Reflection #4 – Week 5

This week was very interesting and focused heavily on digital literacy in the classroom. We had two presentations, one, specific to what SD62 is doing for digital literacy, and another that was more general for teachers in any district.

The first presentation was from Ana Galac, the digital literacy coordinator for SD62. She started off the presentation by describing what technology is available to students, and what technology is available to teachers. Teachers are provided with a laptop when they sign a contract with the school district, and classrooms have either a projector or smartboard, as well as a document camera. Schools also have extra devices available to staff, such as iPads and printers/photocopiers. Students have access to chromebooks and iPads in elementary school if teachers book them, and middle and highschool students have access to the same devices in addition to computer labs. For students that need extra support in their learning, they may be provided with digital reading pens, iPads, or chromebooks. The school district also has a virtual library learning commons which can be used by teachers, students, and caregivers that provides many resources that can be used to learn different content (can be filtered into grade level too). It also provides how-to’s for different types of devices on how to access different apps, and an AI section that includes principles and guidelines associated with it. She finished off by talking about the tech support that is available in the school district. If there is a physical problem with technology, or just a larger issue in general, that can be taken to the IT department and you can put in a JIRA ticket. Otherwise, if there are just technological difficulties or questions, those can be taken to the digital literacy coordinator, library and learning commons coordinator, or the school librarian.

For the second presentation, we learned about Focused Ed. This website provides great resources for teachers on various subjects. One section that we looked at was on the topic of student cybersecurity awareness, and it provided vocabulary, videos, handouts, and lesson plans that teachers can use on the topic. All of this information comes from reputable websites that are approved for use in education. The section that we spent the most time looking at though was the digital classroom section. This section provides 17 resources that teachers and students can use for lessons and research. There are different versions of Worldbook that contain curricular standards and grade level recommendations. For the more beginner ones like Worldbook Kids and Worldbook Student, the text can be read to them, as well as translated. These are more simplistic versions of the normal Worldbook and are more understandable for children. We also looked at the resource 4Canoes which provides Indigenous-based stories that can be read in either English, or the original Indigenous language. The resource that stood out the most to me though is Live It Earth. This resource provides different topics, videos and challenges to support learning. The content is also available in different languages for students that may need it. The material and content that it provides is connected to the curriculum and recommended grade levels. It also has sample program calendars that teachers can use so they have an idea of the order and timing for introducing different concepts. There was also a resource called Teens101 that teaches people about different issues that students may face and provides videos to further educate on these topics. Twig was also a resource that was highlighted as useful because it breaks content down into grades, curriculum links, teacher guides, interactive activities, and videos. In order to access any of these resources though, you need to have a school district email/account.