#UWinDig

Taking a look at the Technologist Module of eCampus Ontario was interesting. The module was really informative in different aspects of teaching.

Technology in the classroom is an aspect will continue to grow. It is important for teachers to keep up with the evolution of technology and be open to the idea of incorporating it into their lessons. The two most important aspects of this module, I found, were design-thinking and digital literacies. It is hard to incorporate technology without thorough knowledge on what you are using. Once the knowledge is gained, being able to bring it into a lesson and your classroom takes some time. Understanding your students is important in order to ensure their participation with technology. Using technology in younger grades is a little more on the risky side where as bringing it in with grade 4, let’s say, and up, they would get more from the tool used.

As I mentioned above, it is important to use these tools effectively and that is an aspect of digital literacies for teaching. Digital literacies are used a number of different ways and have the ability to locate, use, summarize, evaluate, create and communicate information. These can all be done with the use of digital technologies and web-based platforms. Digital literacies also help with engaging in online communities safely, responsibly and ethically. It is important for teachers to understand that digital literacies are an ongoing process and can always use improvement.

Design thinking looks into a toolkit to get users engaged in creating and experimenting in order to find new ideas. With these ideas, it is important to get feedback so that the ideas can be improved. Design thinking is human-centered meaning that the ones that are benefitting will be involved in the design. This type of thinking can be beneficial for involving learners in finding solutions to problems that they are aware of. There are many methodologies and approaches with design thinking that I will be talking a little more about. They are: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and connect.

First off, teachers need to empathize. Not all students will benefit from the use of technology and it is important to use a variety of platforms. All students’ needs are different as well and understanding your students is the best way to know if technology will help or not.

Next is define. This step focuses on identifying a problem and/or challenge based on the discoveries about your learner. This is the most important because it is the first step in finding a solution. The empathy map is used here as it will help you easily define your learners challenge. Bringing one problem forth is the primary step in continuing with this process.

The third one is ideate. This step is where building the ideal features and characteristics occur. This is where new possibilities happen with practicing on different platforms to reach your students. The big question here is “How might I?”.

Now looking at the fourth one that is prototype. At this step, with the chosen technology, it is time to design a prototype of the creation. This is where you put a “small tangible creation” in front of your users instead of just talking. The three basic steps are: design, share, refine.

Lastly, it is important to connect to curriculum. Though technology is ideal to use in the classroom, ensuring that it will connect to the curriculum is a necessity. At this step, a teacher should map and clearly sequence the instructions for the learners. Different elements and linking the activity to the learning outcomes need to be clearly indicated. If there is a time where the technology creation could not be connected to the learning course learning outcomes, then it needs to get some attention.

For this multimedia reflection, I went back to what I used for the last one which was a sketchnote. I had a great time using it for the last reflection and decided it would be the best way for me to demonstrate what I gathered from this module. The first aspect that came to mind was technology in the classroom, hence my title. I chose to use the subtitles from the module as my key words for the sketchnote because they were the most important in this module. I chose to look at pictures based on what was in the module and incorporate them in my sketch. Please enjoy the sketchnote posted below.

I chose to take into consideration the article by Dr. Michele Jacobsen entitled “Teaching in a Participatory Digital World” and the video by Henry Jenkins called “The Influence of Participatory Culture on Education”.

The article and the video really informs future teachers about how the digital world can be used beneficially. Social media is often looked at negatively lately because of the posts that are being put up. The article talks about that social media platforms are 24/7. This is very true because it is not open certain hours of the day. Whenever something happens, social media is always the number one thing to go to because it will always be there. News broadcasters air certain hours. That being said, an event happens later at night, people post it to social media right away because the news broadcasters have a chance to give the true story. It is all posted online and people see it pop up on their phone and read it. This has happened numerous times with different occasions.

I must say that schools can have a certain control over what is allowed to be viewed at school. They have banned certain social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc. but that only comes into play while they are connected to the school Wi-Fi. If they are using their data, then they can be posting about the day all day long. During the first placement that we had, a parent had come up to my associate teacher and discussed that there should be an app for parents to control what can be accessed during the school day. I thought to myself that it would be very beneficial for students if that could be implemented. They are always so distracted throughout the school day that if they could only access certain apps, they would be more focused because they could not get the games or social media apps they want to.

It is always said to have social media used in a positive way and I believe that it can easily be done. Having the Twitter chats in class really opened my eyes on how it can help a classroom. Though some people may not like social media, it is a great way to interact a classroom. It causes the teaching to have to be flexible for the learners that may not want to participate in these activities. You have to be flexible with all learners to be able for them all to benefit from social media.

The ideas and beliefs that made me react to this issue is that is in fact a 24/7 platform and the ways it could be used for teachers. Having it be used positively only is an aspect that needs to change in today’s society. Before engaging with this text, I always believed that teachers did not like using social media for positive aspects. I learned that it can be beneficial for the class but the teacher has to understand the students in order for it to work effectively. The whole text really had something to offer. The beginning really captivated me because again it is 24/7. I never thought about it but that is how social media is always the first to have post about a certain topic because people can post whenever.

The sketchnote that I have created demonstrates the important aspects I have drawn from the article and from the video. Technology has evolved very quickly and has come a long way since it first started. Facebook was very important to teens at one time and that evolved to snapchat and Instagram in the 21^st century. What do you think the future has in store for technology and the digital world? As stated above, teachers can definitely benefit from the digital world but in order to do so, they must stay up to date with the updates. Assuring that they only stay on secure networks is very important while introducing the digital world to the students. The one important thing I can add is to always be aware. When you read something, look it up, listen to the news or even search it up to find a more reliable source.

Data is always collected during the searches. Not only then but when you are speaking to your friends, the phone will hear you and provide you ads that coincide your conversation. The last thing I can leave you with that I put on my sketchnote is to make sure you only put up positive posts. Make social media what it is supposed to be used for such as connecting with distant family, making blogs for school, using it as a class, and informing others of positive news.

The experience of creating this artifact connected me to the text because as I was doing the sketchnote, and throughout it, everything I was putting down made me reflect on my social media and what I want it to be used for. I recently changed my Twitter for it to be used to reflect my teaching practices and experience throughout teachers college. This made me more cautious of how I want my social media to reflect me. How do you use your social media?

The podcast entitled “Questioning Learning” with Chris Friend and Amy Collier was really interesting and beneficial for me. It has made me realize that online learning may not be the best way to have fair learning and there are some other options.

Schools always work on doing what’s fair. Fair is an aspect that needs to be taken serious. With the diversity around the world and schools, it is important not to choose favourites and make sure it is equal among the classroom. This podcast talks about just that and I agree with it 100%. The biggest struggle with fairness is online courses. They are encouraged for many students especially in university but what if the student has a learning disability? Will they be able to take the online course? Personally, I don’t think so. Online courses are designed to be the same for each and every student no matter the way you learn. I agree with the learning outcomes as well. How are you supposed to put each student on the same scale? Not every student will have the same results and be in the same place at the end. Instead of putting what they should understand, they should have questions at the end of the semester that should be able to be answered based on the work throughout the semester. I really enjoyed the podcast and agree with everything that was said.

The mind map I have created displays key points that were spoken about throughout the podcast. Online courses, understanding, learning outcomes and canned courses were the four topics that really stood out. Each one is designed with their own colour in order to understand the differences between each one. It is easily visible with the bigger titles and different colours. The few pictures add to it by putting some visuals. There are not many because I felt like it would be too busy and the words explain themselves.  Please visit the below link to see what the mind map was created looks like.

Mind Map – Questioning Learning