#UWinDig

Hello everyone!

It has been a minute since I was on here! For my final multimedia reflection, I decided to return to Piktochart and see if I could improve from the very first infographic I made. I think I succeeded, but only time will tell! For this reflection, I took a look at the Technologist Module off of the eCampus Ontario Open Teacher Modules.  So without further ado, here is my infographic:

I really enjoyed reading through this module and learning more about the design-thinking approach. I definitely think that it is something beneficial that could be easily incorporated into classrooms when teachers are looking to become more “tech savvy” and encourage their students to broaden their horizons as well. The first step in this approach is to empathize; understand what students need and what needs to be solved. In doing this, we must ensure equality and equity for our students. This can be in terms of implementing differentiated instruction, or universal design for learning. This first step is the crux of the rest of the approach because if we, as educators, cannot identify the problem, there is no hope. Following step one is define – define your problem, or what you wish to solve. Following that is ideate – come up with any and every idea! Write them all down on sticky notes, map them all out in a mindmap, or just jot them down on a scrap piece of paper – the sky is the limit! After writing down all your ideas, plan your prototype. Experiment, explore, and dig a little deeper than before (didn’t even mean for that to rhyme but look at me go!). Here is where you have the ability to work out any kinks your plan may have, revise, refine, and try it again. The last step is the aim of this whole module – to connect and integrate technology into your classroom! This will hopefully be done successfully, but if not, go back to the drawing board!

I think that this approach to technology integration is great and can be used in any classroom. All teachers need is something they want to improve, and there is always something we want to improve. This approach is also human-centered, so the people who help to design it, are the ones who directly benefit from it…if that’s not a win-win, I don’t know what is! Make sure it ties into your curriculum, make sure that it is accessible for all your students, and make sure it works, follow all those steps and you have successfully integrated technology into your classroom and improved your overall classroom experience! 🙂

Thanks for checking this out!

Courtney M.

What’s that you say? We can connect with anybody in the world and even have continuous dialogue that doesn’t confine us to the four walls we are sitting between?!

For my second multimedia reflection, I read Dr. Michele Jacobson’s article and watch Henry Jenkins’ video. You will have to forgive me because I am in NO WAY an artist, but I, hesitantly, decided to try my hand at a sketch-note/mindmap hybrid:

I really enjoyed reading Dr. Jacobson’s article, and I agree with most, if not all, of it. We have grown up during the growth and expansion of the Internet (please see my little teenager Chrome stick figure on the bottom right of my picture) and it has developed, probably exponentially, since we were kids. I definitely agree that technology, social media (maybe not all social media), and the Web 2.0 initiatives have a place in education to come capacity.

I am the first person to admit that I prefer working face-to-face with someone rather than online, but in a world where people are insanely busy with school, work, family life, etc., getting together to work on an assignment or project often falls by the wayside. That is when the participatory digital world comes in. This digital world allows us to stay connected, and continue conversations or brainstorming that would not have taken place if we did not have participatory platforms. Every single group project or assignment I have had in the first two months of this degree has taken place on a Google Doc. It was the most practical way to work on things, and I was able to work on my portion away from school, just like my other group members.

I think that we, as future teachers, should start exploring now, kind of like what we did last week with our Twitter chat, and see how we can implement certain platforms, emphasis on the participatory nature of them, into our future classrooms. Using the participatory digital world, quite literally, has global outreach (hence the not-drawn-to-scale globe in the top right corner of my artifact). I was tweeting with a person in Egypt last week about the topic of algorithms and privacy, or lack thereof. When I was in high school, that would not have even been a possibility because digital tech and social media were banned in classrooms. Now they are welcome, to a degree, and I think that that is the future of education and that as long as used responsibly, digital technologies and Web 2.0 platforms will be extremely beneficial to the future of education.

– Courtney M.

For this assignment, I chose to read Ashley Hinck’s article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom.” This article discusses how students these days have an assumption as to what digital media and digital media making is. It often consists of simple step-by-step instructions that lead to a pretty outcome with very little struggle. I am sure that most of us, at one point or another, have held this belief (I certainly can’t be the only one who used to copy pages of coding for cool MySpace backgrounds when I was younger!).

To summarize Hinck’s article, I chose to explore the Piktochart platform. I found it slightly ironic that I was reading about expanding horizons in digital media making, and I was using the exact same drag-and-drop solutions Hinck suggests we move away from. I think that Hinck does have some very good points, and steering students away from the standard templates, and drag-and-drop mechanics could, potentially, be very beneficial. I do think that many students are afraid of failure; however, I also think that many students expect instant gratification. Students are used to working on something and having an instant payoff, so I think the greater struggle would be convincing them that if they work a bit more the results will be more rewarding. If teachers were to slowly implement changes, from drag-and-drop content to maybe creating blog posts, like we are doing for this page, that would be a strong start. From there, harder digital media making methods could be introduced, like coding for a website, or using Photoshop and/or Audacity.

Hinck is definitely pointing teachers and future teachers in the right direction, I just do not think that jumping in with both feet is the most correct method. Let students explore with digital media similar to what they already use, then gradually implement changes that lead them to design and post blogs, code a simple website design, and edit photos. Once they feel comfortable with simple, slightly more challenging digital media, they may develop an interest in more difficult media and make the decision to tackle it on their own.

Here is my Piktochart that I created to summarize Ashley Hinck’s article:

(also here’s the link if what I’m trying doesn’t work: 32808563-digital-media-ghosts)

-Courtney M.