I am responding to the Hybrid pedagogy article; Digital ghosts in the modern classroom by Ashley Hinck. This article describes the tendency of students to use online templates for assignments and even for social media. She describes the templates as limiting, a drag and drop platform leaving no room for creativeness and invention. These templates are easier to use but students do not learn anything from them. The author challenges her students to use different platforms that allow for them to invent their own theme as well as look at different social media sites with a critical eye. Wonder why they limit words, why the profile picture is in that location and how they incorporate task bars in their websites. This will give the students a better understanding of the technological age in which they live. I found this article to be surprisingly interesting. After the author made these points I was able to see that students fall back on these templates out of comfort level, because the work is already done for them and because they are afraid to step outside of the box. A template simply gives them someone’s ideas so that they don’t have to use their brain to solve a problem. These students see a problem and run away instead of confronting it. Ashley mentions that they are afraid of trial and error they feel as though the answer should just be right there in front of them. This is a very narrow mindset that is often enforced on students; that there is only one right answer and it is the end of the world to get the wrong one. I have outlined many of the problems with templates and solutions that the author has suggested integrated with my own ideas as well as why I believe the students choose to use templates in a mind map below: hope you enjoy!
click link to for better view —> Templates are destroying creativity
