Category: EdTech (Page 2 of 2)

Free Inquiry: Why This Topic? And How?

For my free inquiry, I have chosen to explore the topic of astronomy. I decided I wanted to spend my inquiry exploring stargazing and astronomy because it’s a topic where I feel my knowledge and experience are not as strong as my interest. My grandfather loved astronomy and shared his passion with me as I was growing up. I can’t remember a time I visited my grandparents house when there wasn’t a stack of astronomy magazines on the coffee table. His interest in the topic was mostly scientific, and while that is an important element, I want to focus on some of the other aspects of the topic.

#Astronomy

I decided to use this week’s blog post to work through some of the questions I have and consider where I might go with this inquiry. Here are a few topics I want to consider as I develop my project.

  • Myths and Legends: Where did the constellations get their names and where do the myths about these characters come from? Do different cultures have different stories about the stars? How have these myths been adapted into other stories throughout time? Do they still resonate?
  • Religion: What do people believe about the universe and how has this been influenced by what we can see in the night sky? How have astronomical discoveries challenged religious belief?
  • Navigation: When and where were the stars used as a primary means of navigation? How does this type of navigation work? How might it still be useful in light of modern technology?
  • The History of Astronomy: How did our understanding of astronomy develop based on scientific discovery? How did this change what people believed about the world? What historical factors have influenced the drive and perhaps resistance to explore space?

These topics are all interrelated of course, and I anticipate that I may generate more questions as I continue with my inquiry. I’d also like to document my own experience with observation whenever the sky is clear enough. My overall goal is to learn as much as I can about this topic to ultimately be able to draw some meaning from what I can see and observe with my own eyes.

 

Week 1

This week, we explored an alternative model of learning through the film “Most Likely to Succeed”, which followed students from High Tech High through long term, interdisciplinary, and challenging projects.

I had some experience with project based learning in high school where I had the opportunity to put together some mock elections and host local prospective members of parliament at an even for students. This was an incredibly valuable experience, but was done through a class outside of the regular school timetable so the vast majority of students did not have the same opportunity.

Something that I wanted to know more about was the difference between simply doing projects and project based learning. I was able to find a video that provided an excellent breakdown of the differences. In particular, it explained that regular projects are most often used to reflect on what has already been learned, whereas project-based learning positions the project itself as the primary learning experience.

I am super excited about project based learning, not only in terms of its potential to help students explore ideas on a deeper level, but also in terms of its potential to teach other skills like team management.

Welcome and Introduction

Before proceeding with this first blog post, we expect you to consider your privacy preferences carefully and that you have considered the following options:

  1. Do you want to be online vs. offline?
  2. Do you want to use your name (or part thereof) vs. a pseudonym (e.g., West Coast Teacher)?
  3. Do you want to have your blog public vs. private? (Note, you can set individual blog posts private or password protected or have an entire blog set to private)
  4. Have you considered whether you are posting within or outside of Canada? This blog on opened.ca is hosted within Canada. That said, any public blog posts can have its content aggregated/curated onto social networks outside of Canada.

First tasks you might explore with your new blog:

  • Go into its admin panel found by adding /wp-admin at the end of your blog’s URL
  • Add new category or tags to organize your blog posts – found under “Posts” (but do not remove the pre-existing “EdTech” category or sub-categories, Free Inquiry and EdTech Inquiry). We have also pre-loaded the Teacher Education competencies as categories should you wish to use them to document your learning. If you would like to add more course categories, please do so (e.g., add EDCI 306A with no space for Music Ed, etc.)
  • See if your blog posts are appearing on the course website (you must have the course categories assigned to a post first and have provided your instructor with your blog URL)
  • Add pages
  • Embed images or set featured images and embed video in blog posts and pages (can be your own media or that found on the internet, but consider free or creative commons licensed works)
  • Under Appearance,
    • Select your preferred website theme and customize to your preferences (New title, etc.)
    • Customize menus & navigation
    • Use widgets to customize blog content and features
  • Delete this starter post (or switch it to draft status if you want to keep for reference)

Do consider creating categories for each course that you take should you wish to document your learning (or from professional learning activities outside of formal courses). Keep note, however, that you may wish to use the course topic as the category as opposed to the course number as those outside of your program would not be familiar with the number (e.g., we use “EdTech” instead of “edci336).

Lastly, as always, be aware of the FIPPA as it relates to privacy and share only those names/images that you have consent to use or are otherwise public figures. When in doubt, ask us.

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