Reflection #5 – Outdoor Education with Technology

Picture Attribute

I took from our field trip to the Finnerty Gardens at UVic

What?

Today we got the opportunity to have our class in person at the Finnerty Gardens at UVic. We had a guest speaker, Kirsten Pierce who is a grade seven teacher at montessori middle school here in Victoria. She also was a graduate student here at UVic, where she did her work on outdoor education. Moving on to our class today we explored how you can connect technology to the outdoor beauty that surrounds us. For example, we can explore something as simple as the grass around us and incorporate this concept int science, writing, social studies and physical education. Through outdoor education we can incorporate the use of technology through photographs, identification apps, IMovie and more!

So What?

It is important that we as educators incorportate land-based learning and outdoor education more frequently. By doing this students are often more motivated and content during their learning processes. As we bring our classes into the outdoors we must reflect on the history on the outdoor space around us. We must think about the people that shared this land before us as well as the people that will be here after us. By using the technologies and resources available to us we can broaden out students view about the space around us rather then just the space within the four classroom walls.

Now What?

Moving forward, I look forward to bring my class into the outdoor spaces around us. One of my goals is to incorporate the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) as much as possible in my practice and I will do this through outdoor education. I will both bring outdoor objects into the classroom to explore and bring out note books and classworks into the outdoor space. I will get students to use apps in our classroom such as Leafsnap, OceanConnect, Windy, and iNaturalist. This way I am able to pull nature to our online world. In saying this, two concepts students enjoy the most is the outdoors and technology.