This week’s tech class was super cool! I never knew what “EdCamp” was, but after participating in a mini one, I see all the benefits to it. First of all, I really liked all the choices that were offered. It was cool to be able to switch back and forth between groups if you wanted to and get a variety of learning. The only downside I felt was that all the topics were so rich and beneficial that it sucked not being able to attend all of them! However, it is nice we get access to all the notes from every group so that you can see what others talked about. My favourite part about EdCamp is that you got to learn from everyone, and all their perspectives. It’s so cool to have a room filled with knowledgeable classmates who bring something new and different to every topic. For the first session, I was in the group, “Managing Difficult Behaviours.”  Our group came up with lots of great ideas and strategies and reasons for why students could be acting this way. One of the most beneficial conversations we had, and something that I feel like is so obvious but so important is really ensuring you have a good relationship with a student. This allows for genuine conversations, trust and makes the child not feel targeted when something goes wrong.

 For the second group I was in “Tools for ELL Learners.” This conversation was also super beneficial, and again hearing what everyone had to say was so cool as it was a collaboration from so many different perspectives and ideas. This was a topic that I didn’t know much about, and I am anxious about it in my future classroom because I feel like I have been given no resources for this topic. One classmate pointed out that it is not a bad thing to continue learning their first language, in fact extremely important! And it is important to be doing so at school. Students will lose literacy abilities when we disrupt their progress in their first language. During this session we also talked about using technology with ELL learners such as Edpuzzle, and I found this super helpful to learn about. It can be used to insert Youtube videos to translate, vocabulary work, and comprehension. After class I decided to check out other edtech tools that could be used for ELL learners. I came across this article that gave quite a few tools, and decided to explore one form the list. I came across this tool called BrainPOP ELL. I explored the site, and found that it had a good mixture of easy to access movies, activities, quizzes and games for all different ages. In each level, there are 6 units in it providing students with lots of support. It connects reading and written words, there are interactive features that allow students to practice grammar and explore new vocabulary.  It is good to know that there are tools out there that can support ELL learners and that are easy access fro teachers. 

Screenshot from the BrainPOP ELL site, showing the different levels and units.

Overall, this was a super cool and helpful class. I loved hearing everyone’s different opinions and ideas. It was a great way to have an open discussion and brainstorm all together!