#UWinDig

For my second multimedia reflection, it was based on the Jacobsen article, Teaching in a Participatory Digital World, and the Jenkins video, The Influence of Participatory Culture on Education, I focused on the true importance of why technology is important in education.

Not only does the classroom become a place where the use of social media becomes much safer when teachers are showing students how to use it in a positive way, but the classroom also becomes a space where teachers and students begin to share their knowledge, making a more valuable learning experience for everyone.

The digital world is changing mindsets in regards to schooling, teaching, learning, and assessing. Technology and inquiring (both students and teaching) creates a new door to powerful teaching and assessment. Schools must begin to give way and accept these more active, engaged, and collaborative learning and teaching relationship…which is all thanks to educational technologies.

The great thing about technology is most students nowadays have an always available and connected mobile device. It is time we teach our students in what ways they can use this in a positive manner. For example, having these available and connected mobile devices enables communication between people from all over the world to share experiences, ideas, reflections, and insight. Using social networking in both schools and workplaces, changes how everyone works, learns, and plays. We are creating a new approach to both school and workplace, as to how they are conceived, conducted, and completed.

During my practicum, I have noticed that technology has already begun to be implemented in current classes. Although when I was younger, there was little to no technology being used. Many teachers and students use a program called Edsby- this is a program where teachers can post information about course content for all the student’s parents to see. Furthermore, it has become a means to take attendance in all classes. Edsby seems like a great way for students to keep track of their student’s attendance, assignments, progress, and overall school content…especially for those parents who have children who don’t share what they have been doing in school. Creating this multimedia has really given me the opportunity to reflect on further benefits of the use of technology in classes. I never once would have thought that the use of technology gave way for students to create networks with other students from all over the world. It also never occurred to me that social media can be used in the classroom, which can be conducted in a safe and fun manner, with the assistance of the teacher. When I was in school, phones were banned. There were firewalls against social platforms such as Twitter, MSN, Instagram, etc. Although there are still firewalls against many of these social platforms in all of today’s schools, there will soon be a shift in how we use these platforms. Teachers will have the necessary tools to educate students on how to safely use these platforms in a positive manner- in turn, students will become in touch with others which will result in sharing knowledge, insight, ideas, etc.

There are certain steps we must follow to ensure that teachers can teach students how to make use of technology in a positive manner- we need to make the tools and practices readily available for teachers, we need support in this major shift in practice, and we need our mentors to be engaged and skilled. Teachers have a greater effect on students than the school itself, that’s why it is so important that we have proper leaders and mentors who model the students of the 21st-century using technology in their teaching practices.

Below is a sketchnote I had fun creating. I’ve also created a video which examines my sketchnote more closely. You can see it by clicking here.

-Kirsti Willson

#Uwindig

I selected the Hybrid podcast “Questioning Learning” by Chris Friend and Amy Collier to analyze and reflect upon. I used a platform that was challenging yet utilizing my artistic abilities and love for visual arts, a sketchnote. This sketchnote explores the true significance of “not-yetness”. This has been a great learning curve for me, as my perspective on standardized pedagogies has changed completely. Below you will find a picture of my sketchnote, but you can click here for a video that is better quality and easier to read! 

In this podcast, Amy touched on this notion of “not-yetness” and the need to ask questions about what we’re doing opposed to what are the best practices, as well as how to be more student-orientated. Through this sketchnote, I decided to show the importance of students to inquire about things, to take a risk and to deviate from the traditional school culture. Amy talked about a movement that envelops the shift from teaching to learning and how we want to be more learner-centred and based on student life- this is called the “learnification movement”.  This learnification movement has allowed us to make assumptions of different inequities, hiding questions like “what is education”, “for whom”, and “why do people go through it”. We don’t ask ourselves these questions because we are so consumed with only focusing on the learning aspect. Amongst all other things, this podcast also made me reflect on the meaning of the word “understand”. Can someone truly completely ever “understand” something? I came to the realization that we should not be using this word in a learning outcome because the depths of “understanding” is an ongoing process that takes time. Amy also touched on the concept of learning outcomes and its role in regards to students. I started thinking to myself…why are we as teachers not asking ourselves “what would make me shocked and admire my students, or maybe wonder at their work”. I believe that should be where teachers start when it comes to learning outcomes. This is a piece of mind that I am forever going to take with me going into schools. It is needless to say that all learning outcomes are different with every individual student, and they should not mean that every student will be taking the same route and ending with the same route. I’ve realized the more we are willing to embrace this risk that comes along with education, the more joy and meaning there will be. Amy said, “Risk is all around us and we have to be ready to not survive but thrive”. Students should feel that discomfort of not knowing and of everything not being best practice. 

I think Critical pedagogy is about asking students and teachers what makes them excited about learning, and we should take that and try to explore it, in order to create a more joyful and meaningful learning experience. There is so much more to education than just learning. When people come together, you would not believe what can be created. All of these aspects ties back to to the concept of not-yetness. It involves not satisfying every condition, not fully understanding something, not check-listing everything, not tidying everything, not trying to solve every problem…but creating space for emergence to take us to new and unpredictable places, to help us better understand the problems we are trying to solve.