Creative Commons

Photo by Tony L on Unsplash

Today we learned how to upload pictures using two different sites Unsplash and Pexels, both of these sites are free. We learned the importance to give credit to the photographer. We had a couple of good tools today and my hopes are to use this for language revitalization.

We also learned a bit about lesson plans vs learning plans. Lesson Plans are outlines of what is to be covered and it is a regimented outline, it is a traditional method of organizing a classroom, it lists homework as well as links to resources.

A Learning Plan is customized for individual learners. It fits to the individual learners needs and interests. It is flexible and adaptable and it works good for inquiry based learning.

We also watched a documentary Most Likely to Succeed. And we were asked about pros and cons for the pedagogy used by this type of school. I see more pros then I do cons. I relate to this type of teaching our classroom isn’t free range but we give the children a lot of choices and I feel they learn better that way, they are more engaged. I feel with the way we are teaching now at our middle schools and high schools are not properly preparing our children for the outside world. Teachers are not flexible in their teaching strategies especially for our indigenous students who are more likely to drop out, lower graduation rates, lower reading levels, etc. I think a High Tech Highschool would work well for our students here.

Ǧilakasl̓a K̓anasumaǧa

First Blog Post

Today was a good day, it was a bit hard and frustrating at the beginning but once it worked out I was able to post a blog.  I was able to have a step by step process to help with the set up.  I am grateful to having the website up and running.  I hope to utilize this website to blog daily using a word and sentence of the day.  I will use pictures and words in Likʷal̓a Language.

Ǧilakasl̓a K̓anasumaǧa

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

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 categories or tags to organize your blog posts – found under “Posts” (but do not remove the pre-existing “Topic Reflections”, or “Lesson Plan & Materials Creation” categories). 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 individuals outside of your program would not be familiar with the number (e.g., we use “EdTech” instead of “IED 336”).

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.

Please also review the resources from our course website for getting started with blogging: