#UWinDig

Thanks to extend by ecampusontario, teachers now have access to an exact pathway to follow in order to become a “technologist”. The technologist module is just one of several free resources that teachers have access to. With major advancements in technology it has become more important than ever that we develop our digital literacies and provide the proper tools and resources to help our students do the same. When teachers decide to bring a digital aspect to their classroom they must ensure that this is something the students can handle. Digital literacy involves using technology safely and responsibly, and so teachers must be sure that the safety and privacy of their students will never be in jeopardy. Once the teacher knows the learners have the digital literacy needed, technology can easily be implemented. Digital literacy is ongoing- we continue to learn and develop it as we continue our digital practices.

The technologist model offers definitions of important terms including digital literacy and design thinking, with in depth descriptions and external resources for each of the previously mentioned topics. Furthermore, the module analyzes the 5 steps associated with design thinking; empathize, define, ideate, prototype and connect. As defined in my infographic below, empathize encourages teachers to put themselves in the shoes of their learners and understand where they may have challenges. Define involves targeting specific problem areas that your technological tool will solve or address. The next step, ideate, is when teachers will form the main ideas of which they will use the tool to demonstrate. Next, teachers will create a prototype that acts as a rough draft, allowing them to experiment with their tool before implementing it. Lastly, connect requires teachers to make connections between their technological adaption and the curriculum topics they would like to display to their learners.

When I first began to review the technologist module I was having a hard time fully understanding what was meant by design thinking. Design thinking is a somewhat complicated idea that involves designing a product that will help your learners find a solution to a problem or challenge. Design thinking is human-centered. This means that those who are involved in the creation of the final product will be the ones who benefit from it. As previously mentioned, design thinking follows the steps outlined above; empathize, define, ideate, prototype and connect. Following these steps and experimenting with the final product will help teachers develop a stronger digital literacy which they can use to further their students learning.

The design thinking model reminded me of one of the articles that our first multimedia assignment analyzed, Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom by Ashley Hinck. Hinck discusses how important the process of trial and error is, and how learning from mistakes can lead to some of the best learning experiences. The design model steps, particularly the prototype step, involves constantly testing your ideas based on the information you have gathered and experimenting with your product. This involves making mistakes, learning from them and re-developing the product before implementing it into the classroom. I also realized that the design thinking method could be compared to the scientific method (outlined in the image below). Both involve gathering information to form ideas, testing those ideas and making changes based on what you have observed. Incorporating design thinking in science could help students take the scientific method, and inquiry based lessons and labs, to the next level. Science is actually a very creative process, which is something many people don’t realize, including students. In the future I would like to try to incorporate design thinking into my science lessons and labs to bring out students creativity. I feel that introducing them to this method will not only help them develop their digital literacy, it will also allow them to view science concepts from a different perspective and make complex concepts easier to understand and visualize. Design thinking is something I had never been exposed to previously. My high school and grade school teachers never made it far beyond the substitution portion of the SAMR model and they probably were unsure as to how they could integrate technology to modify or redefine a lesson. For a new teacher with mediocre digital literacy, the design thinking method makes technology integration less intimidating to me and really helped me to understand exactly how the integration process can be executed. In the future I will refer back to extend ecampusontario’s technologist module to give my students the best learning experiences possible through the integration of science and technology.

For this multimedia assignment I decided to give Canva a try. I recently used Piktochart to create an infographic for another course and wanted to see how these two sites compare to one another. Canva was extremely user friendly and straight forward. Once I figured out the text that I wanted to include in my poster it did not take me long at all to organize them on the poster template that Canva provided. The template I chose was basically just a navy blue background with some decorative images at the bottom so I had creative control to add in all of the text and images in anyway I liked. Both the multimedia poster below and the design thinking steps image above were created on Canva. I really enjoyed using this platform and will definitely consider using it again for future assignments!

Hello teachers!

For this media reflection, thanks to our open-minded professor Dr. Bonnie Stewart, Andrei Aitonean and I have been given permission to collaborate and make a podcast together as our multimedia reflection.

Now first let me apologize for the length of 16:45. Andrei and I were really enjoying pioneering this new medium of expressing our opinion.

The first thing I discussed with Andrei is my lack-of-understanding what this module is used for. The video with Terry in the beginning talked about how Terry wanted to improve his old-school teaching style. But Terry’s problem was never related to the process of applying the Technologist module. Because of this, I could not make the connection with my brain and I read the entire module unsure if it was designed for teachers, or students, or whomever.

This it might just be me, but too many hyperlinks on a web page cause me to lose sleep at night. Seriously. Here is my alternate suggestion that I mentioned on this episode of the podcast:

“Design Thinking” is just a synonym for “Backward Planning”. This is an excellent tool as we all know. By clicking on one of the hyperlinks, you are re-directed to a page that enlists 7 distinct ways how to backward plan. I was not aware there were different approaches to it. This was interesting to read.

The third step in the Design Thinking process was the “Ideate” step. This is where the teacher starts to brainstorm how to solve a problem that they understand and are aware of. I believe this to be the most crucial step because this is when change for the better begins.

This module seemed more like advice to solving a problem than an actual suggestion to solutions. It explains how teachers can understand technology to its full potential, but nowhere are there examples of projects that have worked for teachers, nor are there ideas for teachers to take the first step into solving a problem in their classroom. The definition of digital literacy is discussed in our podcast and I can’t help but to notice that there were no suggestions for how non-tech savvy teachers can improve their technological education. This module is a great tool for explaining to teachers what they need to change, but is not so great at explaining how they need to change.

As educators in the 21^st Century, finding ways to integrate technology into our classrooms, teaching practices, and assessment methods is imperative. And lucky enough, eCampus Ontario and Extend are making the process of learn how to integrate technology extremely easy and extremely affordable (a.k.a FREE) for educators. One of the modules found on the website is entitled Technologist and provides the scenario of a teacher teaching the same course in the same way each and every year and they want to learn how to incorporate technology to benefit all learners within their classroom. This module starts with an overview of what is to be learned and then moves into two critical components: defining digital literacy and the design-thinking model.

There are many different definitions of digital literacy, which all encompass the same general theme: digital literacy is one’s ability to find, understand, curate, and create within an online context or platform along with the skills to behave appropriately while online. Before one can even begin to implement technology into their teaching practice, they need to ensure that their students are digitally literate and responsible. Once these basic, fundamental skills have been put into place and practiced, an educator can easily integrate technology into their pedagogy by following the five steps outlined in the design-thinking model.

Design-thinking is a human-centred approach to teaching and learning that believes the people will benefit from the solution or product if they are actively and directly involved in its design. From an educator’s perspective, this particular approach is helpful because it allows the learner to become involved in their own learning and find solutions collaboratively with others. The design-thinking process follows five simple steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and connect. An educator begins by emphasizing with their students and defining a challenge they may be facing. Next, an educator would brainstorm and develop ways to tackle these learning challenges with the use of technology integration. Once an idea has been developed, the educator works with the learners to create a prototype using the desired technology. Lastly, the educator determines how this technological integration can be successfully integrated into their specified curriculum. Attached below is a YouTube video from the Technologist module that outlines what design-thinking is. Take a look!

Coming from a science background, I immediately think about the process of inquiry-based learning and how design-thinking may actually be a connection to this type of learning, simply through the technological lens as opposed to a scientific, laboratory perspective. Imagine what would happen in the world of science education if all science educators incorporated both inquiry-based learning AND design-thinking into majority of their lessons?! Our students would be developing research and construction skills far beyond what they could ever believe was possible and at a much faster rate. I believe that the incorporation of the design-thinking approach could streamline the process of technological integration for some educators having a difficult time doing so on their own. Once they are comfortable in this process, they can begin to look for connections between the design-thinking process and their own curriculums (i.e., inquiry-based learning in the science curriculum) and bring those connections together in a way that is most beneficial to their students.

The multimedia platform that I decided to use to create this infographic was Canva and I absolutely LOVED IT! I was interested to try this platform because I wanted to compare it to Piktochart, the platform I used to create my last multimedia reflection piece. Looking back at the creative process for both multimedia assignments, I found Canva to be easier to navigate and was easier to collect all of the information in one place than Piktochart. When using Piktochart, you have to add panels to increase the amount of space on your infographic, which is more than fine until it comes time to uploading your work onto the blog. Canva has many template options to get you started but allows for complete creativity once a template has been selected. Canva allows the creator to select font types, font sizes, font colours, graphic colours, text placements, text sizes, and graphic sizes. Now understanding how easy and pain free Canva is to use, I am much more comfortable bringing this software into my next placement and incorporating this platform into a future lesson. #TEAMCANVA

Now, lets say you found this article so intriguing that you went to eCampus Ontario yourself to get started on this Technologist module, but there are just so many words and not enough time in your day. HAVE NO FEAR! MY INFOGRAPHIC IS HERE!

For my second multimedia reflection I read “Teaching in a Participatory Digital World” by Dr. Michele Jacobsen and watched the supplementary video by Henry Jenkins entitled: “The Influence of Participatory Culture on Education”.

I decided to try my hand at a twitter essay this time as I had become more familiar with the platform after the #unboundeq open hashtag chat. Before then I was never really a fan and had not been exposed to it much, but I really came to appreciate Twitter’s ability to allow constructive conversations. One thing I thought I would struggle with was the character limit but,  I found breaking up my thoughts into smaller chunks really helped with my understanding of these two pieces. As if navigating this new (to me) website wasn’t enough I also decided that I wanted to design and draw some image to go with said tweets. I am in no way a visual artist, in fact I actually really struggle to translate my ideas into something visual. However, I was up for that challenge and a challenge it was! I used an app on my iPad called Procreate which is essentially Photoshop, another program I have never used, and had no idea where to start. There are so many brush options, textures and hues to choose from I felt like a deer in headlights. After watching a couple YouTube videos I figured out which brush I wanted and how to change its size and colour, a great starting point. Unfortunately, the YouTube videos do not teach you how to take your thoughts and design them. After many trial and error attempts I found my groove and was able to produce some images I was really happy with. I think this is a skill I am going to continue to develop after this class as I would love to be able to make better images someday. Please click the tweet below to access my essay:

1. Social platforms and apps, especially in this era of personal mobile devices, have become an opponent of some educators. Viewed as a thick wall of thorny vines that needs to be cut down while in the classroom as it only distracts and hinders the students learning. #uwindig pic.twitter.com/Lm8QgpSf91

— Miss Paty (@mspaty1) October 31, 2018

Now on to the actual article and video themselves. Overall, I agreed completely with what both authors were saying.  There are a lot of educators that still teach for the 20^th Century, a time where memorizing and standardize testing was the basis of a “good education”. But times they are a changing.  With the introduction of personal mobiles devices our students are being exposed to world of new literacies and social complexities that encourage them to collaborate online through conversations with peers and even strangers. These students are digital natives and were born with these accesses at their fingertips. Instead of fearing and fighting this shift we, as educator, should be embracing it with open arms. We live in a Web 2.0 world filled with sites like: Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Google, YouTube and many more. However, I am aware that this sounds like a daunting task to some if their knowledge of these sources are cloudy but as both Jacobsen and Jenkins make very clear, that is why we have colleagues and collaboration. It is not the duty of one teacher to know everything, but it is the duty of that teacher to know where to access the knowledge from, be open minded and willing to learn.

This new participatory digital world is “…blurring the line between producers and consumers of content and shifting attention from access to information to access to other people, and online experiences and virtual communities”. When used effectively in the classroom this can allow for active and self-directed learning. Barbara Means’ research showed that students perform better with digital collaboration then in face-to-face interaction. I found the results of her study to be fascinating and counter-intuitive to me, I would have assumed that face-to-face was more effective inside of the classroom.  But with some reflection, considering how active most students are within these digital communities, it would make sense that they would lie in a comfortable space within digital collaboration as even with their friends they mostly communicate through their phones. Moreover,  I agree with Jacobsen that this access lends itself beautifully to a constructivist teaching philosophy. However, some schools have firewalls up to “protect” students from certain sites and places online. Like Jacobson, I too do not think that this is effective in any way. Our students need to learn the competencies that come with 21^st century technology, we need to teach them how to “ethically and critically” locate networks that will benefit them in their learning and avoid the ones which are less than favourable. Firewalls take this learning away from the student and therefore they leave school unprepared, they are lacking a skill that is necessary in today’s society.

Lastly, Jacobsen harps on one thing that stuck with me the most, that an engaged teacher; one who is keen, curious and always learning,  goes hand in hand with an engaged student. This made me think back to all of my favourite teachers throughout my education and honestly they were all actively engaged in the learning. They were trying new things, inviting ideas and opinions into their class from students all while reflecting and tweaking with each lesson. I believe this approach is summed up by Jenkins’ when he said “Don’t build YouTube, just use YouTube”.

In conclusion, I have very little negative to say about either of the pieces. This is the first time I have encountered the term participatory culture, but am glad that I now have the words to express the concept. The ideas really resonated with me and they are all things I am going to think about, consider and use in my own teaching.

– Olivia Paty

For my second multimedia reflection I chose to reflect on “Teaching in a Participatory World” by Michele Jacobsen and the video “Henry Jenkins: The influence of participatory culture on education” with  Henry Jenkins sharing his ideas.  I did this in the form of a Twitter essay. Please visit my multimedia reflection Twitter essay on my public account @KaleighJoy3.  I hope you like it, and maybe you can follow me since I have no followers. LOL

Tweets by KaleighJoy3

The essay starts with the frantic kitty and is easier to read when viewed on Twitter and by selecting “Show this thread” under any of the Tweets.

After reading the Jacobsen article and watching the Jenkins video, I absolutely agree that teachers in this day and age should be integrating social media and technology into their classrooms and embrace the meaningful contributions that these new age platforms make for learning opportunities.  As Jenkins mentioned, teachers these days tend to shy away from social media,  because they are afraid of the potential misuses students might engage in or inappropriate content they may view online when using their devices.  However, I absolutely agree with Jenkins’ point that, because these students will be using social media on their own anyways, it is quite foolish that teachers would let them learn about the proper applications on their own.  Because, if students are obsessed with their own social media accounts, as many teachers and I have observed, what makes people think that they will ever know how to properly use social media and technology in a positive, meaningful way, if they are never shown how by someone who is experienced in the field of educational social media applications?  For example, if teachers notice that their students are obsessed with Snapchat, and in response, they ban using Snapchat from the classroom, this pushes students further away from what they will encounter in the future.  By banning Snapchat or any social media site, the teacher is missing a great learning opportunity for where they could explain that although Snapchat and other sites are great, there is a time and a place.  So, depending on the students’ response, the teacher could potentially allow them to use Snapchat while they are working if the students feel the great desire to do that.  And yes, many students could be distracted by their apps and sites, but I think that is another opportunity for the teacher to demonstrate that at a high school level, maybe just grades elevens and twelves, if the students want to be distracted by their phones, that that is their choice and their grades will be reflected accordingly.  If all they do is play on their devices, while given time to work and ask questions, then they are missing out significantly.  It also serves to remind students that in post-secondary education or during their careers (depending on the career), they can spend tons of time updating their statuses and scrolling through pictures, but when their grades start dropping, or their boss is asking where their work is when its the deadline, it was their conscious decision to choose social media over their commitments and priorities.

In addition to knowing the right time and place, teachers could choose to use the same or similar social media applications to the ones their students like to use, and in a controlled learning environment, that can be a way of having students contribute their ideas and opinions in a platform that they enjoy using in their everyday life.  To stick with the Snapchat example and a science class as the content area , perhaps the teacher could have each student pose a question on their story (these accounts would be school, classroom accounts only and not the students’ personal accounts), and then each student has to answer ten different classmates’ questions.  In order to ensure that students are responding the teacher could ask students to keep a log of who they answered and what their answer was, and then if the teacher is really Snapchat savvy, they could go on each of the students’ account and ensure that their snap scores are increasing accordingly.  This idea would have the potential to be misused by the students, so the teacher would have to determine if their class would benefit from this type of activity.  If they believe their class is responsible enough to participate in this, then I believe it would be a great way for students to use something they use everyday for fun in a meaningful, learning context.  There are so many platforms that could work and better engage students in digital participatory learning, and some will suit certain classes over others.

I found this to be a very enjoyable creation process, even being somebody who never uses Twitter.  It made me feel quite creative the way I took my points and had to strategically arrange them so that they were short enough to not exceed the character count- short and tweet (see what I did there, ahhh lol).  I also had a lot of fun selecting the GIFs, as I just find them very funny.  Overall, I would recommend writing a Twitter essay to anybody who wants to try something new, and essentially write an essay in a very popular social media platform.

The idea of participatory learning was quite new to me before these past two weeks and I don’t have any true participatory experience that I can think of before taking this course. I have had to complete the odd discussion here and there in some of the online classes I have taken before.  But, all of those discussions pretty much involved someone posting their opinion, and then somebody would comment that they agree, just to say that they did it and get the marks for it. Just last week, however, while tweeting in Twitter chat #unboundeq, I found that to be a collaborative educational experience, where me and a few other students in this class built on ideas from what each other was saying.  I found that people’s additions to my ideas were very useful and allowed me to consider others’ perspectives.  The #unboundeq made me very interested in participatory learning, and that is why I ultimately chose to watch the Jenkins video and read the Jacobsen article.

Be sure to read the article and watch the video if you haven’t had the chance, as both Jacobsen and Jenkins bring up great points with respect to what participatory culture is, and why teachers should integrate it into their classroom.

https://www.edcan.ca/articles/teaching-in-a-participatory-digital-world/

#UWINDIG