The EdCamp this week was a strange but great experience. I was feeling quite tentative going into the EdCamp, as I am definitely someone who likes more structure. I joined the breakout room on Phone in the Classroom, and the discussion started out as a chat between student’s experiences in seminar so far, and the tips and tricks they had learned from supervising teachers. I was a little disheartened by the number of people that had their cameras off, Zoom fatigue is a challenge we all face of course but I found myself much more connected to the strangers that I could see than the 10 or so people who did not really contribute or turn their cameras on. Jesse Miller joined the group near the beginning and had a ton of knowledge to share through his experience as a nationally recognized authority on social media awareness and education. He gave a presentation to our class earlier in the semester so some of the material was a repeat but still very interesting. The first thing he brought up was “Kahoot Bombing”, as we had been speaking about how much we liked Kahoot as a classroom tool for student engagement. I had heard of Zoom Bombing but I had no idea that Kahoot was so much more open to this phenomenon. Students are putting the class code up on Reddit or other social media, and the class gets ruined by spammers joining the quiz. They can bypass school wifi restrictions by using their own data, record the chaos that ensues and then post it on youtube. I would hope in the future that I would have control over my class to the point that I could still use such a great program as Kahoot but it is something to be aware of as a TOC where kids are trying to push buttons.
I liked the idea of a contract or list of expectations for kids to set boundaries at the beginning of the term that some teachers use. Treating your students as competent and mature is more likely to gain you respect for your class and your expectations than micromanagement. One teacher used a pattern of 20 minutes of classwork, then 3 minutes of phone time during their class. Students had to focus for those 20 minutes, and if one student was caught looking at their phone the whole class lost the privilege for the rest of the block. Typically I am not a fan of punish all to punish one, but I would like to implement something similar to this in my future classroom. It keeps students accountable for their own actions and helps them practice self regulation, a crucial skill they need to develop.

I stayed in the same breakout room throughout the call as I was having tech difficulties moving myself through the breakout rooms, but it stayed quite interesting for the hour long session. If Jesse Miller hadn’t been there to help guide the conversation and share his expertise, I would have been more likely to move and explore other rooms but I was really interested in what he had to say.

I decided to do some research on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) this week and explore the differences and what is out there. I didn’t understand the differences between the two modes and I was curious to find out. I found a great video on the course website from a past class that describes both quite well called Understanding VR and AR. VR is when a user wears a headset, and the software uses head tracking so that when the user turns their head, they can look around their environment. You feel as though you are physically immersed in the game or world. AR is when digital elements are added to a live view, with a visor or through your smart phone. A common example of AR is Pokemon Go. The pokemon are added on top of the real world through your smart phone screen. They both have all kinds of fascinating uses! Surgeons can use VR to practice technical surgeries, and you can do a virtual immersive walk through tour of museums and other locations. People can use AR to translate foreign languages in real time by holding up the device to a road sign or street name.

These technologies have all kinds of amazing applications for education. This article from Getting Smart called “The Future of VR and AR in Education” lay out some great examples. Allowing students to learn in an immersive environment has been shown to result in increased retention of information, like through projects, labs and field trips. Through VR, students can explore museums and historical sites around the world without leaving the classroom. It can also contribute to inclusion, as students can make personal adjustments for various abilities, therefore enabling them to participate fully with their peers. Language translation can increase global communication and understanding! How cool would it be to work on a project with a group of students in another country, without relying on speaking the same language. The opportunities are endless and I am very excited to see where it all goes.