(Some) Resources from EDEL 496

Here is a list of resources that have been introduced in the class, and which I have (or am willing to try) sometime soon! 

1. Waterlogue and Snapseed

One evening, someone from EdTech came to our class with a class set of iPads. We were required to come with a set of pictures that answers: What does "home" mean to us? Being the always-prepared-person that I am, I had about 8-10 pictures answering this question. We were introduced to two photography iPad applications to explore. I didn't use the iPads provided because I just downloaded the two apps we were going to use that evening on my own. 

Waterlogue -- a watercolor application that unfortunately costs money. I think I paid either $4 or $5 for it, but totally worth it because the photographs are pretty great. Simply upload your picture and choose which features you want to enhance your picture. Check out some of my pictures using Waterlogue! 

Mo:Le Restaurant in Victoria, BC

Water Harbour in Victoria, BC

Snapseed -- luckily, this app is free (I suggest you download it when you can)! Snapseed adds pretty cool effects to your pictures and has options to provide borders too. Similar to Instagram (which most of my friends have), but I think it's a tiny bit better with the options. It takes a little getting used to when using Snapseed, but after a day, you'll be a pro at it. Just like me! Check out some of my pictures using Snapseed. 

Mo:Le Restaurant in Victoria, BC

Water Harbour in Victoria, BC

2 Papyrus eBook

So, after we incorporated pretty cool effects to our "home" pictures, our professor gathered all our pictures into an online eBook! I used the Papyrus eBook resource just like my professor did, which you can use for yourself if you click here! Just sign up for a free account and you're good to go. 

I was absolutely amazed by this that I used this outlet of representation when I used this for my integration of multimodal project. I made an eBook of my Victoria trip back in Fall Reading Week! 

3. Puppet Making 

Here is a picture of my puppet we created! We had half a class to make a puppet. You're probably thinking, what's the point, right? In class, we discussed how "powerful" exploration is. Give a kid a box of lego's and tell them to build anything, which they will. Exploration, at such an early age, is so important to facilitate! Building a puppet showed us adults how key exploring an object or experience it. 

4. Popplet and Powtoon 

Okay, so I absolutely no nothing about Popplet or Powtoon. We had several opportunities for class presentations, and some of my peers used these approaches for presentation purposes! I'm trying to experiment (aka get away from the typical powerpoint) when presenting information. Have you tried these resources? Watching them in class it seemed much more engaging and aesthetically pleasing. 

Recap: EDEL 496

A required class is taking an EDEL 4xx class, where I initially was going to take EDEL 411 or 412. Things happened last minute, classes got cancelled and shifted so I decided, why not 496?! Right from Beartracks, it's called Group Project: Integrating Language Arts & Art K-6. This was also my night class for the term, where I usually take a night class to make it easier on myself when finals arrive. Going into the first night, I was extremely nervous about this because I did not know what to expect at all. I found no professor ratings about it and none of my friends took it either. I was going in blind!

via GIPHY

Did I also mention that this class was a combined undergraduate and graduate class?! Yes, so it was a combined class called EDEL 496/595. Intimidating, right? 

As the class went on, Wednesday evenings became easier and easier for me. I was honestly overwhelmed with the graduate students, but being the "social butterfly" I am, I connected with most of them. There was full-time or part-time or retired teachers there, literacy consultants, teachers who taught abroad, etc. I mean, I was figuratively swimming in a pool with people with tremendous amount of knowledge and experience. Why should I be overwhelmed by this when I can use this to make meaningful connections? #useyourbrains 

The evaluation component is somewhat complicated to explain. To make it simple, there was an integration project using multimodal literacy, a major essay and participation marks. However, it branches out into further marks or points for assessment. I'd rather not talk about it, BECAUSE, in this class I want to highlight what I loved and learned and what I'll be walking away from it.

Sometimes, EDEL 496 didn't even feel like a class! I felt the evening, at times, was a PD session to learn and immerse ourselves into an art environment. We did self-portraits one evening, which was new for me as I'm not into art as much as some of my peers, but do check out the progress I made throughout the term! (And don't make fun of my eyes and hair haha!)

September 2015

December 2015

In another post, I'll brag about the amazing resources we used in the class. From my five classes this term, I was exposed to SO MANY outlets of representation that I cannot fit all my knowledge into this one post. EDEL 496 focused on integrating art and language arts, and because of that I want to share what I learned to you! A big thank you and shout out is needed to all my peers and my professor!

via GIPHY

PBF Posts Starting Tomorrow

What could PBF mean?! Well, I have this brilliant idea that starting tomorrow (Friday), for the rest of the summer I'll be posting Picture Book Fridays. What this entails is I'll showcase, an excellent book, in my opinion, to read to or with children, or even use in the classroom for whatever reason. I believe that reading and early literacy are essential skills to introduce to children at the early stages of life. Using picture books as a transition to love reading are the best tools out there -- especially at libraries (since they're free)!

I have booklists made via the EPL website, so you can check them out at the top of my page. However, there are beautiful and amazing picture books that not a lot of people are aware. With PBF Posts starting tomorrow (hopefully), I'll be able to shine some light on children's literature that isn't as widely recognized. Plus, this also gives me an opportunity to explore more books at my giant summer workplace. To end of, be on the look-out for that and a Weekly Recap 2! 

Subject 2 - Language Arts

While teaching language arts, my MT gave me the responsibility to teach and assist with newspaper writing. I assigned, I think 3 or 4 different ones and marked them individually, giving each student a score and constructive criticism for their future writing!

I'm such an elementary teacher, I gave stickers (of either stars or happy faces) with their comments. A happy face described something I liked and a star is an area I suggested they could improve upon. At grade 6, they still love receiving stickers. I swear I'm going to be using them everywhere and still be finding an excuse to use them in whatever. I think it's because they're cheap, I can get a lot for so little money, and anyone under age 12 will do anything for one. Win-win-win. Ha. 

I didn't just give out the assignments and let them write their article. Instead, after each one I read them all over that evening and decided, where as a class we can spend the next lesson on. I remember doing a lesson about closing paragraphs, as most were just not finishing their article as strong as they could be! I also pulled out student examples of strong paragraphs, and discovered that students got that "aha!" moment from realizing what their peers have written!

Click here to find PAT examples under the Alberta curriculum. I used these examples during my instruction too! 

Recap: EDEL 305

Recap of EDEL 305: Language Arts in the Elementary School

When I was building my school schedule for the fall term, it was required that EDEL 305 was to be taken in the fall term, before my IFX. Thus, this course is a pre-requisite for my student teaching. I initially registered in the 8 am class, forced to have a huge break from this class to the next. Luckily, closer to the start dates I was able to transfer in the later class time, happily getting rid of my break.

Thoughts Throughout 

The grade for the course is broken down into four components: midterm and final (understandable); major assignment and participation marks. I found the midterm and final fair as it was all written, but my hand and wrist were hurting for hours on end right after the exams. I find that with curriculum classes we sit in tables forming groups (roughly about 6), rather than in individual rows. This approach was helpful because our professor provided multiple opportunities for group collaboration within our table partners. I remember we did group activities such as playing spelling games, creating concrete poems and analyzing children's literature. Fun, right? Here's a picture to prove it! 

Some topics that we learned and discussed were reading, spelling and writing. I never knew before, until this course, is how emphasized language arts can be, and is, globally. Also, exposure to language arts at an early age has an enormous influence in learning not just language arts, but learning and experiencing language in a child's later years. My favorite topic that I learned from this course related to the importance of children's literature. With my experience from working at the library in the summer, I was expected to read children's literature (mostly picture books) to children of various ages. Understanding more about the differences between a read-aloud and shared reading, gives me more guidance in choosing more appropriate books for my students, especially the younger ones.

What are my favorite books to read to children? You can check them out here! If you also know of any other fantastic children's book to read to children, please share them! I'm curious in what other people think. 

Final Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, other than our midterm and final, we were also graded on class participation and an assignment. I participated and attended in every class so those were easy marks. However, our one main assignment for the course was worth a whomping 40%. Yes, our assignment was worth double our midterm mark. To sum up our assignment, we were to choose ten resources (i.e.,. children's literature, community resources, etc.) and 10 activities and introduce them to a language arts classroom tying it all together to a theme we individually selected.

We didn't get our assignment back not until we wrote our final. After talking to our professor, she wanted to give each of us thoughtful comments and feedback about this assignment. After waiting (extremely) patiently for them, I couldn't be happier with my mark and feedback given by my professor. But I'm glad that we were given this assignment because it'll be something I can reference to when I am teaching language arts!