#UWinDig

In the article, laptops, classrooms, and matter of electrate concern, they discuss the use of laptops in the classroom. The discussion surrounds whether the laptops have a positive or negative effect on a student’s learning. The article discusses a study done to test the use of laptops and found that students who use a laptop to write notes result in lower understanding on tests and those also distracted by students using laptops result in lower understanding as well. It then goes to explain that the education system needs to rethink their views of laptops. Instead of disregarding the use of laptops, educational systems should rework their pedagogy to fit the use of laptops. The word that the article says is “electracy instruction”, which is the shift towards this new type of pedagogy that should be implemented into the classrooms.

I agree with the article- I believe that we need to shift towards this type of electronic-centered pedagogy. The use of laptops in the classroom are becoming more popular among students. Throughout my years of going to school I always wrote my notes; but, being French Immersion made that difficult for me. I was not able to write notes fast enough during lessons and it made it difficult for me to read them afterwards. I am also a perfectionist so when I handwrite notes I get distraught when my notes become disorganized. Throughout high school, I was told that we were not allowed to use to laptops to write notes; so, I continued to handwrite my notes even though that wasn’t the best method for me. Once I reached post-secondary I saw other students writing notes on their laptops which influenced me to give it a try. After writing notes for 5 years I have found that I am less stressed, and I am more organized. I also found using Microsoft Word made it easier and faster for me to write notes. This method improved my learning and I strongly believe that we allow students to choose as well. Each student learns differently and finding that note taking method is important to allow the student to be able to learn. What I learned from this article is that there are ways to execute this new pedagogy into my classroom effective. For example, the article mentions leaving the front two rows for students that don’t want to be distracted by laptops. That method could work to allow students that prefer to handwrite notes for my lessons they will be able to do it effectively and it won’t affect their learning.

There are benefits of using laptops in the classroom as well that help the students to improve their learning. Students can have online collaborations, in ways such as talking to other students from different classes or schools, or they have the ability to be able to collaborate with students in their class in online-discussions. I have done online discussions over the past few years and they allowed me to learn new information that I would have never found myself. Another benefit is being able to search more information, for example if a student does not understand a certain concept or term, they can immediately look it up on their laptops to better understand. The students will also have different ways for to learn the information, such as videos, images, or interactive websites. I am a visual learner, so going on the Internet to understand a concept better helps me to grasp it rather than only listening to the information being taught. The next benefit is the students will have organization. The students need organization in order to succeed, the laptops have notes that can be left on their home screen and there is a calendar built into the laptop that leaves notifications. I use my calendar on mine and it has helped me to stay organized and complete tasks on time. The next benefit is teachers can assign work online, such as on open source learning websites. Students use their laptops almost daily and assigning work online will help students keep on tracker with what is coming up. When I was in elementary and high school assignments had to be written down in my planner or given to me as a handout, but now the Internet allows for teachers do both, give a handout and assign it online. I have found it much easier for me to be check Blackboard for my assignments rather than having to carry around my binder with the assignments. The next benefit is review/feedback process is easier for teachers. If students hand their assignments in online the feedback and edits can be given instantly rather than waiting to give it to students. If assignments are close together I find it beneficial to get my feedback and edits faster to be able to start the next assignment. The next benefit is it improves student’s computer skills, which becomes useful for the students. The students will be using computers in the future for their jobs as it has become a desirable trait to have. As a student becoming a future teacher having computer skills is important, I had to teach myself how to use computers and now using my laptop more often has helped me to work towards better computer skills. These are the benefits of having laptops in the classroom and ways to improve students’ learning.

There are different ways that laptops can be useful to facilitate students learning in the classroom and outside of the classroom. A new teaching style is starting to become popular, which is called flipped classroom learning. The flipped classroom style is assigning a video or an article the night before a class to give the students an idea on what they are going to be learning the next day. I didn’t experience this kind of learning until university, which I would have liked to learn more this way. The students will be required to answer questions or come prepared to discussion the topic beforehand that way they have a little bit of knowledge before the lesson. The other usefulness of having laptops in the classroom is having online discussions, this could be with fellow colleagues in the classroom or with other individuals around world. I got to experience talking to another student from a different school in grade 8, which we called a pen pal. In the classroom we would write letters to our pen pal, but it became lengthy and difficult getting the letters back and forth. The technology now-a-day allows for faster responses to other schools or places. The other way that laptops can be used is to do research during lessons or for assignments. During the lessons students do not understand every aspect that is being taught and having access to a laptop allows them to research aspects in which they do not fully understand. Throughout high school if I didn’t understand an aspect of the lesson I would not think about or research it until I had to study that aspect. Now with laptops students are able to search for terms or concepts in an instant. The other way that a laptop can be used is to do online quizzes, rather than printing off multiple quizzes, the students could access them on the Internet. There are sites that I have used in the past, such as Quizlet or Plickers. I found them to be very useful to give students marks on their learning either after a lesson or the next day. The other usefulness of laptops is to edit, review, or give feedback either from the teacher or fellow students. I used a website called Peergrade that allows students give feedback to their fellow classmates. This will help students to learn new things from their fellow classmates and to practice edit and giving feedback to others. These are some of the many ways that allowing and using laptops in the classroom are useful.

With all these benefits there are limitations to having laptops in the classroom. The first limitation is students becoming distracted on their laptops. During lessons when students no longer have the attention span during lessons they begin to message friends, check emails, or go on social media. This could affect their marks, but that depends on the students as well as some can still succeed on tests if they only get distracted for a few minutes. I have become distracted during lessons as well during school, but I still succeeded in my classes and went onto to working towards my dream job. The other limitation is students not having access to the Internet or laptops. Some or a majority of students may not have access to laptops or to the Internet, but there are solutions to that problem as well. Schools are now assigning iPads or Chromebooks to students that need them to use in school and at home. The teachers will also have to allow students to work on assignments in class to make it fair for all students. I have always been lucky enough to have access to Internet and a computer to work on my assignments, which I understand not everyone has. These are the limitations of using laptops in the classrooms.

I choose to do an infographic for my multimedia reflection, I choose this because my family was sent an infographic for our Russell’s 3on3 Hockey Tournament fundraiser and it inspired me to do one as well. I have never made an infographic in the past and making one for this made me nervous. I didn’t know how much information is too much or not enough. After making one though I feel more comfortable making it, I understand more what goes on them and how the organization aspect of them is important. The infographic I created is my view of having laptops, so I put an introduction, the benefits, a statistic, the limitations, the applications, and a conclusion. These certain things will help individuals to decide whether they agree with my view or not.

Infographic – You Never Know Unless You Try here is a PDF version as well.

The podcast: HybridPod, Ep. 10

To encourage learning in the classroom, teachers must realize that there is seldom a clear answer for how a lesson should be taught. Each student that enters the classroom has a different way of learning. During my years as a student in elementary and secondary school, I found that I learned best when shown visuals and given handouts; I was fortunate enough to have most of my classes providing me with this method of visual incentive. Unfortunately, some of the other students in my class indicated that they learned better by being taught one-on-one. The teachers were grateful that I stepped up to assist these students with this learning aspect as I had a good grasp of the concepts being taught. But, not every teacher will have this kind of help available in their classroom; as such, other methods to teach will have to be experimented in order to try to allow every student to learn. The notion that every student that happened to be born the same year must take the same path to achieve a good grade is unrealistic. There are students that cannot learn at the same pace and need more time to absorb new knowledge. This problem is complex and doesn’t necessarily have a single solution; but, it does follow a pattern which is what the teacher should be following. When the teacher works with students they should look for a pattern with their learning to work through the problems – this will help the students to individually learn in the classroom. The education boards must see the importance of allowing teachers to take risks and not allow technology to replace teachers. The concept of risk is important in the classroom because the students will enter a world outside of school that isn’t a safe haven of learning. In order to learn in society, one needs to take risks and make mistakes which takes the individual to that next step in their knowledge. The idea of complex problem comes into this as well as the teacher is taking risks to find the solution – this is an emergent practice. When a teacher is willing to take risks for their students and allow them to participate in it; this allows them to already have a risk-taking experience. The integration of technology is useful in the classroom; but, it cannot replace the teacher. In one of my placements, my associate teacher explained to me how she encouraged her French class to speak to a former exchange student that came from France to learn a new perspective. The students were prepared to ask questions in French and were able to learn about French in a new aspect and from a different voice. There are advantages of having technology, but the teacher figure should always remain to always have a connection to the knowledge and encourage discussion. The students are able to learn from the teacher and the teacher, in turn, learns from the students. As a teacher candidate I use augmentation from the SAMR model, I add audio and videos to my presentations to teach my students as I find it is a good way to allow the students to absorb the knowledge being taught. Integrating technology, taking risks and learning from each other are a few of the important aspects to consider in the classroom to ensure an effective learning environment.

The Friend/Collier podcast is a discussion about the education system between two people, Chris Friend and Amy Collier. The interviewer is challenging the thoughts of the guest to get their true thoughts about the topic. The guest begins to rant about their opinion, which shows their true passion for the topic. I chose to do a rant due to their passion of the topic and my passion on the topic. I find that a rant allows a person to get their point across with emotion and it can be done visually, which is why I selected to do it as a video. The guest explains how the system needs to evolve in order for students to learn from the teacher; move away from standardized education to an individualized education (to an extent). I believe that students should be given different paths due to their differences in learning and this is strongly believed from the guest as well. The rant represents how individuals feel about a topic, emotionally and visually, you can see it in the face and the sound of their voice; and explains their opinion clearly for the audience to understand. This is why I chose to represent my opinion and connect to the podcast through a rant video.

The platform I used for the video is MovieMaker; it is provided with the Acer computer. I found this platform restricting to use in the way of editing; adding effects, colour changing, etc. The difficulties I also had was finding a reliable site to use to edit my video. The sites required money or too much restrictions that it made it difficult to edit. I tried a program called VideoPad, but it was too difficult to use, I did not understand the different buttons and tools. So in the end I used the platform MovieMaker to polish off my rant.