In Science we looked at being environmentally friendly and what an environmentally friendly town may look like. My group grew a town that had a wind turbine, water wheel, community garden, and a farmers market. All of these things help to sustain natural energy and help keep the earth clean!

Check out my post about podcasts I have recorded for my Internship @ Podcasts

Today in Science class, we did group presentations. Each of the presentations had our class (students) complete some sort of activity. One of the presentations had us make our own boats in small groups. They supplied us with tools including tinfoil, yarn, straws, tape, popsicle sticks, and paper. After all of the groups made their boats, we tested them to see if they would float. This was very easy and a lot of fun! This is definitely something I hope to do in my future classroom!

We have been working on presentations in my Social Studies class. For one of the presentations they had us create a poster using Canva to promote awareness about an environmental issue. I have a lot of experience using Canva (thanks to my internship) so I whipped this one up in no time! I chose to create my poster for littering because it is so mind-boggling to me the amount of litter people throw on the ground instead of placing it in the proper garbage/recycling/compost bins. Littering is bad for our environment… and it looks GROSS!

Today is Hallowe’en and in my afternoon class, we got to decorate pumpkins! I am in Cohort B called the Busy Bees so we decided to make our pumpkin a bee. Other groups did various things with their pumpkins. The purpose of this task was to demonstrate how letting the students have an open-ended creativity session can improve their feelings towards the topic (not just art). Allowing the students to be creative and come up with their own end product is a great experience for them instead of always showing them what to do and how to do it.

Walking into a class and realizing that you are going to get to PLAY for 2 hours is an amazing relief and brings much excitement! In my Media and Digital Literacy class, we got to tinker and play at a variety of stations and it was so much FUN! It is just what we all needed as we are near the end of our nine weeks of classes before our placement starts. The stations included:

• Playdough – where we turned playdough and a green screen (tip: use a cheap green plastic tablecloth) into moving images
• Coding with Robots – where we played with coding the robots to move around the path
• Scratch – where we played with making animation
• Magnetic Shapes – where we used magnetic shapes to build towers and more
• Makey Makey – where we got to turn playdough and wires into an external keyboard. This was my favourite station – I played Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars on the playdough keys I made!

Here are some pictures to show the tables and items that we got to play with!

 

In my Media and Digital Literacy class, we looked at developing our personal learning statements. In this word cloud are some of the important ideas that would appear in my personal learning statement!

In Language Arts we played with playdough; FUN! There was more to it than just creating a masterpiece. The way we created our sculptures reflected the writing process. We made something, removed something, added something, changed something, gave it a title, and finally published it (we did a gallery walk where we walked around to see our peer’s masterpieces). This reflects the way writing happens as we write something, edit and revise it (make changes), title it, and then publish it. Check out my group’s work…

In my Media and Digital Literacy class, we were asked to make a Public Service Announcement (PSA) to promote Lakehead University Orillia. A PSA is something that is made for the public eye to raise awareness of something. PSAs are everywhere surrounding us, from television commercials, radio advertisements, to features in magazines and beyond. They can range drastically in topic depending on the purpose of the PSA.

There are 5 P’s in advertising that should be taken into account when creating media pieces, including a PSA. These 5 P’s are product, purchaser, persuasive, pitch, presented.

• Product: What is the product or service being broadcasted?
• Purchaser: Who is the targeted audience or possible purchaser?
• Persuasive: How is the advertisement persuasive?
• Pitch: Where is the pitch being broadcasted (film, internet, television, print, etc.)
• Presented: How is the service/product being presented?

Each of these P’s is important to remember when creating media because you want to make sure your work is effective and accomplishes the purpose of it. For our PSA our product was a promotional video for Lakehead University Orillia. The purchaser/intended audience was future students/prospects of Lakehead University. Our PSA is persuasive because it promotes the beauty of the city of Orillia and really shows how much fun it is to go to the Orillia Campus of Lakehead University. The pitch/PSA will be broadcasted online. The produce is being presented sort of as a documentary as to some of the reasons why Lakehead University in Orillia is so great. We have all had so many great experiences at this school and I would not want to change any part of it!

I personally chose to come to Lakehead University because it was a nice small school. Growing up in a very small town can make cities feel extremely large and there are way more people than I am used to being around. The very small class sizes made the school experience very positive as we were known by our professors by our names and not our student numbers (which is common at much larger post-secondary institutions). The small school creates a very warm and friendly vibe that is lovely to be a part of. Lakehead University in Orillia is also pretty close to where I grew up which made commuting a possibility for me. The city of Orillia itself is so beautiful and has many great amenities, which only adds positivity to being a student at Lakehead Orillia!

Creating a PSA was a very positive and fun experience. This is a great experience for me to take into my teaching career as it requires very little resources and can be easily done with a variety of ages in classrooms. PSAs can be created for such a wide range of topics that can be incorporated into education. Students can create PSAs to be shared on their school’s announcements, the local radio station, newspaper, or even just within their classroom. When students create a PSA it is likely that they are completing a task that is cross-curricular. For example, if a group of students create a PSA on global warming, they are covering topics in Science (the PSA’s content) as well as creating a piece of media which brings it into the Language Arts: Media Literacy curriculum. This is something that can easily be done by a supply teacher, as many classrooms have at least a few iPads that students can use in small groups. Students may also have their own devices, depending on the grade. Students can use the iPads / devices to film and edit their videos. They can also use them for research, if necessary, or they could use an assignment they have already completed and turn it into a PSA. This is a great activity that will want to complete as they can be creative and allows them an opportunity to get up and move around.

A great resource for planning a PSA can be found at EduGains. Although the resource is for a grade nine class, the foundation of a PSA is there and can be applied to elementary aged students. This resource is from Scholastic and provides a lesson plan and template for students to complete in order to help them plan out their PSA.

PSA’s can be used for SO many things! If you could choose anything in the world, what would you do a PSA on? Where would you broadcast it?

References:

MDL4000: Helen DeWaard, 5 P’s of Advertising

In my Media and Digital Literacy course we had to make a magazine cover about ourselves. This is the one I created…