Category: Free Inquiry

For Tutorial 3, I explored Kahoot. While I have some experience with Kahoot, I think it is an engaging platform that gamifies learning, making it a fun way to involve students. It can serve as an educational tool to assess prior knowledge or evaluate students’ understanding of newly introduced concepts which makes it an excellent resource for enhancing student engagement and participation in the classroom. Using Kahoot allows me, as a teacher, to continue my professional growth by developing new technological skills. The platform is accessible for free, providing a basic plan with a few question formats. From my experience, the free version is sufficient for creating effective Kahoot activities. However, the paid version unlocks additional question types and offers greater creative flexibility. I can see myself paying for Kahoot when I become a teacher (even if it’s just to try it for a year)– I have seen it’s value in the classroom and it’s something I would like to use for multiple different occasions from pre-exam quizzes to beginning of the day check-ins.

Above is an example of a Kahoot I created around English Vocabulary. When doing this inquiry, I also learned they have AI-generated quizzes which would be very interesting to look at, however, they are behind a paywall. There are also other types of quizzes such as type answers, sliders, pin answers, puzzles, and audio quizzes which are also part of the premium experience, however, this is something I could see integrating into my classes.

For this tutorial, I created a presentation in Mentimeter showing off my newly learned skills. Before this tutorial, I had only used Mentimeter for its word cloud function, and had no idea it could be used to create a full presentation with real time quizzes.

https://www.mentimeter.com/app/presentation/al8perghbzbk81j8tumt937jjqnr9pck/edit?source=share-modal

This will be super helpful to use in the future, as I know that I can create a slide-deck with interactive activities weaved throughout which will help students be more engaged in my lessons. While I mostly see myself using this in classroom settings (in particular English), I can also see myself using this to help teach many health units in physical and health education. It is nice to have a tool where students can answer questions anonymously as they will feel less embarrassed asking and answering questions. I also think the “open ended” interactivity would be a great tool for students to provide real-time feedback for peers in a setting where they present in small groups!

Smartphone photography keeps improving year after year whether it’s from new hardware or software. I can remember many years ago in middle school when I took a photography course and the teacher said we could use our phones for one of the assignments; the technology was still quite a bit behind the quality you could get with a digital camera, however our teacher ensured us we would still be able to create quality pictures. This inquiry reminded me a lot of that class, and reminded me of some of the tips and tricks I learned in middle school (such as rule of thirds) while also showing me some new tricks such as editing through VSCO and showing me how to set up my camera settings so that I can start off on a strong picture before I edit anything.

After adjusting my settings, I started snapping some pictures with the rule of thirds in mind. While positioning your subject in the middle of your rule of thirds isn’t always the most effective way to do it, it’s important to keep in mind what you are trying to capture. In the pictures below, positioned my camera so it was on the floor looking up at the notebook and bookshelves to make it seem like the notebook was looking up to all the books on the shelves (I think it kind of gives a ‘David and Goliath’ feeling)

I then played around with the picture in VSCO and tried to free-hand edit it. I mostly lowered the exposure, and increased the colour aspect, however, I think it makes the green notebook stand out and look more prominent, with the books in the back having a bit more “pop”. Just from looking at the photos I took, it made me think of how fun incorporating photography could be in different assignments from English to PHE (especially outdoor education classes).

As someone who uses an iPhone and does not plan to move away, I found this video from YouTube also has some great tips and tricks for getting great photos without having to use other apps.