Embarking on the Road to Understanding

(Clark, 2019)

Five Personal Learning Goals for Five MRU Teaching Competencies

Planning for Learning:

Plan to incorporate VR through Google Cardboard for at least one lesson in a Grade
One classroom. 

Facilitating Learning:

Create a bank of apps for Google Chromebooks, iPads, and iPods that can be used
as resources to differentiate instruction and learning in the classroom. 

Assessment:

Have students use an iPad or iPod to vlog at least one self-assessment for formative
assessment purposes. 

Classroom Environment:

Incorporate the classroom’s SMARTBoard in the students’ morning routine to
encourage learning and understanding of the days of the week, months of the year,
weather, seasons, number and colour patterns, counting by various number sets to
100, and body breaks.

Professional Responsibilities:

With the permission of my Mentor Teacher, use email and online reporting systems
to keep in contact with parents, help parents understand and keep track of their
child’s academic process, and use as an open liaise line to identify and
communicate concerns. 

Previous Technology Experience

To be succinct, I do not have an abundance of technological experience. I attended
a one-to-one high school and am currently attending a one-to-one university where
I am expected to bring, and understand how to use, my own technological device
and cellphone. Being a younger post-secondary student, I have grown up using
desk computers and laptops in my elementary and middle school classrooms. I
have only surface level knowledge on how to operate my cellphone and laptop, but
enough motivation to step out of my technological comfort zone to start my own
website, blog, and other future tech endeavours. 

Two Burning Questions

1. How can I, as an educator, balance educational technology in my classroom with the increasing prevalence of technology, educational or not, in the home? To what extent is too much technology in a child’s life?

Importance:

My Mentor Teacher this semester avoids technology firstly because of
its unreliability, and secondly because it is so prevalent in students’
homes she feels it is her responsibility to help students learn through
pencil-and-paper; inevitably, most students’ future teachers will rely
heavily on technology to teach (J.R., personal communication, 2019).
Knowing there are advantages and disadvantages to technology use in
the classroom, I also know there is some curriculum that cannot be
taught through technology such as learning how to print, handwrite,
and read (hardcopy) books. I want to know how I can find the balance
between teaching through technology and teaching through
pencil-and-paper so I do not encourage reliance on technology in my
students.

2. How can Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and/or Mixed Reality, and their corresponding handheld devices or headsets, be incorporated into a Grade One classroom and Grade One curriculum? How can I differentiate for VR, AR, and/or MR in a high learning needs classroom?

Importance:

After a three hour seminar on the future of learning through VR, AR,
MR, and simulations, I found much of the content and complexity of the
corresponding equipment was geared toward older elementary students
(approximately grade four, five and six). Being placed in a Grade One

classroom this semester, I want to understand how I can teach
meaningfully through VR, AR, MR, and/ or simulations since this was
not something I understood from the presentation.