Posts

Posted on

Weekly Free Inquiry (Second Week Jan 28- Feb 4)

Welcome back to my weekly donut rate and review! This week’s doughnut is particularly special as a limited-time edition: Special Olympics Donut.

Late evening on Thursday night, I received a message from my good friend Sophie who Instagram DM me about a new limited-time Tim Hortons donut special that was only available from Feb 3-5, insisting that I just had to try the donut for this week’s inquiry. Long story short, she was right.

After immediately viewing the ad promotion for the donut, I was hooked. A chocolate donut covered half with white fondant and the other half with coloured sprinkles, topped with whipped cream, gave the multicoloured design a 5/5 appearance rating with the reasonable price of $1.99. Though a bit more expensive than a classic vanilla dip, this donut had more to offer in first impression and taste-wise. With the addition of being less dry than the vanilla dip, this donut was super tasty. However, I felt the creativity was lacking as for a donut that only is available for three days – they could’ve done more with it. The customer service was just as good, if not better while buying this donut as I bought some breakfast along with it, to which the worker ensured I got every item before I headed out of the store.

In regards to the technology aspect of this week’s donut. As I looked more into why this donut was being promoted as a limited edition, it came to my attention that the money I used to buy this donut was in support of the “sports programs for athletes with an intellectual disability in communities across Canada”. (Tim Horton’s website) As per the screencast video, I further scrolled to the monumental statement that Tim Hortons has donated over $1.5 million dollars in support of the Special Olympics. This advertising was an excellent way to promote raising money for the Special Olympics, as before I saw the advertisement, I had no idea that the event was happening. Technology plays a huge role in spreading information to a broader platform. Anyone with the mobile app or who uses Instragam would have come across this advertising and want to buy this donut as its supporting accompaniment – as it did for me.

Here are some pictures I remembered taking this time of the Special Olympics donut!

Screencastify Video of the website

Posted on

WEEK 4 – Weekly Reflection (Jan 30-Feb 3)

Two plants placed next to a window enjoying the Vitamin D from the sun
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
My Video!

Reflecting on this week’s blog prompt questions, some digital accessibility practices that I see that are often missed, that even myself miss, are closed captions on videos. Classrooms are starting to use so much more technology as a resource for students to use, which is amazing. However, closed captions videos are usually missed by those who are hearing impaired (like me) or visually impaired. Additionally, having closed captions cater to learning styles and multimedia introduction to how to be more accessible to those in society. Social media is also a huge part of our generation. Adding closed captions on any television show, tik tok, Instagram, and youtube significantly benefits those who wish to have it or need it.

The lack of these digital accessibility practices is sadly common due to the only 22% of people who have 1 or more disability challenges. Some disabilities go unnoticed if they are not presented by visual appearance. Society usually advocates for most people, not those who struggle with watching or hearing daily videos. Being accommodating and having these resources accessible to those who require them to be successful and get the most out of it. As our society is getting more involved in technology, I have been surprised by the occasional hearing-impaired implementations. For example, when I was on the ferry returning to Victoria from Vancouver for the weekend, I walked by a sign that read: “pair hearing aid to Bluetooth to hear announcements.” This type of accessibility for those who are hearing impaired is fantastic because of emergencies and hearing all the announcements. I enjoyed learning about this week’s learning objectives as it is needed for those with disabilities to be heard and have their accommodations supported to the most we can do for them.

Posted on

Weekly Free Inquiry (First Week Jan 22-28)

Welcome to the first-rate review of my inquiry project! Just a recap that each week I will be reviewing a different Tim Horton’s donut and this week is a simple but classic, personally a fan favourite, the vanilla dip!

On Wednesday, January 25, I entered Tim Hortons with my gift card in hand and ready to start my inquiry project off strong with one of the best-reviewed donuts sitting at a solid 4.6/5 rating, the vanilla dip. The vanilla dip donut is an all-time favourite by those around as the Tim Horton’s website describes it as a “delicious baked good” with vanilla dipped frosting and an assortment of colourful sprinkles for a more appealing look that really suits the bill on this donut.

With the appealing price of only $1.29, the vanilla dip donut looked just as tasty sitting behind the glass as it was two inches away from my face about 10 minutes later. After resisting taking a small bite on the car ride home, I finally got to taste it, and it was what was to be expected. The frosting was gooey, and the sprinkles added a nice little crunch to the tasting experience. Though a little dried out and definitely not freshly made by any circumstances, it was still a tasty treat that satisfied the donut craving in that I would buy it again.

My experience was overall a delight. Despite it being lunchtime and having about 50 high school students sitting in all areas of the store, the line was non-existent, and the worker who had taken my order served a smile along with “Hi, “how are you doing today? What can I get for you?” in a nice comforting tone. This type of interaction with any fast food employee is always important because he showed a great amount of effort in making my 2-minute experience a memorable one that supports the Tim Hortons statement of “friendly, ready to help” Tim Horton’s workers.

Overall my first experience with this inquiry project is off to a good start and expanding this experience by also noticing that Tim Hortons is a great cheap place to go to get a dessert, especially for university students who need a pick-me-up. While browsing through their baked goods selection, most of the treats were no more than 5 dollars making Tim Hortons food tasty and affordable.

Though I was so eager to try this week’s donut I had seemed to forget to take a picture of it, so I have found one on unsplash.com that will do for this week! Very similar to the one I tried.

 Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash.com
Posted on

Week 3 Reflection

Enjoy the video!

On reflecting on whether I think including H5P tools would potentially be a useful tool, I believe, for possibly middle school. This would be a perfect introduction to technology and other online sources of information. Middle school age groups tend to get more into the social media aspect of the internet, in which youtube is a big part of that makeup. I aim to teach grades younger than middle school. However, I still believe that small amounts of technology, like using those types of videos we made, can be super useful in a younger classroom as images + words are the most beneficial way to introduce this to a smaller age group. Mutli-media Learning theory can help us create more effective instruction videos as it also caters to all learning styles (visual, audio, kinesthetic, read and write). Instructional and or informational videos can help students in the classroom, teachers included, to be more open to the use of technology in the classroom to use as teaching materials. Most people remember more when there are visual connections to the material being taught. For younger students, it will help move along their cognitive development to match images with words, as well as be able to sound them out (similar to when a teacher reads out loud). Overall this class was super helpful to me as I am pretty slow at learning new skills, especially in technology, so to be able to create my own tutorial and edit it makes me believe I can teach it or use the skills I developed today in my future classroom!

Posted on

Weekly Free Inquiry

My free inquiry project that I have chosen to do is research, rate, and review a Tims Horton donut each week. Over the course of 2 months I will be trying a variety of different donuts that I will review based on these set questions: appearance, taste, creativity, would I buy it again, how good was the costumer service interaction each time, price, did the Tim Hortons website promotion of a certain donut fit the description.. etc) An idea to expand on this topic would be to compare donuts to other places that sell the same type of donut (the classics like apple fritter or vanilla dip ). Another expansion could be rating the top 5 donuts near the end to the best reviewed ones from the internet to see the similarities and or (biased) differences between what I think should be placed in the top 5.

I am very excited to start this project as firstly, its a treat I can have each week for homework! but overall Tim Hortons are most known for their donuts over the years more than other fast foods places and I am determined to figure out why that is and if this assumption of having good donuts has held its course. The only area I am unsure about is the biased opinion I will have subconsciously over what donuts I know I already like and dislike, so I may have to try ones I never thought of trying before, then later towards the end try all the top 5 best reviewed to get an unbiased but effectvie review so that it in includes their best known donuts as well. All in all I hope all goes well and I think I will greatly enjoy the process!

My next steps include next week buying the first donut of the project getting ready to review it.

Photo by Danny Ouimet on Unsplash

Posted on

Weekly Reflection #2 – Jan 17

Reflection Blogging Prompts

To start, reflecting on the question “Do we need to re-imagine education?” I believe that we need to re-imagine education as not such status quo of pass or fail, test after test, and where marks count more than the learning process. I believe education should be aimed towards a growth mindset where students don’t fear failure but strive to make mistakes as part of their learning. Having students be more hands-on and be involved in more project based assessments gears the future of education to more well-rounded pupils who feel more prepared for real world situations during and after graduation – which is in correlation to the movie we watched and High Tech high schools efforts in a new education system.

Another reflection I had that was regarding the future of teachers education was the use of the chat ChatGPT and my thoughts around it are its very resourceful in that it can create lesson plans and gather information or instructional sources to specific use within the classroom content, which for teachers can save time and effort in creating lesson plans also based from the curriculum but only concern is that it midly takes away own origninal or creative outlook or alterations on certain subjects such as Art – can vary in perspective. It also is a concern for the students in that using this much resourceful ideas from this website takes away from their own cognitive development and forming of own opinions which is important for a balanced society.

Finally, this ties into reflecting on the pros and cons of a lesson plan vs learning plan. Some cons about this depend of the format of the plan if its too the students needs vs the teachers wants in what they teach – some teachers that are unable to adapt to new classroom environments keep their traditional plans that may not work for most students. However, there are more pros such as having a written outline of work in a learning plan based of teacher, student and curriculum ideas that benefit all parties. Schools main objective is to have students learn material and develop skills needed for future but its how effective the plan is for it to be achieved by the students.

Photo by Kylie Paz on Unsplash

This is an image I chose from the ”unsplash” website that showcases a picture of the Eiffel Tower when it sparkles for 5 minutes every late evening.

Posted on

First blog post for 366!

What was the process of setting up a word press like for you?

The process was stressful at first but I had a lot of help from those around me and rich to help me succeed in my first class in technology. 🙂

How can blogging be used in teaching and learning?

Blogging can be used in teaching to monitor and track student progress as well as be more engaging with students in interacting with their blog posts over time. Overall helps both student teacher relationship success with how interactive they are with the material.

Posted on

Welcome and Introduction

image showing person walking in pre-painted footprints

Before proceeding with this first blog post, we expect you to consider your privacy preferences carefully and that you have considered the following options:

  1. Do you want to be online vs. offline?
  2. Do you want to use your name (or part thereof) vs. a pseudonym (e.g., West Coast Teacher)?
  3. Do you want to have your blog public vs. private? (Note, you can set individual blog posts private or password protected or have an entire blog set to private)
  4. Have you considered whether you are posting within or outside of Canada? This blog on opened.ca is hosted within Canada. That said, any public blog posts can have its content aggregated/curated onto social networks outside of Canada.

First tasks you might explore with your new blog:

  • Go into its admin panel found by adding /wp-admin at the end of your blog’s URL
  • Add new category or tags to organize your blog posts – found under “Posts” (but do not remove the pre-existing “EdTech” category or sub-categories, Free Inquiry and EdTech Inquiry). We have also pre-loaded the Teacher Education competencies as categories should you wish to use them to document your learning. If you would like to add more course categories, please do so (e.g., add EDCI 306A with no space for Music Ed, etc.)
  • See if your blog posts are appearing on the course website (you must have the course categories assigned to a post first and have provided your instructor with your blog URL)
  • Add pages
  • Embed images or set featured images and embed video in blog posts and pages (can be your own media or that found on the internet, but consider free or creative commons licensed works)
  • Under Appearance,
    • Select your preferred website theme and customize to your preferences (New title, etc.)
    • Customize menus & navigation
    • Use widgets to customize blog content and features
  • Delete this starter post (or switch it to draft status if you want to keep for reference)

Do consider creating categories for each course that you take should you wish to document your learning (or from professional learning activities outside of formal courses). Keep note, however, that you may wish to use the course topic as the category as opposed to the course number as those outside of your program would not be familiar with the number (e.g., we use “EdTech” instead of “edci336).

Lastly, as always, be aware of the FIPPA as it relates to privacy and share only those names/images that you have consent to use or are otherwise public figures. When in doubt, ask us.

Please also review the resources from our course website for getting started with blogging: