EDCI 336 – Page 2 – mrsbcteacher

March 12, 2022March 23, 2022

Sewing and quilting

Ok, I have to admit, I’m getting ahead of myself. I am nowhere near this sewing, quilting or finishing stage of the quilt yet. But I am really curious how this big bit of fabric is going to turn into a quilt? Do you have to sew the fancy stitching overtop of the the quilt you lovingly sewed together? Doesn’t that ruin the lovely thing you spent so long cutting and sewing? And how do those professional looking quilts have those fancy patterns on them!? (see below photo!)

I have talked to some experts (Claire) and she advised me that you need a long arm machine to make fancy stitching patterns on the top of the quilt, and that straight lines are advisable for a beginner. 🙂

I found this tutorial with photos which gives some guidance about quilting, basting, and finishing the quilt from Cluck Cluck Sew website:

https://cluckclucksew.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Finishing-your-Quilt-Guide.pdf

March 9, 2022

BCEdAccess Presentation

We had a great presentation this week by Tracy Humphries, from BCEDAccess Society. This is a volunteer-run organization, which is almost unbelievable in the 21st century, that this service is not funded by the Ministry of Education. Tracy highlighted some of the main issues faced by students with special needs and their parents, such as denial of tech, outdated tech, problems with access, and no training support for parents/teachers.

This was a really interesting presentation about accessibility and access to education. Tracy has the unique view of a parent with children with special educational needs and a person with special educational needs herself.

Accessibility can mean so many things to students with different abilities. It can be ensuring text is large enough for students with sight impairment to read, it could also be ensuring text is highlightable on your website to allow text to speech reading, image descriptions and alt text on websites, captions and transcripts for videos…the list is endless…but what it ultimately means is that every students deserves to accessible education, regardless of their different abilities.

As a teacher, this brought up many valuable points to consider in the classroom and working with both students and parents. Ensuring accessibility for every student and their parents to the classroom, online platforms and all areas of education is vital to create an equitable and fair school environment.

February 24, 2022March 15, 2022

Edcamp

My first Edcamp! It was a buzz of excitement and a chance to meet new future educators. I popped into sessions to learn some Scratch coding for kids, useful for my Ed-Tech inquiry project, as well as a great discussion about working with parents as a teacher. Edcamp is a model where teachers can choose to present or join discussions about education or anything else really, and can come and go from discussion to discussion. An exciting model of pro-d learning, with an empowering and interesting freedom to choose sessions so they really fit what you are looking for. I look forward to more edcamps as a teacher! Below is a short YouTube video about the Edcamp model. Enjoy!

February 24, 2022March 9, 2022

Jesse Miller presentation

I found a great value in Jesse Miller’s presentation about technology, youth and education. He made many good points, for me as a future educator and as a parent. I thought his point about teaching youths to put their phones down and harness their focus, similar to how athletics does with them, to help them see their is more to life than social media and technology. He also values the sharing screen time with youths to see what they are up to and keep the positive lines of communication open with them. He emphasized that we must rethink education as it applies to communications and also was helpful in presenting a warning to new educators to be aware of your digital footprint. Jesse’s website is here. Jesse’s great YouTube TEDx video is available here:

February 11, 2022February 11, 2022

Graphics Editing

A sample of the Valentine’s day cards I created with my son’s choice of pictures!

I worked with my youngest son to create some Valentine’s day cards for his class using PowerPoint (#makeslidesfunagain). We found and inserted some Bing pictures that he chose: the dog, the flippers, and the underwater scene. We then added text and a photo of our guinea pigs from my computer. I am really excited that I learnt how to remove the background of photos by selecting the part of the picture I wanted to keep and then adjust it to keep the picture I want/take out the background I don’t want. This is something I have wanted to know how to do for a long time! I can imagine a lot of uses for this in teaching. I worked out how to size the image to letter size to print them. My son and I are really pleased with our creation! 🙂

February 3, 2022February 15, 2022

Screencast done!

Phew! That took me so long to film, then edit the screencast, and export/save it. I have done one vlog previously for a geography class, which also took me a long time. I have learnt so much doing this blog and have tried to push myself out of my comfort zone to really get the most out of this learning opportunity. I can see how these activities and skills will be really useful in the classroom!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1tnjwmh2umls93f/Screencast%20Video%20Kelly.mp4?dl=0

February 3, 2022February 4, 2022

An Interactive Video, love from mrsbcteacher!

Have a go at my very first interactive video! Enjoy the quiz and don’t sweat it, we are all winners here! 🙂

February 2, 2022March 15, 2022

A Lovely Quilt Idea!

I love this quilt with the grey border and colourful pieces on the inside blocks. It reminds me of the quilt my great-grandma made with scraps of fabric from her sewing box. It could be a lovely memento for someone from all the baby clothes from their kids or other special fabrics they have collected. To my untrained eye, it looks like an achievable quilt for a beginner.

January 27, 2022

Open Educational Resources

I have been learning about OER on https://www.oerafrica.org/ and successfully am learning the symbols for OER! This quiz was a fun little challenge to check in on my learning as I go along!

January 27, 2022January 28, 2022

Free Inquiry

Quilting!

_{Star of Bethlehem Quilt, 1940 from the Brooklyn Museum. Source: Quilting – Wikipedia}

I am planning to pursue quilting as my inquiry. It is something that I have wanted to do for several years since a friend of mine showed me the amazing quilts she had created. I have always loved sewing and have sewn several baby blankets for family and friends, but this is a new level of difficulty.

My Great-Grandmother’s Quilt!

I don’t think I will get this far into a quilt project this term, but I would love to create something beautiful which is smaller. I’m thinking of a baby blanket as a gift!