#UWinDig

I chose to respond to the podcast HybridPod – Questioning Learning by Chris Friend and Amy Collier. The podcast included the ideology of the push to inquire more in the classroom, and that students should not only extend and deepen their learning by doing this but feel comfortable in doing so. The podcast also touched upon the importance of the relationship between teachers and students. In personal experience, I’ve had teachers who have impacted me both in and outside of the classroom. Chris and Amy analyzed the result of removing the teacher-to-learner and learner-to-teacher relationship, and how it would not be beneficial to either of the two parties involved. As future educators, I believe we should empower our students to inquire. To inquire themselves, and further understand their thoughts, and to question us moreover. Students should be aware of their thoughts and should be able to uncover the complexity of them by making connections, considering different viewpoints, and building reasoning. While it is constantly reiterated that we are the change, I believe it is difficult to make change. We sit in desks longer than we are before them, and while in those desks, are faced with expectations of our own that mirror the methods of old teaching.

I knew I wanted to create some sort of video after listening to the Friend/Collier podcast. As I was listening, my mind began racing to the fact that everything sounds great on paper, and how things are often easier said than done. With this, I decided to put my thoughts into a rant and explain how I feel in that we have yet to change as much as we say we want to. Biteable is a medium I haven’t used before, and while using it I found myself confused and frustrated. While I am happy I pushed myself to try something new, I wanted to be free from limitations and decided to opt-out of using a template. I created my video from scratch, and found I could be more creative in doing so. Along the way, I noticed many of the options I wanted to incorporate required a fee. After I accepted the fact that I was limited to free options, I ran into another obstacle when trying to sync my audio recording to the video clips I had selected. Biteable did not allow me to view the audio clip while in editing mode. To see if the audio synced, the video needed to be ‘published’, and I had to physically sit and listen to whether the idea I stated, matched the video clips I selected. This process was quite tedious and timely, as it took about twenty minutes each time. All in all, though I wish the system ran smoother, I am pleased with my final piece. I’m thankful I had the opportunity to listen to this podcast, and was thankful for the text that was provided with it. I was able to revisit ideas in the text by use of Command + F, rather than trying to find the timestamp in which it was said in the podcast.

Below you’ll find my interpretation of the Friend/Collier podcast, mixed with my opinion on how we have yet to shift from standardized education.

Carla

Ashley Hinck’s article Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom was an interesting read. After reading the whole article it made you think of all the social media applications you can make templates, GIFs, YouTube Videos, and much more on, and how they are limited to what they provide to their consumers.

There is no visual step by step process written out for you on most of these sites. Students do not like that and wish there was a process for them to follow. I’m the type of person that can figure out the steps along the way, but for the average Joe student, I don’t think that is the case. It comes with practice and years of experience working with different softwares. If I was teaching a class and I knew the site did not have any steps to go along with the project, I would make sure to make my own project as a guide for the students, and communicate with them the steps I took in order to achieve the final product. Along the way it is alright to fail, we as future educators have to encourage the failing process, because if we fail a few times we know what it takes in order to succeed. Students have to realize that failing is not bad thing, but a learning experience. Maybe sometimes a wake up call, but majority of the time sometimes we need it.  

As a teachable being in the arts, these programs are awesome because art is all about creating something visual, something auditory, and an emotion. Students will be creating their own assignment through the help of these programs. Schools, teachers, and future educators need to bring the creative process to the classroom. You wouldn’t believe what your students can create if they put their mind to it.

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The Hinck article, “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom”, linked here: http://hybridpedagogy.org/digital-ghosts-modern-classroom/  addressed the difficult issues of using pre made templates, filters and drag and drop tools that can minimize the creativity of the person using it. Furthermore, students get anxious and frustrated if there is not a step by step instruction to follow when using technology. When using these platforms, making mistakes is a great way to learn; however, many of us feel like we are failing if we are making mistakes. I also feel this way, I am more comfortable when I know that I am completing the proper steps to achieve the desired end goal. I need to step away from this frame of thought so that my future students may be able to step out of the box and create things of their own in their own way. In many ways, we are programmed to assume that the creative process is linear and Hinck discusses this in the article. There is no step by step process in digital media and the mistakes you will make should be viewed as challenges and apart of the process rather than a failure. Digital media is the process of creating, and there is no right or wrong way to create something out of nothing.

As a future teacher, the process of creating, learning and trying new things is going to be a part of the job. I must become more comfortable with digital pedagogy and pushing myself out of my comfort zone so that my students may do the same. I also need to expose them to my own struggles and failures so that they can see that I do not expect perfection from them. I chose to use Imovie because I do have a little bit of previous experience with it but would like to play around with it more. I also chose Imovie because I enjoy video representations of ideas and would like to produce more video content in the future. I also chose to write by hand with chalk because I really enjoy brainstorming and producing ideas by hand with a tactile object like chalk. Also, the juxtaposition of chalk and the video representation is a blend of the past and future of learning in classrooms. Also, how I would like to have my own classroom, a blend of both ways of learning and teaching! I have never published a video on to a blog or Youtube, so I originally tried to use Uview but the video would not embed into the blog post. I started to get frustrated that it did not work the first time. I assumed it would be very simple without any struggle and immediately got frustrated. I had to create a Youtube account to publish it on there and then embed it and it finally worked. My own struggles and expectations of wanting it to be successful in the first try mirrored the struggles that students have in the classroom. Therefore, I realized I cannot have expectations that my students won’t get frustrated and want to give up because I feel that way myself when I am facing a new platform or project. For the next project, I want to try a platform I have never used before!

Thanks for watching!

HybridPod, Ep. 10 — Questioning Learning

I selected the Hybrid podcast “Questioning Learning” by Chris Friend and Amy Collier to analyze and reflect upon. I personally connected most to the podcast. For this assignment, I used a platform that was out of my element, something that I had to learn myself. I am trying to be open to all new forms of technology and different platforms that can be used in the classroom.

The Hybrid podcast “Questioning Learning” was an incredibly interesting story. This podcast touches a large base of facts about “not-yetness” and how it relates to critical digital pedagogy. Education should be valued at an in explainable level and some teachers are having difficulty encouraging the risk in learning and emphasizing the importance of questioning to their students. One of the main foci for this podcast discussed how critical pedagogy encourages students to ask questions first and to not always make assumptions. To   encourage our students to not take everything they see or hear at face value, but to truly question and analyze it. The podcast also addresses how a movement and shift from the instructivist model to a constructivist model. Amy Collier stresses the importance of being more learner centered and to be responsive to students learning. After listening to the full podcast, I believe that this is a reality for several teachers, even in today’s society. I fully agree with the concept that teachers need to encourage that the “not-yetness” is okay and that because one strategy may not work, and you fail, it is okay. Many students do not feel comfortable in taking risks and asking questions because they are afraid. Afraid of what their peers may think or even the teacher. We need to empower students to believe that there is no wrong question.

I strongly believe that as future teachers, we need to encourage students and make them all aware that it is acceptable to ask questions. It is okay to fail and to truly shift to a constructivist model of teaching. Future teachers should be more learner centered and focus on what the students learn. I believe that every student will succeed and establishing a classroom culture where students feel comfortable and willing to take risks and realize making mistakes is part of learning; student knowledge, understanding and skills will blossom in a classroom where students feel safe and confident.   For the beginning of the school year, I am in the learning process for this course. After listening to this podcast, I am intrigued to listen to more and learn more about how to become a teacher who is learner centered. Critical pedagogy is something newer for myself. I believe questioning learning is crucial to becoming an excellent teacher who instills the love of life long learning in every student. As future teachers, we need to learn together and become comfortable ourselves with asking questions and accepting that “not yetness” okay. In order for our future students to be comfortable with asking questions and not feeling like failures, we need to have a strong understanding of our learners.

The experience of creating my artifact connects to the podcast that I reflected on because I took risks myself using a new platform. I had never used Promo before nor had I created a video and put it on youtube. I reflected on the artifact in a way that allowed me to think deeper into how I want to instruct my future students. I do not want my students to feel nervous when using a new platform the way I did. I know my future students will have mostly grown up around technology and from day one in the class, I want to ensure that my students know “not yetness” is okay. I want them to know that it is okay to ask questions and that no question is a dumb question. I felt this way while creating my artifact. With helpful feedback from my instructor, I was able to complete the task and receive positive feedback to improve the piece. Creating my artifact completely related to the podcast in my own personal way. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to listen to such a powerful, current, podcast topic that I was able to clearly make connections to my own life and future teaching career.

I chose to respond to the HybridPod – Questioning Learning by Chris Friend and Amy Collier. This podcast touched on a few key ideas that challenged today’s push for learnification. They used the concept of notyetness to encourage students and educators to ask questions that oppose the norm. I agree with the push to ask more questions. Students have to feel comfortable enough in their learning environment that they would be willing to take a risk to ask a question. In the infograph images were added to emphasize the risk in education and the focus on asking questions. Furthermore they added that there is value in embracing uncertainty. I do not believe that there is a right answer to every question, however I do believe that asking the question can promote conversation and perhaps reach the point of emergence which they discussed later in the podcast. In the podcast the term learnification was defined as the paradigm shift from teacher centered learning to student centered learning. It was also described as a shift from an instructivist focus to a constructivist focus.

Interestingly enough, as we learned about the shift from standardization, I used a template as my medium for this product. An attempt was made to increase interest and foster inspiration by adding photos to support the information written.

They outlined a number of issues with this new perceived best practice. When they discuss best practice they use it synonymously with the idea of standardization or overlooking individualized learning. They added that removing the teacher from the classroom, which is a major focus in the learnification push, is not the answer. I like that Amy and Chris challenged the way education is heading. In my opinion, educators have huge impacts on how students learn and they tend to be the ones to individualize the learning opportunities. They supported their idea by saying that the relationships that students create in the classroom with their classmates and with the teacher leads to a state of emergence. Emergence was described as a state that is reached when people come together and challenge each other to create extraordinary learning opportunities. In my practicum, I have seen that similar to the idea of two heads are better than one, working together often pushes people beyond their limits.

Ultimately, Amy and Chris emphasized the importance of the relationships that are built and leaned on in learning as well as the significance of fostering interest and inspiration. This can lead to true educational experiences and opportunities to connect students to meaning outside the course. I have noticed in my experience that there are students that could really benefit from being connected to some future aspirations or purpose beyond the classroom. This idea of emergence and inspirational learning outcomes can lead to that. Given that language is opportunity, Amy and Chris highlight the importance of properly framing questions and using fun language as fun fosters learning opportunities. I have seen it firsthand that when students are having fun they are more likely to take risks, and as mentioned in the podcast, taking risks is a huge aspect of education.