Category: Collaboration and Community Engagement

Practise effective communication appropriate to the context and audience, enabling responsiveness to diversities of learners

Who Am I?

by sashailnyckyj

On June 3, 2020

In Change Agent, Exploring and Enhancing Pedagogy, Growth Mindset, Musings, Personal and Professional Preparation, Professional Learning Networks, Respect For All Learners, Wordview

This June, I am taking part in an institute on co-creating educational environments for diverse learners. As part of the institute, I was asked to produce an introductory video about myself. In the spirit of taking a risk and thinking multi-modally, I tried to formulate my expression of self through the symbol of a musical chord. I chose this metaphor because, like a chord, the self is an interaction of a constellation of factors. My chord is unique to me, but informed by a theoretical, cultural, aesthetic and social position.

Group Lesson Scheduling Systems

by sashailnyckyj

On November 17, 2019

In EdTech, Free Inquiry, Pedagogical Practices, Personal and Professional Preparation, Professionalism, Respect For All Learners

One of the new challenges that has arisen with group lessons is scheduling. In my traditional 1:1 piano teaching practice, managing student attendance is fairly simple: students have a set time each & every week. Should they need to miss a lesson, we could organize a make-up if sufficient notice is provided. This makes for a simple, predictable and concrete schedule.

However, group lessons complicate this. With my current cohort of group students, I have found that attendance is not as stable as with my 1:1 students. For instance, it is more often the case that students opt to miss a lesson or to change a lesson time last-minute. This may have something to do with a sense of diffused responsibility in a group-learning format. Without the 1:1 contact, students may seem themselves as less integral to the learning environment, resulting in a lowered level of commitment.

I actually do not mind this. I believe that people who are learning music should have ultimate control over the extent to which they engage and am always a proponent of balance in my students lives. Piano should enhance, not diminish, a student’s life. There have been times in my own life (now included) when I simply could not find time to practice as much as I wished. I support students taking time to address their needs as whole people. In order to be consistent with a mindset that values student autonomy, but also continue to encourage a healthy and thriving community in my group lessons, I believe I need to begin exploring alternative scheduling options.

The main idea that has come into my mind is the concept of leaving lesson sign-up to students themselves. I could perhaps use Google Docs/Calendar or a dedicated website to post a real-time schedule of student appointments and vacancies. If a student must miss a lesson and gives me 5-days notice, I can vacate their time slot. This would allow other students to access the schedule and claim the spot. There are three clear benefits to this in my mind: 1) it will help ensure more students are present at each group lesson, 2) it creates a mechanism through which casual students can opt-in on a lesson from time to time as convenient, and 3) it reduces the amount of time I spend managing the schedule. This system appears to be in use (see screenshot below) by the teacher on the Grow Your Music Studio blog.

Google Calendar Music Schedule, Grow Your Music Studio blog

With the new year around the corner, I will likely take some time in December to explore this with the director of my studio. Now that I am feeling more and more comfortable with the rhythm and pedagogy of the format, it is time to improve some of the ‘under-the-hood’ features.

-S

3D Printing Introduction

by sashailnyckyj

On October 4, 2019

In EdTech, EdTech Inquiry, Growth Mindset, Image Editing, Learning Design, Musings, Personal Learning Networks, Professional Learning Networks, Tech Tools

On Friday, September 27 I attended a workshop at UVic’s Digital Scholarship Commons on 3D Printing. I have never done this before, but am aware that it is an ever-growing domain in manufacturing and design. I took it mainly to become more well-versed in how the technology works, how it may be integrated in my future science lessons and to expand my imagination for what is capable with this tool.

Fused deposition modelling schematic.

Briefly, we learned about Fused Deposition Modelling in which minute layers of plastic are extruded and sliced to construct objects in 3D. The primary material is polylactic acid, a thermoplastic aliphatic polyester which is derived from renewable biomass (corn, sugar beet, etc.). This plastic is quite non-elastic and is prone to shatter and is therefore often reinforced during the printing process and with internal scaffolding called ‘infill’.

In the workshop, I designed two items. A 6-sided die and a keychain. The main platform we used was called TinkerCAD, a browser based computer-aided design program that allows you to easily construct objects and export them in a printable format. Having done some drafting in high school (thanks Mr. Hansen), I found the software to be very intuitive and easy to work with. In addition to this platform, we also accessed free 3D plans from Thingiverse, an online community for sharing schematics with others. The treble clef used in my keychain design posted below was taken from Thingiverse & modified with TinkerCAD.

My 3D Design in TinkerCAD

The final product

The workshop was fun, interesting and definitely got the wheels turning for potential applications in the classroom and at home. To give us a sense of scope, the workshop leader, Dani, told us about some incredible projects that involved using 3D printing including a group which developed a hyper-affordable, $200 3D-printed prosthetic hand for use in developing countries.

Finally, it did not go unnoticed to me that the workshop occurred on the same day as the Global Climate March. I felt a little bit conflicted attending it and felt compelled to investigate the environmental impacts of 3D printing. An article by Megan Nichols weighs the costs and benefits of 3D printing. According to her analysis, 3D printing consume 50-100 times more electricity than equivalent production methods. However, this impact can be offset by the notable benefits of using less material, producing items locally (thus reducing distribution emissions) and using recyclable thermoplastics in the future. I personally see the potential for 3D printing to reduce our environmental impact when used strategically to provide small-batch items when needed and limit unnecessary manufacture.

For any others interested in taking this 3D printing workshop, there are two other dates this fall (October 10th & 28th) and registration is available.

-S

First Google Hangout Experience

by sashailnyckyj

On September 29, 2019

In Collaboration and Community Engagement, Communication, Distributed Learning, EdTech, EdTech Inquiry, Multimedia Learning Theory, Screen Capture, Tech Tools, Technology Competencies, Virtual Reality

In order to get the ball rolling on our EdTech inquiry project, I met with Graham & Geoff via Google Hangouts on Sunday. It was very useful to have all the team members together, sharing thoughts and collaborating on a relatively latency-free platform. I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on some of the pros & cons of the platform after my first use.

Pros:

free & browser-based: the fact that the platform is browser-based makes it much more convenient. Instead of having to worry about ensuring that everyone has a Skype client installed (and updated), it is very convenient to just use Firefox to access the service.
low latency: I didn’t find there was much lag or that we were talking over each other
potential to expand functionality: we were using the Google hangouts online app, although it appears that there is a browser extension as well. This may enhance its usefulness

Cons:

no whiteboard or media space: as far as I could tell, there is no shared whiteboard or media space. For some reason, I expected there would be some sort of work area where we could sketch or place text or images that everyone could access
plugins: we had to delay our meeting by about 15 minutes in order to get everybody updated on plugins. As such, it wasn’t as seamless as it could have been
can’t replace face-to-face: while it was convenient for us to be able to meet remotely, it was not quite the same as an in-person meeting. In terms of engagement and communication, I would place it somewhere between a 3-way call & an in-person meeting

Anyways, that’s just my $0.02 on Google Hangouts. Moving forward, I think I’ll try & use it a few more times. I’m curious about the G Suite and the various tools that exist for long-distance communication and conferencing. I have been thinking lately about a potential project in Socials or Science class where my class pairs up with a ‘sister class’ in a different country in order to collaborate on a project over vast space. Google Hangouts & other tools that are related may help, assuming the students and parents consent to its use.

-S