#UWinDig

Visual Explanation:

For my multimedia assignment I focused Technologist Module of eCampus Ontario’s open PD modules and created a Twitter essay to summarize module and give readers a quick overview of digital literacies and technology integration in classrooms. After providing an overview I asked the reader in a Twitter poll to rank how comfortable they are with integrating digital literacies. Then I go through and dedicate each tweet in the thread to different tabs in the module. First I explained what is meant by ‘digital literacies,’ and then I explained the design-thinking approach. These tweets provide a basis for the technologist module design thinking process of empathy, define, ideate, prototype and connect. For the rest of the thread I described each of these processes. The second last tweet is a checklist of what the reader should be able to do after going through the technologist module. I felt like this was important to include because it provides the reader the opportunity to understand the end goals of the module before physically going through the module. At the end of the thread I used another poll to rank how comfortable the reader felt with the idea of digital literacies after going through my Twitter essay. Throughout the thread I incorporated a variety of pictures and gifs to keep the reader entertained and for it to be visually appealing.

Reflection:

I have always found modules to be generally user friendly and easy to follow. When I first looked at the eCampus Ontario’s Technologist Module it was in a critical way to critique how accommodating this site could be for differing abilities. Through doing this I discovered the limitations that this site could have depending on student needs, and therefore this set up is not a perfect model for every student. Personally, I still enjoy the module and I would consider using this type of set-up with my class depending on the needs of the students in my class. As I was going through and summarizing the information in my Twitter essay, I noticed a number of things. I found the information in the module very well laid out and easy to sum up for my Twitter essay.

follow for funny tweets – click this picture to be brought to my profile 

One challenge that I did not anticipate was the limited amount of characters in each tweet. As a twitter user, I found a big difference between 140 characters to 280 characters and so I was expecting fewer issues with space. I ended up summarizing much more than expected. The benefit to this, is that I feel as though my thread turned out much easier to read because I was not able to be wordy in my tweets.

Multimedia Assignment:

How the "Technologist Module" aims to explore the use of technology tools to address specific learning challenges (a thread) ? #UWinDig #OntarioExtend

This thread references the Technologist Module of eCampus Ontario's open PD modules found at: https://t.co/fFJA9uIaEk pic.twitter.com/IVKcq9cX8s

— Caroline Voyer (@CarolineVoyer) February 19, 2019

The technologist module from Ontario Extend is a free resource that provides teachers with a guide to choose, apply and integrate technologies into their classrooms. The main purpose of the module is to teach educators how to design and implement a technological tool that effectively addresses learning challenges. This is one aspect of digital literacy, which is defined as the ability to locate, use, summarize, communicate and construct clear information through various digital platforms, ultimately creating new knowledge. This is an ongoing process that requires the use of design thinking. Design thinking allows us to reach into our ‘designer toolkit’ to find and use technologies that fix learners challenges. This is a human-centered approach because the people that will benefit from the task at hand are directly being involved in the process of designing and implementing it. There are many approaches to this form of thinking that helps us as educators properly evaluate and integrate digital technology. This involves: empathizing for your students and fully understanding what it is they need; defining the specific challenge that the learner has; evaluating ideal qualities and characteristics of how you can address this challenge; creating a prototype that, at the most basic level, involves bringing your technology forth to your users and getting valuable feedback; and also finding ways to connect technology to your curriculum.

While creating my artifact I could not help but realize that the form of visual I choose to create was not one that used technology directly. I created a mind map which includes pictures and words to show the main ideas of the technologist module. Although my mind map was made with coloured pencils and paper, I used many technological resources to create my artifact. I used Google to find pictures that I could use as a template for my drawing, and also researched many of my ideas I used in my drawing (falling down the internet rabbit hole). Technology is and always will be all around us and is just getting more prevalent each and every day. This is why we as our future educators need to embrace modules like the one provided to us by Ontario Extend, because they give us a framework to how we can continuously use technology and design thinking to improve the struggles that students can be affected by. Through understanding the challenges that learners have we can use this information to research important characteristics certain technologies have that can improve their learning. This module is perfect for teachers who may not be as technological savvy, because it gives them a perfect outline to follow in order to integrate and find technology like a professional.

After exploring Ontario Extend’s Technologist Module in considerable depth, I chose to reflect on its contents in the form of a twitter essay. I’ve used this medium before, and I really did want to use something new this time, but every time I started on a new medium I felt I wasn’t able to to convey my thoughts as well as a twitter essay allows me to. I like the fact that a twitter essay forces me to make bold, concise points for each tweet, making for a simple yet effective train of thoughts explaining the overall article or in this case, module. I also really love adding GIFS to each tweet as it ads a sense of humour, which is something I tend to gravitate to.

After going through the module in class, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the major concepts behind integrating new technology tools in the classroom. When I took the time at home to really navigate the module and follow all of the links, I realized there was a lot more information than I had thought. I really did find myself down a rabbit hole on the internet. That being said, I found a lot of valuable information regarding the process of introducing new tech tools in the classroom. I really like the breakdown of ‘design-thinking’ into 5 key elements as it make its much easier to understand. I found it really easy to separate the elements and give each one their own tweet or two, allowing me to expose the most critical information for each concept. While exploring these key elements in greater detail, I really felt a theme starting to emerge. This really shouldn’t come as much of a shock to anyone in this program, but the focal point of tech integration in our classrooms has to be our students. Yes, we need to find a tool that works for us, and that we are comfortable with, but at the end of the day our students needs are our main concern. Whether it’s gathering ideas from your students before you even start brainstorming (empathize), or giving the students a chance to interact and explore the tool after the prototype stage, the entire process has to be student-centred.

Gaining student feedback is essential, and I found it to be a very effective practice during my time in practicum. Although I didn’t allow the students to call all the shots, I definitely listened to what they had to say after quickly realizing that sticking strictly to my lesson plan was not going to work in my favour. For example, my task during the first week of practicum 2 was to run a basketball unit, simple enough, right? The first 2 or 3 days went okay, but I quickly realized that a lot of the boys were getting bored. They would tell me every day they didn’t want to play basketball but I stuck to my guns and dragged through my drills and games. When I had a talk with my AT about the lacking motivation levels, he made a suggestion that was so simple, yet made so much sense. Give them a day off. All they ever wanted to do was play dodgeball, so I decided to split up my basketball lesson with a day of dodgeball and other various games. They loved it, and seemed to be a little happier when returning to basketball the next, although not entirely thrilled. The message here is that we need to hear our students concerns, and cater to them whenever possible.

I don’t consider myself to be a tech wiz by any means, and I really found this module broke down the process toward successful integration in a way that I could follow. I find that 3 of the 5 key elements in design-thinking are things we already do on a daily basis with our students. Empathy is part of the job, as educators we have take our students needs into account every single day, every single class whether we are using tech tools or not. Defining specific challenges that are present for the students in our classes is also something we must do on the regular, and of course, we are always connecting the lessons we teach to our curriculum. The two unique elements presented in the module are ideate and prototype. These are specific to creating new technological tools, and I thought the module did a great job of explaining these concepts and how to use execute them purposefully. I also found this module really helped me reform my own definition of digital literacy, and what it means within the confounds of a classroom.

1. In education, one of my biggest concerns is keeping my students actively engaged. I want to make learning fun & exciting. Digital tech is the way of the present and certainly the future, how can we use it to tackle challenges faced by our students? #UWinDig #OntarioExtend pic.twitter.com/VRhPcePpAu

— Andrew P. (@AndrewP87202850) February 20, 2019

For my final multimedia reflection, I decided to do a Twitter essay. In the previous two reflections, I did other platforms and this time rather than doubling down on a platform I decided to try another platform type in order to expand my learning and education of technology in the classroom. My Twitter essay was in response to the Ontario Extend article on technologist Scenario where it talked about how to properly use different tools in our classroom. This response I thought was very important to becoming a better teacher because it allowed me to see the proper steps in order to properly integrate technology into the classroom. It also has allowed me to understand and comprehend exactly what needs to be done as an educator. I thought that the most important part of students knowing how to use technology in the classroom was being able to use it, rather in the article it says the redefine is the most important part for students to understand exactly how to use and understand the technology we as teachers bring into the classroom. I believe that to be technological aware of what is going on in our classrooms we always need to be up to date on the latest technological advancements in our classrooms prior to teaching older outdated platforms to our students.

One part of the eCampus site that really intrigued me was the part about empathy and how love is important when creating these different platforms. Each platform according to the article is made so everybody will understand it and it has to be understood by everybody in order for it to properly work in the classroom.

the link is to my twitter essay for anybody who does not follow me on there. Click on twitter to see the entire essay.

My multimedia reflection revolves around eCampus’ Technologist module, which addresses the idea of differentiation and successfully using technology to address students’ specific needs. The first section of the module has to do with digital literacy, and it encourages readers to come up with their own definition after reading. Through this, the definition of digital literacy I concluded with was ” making an effort to remain up to date on the most beneficial technological resources for meaningfully interacting with specific types of students”. I came up with this definition because I feel as if it encompasses everything the module advocates, especially with regard to design-thinking. The module is heavily influenced by this idea of design-thinking, a term that more or less refers to the process of individuals who will benefit from the end product partaking in its creation. In the classroom, this can be a powerful tool as students attempt to solve complex problems that may exist in their specific scenario. Design-thinking is broken down into five sections: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Connect. Essentially, these five steps highlight the importance of putting yourselves in students shoes, identifying problems that may exist, creating potential solutions to these issues, testing these methods within the classroom while searching for constructive feedback, and ensuring that the technological tool you choose to utilize connects to curriculum expectations. After considering all these steps as a whole, I could not really determine which one I felt was most important because they all complement each other in the journey toward the final goal of successfully using technology to address differentiation. Despite this, I think connecting to curriculum could hold some more weight in terms of actually applying these methods into the classroom. As the article states, if what you’re doing is not relevant to curriculum, you might want to rethink your strategy/tool. This is something that some teachers might forget when using technology in the classroom. A tool may seem really cool to incorporate, but ensuring actual learning with respect to your subject area occurs is paramount.

Something that really stood out to me was the SECTIONS model, which is a step-by-step process to follow when choosing a technological tool. Before anything, students are prioritized first, and this is something that resonated with me deeply. I appreciate how the model and the module as a whole value students’ wants and needs before anything else because I feel as if this is something that some teachers lack when designing their lesson plans. If more teachers navigated through this module and attempted to incorporate the elements that are presented, learning would be a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience from K-12 and beyond.

As with my first multimedia reflection, I chose to go with a Twitter essay in my response to the information presented. Although we are encouraged to branch out and try different technological tools (as I did in the second one), I feel as if I can best present my ideas within the Twitter essay format. There are so many ways you can get across the main points of the module: writing about it, implementing polls, adding GIFs, and scattering pictures throughout the essay. I did enjoy using Coggle in my last reflection to try something new, but I did find it a bit limiting in terms of condensing a wide variety of ideas into small headings and subheadings/sentences. The way the module is set up is almost perfect for a Twitter essay since it more or less follows a suggested process to follow, which is rather easy to convey into tweets. This may be our last multimedia reflection of the year (sadly), but I definitely encourage all teachers to obtain at least some literacy with respect to Twitter as it can be a useful tool to incorporate into the classroom, especially in relation to class discussions. Without further ado, here is my Twitter essay. Enjoy!

1. Today, I'm going to be talking about the Technologist Module of eCampus Ontario's open PD modules. This specific module is an excellent resource for teachers who wish to integrate technology into the classroom as a way of addressing differentiation. #UWinDig #OntarioExtend

— Cameron (@Cameron0580332) February 16, 2019

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.

Firstly, I want to start by talking about the format I chose to use to do my multimedia reflection on the Technologist Module because it was very frustrating, and I need to get it off my chest. I decided to do a video because it seemed to me that it would be straight forward, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a software that will give me what I want. Four programs later and I managed to get as close as I could to what I envisioned, with a huge watermark across my video to not have to pay for the program… but let’s not talk about that… Go figure, the only good program is a freemium platform! It also took me several takes for every clip that I have. Having recently had my wisdom teeth removed and losing sensation in half my tongue, as a result of the surgery, it’s hard to properly articulate words. To add onto that, I really didn’t know what to say, so that affected how many takes I had to do. Thankfully we don’t have any more multimedia reflections to do, but I would not do a video again. It was definitely more of a headache than anticipated.
That brings us to a point I mentioned in my video that I want to further talk about now that I’ve struggled to create my video. That point is the one I made about the lengthy process prototyping might be. I felt this while creating my video. It was an extremely lengthy process, and I didn’t even have to continue to change it to accommodate learners. I must say, I don’t have a great deal of digital literacy, as I had mentioned in my first blackboard post, but I do feel I have enough to work my way around certain programs, it just takes me a little longer because I have to research how to achieve certain aspects. I believe it would be absolutely exhausting attempting to continuously work on the prototype to make it perfect, only to have to work on it again with another group of learners. I do realize that even without using technology, as mentioned in my video, that differentiated instruction is important, and that you should constantly be reflecting on your lessons and updating them; however, the incorporation of technology in this process would make it very difficult. And as I mentioned a few times, you have to find the right technology for your classroom for it to work and be appropriate and accommodating.
I do believe that incorporating technology in the classroom is very important to keep students engaged and in the future I will try my best to ensure that I follow the design-thinking, in more than just the incorporation of technology in the classroom, since it’s a good approach to follow for every aspect of teaching.

Ontario Extend offers an online technology module known as the “Technologist Module“, which informs educators on how they can use technology to identify challenges that some learners face and how to utilize these platforms as a potential solution. The technologist module was a unique and interactive program to inform its users on how technology can be used to assist educators and lead to an increase in student achievement. Overall, the technologist module was divided into various sections and talked in-depth about the design-thinking process. The module divides the design-thinking process into six main sections: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, connect and test. Through these various sections, users were walked through how these can be used to enhance the use to technology within the classroom. I personally enjoyed going through this module since it included a lot of great examples of how to utilize technology in the classroom and ways that technology can allow for differentiation, where some other traditional forms of teaching may not. Secondly, I think that the huge movement and push towards technology in the classroom is only going to continue to grow and as future educators it’s extremely important that we are aware of the numerous technologies out there and exactly how they can be used to our advantage.

The artifact that I decided to engage in for this Multimedia Reflection was a Twitter Essay. For my first reflection I completed a sketch note, which was not technological at all. For my second reflection I completed a Powtoon, which was extremely technological. Now for this third and final reflection, I have decided to complete a Twitter essay. I believe the Twitter essay to be a good combination of technology and traditional methods. I was able to create my essay and articulate my thoughts the way I normally would on pen and paper; however, I was then able to insert them in a Twitter feed with the use to pictures, GIFs and other visual aids to make it more appealing. Also, my Twitter essay can now be seen by many other Twitter users around the world, who all have the opportunity to retweet my posts to all their followers; therefore, it allows for a many-to-many communications, something that pen and paper would never allow. Overall, I had a great time creating the Twitter essay. I did find it hard to articulate all my thoughts in approximately 200 characters and I found myself editing my posts a lot to make sure they were the right fit. However, I did thoroughly enjoy all the GIFs I was able to place into my feed. I hope you guys enjoy it as well! PLEASE CHECK OUT MY TWITTER ESSAY BELOW 🙂

Technology in the classroom is a massive movement and trend since it’s use is so prevalent in our upcoming youth. #OntarioExtend offers the “Technologist Module” which guides educators on how to integrate technology in their own classroom to facilitate learning! #UWinDig pic.twitter.com/XORew6ULlu

— amancina (@amancina1) February 20, 2019

Hello everyone!

It has been a minute since I was on here! For my final multimedia reflection, I decided to return to Piktochart and see if I could improve from the very first infographic I made. I think I succeeded, but only time will tell! For this reflection, I took a look at the Technologist Module off of the eCampus Ontario Open Teacher Modules.  So without further ado, here is my infographic:

I really enjoyed reading through this module and learning more about the design-thinking approach. I definitely think that it is something beneficial that could be easily incorporated into classrooms when teachers are looking to become more “tech savvy” and encourage their students to broaden their horizons as well. The first step in this approach is to empathize; understand what students need and what needs to be solved. In doing this, we must ensure equality and equity for our students. This can be in terms of implementing differentiated instruction, or universal design for learning. This first step is the crux of the rest of the approach because if we, as educators, cannot identify the problem, there is no hope. Following step one is define – define your problem, or what you wish to solve. Following that is ideate – come up with any and every idea! Write them all down on sticky notes, map them all out in a mindmap, or just jot them down on a scrap piece of paper – the sky is the limit! After writing down all your ideas, plan your prototype. Experiment, explore, and dig a little deeper than before (didn’t even mean for that to rhyme but look at me go!). Here is where you have the ability to work out any kinks your plan may have, revise, refine, and try it again. The last step is the aim of this whole module – to connect and integrate technology into your classroom! This will hopefully be done successfully, but if not, go back to the drawing board!

I think that this approach to technology integration is great and can be used in any classroom. All teachers need is something they want to improve, and there is always something we want to improve. This approach is also human-centered, so the people who help to design it, are the ones who directly benefit from it…if that’s not a win-win, I don’t know what is! Make sure it ties into your curriculum, make sure that it is accessible for all your students, and make sure it works, follow all those steps and you have successfully integrated technology into your classroom and improved your overall classroom experience! 🙂

Thanks for checking this out!

Courtney M.