iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I don't know that book, but I really like that title.

Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This Wednesday is National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. If you would like to learn more about how to identify and confront Residential School denialism, check out this article by @seancarleton.bsky.social and Daniel Heath Justice. theconversation.com/truth-before...

theconversation.com

Truth before reconciliation: 8 ways to identify and confront Residential School denialism

Residential school denialism is the rejection or misrepresentation of basic facts about residential schools to undermine truth and reconciliation efforts.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Ick. I'd rather see photos of their actual food.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

That was me last year! There's such a learning curve with hockey, that's for sure.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I'm reading Truth Before Reconciliation. The last few years our school has focused on exploring the concept or reconciliation and acts of reconciliation we can do. I'm thinking this year our focus will be centered on truth to better understand the impact of residential schools.

Cover of the book Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism edited by Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair. A photo of many people in orange shirts marching.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

It definitely isn't better at searching, but I do like how I can turn off AI features.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I'm currently reading Scarlet Morning by ND Stevenson. It's fun and a bit spooky and it will be a good addition to my classroom library.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

It's funny that at a quick glance it isn't obvious who this ad is promoting.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

My parsley was eaten up by some caterpillars this year. I didn't know it was swallowtails!

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I adore this book that tells myths from many cultures that focus on queer gods, demigods, heroes, and supernatural beings. Such a great read to show that 2SLGBTQIA+ people in society have a long history. teacherbees.ca/queer-mythol...

teacherbees.ca

Queer Mythology

I love Greek mythology. When I was a kid, I spent countless hours reading myths and legends. As a teacher, I have kept up this love with lots of mythology books in my classroom library, and expanding ...

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

The Living Prairie Museum offers free guided tours at 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM on Saturdays and it was enjoyable and informative. Highly recommended even in the heat!

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Provincial governments need to develop digital media literacy curricula and resources to help young people think critically about AI and how it impacts them.

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Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

slate.com

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Just sent an email to my MLA to persuade her that YouTube can be a great resource for teachers. I should tell my students next week that the persuasive writing unit we just finished is pretty useful.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Rejecting YouTube entirely would limit many rich learning experiences.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

This year I've used YouTube videos to help students hear traditional stories from Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, to learn about culture and ways of life in another country, to learn about media literacy strategies, and to support research using news sources.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

This is misguided. Carefully selected videos can be invaluable teaching tools. The concern about autoplay and algorithm recommendations in the classroom are minimal and honestly students need some practice to learn how to engage in a healthy way. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

cbc.ca

Manitoba's social media ban could bar teachers using YouTube in the classroom, says Kinew | CBC News

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says his province's ban on social media and AI chatbots for kids will likely bar teachers using YouTube in the classroom — a move that comes as the federal government contin...

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

While everyone is talking about banning AI chatbots for young people, perhaps it is also a good time to teach young people to think critically about artificial intelligence too. Giving students information about ethical and environmental considerations is important. teacherbees.ca/ai-part-1/

teacherbees.ca

Teaching to Think Critically About Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being sold by tech companies as a solution to many problems and a way to make life easier. This is especially true in the world of education, where teachers are...

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Reposted by Ellen Bees

Jenn Allen @jenn-allen.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

A letter from me in today's Winnipeg Free Press. As a teacher friend said: What are kids going to do, go outside and get hit by cars?

Black text on a white background reads:

On a social media ban
The idea of banning social media for youth might sound like a quick fix. Social media does have real harms, and those concerns shouldn’t be dismissed.

But taking social media away from young people isn’t going to suddenly send them outside to play with their friends, because there’s really nowhere for them to go.

Black text on a white background reads:

Not that long ago, young people could spend evenings in school fields hanging out, ride their bikes after dark, and just exist in public without much interference. As a millennial, these experiences defined much of my adolescence. Now, between CCTV, neighbourhood camera systems (subsidized by the government) and location sharing, kids can’t be out in public without the risk of being tracked, reported, confronted, or labelled suspicious simply for existing in public.

Black text on a white background reads:

possible. Community centres, youth programming, and shared spaces have taken a back seat to spending on roads, cars, policing, and private development. The amount of time kids spend on their phones is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

A social media ban for youth would also hit some young people harder than others. Queer and disabled youth, in particular, often rely on online spaces to find connection, support, and community. These connections are essential to their well-being.

It is unfortunately not uncommon for youth, of all walks of life, to lack safe and supportive people in their offline lives. Online spaces are often the only place where they can access information, find understanding, and feel less alone. Limiting youth access to social media is, in practice, limiting their access to information and to ways of understanding the world around them.

Black text on a white background reads:

A blanket ban shifts the burden onto young people without changing the conditions that pushed them online in the first place. If we actually want young people to spend less time online, we must invest in the conditions that make offline life safe, accessible, and worth showing up for.

Jenn Allen
Winnipeg

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

I miss NASA's climate time machine. And it's aggravating that the CIA World Factbook, that used to include all sorts of up-to-date statistics for every country, is no longer being published and updated.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Pretty frustrating when really useful teaching resources or materials are removed from US government websites.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

I would love to see curriculum developed or updated to cover these topics better.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

The photos in these articles are weird. There are lots of pictures of Gimli's harbour that are a bit like Gimli, but are also entirely wrong. And a bunch of the articles don't actually communicate much of anything.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I like geeking out about all the cool photos from Artemis II this week. So neat!

A photo called A Setting Earth. Two thirds of the photo show a moon covered in big and small craters, with a crescent Earth peeking out from the horizon.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

I think it is set between the end of the show and the movie, so animated would make sense to avoid having to awkwardly de-age everyone. Plus then Wash is still in it!

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I'm not familiar with Edsby. How has it integrated AI?

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Yes, it isn't helpful when it comes to helping students develop and practice key skills. I've been opting for lots of tasks that lean more on paper and pencil work instead.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I agree. I think divisional policies and guidelines are definitely needed, along with a more critical eye of the ed tech in general.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I think that might depend on the school? That hasn't been my experience. I hope that the public consultations result in more protections for people. And I'd really love to see curriculum that actually addresses how AI impacts us, the environment, society etc.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

A study by the BBC found that AI misrepresents news content about 45% of the time.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

The kids section of my local library has a colouring corner with a dollhouse that kids can colour, which is the most adorable thing ever.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

The second post in my series on teaching students about how to think critically about AI. We learned about why AI hallucinates, how AI can demonstrate bias and why using reliable sources is important. teacherbees.ca/ai-part-3/

teacherbees.ca

Artificial Intelligence, Hallucinations, and Bias

In order to make decisions about artificial intelligence, it is important that students learn how generative AI affects us and our world. Previously, I discussed teaching students about how AI affects...

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

I've been spending a bit of time writing about how to help students understand AI and think critically about it. The first step below is helping them understand what it is and how it is developed, with a focus on some of the ethical issues surrounding its training. teacherbees.ca/ai-part-1/

teacherbees.ca

What is Artificial Intelligence?

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

I sometimes use it as a teaching tool with students to teach them about hallucinations and the importance of looking at reliable sources.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

But libraries are the best. I can’t understand somebody being annoyed with them.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Those look fantastic! Also, yay there’s a third Dungeon Club! 😃

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

This reminds me of the Kurtzgesagt video where they try to find the source of the claim that blood vessels are 100,000 km long. m.youtube.com/watch?v=bgo7...

m.youtube.com

We Fell For The Oldest Lie On The Internet

YouTube video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Education technology often features a lot of fads, but this one is a lot more intense. I think people need to consider whether whatever AI is generating is actually what we need, particularly considering the connected impacts on well-being, learning and development.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Rather than teaching students how to use AI, since I'm not convinced they should, I've been teaching them about AI, how it works, and other factors like hallucinations and bias. I figure everyone should have a better understanding of the technology before making decisions about whether to use it.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Transgender and nonbinary young people have a lower risk of suicide attempts when their pronouns are respected. Respecting pronouns can save a life. www.parents.com/respecting-p...

parents.com

Respecting a Young Person’s Pronouns Can Be Life-Saving, New Survey Shows

New data from The Trevor Project shows that less than half say their pronouns are respected by the people closest to them.

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Reposted by Ellen Bees

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 14/12/2025

This paper contains some good arguments about an issue that concerns me a lot when I hear my colleagues talking about LLM use in developing their research: Whose ideas are you presenting as your own? (Though the fatalist argument the authors make at the end of paper is disappointing/bizarre.)

Screenshot (with final two sentences highlighted): “Academic authorship functions not only to communicate knowledge but also to allocate credit for the labour that produced it.
This credit affects hiring, promotion, funding and broader scholarly standing. To plagiarize is to distort the attribution of insight, misleading readers about origin and credit.
The provenance problem introduced by LLMs is troubling for a similar reason.”

Screenshot: “Humans, too, can commit what is sometimes called 'cryptomnesia', in which they reproduce ideas that they have encountered previously but mistakenly believe to be origi-nal. However, what was once an idiosyncratic risk of interpersonal exchange is now a systemic feature of our knowledge infrastructure.
As scholars increasingly use generative artificial intelligence (AI) for writing assistance, those whose work is absorbed into training datasets may shape scholarship without ever being cited, while Al-proficient scholars may enjoy reputational gains built partly on others' uncredited ideas.”

(The sentence about “a systemic feature” is highlighted)

Screenshot, with second sentence highlighted: “Nevertheless, Al developers bear obligations to improve attribution capabilities: efforts to trace and cite training data sources could help to preserve intellectual credit chains. But because many models rely on copyrighted or unlicensed material, developers face disincentives to improve provenance, even though traceability is crucial for legal and ethical accountability.”

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

There are a lot of ethical implications to explore (such as environmental and copyright issues and workers' rights), plus questions about how AI actually affects us in terms of mental health and learning.

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Something I'm not seeing reflected in the WSD framework is the need to help students critically think about AI. Students and a lot of teachers don't always have a strong understanding of how AI models work, where the data comes from and issues like hallucinations and bias.

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C. L. Curole - Vexed by a smorgasbord of petty bullsh-- @curole.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

This Is Just To Say I have thwarted the LLM that was in your algorithm with which you were probably planning world domination Forgive me it was delicious so banal and so stupid

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Ellen Bees @ellenbees.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

I've included options that can help adapt it for older students too. I suspect students should probably learn these lessons before high school, but better late than never!

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