I can’t believe that four weeks have passed and EC&I 834 is over already! It has been such a pleasure participating in this class. This class has been very engaging and I wish I had more electives so I could take more classes on online learning and using technology in the classroom. I will admit I knew little at the start of this class however through lectures, peer feedback, and discord I now have so many tools in my toolbox moving forward.

Please watch my Summary of Learning video below to see what I’ve learned.

Thank you to my peers and Katia for a wonderful class!

In reflecting on this class and developing my course module, I am extremely proud and excited about what I have accomplished. It’s been a quick and wonderful semester. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and I’m anxious to put my knowledge to use in my classroom in the fall. Teaching a new grade level can be challenging, but having resources like a blended ELA class can be tremendously beneficial. I’m hoping that my module will meet the different demands of my students. As we learned about different topics through lectures, literature, and our peers, this module took hours upon hours of modifying and adding in more elements. Continue reading →

When it comes to online interactions and how to plan for developing an enjoyable online community I am presented with a number of obstacles. One of my challenges is that my target students already know each other well, and many of them have been attending the same school and in the same class for the past six years. As a result, my students come to me with a pre-existing community. As I said in an earlier blog post, I am very familiar with my group of students, including the fact that they have both positive and negative attitudes toward one another. It may be difficult to create a positive online community in a blended classroom with a group of students who already know each other and have pre-existing relationships, but I’m not one to give up on a challenge! 

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How do the concepts of accessibility and equity apply to online and blended learning? When we were originally presented with these questions, I struggled and thought to myself, “ON KNOW, I have no experience with any of this.” As we were divided into breakout groups and began to converse, I quickly realized that I DO have some expertise with these themes and have successfully adapted to many student needs over the years. 

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Lumi is a brand new resource to me and I found it quite interesting and fun to play around with. My initial thoughts of Lumi were…  what is this? How do you use this? And wow… This is a bit overwhelming. After playing around with it for a bit I had several aha moments and thought wow this is neat! How I wish I knew of this resource during COVID times when I was making all assignments interactive. Making interactive Google Slides is certainly not as user-friendly as Lumi. After watching the video tutorial from Katia my understanding of Lumi was reinforced even further and I began to feel confident in using it to create student assignments. Least to say, my first assignment that I created was a flop as I took a way more complicated approach to things in trying to make my entire module/ unit into one Lumi. This is definitely not the right approach for me.

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Course Overview

This course will focus on a grade five English Language Arts class. The course module will specifically focus on an Identity (Exploring Heritage) Unit for the comprehend and respond ELA strand. I chose CR5.1 from the Saskatchewan Curriculum as the learning outcome for this unit. According to the outcome, by the end of the unit, students will be able to comprehend and respond to a variety of grade-level texts (including modern and classic visual, oral, written, and multimedia materials) on the topic of identity and exploring heritage. This module will cover eight lessons that will allow students to explore other heritages, as well as explore their identity and heritage. The course will take approximately three-four weeks to complete.

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Choosing a topic for my course development assignment was simple for me. In the fall, I will be teaching fifth grade, which is a completely new grade for me. Although teaching a new grade and new topic is daunting, I am quite familiar with the students I will be teaching. I’ve had the privilege of teaching this group of students in grade three, part of grade four, and am now continuing to teach the same group of students for their full grade five year. Since I am familiar with this set of students, I chose to focus my course development assignment on a hybrid grade five English Language Arts module. As Bates indicated in chapter nine, knowing your learners well is essential for determining what is best for their learning needs. Considering my learners are still young and lack independent working capacity, blended learning meets their needs, allowing me to facilitate and supervise their work habits as their teacher.  

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I am an elementary school teacher with a great interest in using technology as a teaching tool. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching grades two, three, and four for the past eight years of my teaching career. During this time, I employed both online and blended learning methods. Both of these experiences have numerous advantages and disadvantages. I’ve used Google Classroom as my LMS (learning management system) throughout my online and blended learning experiences.

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