#UWinDig

After reading through the Technologist module, I felt like I learned more about my own learning style than I did about digital literacy and design thinking. For me, hyperlinks are distracting and I tend to not interact with them very much. I like to have a specific focus when learning about a new topic, and clicking on a hyperlink makes me feel like I’m going on a digital tangent. I don’t want to lose my place in the original text I’m reading, so I don’t usually click on hyperlinks that will lead me to a whole other world of information. Furthermore, I often found myself ignoring the “extend activities”, because they felt like extra information that was not necessary for me to understand the module.

My favourite part of the module was the video What is Design Thinking (speaking of hyperlinks…). This video was great because it showed a real life example of what design thinking can look like. The video was also easy to follow and visually appealing. However, I struggled to see how it could be applied to a typical classroom teacher. I couldn’t see many teachers spending their limited free time designing an entirely new category of technology. Most teachers (including myself) would have no idea how to even go about doing so because we  have no idea how electronic devices are built and programmed. I liked the idea of creating a post-it note prototype, but then where do we go from there? Overall, the video was a great description of design-thinking but it seems impractical for the typical classroom teacher.

The platform I decided to use was Piktochart. I started this assignment by using Canva, but after struggling with formatting issues for several minutes, I decided to go back to good ol’ Piktochart. I have used Piktochart in the past for a multimedia reflection and I really enjoyed it. It is easy to use, and the template is flexible. The only annoying thing is you cannot change the colour scheme for some templates (of course). I decided to use images instead of icons for this infographic, and I found that Piktochart had a variety of high quality photos available to use. I sometimes struggled with finding the exact picture I wanted, but in the end I managed to find some that worked well.

Overall, though I like the concept of design thinking, I didn’t really enjoy working through the online module. Enjoy my infographic below, which summarizes the main points of the module.

Thanks for reading!

Nicole Langlois

Before our Digital Tech and Social Media Applications lesson last week, I had never heard of the term “redlining”. After learning about the issue, I was very intrigued and decided to do my second Multimedia Reflection on the Gillard & Culik article. After reading the article, I learned about what redlining is, and how it can be very problematic and discriminatory. I also learned that digital redlining can create invisible boundaries which make it even harder to recognize and regulate.

A point in the article that resonated strongly with me is the concept that AUPs create “invisible boundaries”. I was shocked to find out that students are not notified when they’ve searched a term that has been blocked, they simply don’t receive any search results related to the topic. Like Nina from the article, I think that most people would assume that the issue they are searching is simply not that prevalent, not that it is being actively blocked by their school’s network. It makes me think back to all the times I’ve researched topics on my university’s wi-fi; has this ever happened to me? I probably wouldn’t remember if it had because I would have brushed it off and searched another topic as Nina did. A college could argue that their AUP (which the student is asked to agree to before using their internet) clearly states which types of terms are blocked, but it is well known that most people don’t read this fine print and even if they did, it can be easily forgettable.

My question is WHY doesn’t the school notify students when they’ve searched a blocked term? If they were notified, then perhaps they could do their research on a different internet connection. I don’t see a downside in notifying students when they are pushing a boundary instead of just silently tracking it, so I am genuinely curious to hear other’s opinions on why colleges are so secretive about this.

An additional point in the article which piqued my interest was the part about how community colleges have stricter AUPs because they deem themselves as mainly “job training” so the administrators don’t think the students need access to as much information. This part infuriated me because why should administrators be the ones to deem what information is “important enough” for students to know and which information is okay to omit? The students should not be mind-controlled, they should be in charge of their own knowledge. I believe that students should be the ones deciding what they know, and how much they know because it will affect their futures. No matter what school they go to, they are still paying tuition to be there and should be allowed full access to any information they choose to seek out on the internet.

My experience using Piktochart to create my Multimedia Reflection was overall very positive. I found the platform easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. It didn’t take me long to create a beautiful, sophisticated, informative work of art that deserves an A+. I would definitely use this platform again myself, or as part of an activity or assignment in my future classroom.

My infographic is shown below. Also, here is the link.