As I finally sit down to write about my course prototype and its content, I reflect on the journey I took to create it. It was a couple of adventures which did result in its creation but many attempts and misadventures in the process.  My Course is for English Language Arts for Grade 6. But since my students reading levels are mostly between Grade 1 to 3, with perhaps 5 students out of my  26 on the Grade 4-5 level, I had to bring down the content to their reading level. Nibi’s water song and its content was at this level and thanks to the reflection and feedback from my reviewers, I changed the initial module of “Who are the Metis?” and “A Girl Called Echo” on the same level, so as to make it comprehensive and adaptive to my ADDIE Model Template.

So, as I describe what I have created, here it is. I have given an introduction to myself and the course under the first module where some general information is also added for those students who will be using this course from home. We do have a laptop for each student in our class and they are quite comfortable on their device. This is a big advantage I realize since not many students have access to a device. The next module  is “Who are the Metis?” where the first interactive video is added that is done on Lumi. It also has some more interactions like choose the correct answer and others, all created on Lumi. Creating these H5P content was quite easy and enjoyable and when we did it in class, both my class children and Principal were impressed. Thank you Katia for this.

The module on Nibi’s Water song contains the second interactive video where various interactions have been added, like the first one. It also has an assignment, of describing the book in their own words. For this part, to understand how to get children to access the pages, comment on it and for me to see the information, I started by creating a page where I could either collect the content on a google doc or set up their emails so that they can attach the presentations/ audio/video files and send it to me.

Since this was what I was attempting, I tried to teach them how to do a powerpoint and in the process, we created some powerpoints, though not on Nibi’s book. I got a variety of emails, including some test mails where they forgot to attach anything or the file did not upload. It was fun, and I and the students learnt a lot in this process. One of the students made a beautiful one on Dogman, another designed it with excellent font and design. Only, as a daily stream, I would get about 12-13 emails every single day.  It is a process and we have just begun! And as the cartoon says, I’m Learnding!!

The next module is A girl called echo which is a graphic novel and talks about the experience of this Metis girl in a foster home where she is a little sad, hangs out all alone and is dreaming of her life in these themes depicted in the Book 1, which we did. She dreams of visiting a Bison Hunt and of being part of the Louis Riel revolution. This representation is quite close to the children here, many who live with foster families. Their identity, like the girl in the book, is a little dreamy and sad. I did create a pdf of the book and attached it, with some content on Pemmican, which is a delicacy.

Part of our learning process is what we do when we write our outdoor experiences and enjoy reading about it with our friends. The assignment in the Outdoor learning module was how to create a snowshoe with birchback. This process took 3 weeks, and children enjoyed the activity and writing about it. Though the picture given below is not from my class, our outdoor learning experience is pretty much like it. 

The last module was for Lexia which is an interactive learning system taht we use in our classes. My students have become familiar with sounds, and letters and building and combining words in this way and I wanted you all to know more about this. Therefore, I did an activity myself and have videotaped myself doing it. I also added some paper content to the module that we do once we complete the level.

The last thing that I want to write about is accessibility. At first, I had not set the self enrol option to the course but I did it later so that anyone can see it. So, this is my Course content and prototype. I did enjoy recording myself on Zoom and you can find my video to the Course Walkthrough here.