a local high school that uses inquiry-based education to fulfil BC high school curriculum. Our class visited the school and was introduced to their style of education, which I found to be very fascinating. I personally love the inquiry learning style and wish I had been exposed to it more during my high school education because I consider it to be much more meaningful than the prevailing test-based curriculum. I succeeded in my secondary courses and attained above-average grades in the standard classroom environment, but I did so without attaining a deep understanding of the material. I wish that there were more local institutions like PSII, because while I love the middle elementary years, I would consider moving to a higher grade if I could facilitate this type of education.

The main concern I have with PSII’s method is that students must be self-motivated. This is something I struggle with, though usually when I am not passionate about what I am learning. On the other hand, I go above and beyond when I am studying something I enjoy. I think PSII is doing a great job of prioritizing their learners’ needs, therefore successfully covering the curriculum in a deeper way. Because of their methods, PSII teaches learners skills like self-management and planning as well. I don’t know if self-motivation (in all circumstances) is something that can be trained, but sometimes studying something for its meaning rather than a test can also incite interest. I can see this to be a potential problem with learners, but not an impossible obstacle, and would be interested in PSII’s take on this question.

Overall, I really enjoyed visiting PSII and hope to see this movement grow, both within and beyond my local sphere.

How to Learn Italian (Come Imparare l’Italiano)

I started learning Italian last October on YouTube, and while YouTube is a great supplementary tool,  I needed something more structured to help me along my journey. When I downloaded Duolingo, I began to practice more regularly. While it is becoming more difficult to reserve time during my days of learning, working, and routine, the systematic approach to the lessons allows me to continue progressing. Starting my journey of learning Italian on YouTube felt like I was floundering in a sea of information. I didn’t know where to find what I needed to know and found myself avoiding it altogether instead of becoming overwhelmed. When I finally found a routine that worked for me I started to learn quickly, and the information made sense.

I have not found the grammatical aspects to be too difficult to learn so far, but this is because I already know French, and there are more similarities between Italian and the French sentence structure than English. I find that because both languages share Latin roots, in the lessons I can make educated guesses and make sentences easily or understand sentences. I’m no wizard, though; there is often a word pool that users can pick from which makes the process much more manageable. While this feature could be seen as allowing learners to be less engaged, keywords are repeated and carry over to subsequent lessons to be used repeatedly. While I sometimes doubt this style, I have found myself retaining vocabulary despite it.

Duolingo is not conducive to learning an entire language, but it provides a means to a foundation. Even if one is not entirely self-motivated, Duolingo provides incentives and makes lessons game-like for learners. It also has a leaderboard, adding a competitive aspect, which some people find discouraging, but others are motivated by. I generally ignore this feature, as I do not have enough time to obsess over my position in relation to others’. I think this is a good strategy, though as many people enjoy competing with people in other apps. This game aspect makes Duolingo fun, while providing education. Although I am not a “gamer”, I enjoy the lesson designs and the way I can learn and study while feeling like I am taking a break.

While I will eventually finish Duolingo and have to set some more self-guided goals, my current study routine is manageable and effective despite the fact that I do not have much extra time to put into planning my own lessons. I am happy with my progress as I know much more Italian than I did 2 months ago and will continue on this steady track to learning my third language.

Ciao,

Kiya

Happy Birthday (EdTech 3)

In our third technology class, we were introduced to some helpful tools to aid with organization and professional networking, including Twitter and Diigo. We also watched the film RiP! A Remix Manifesto by Brett Gaylor which is about remix culture and copyright laws. It was made in 2008, and while there have been changes, much of the information presented about usage (which is still true today) caught me by surprise. I was aware that ideas can be treated as property and can be copyrighted, but the extent to which some ideas are controlled is absurd.

In the film, an artist was remixing individual notes from songs, an act which could get him implicated for copyright. I find this to be absolutely ridiculous that one of twelve musical notes, whether it is made to sound a certain way or not, can be claimed by a person. One can also buy keyboards that have numerous sounds and even knobs that tweak sounds to recreate (purposefully or accidentally) various synthesized sounds opening up opportunities to make interesting but not necessarily unique sounds. If a certain sound can be made on a keyboard that is available for public purchase, that sound should not be copyrighted, because it puts people in impossible situations that stunt their growth because they are afraid to be sued.

An example of something I found it interesting is that the song “Happy Birthday” was not in the public domain at the time the documentary was made. For a seemingly immortal song which is so widely used, to be illegal to sing it is almost unbelievable. This made me wonder about the restaurants and venues that create their own birthday songs. Before I watched this film, I never would have imagined that perhaps the Red Robin’s birthday song came about because of a copyright law. The song “Happy Birthday” is so universal that I don’t see why it was not shared information before. This is a song that so many people get joy from singing and hearing, and there are so many other resources that could cause joy, were they in the public domain. Open educational resources are critical to education because some schools do not have the budget to pay for extra resources, and neither do the teachers. While textbooks are useful for teaching and can convey facts and practice exercises efficiently, different teaching methods must be implemented, since all classes have diverse learning needs. If a teacher happens to get a class that is capable of learning in a typical classroom, the children will still appreciate variety in the teaching. Having diverse resources available can help teachers to provide their students with current and interesting sources that pertain to their lessons.

(film link: https://www.nfb.ca/film/rip_a_remix_manifesto/)

Student Focused Learning (EdTech 2)

Some educators who have taught the same curricula for many years may have trouble changing their teaching methods, but the film Most Likely To Succeed, focuses on the topic of reforming education to be more student-centred. This documentary examines the use of student voice in education. One of the classrooms shown in this documentary has students conduct a project of their choice (individually or in groups) and display their finished product at the end of the term. Their parents and peers have the opportunity to assess their work rather than being graded by one teacher. Students had creative freedom with their projects but were more accountable because many people would see their work. Some students did not complete their projects, but were not reprimanded or penalized; rather they spoke with the teacher and class about what could have helped them succeed. This along with the natural consequence of not having a piece to display at the presentation night helped them to learn from their mistakes. Giving the students this responsibility allowed them to learn, maybe more than they would have if the teacher had directed the project or forced the students to present. The second class put on two plays, one by the boys which was historically accurate (in certain aspects) and another by the girls who put a modern spin on the play and set it in Pakistan to bring awareness to current global issues. The film followed the girls’ play more closely than the boys’, and how it was directed by a student. I like this strategy because it helped that student to gain her voice and confidence within the class. These plays allowed for students’ expression and involvement and made a greek play palatable to the class. While it was not entirely student-run, I think this is a practical way to teach foundational material in a learner-centred classroom.

From my observation, the classes in High Tech High used learning plans rather than lesson plans, meaning that they taught with a more student-centred mindset. This is positive because learning plans are more flexible in the teaching style whereas a lesson plan is often taught command-style where teachers are standing before a large group of students giving instructions. I think learning plans can fit the Universal Design for Learning more readily than lesson plans do because they provide a more general guideline than the rigid instructions lesson plans do. Learning plans are also more practical as they integrate different subject areas into the material. This makes them more relevant to students’ lives, therefore giving them a higher probability of retaining the information and being able to apply it.

 

Most Likely To Succeed (accessed through University of Victoria database):

https://uvic.tugg.com/full-movies/most-likely-to-succeed

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