The article I chose to review and summarize by using Piktochart was Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom. The article explains how students think that creating a digital media piece is a simple task that just involves drag & drop, simple steps, and a final product that is perfectly made. This is not the case! Standardized education has been ingrained in many students and much of students learning has resembled by the way students view digital media platforms. There is a lack of knowledge of how to use digital media efficiently and effectively in the classroom and tools need to be given to students in order to know how to use digital media in a positive way to promote learning.

The platform I used was Piktochart. I thought it was a simple way to visually explain some significant points from the article. I mostly had a positive experience with the platform, but I thought it was difficult to manoeuvre through the platform. I think I had a difficult time because there are so many tools and devices to use to assist you in the developing process. So, having all the options can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. I feel like this would be a great resource to present to a class and introduce them to how to use digital media platforms and to illustrate how making digital media might be difficult, but worth it to go through the learning process and use digital media platforms to create pieces in any subject.

Personally, as a learner, there are still many things that I want to learn and I am learning about creating and using digital media. Using the digital media platform has opened my eyes to the possibilities that are out there when it comes to utilizing digital media platforms to create work. I think to have digital media platforms that are simple to use and straightforward are user-friendly and as a beginner think they would benefit the learner in order to learn the basics. Simplistic platforms that have generic layouts and features I think as a student would benefit the learner because it is easy to access and promotes confidence in the user. So, using it in a K-12 school learner would only promote a growth mindset attitude for the students. As a teacher, introducing students at a young age the basics of digital media platforms would only benefit students and the teacher; together the teacher and the student can learn together. With digital media platforms, the learning process is trial and error and so allowing room for failure will allow students to learn from their mistakes and become more technically sound when it comes to digital media platforms. The experience of creating my artifact connected to the text I was reflecting on because in the article Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom, the author was trying to explain how students need to move from users of shortcut/template platforms to makers, creators, and speakers, and the digital media platform directly went against what the article was suggesting. Piktochart was the exact opposite of what the article was trying to promote. Piktochart involved drag and drop/ copy and paste with a simple layout and was easy to use. I did have to create my own visual with words and important text from the article, but I think the article is trying to say that students need to be able to create their own platforms from scratch in order to learn, which I totally disagree with. Like I said before, these digital media platforms set the foundation and you can build on them.