Category: EDCI 336 (Page 2 of 3)

Accessibility in Tech

Okay so for this week’s reflection I’m actually using voice to text just to see how it works. I’m not going to edit it but I will make amendments afterwards by typing if there are glaring mistakes that make the sentences not make sense.   I was really impressed with the tool to put your website through to see how accessible it was there was some things I didn’t quite understand so I’ll have to investigate that further but for instance just the contrasting text colors on the background that’s such an easy thing for us to fix that would make a big difference in accessibility. I thought we had some great conversations about udl in class today I do think that as everyone else stated it will be a lot of work but it is really worth the work and it will pay off it’s like investing in something up front and I think that the more that we normalize this approach to education the better it becomes for everyone. I think the key to this will be to really have a growth mindset strive to create the best environment for all your students and normalize having different accommodations different situations different options for different people. I also think that in general the more that we decolonize our classrooms and our pedagogies the more that these things will naturally come into play I think that as I think someone stated in our discussion that having things having fidget things and chairs that move around and allowing kids to move around is like a boom (supposed to be boon) to the classroom and to the students and this is contrary to a traditional classroom setting. I think that the point really is not to focus on how much work it may be, or the cons of these accessible approaches – but to focus on how we can best reach all of our students.

All in all I think the speech to text on Google Docs did a pretty good job of dictating. However, I clearly need to put more breaks in my sentences when I speak.

Check out my interactive video about one of my favourite Instagram creators’ page .

I think this interactive tool will be so beneficial for asynchronous learning. Particularly I’m thinking about if you wanted teach a lesson and make sure that students are: picking up on the important points, paying attention, and engaged (to name a few).

Distributed and online learning

We’re all (those that have been students or educators over the last 3 years) very familiar with online learning and can probably rattle off a list of the pros and cons. Of course some of those are person / situation specific.

I really think there are major benefits to online (synchronous or asynchronous) learning. It was great to be able to complete my university degree on my parents’ farm on a small island. I think key to online learning is having a dedicated work space, because otherwise it is likely to not be effective or productive. I won’t go in to listing all the pros and cons to online versus in person learning but if you want to see more, check out this article. I will say that the biggest and most concerning con in my mind, is child/student support and safety while exclusively online.

Speaking to my own experience, my grades actually improved during the online learning. The end of the semester when covid first started was really poorly delivered (of course, I don’t blame them), but by September, professors had worked hard to develop effective online classes. I was incredibly fortunate to be able to move home to my parents, and be fully supported while I focused more on school than I ever had before. Normally I worked 25 hours a week outside school, but during covid I did not, and if I did it was less hours and on my parents’ farm. However, as Covid restrictions lessoned and I moved back to Victoria but I mostly continued my classes online. I went from living on a rural property to living in a tiny basement suite in a city, and I got a reality check of what the lockdown was like for so many people. This made online school harder. Your environment is so important for success with online school.

If I had to pivot to fully online, the most important thing to me would be to maintain (or establish if a new year or semester) strong relationships with all my students online. Two learning activities I could use if we had to make this pivot now:

1. Student directed lessons. In teams I would have students take on a subject within out unit of study and they would come up with a lesson for the whole class. The final lesson of this would need to be synchronous, but the work for the group could be asynchronous but I would want to do individual meetings with groups.
2. I might try some online tools like Flip. I could come up with (or the class could) some discussion prompts, essential questions, or possibly inquiry and this site / app, Flip, provides a platform for students to respond in videos (which they can edit). This is a tool that can be used asynchronously. Or I could do a virtual online tour of a museum, quite a few offer them, heres one of The Louvre offers.

Using the AI photo generator (Designer Microsoft) was actually quite interesting. I can see it being incredibly helpful and useful, but also frustrating. I think because figuring out how to write your prompt is tricky, and although it offers you generated prompts based on your keywords, it can still change things or not quite get at what you want. For instance, I wanted to have a banner made of sourdough starter and sourdough bread and a bakery and it always wanted to have words on it like “happy bakery” and “rise to the occasion”. Even when I wrote “do not have any words in the photo” it would have photos printed over top of the bread. Either way, I did end up with a banner for my website, but I did have to settle for a photo with words – check it out here and on my website home page!