Weekly Reflection #3

During week 5, we had another guest speaker from SD62 who also talked to us about the different types of technology available in their district as well as their view on AI. This district has computers available for teachers but student teachers don’t get a district email which I found quite interesting so you have to go through your host teacher for everything on the computers which I feel may be a bit inconvenient. They also have projectors, smart boards, document cameras, iPads and IES devices available. One thing I found shocking was that this district doesn’t allow colour printing. Those were the different types of hardware available for the teachers, they then went on and told us about the students available hardware. Which in this district are chrome book, and iPad carts in the elementary schools and then computer labs and chrome carts in the middle/secondary schools as well as adaptive tools like digital reading pens. This district also has a virtual library learning commons which has lots of different recourses available for both teachers and students. This district only allows AI tools for teachers and they are only allowed to use copilot and Canva which I found interesting because this district also does not prompt AI usage with students but the teachers are allowed to use it. Overall, the biggest thing I have learnt in this course is that each district has slightly different types of tech available as well as views on AI and that AI is here to stay whether we like it or not so we need to teach students how to use it wisely and remind them that its just there for guidance, and that it is not a built in homework robot.

This week, we also learnt about Focused ED website which is full of educational resources available for teachers, students, and parents within BC. This website has student security awareness lessons as well as a whole digital classroom filled with 17 different resources. When learning about Focused ED we mainly looked over these 17 classroom resources and here are a few I found really interesting. The first resource we looked at was World Book which has many different versions for varying grades and abilities. World Book is a reading resource that has a student safe databased for research. The next resource we looked at was 4 Canoes which is an Indigenous resource that looks really useful and I can’t wait to use this tools. We also looked at History BC, National Geographic, NFB, Live it Earth, and Click View. Overall, this resource looks really beneficial for both teachers and stundets and I can’t wait to use it more once I’m in a classroom teaching.