DAY 15 - Crossing the Finish Line...

Quick Notes: 

- OER Commons 

- The value and comfort of distance/remote learning

- VPNs: Kaspersky, Nord VPN

- Password Vaults

- Interactive Feedback on Google Quiz: When someone gets a question wrong, have a link direct them to where they can learn 

- To password-protect videos (for my online business), just adjust settings from YouTube before collecting the embed code. 

Today's Reflection: 

To add to your comments about sessional instructors, this is something I've brought up many times with our Frontier School Division PENT Coordinator, Debra Perih, and the PENT Director, John Minshull. The question initially came up when I took a Limited Teacher Permit to teach Nursery-Grade 8 Music last year. I wanted to know why PENT had such limited options for courses, particularly in Music considering BU's incredible Faculty of Music programming. It was explained to me that due to the timing and nature of the PENT program, courses are basically offered based on the sessional instructors BU is able to find. In other words, we as students are at the mercy of whoever they can find to fill those spots. This is not to say that the issue is the quality of our sessional instructors (although there have been a couple questionable choices over the years), the issue is with the consistency. As a result, we are not able to take classes in Sciences, Arts, Music, and so many others. If the nature of the program is to develop well-rounded Middle Years educators who are competent in all subject areas, focusing only on Literacy and Numeracy courses, quite frankly, is not going to get the job done. It's very frustrating and I hope to see some changes happen over the next few years since John is still new to the program and seems to be open to suggestions. The pandemic has also forced PENT to reconsider their options and with the help of Dr. Skinner, they have finally started offering PENT classes in the Fall/Winter term. As a result, I can definitely achieve my goal of finishing my degree in 4 years which means I will be graduating next summer if all goes to plan. So I guess there's the silver lining in all of this, hopefully with more progress coming soon. 

On a personal note, though I would've chosen a Major in Science and Minor in Music, from my understanding, my degree will end up being a Major in Liberal Arts and a Minor in Native Studies. While I am eternally grateful for the sponsorship and education I have received, I feel like I still have a lot of learning still left to do once I complete my degree. My goal before I graduate is to continue working closely with the FSD PENT Coordinator and BU PENT Director to try and improve the consistency and quality of Science-based courses for future PENT students. My first step is to request that my school division's Science coach, who is now a sessional instructor for PENT teaching Astronomy, be given the opportunity to join the PENT faculty on a more permanent basis to continue teaching while also developing long-term planning for Science courses for 1st-5th year PENT students. Ideally, I would like to work alongside her to not only provide my perspective as a PENT student, but to further my own learning and observe the process that goes into designing university-level programming. 

END RANT. 

Thank you for such a great class, I've learned a lot!!