#UWinDig

Henry Jenkins and Michele Jacobsen raise interesting points about the integration of digital technology in the classroom. In his short video, Jacobsen explains that present day students are raised in a digital word and grow up on things like podcasts, video tutorials, gaming and social media and we are losing sight of the big picture when we consistently discourage them from using these modes of technology and networking in the school environment. Jacobsen also makes light of this in her article “Teaching in a Participatory Digital World’ and explains that teachers need to engage themselves more in the digital world to successfully integrate technology in the classroom in a way that engages and motivates students. I’ve attached links to Jenkin’s and Jacobsen’s content below.

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Jacobsen Article:

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

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I decided to write a Twitter essay to reflect on the ideas that Jenkins and Jacobsen raise. I’ve uploaded a link to my full twitter essay and a few snapshots of it below. Twitter is a platform that I passionately dislike and avoid using to express my own personal opinions, but I decided to give it a whirl to express myself in an academic context. In the end, I surprised myself and actually really enjoyed this reflection. Scrolling through the endless GIFs was addicting, and I found the poll feature to tweeting really useful. It seems like the platform has come a long way from when I can remember last using it years ago. The character count frustrated me while I was trying to get all of my thoughts on one idea into one tweet, but it forced me to be concise and to the point without sounding redundant and to keep my sentences short and sweet… unlike this one. 🙂 Overall I actually enjoyed using Twitter for this reflection. Nonetheless, this positive experience hasn’t motivated me to start using the platform again to express my personal thoughts outside of school. Maybe it’s gotten better since I first starting using the platform, but it seemed to me like everyone was just whining and complaining about things more than they were posting funny or positive things. I think it’s a great way to network with people all over the world and share news with one another, but it’s just not for me.

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Before reading Jacobsens article, I was always ‘pro-technology’ in terms of its integration into the classroom. Being a 90s baby, technology has been present in my everyday life since childhood and it doesn’t intimidate me. Jacobsen challenged me to think more critically about HOW I would actually integrate this digital world into my classroom one day. Looking back on when I was in high school, I can’t remember any teachers really encouraging the use of technology in our lessons, projects, homework, evaluations, etc. The times have changed dramatically in only a handful of years since when I was in high school, so I don’t have any previous personal experiences to build on or inspire me. Everything I’m learning about classroom technology is through my BEd, and I need to focus more on HOW I will actually make use of this digital world to benefit my students.

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In regards to Jacobsens article, I whole heartedly agreed with most of what she had to say, but there was one idea that I struggled with. This was her idea that schools should remove their internet firewalls so that students can have access to the web without any boundaries. To some extent, I think this is a great idea and has good intentions, but I think that there will always be students who will abuse this privilege. I also think that some parents wouldn’t agree with this, namely those who apply firewalls to their internet at home to block their children from discovering sensitive content on the web. Then again, I think to myself: “Well, if these kids have cellphones and have access to the internet away from home or outside of school, they will find on their spare time whatever it is they want to find online.” I’m a strong believer in school being an environment greater than just one to host books and to teach students traditional academia. Students should be learning people skills, life skills, social interaction skills, learning about themselves, their strengths AND their weaknesses and how to embrace all of this in this crazy thing we call life. Learning experiences like getting in trouble for whatever ridiculous things students do help us grow and blossom into responsible and sensible adults. Sometimes getting in trouble is the BEST thing that can happen for a child, because in that moment, they are LEARNING. It’s cliché, but it’s true: we learn from our mistakes. Thus, maybe students should have the freedom to explore the internet freely while at school. If they’re going to do it on their own time anyway, why not let them explore what they want to explore in a safe environment under adult supervision and with guidance from teachers. If they push the limits of these privileges and abuse them, the privileges can be revoked and consequences can be enforced. Learning is occurring either way. Win Win for everyone.

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Jenkins’ video and Jacobsen’s article really put things into context for me as a future teacher. It is our responsibility not only to include technology into our lessons, but to embrace that technology and engage ourselves in the digital world so that in turn, we can better engage students. If we aren’t motivated and passionate about what we are teaching, students won’t be either. This is partially why I chose to do a Twitter essay. I wanted to push myself into an uncomfortable environment and better familiarize myself with the platform that students regularly use. Teaching isn’t always comfortable, and learning often occurs at the boundaries of our comfort zone.

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– Natalie Gagne

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#uwindig

1. The classroom is an environment where the use of cell phones, social media and other web tools are typically frowned upon or feared. But instead of regarding them as distractions, could teachers do a better job of integrating technology into their lessons? #uwindig pic.twitter.com/xPBIBDYuXa

— Natalie (@NatalieGagne17) October 30, 2018

I read the article Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy by Chris Gilliard. I thought that in my response I should add an image that reflects the origination of the term redlining especially since it happened so close to home. Before reading this article I had no idea that redlining was a problem that was faced in the physical world and now the digital one. Redlining the marginalized communities only lead to huge gaps in finance between the white population and the African American population. By denying these poor communities mortgages the government ensured that they could not escape from poverty.  The marginalized are trapped in poverty and become more likely to go to jail, have a drug addiction and commit suicide all because the rich want to stay rich. Today the majority of the black community are still living in poverty and the average prison statistically more full of the marginalized communities. Now the same thing is happening digitally, only this time instead of denying mortgage they are denying students educational sources based on institutions wealth. The institutions that are more wealthy and well known for their research programs and education are granted more resources. The community colleges and smaller universities are granted less. They could not afford to go the to higher level schools so they do not get to have a well rounded and whole education; that seems unfair. How is anyone supposed to break the bonds of poverty if their education is hindered because of their financial situation.

Before I read this article I had no idea that redlining was even an issue. I have since tried to find articles for my philosophy paper and was having a hard time. My cousin who went to Laurier said that he never had problems finding articles there.  I had no idea that institutions have different access to sources!! I also watched the digital classroom recording with Chris It hit me when he said that at his institution he could not read the article that he published. WOW! I can’t even believe that anything like this could happen. I had a little bit of experience with this in the classroom. I did some small scale reactions of the Alkali Metals due to the reactiveness of these elements I could not do a larder scale reaction. After I gained the attention of the class with the reactions I wanted to show a video of a larger scale reaction of these metals. I had my video selected but it would not let me play it in the school.  The students were denied that learning experience because of the schools access. This is unacceptable, it is time to take the red tape down! This is a money making scheme that we need to put to rest for the sake of greater education. We need to stop extinguishing students curiosity with a big red blocked sign!

I responded to this article with a sketch note of the images that came into my head as I read the article on this topic. First of all there is a red line spiting the page in half. The right half of the page are those who benefit from redlining that is why this side is depicted in colour to indicate their privilege. The left side of the drawing is enclosed by the red line and in poverty, they are depicted in black and white to indicate that something is missing. At the top I have two very different locations; a large city and poorer homes. This explains the origins of the word redlining which is to keep the poor and marginalized poor by not allowing them to have a mortgage.  The next image is of a man standing on the edge of a cliff, with a rainbow bridge that is blocked by the red line. To me this image represents the steps towards a solution that must be taken. The red line must come down so the people living in poverty can share the benefits of their neighbours both physically and digitally.  The last images are of two people on computers, the one on the right goes to a top university and has access to all the resources she needs. The one on the left has no connection and in his search finds a blocked page. This guy represents those who’s education is hindered by the redlining of our society.

Below is my sketch note. Hope you enjoy!

My multimedia reflection, a Twitter essay was based on the article Teaching in a Participatory Digital World by Michele Jacobsen and the video, The Influence of Participatory Culture on Education by Henry Jenkins where the takeover of the new world of digital technology and the Web 2.0 in education is discussed. The article and the video both have many supporting arguments as to why teachers and the education systems should use these new technologies to their benefit. Before reading this article, I thought that technology should be introduced into the classroom more and more with the upbringing of all of these digital platforms. Growing up with technology, I have seen the importance and benefits that the technology brings to learning habits. I personally have gotten the opportunity to incorporate technology into my education and hope that I can do the same for my students education in a way to benefit their learning. I think that it is important that teachers take this step forward to learn how to properly use all this technology for the benefit of the students. It may be a lot of work for the teachers to get started and it may be hard for them to put aside their old ways but it is the way society is going and we should keep up with it. I think that it is an important learning curve for the teachers to take, to benefit the students learning.

These platforms create participatory platforms that can benefit the classroom by enforcing higher order critical thinking through creative participation, focused conversation, innovative explorations and online simulations and experiments. These technologies can help develop deeper understanding and increased motivation with the students with active participation and different ways of learning. I know that some subjects may be hard to incorporate more of this inquiry based thinking through digital technologies, that is okay. I think it is okay to have a blend of both, the old-fashioned way of teaching and this new interactive style with digital technology. These digital technologies can also benefit the classroom with the reflection portion of leaning where online environments can easily be created for peer collaboration and individual reflection. Using the digital world to enhance teaching also allows the benefit of having these resources available to you, where teachers can strengthen their resources and students can support their learning with additional information. I disagreed with the article when they said that the access the students the web should be unfiltered. I don’t think that we will ever be able to trust the students enough to allow this. The students use Web 2.0 platforms for their own personal use as well, we should most definitely keep the web access to the students filtered to keep them focused on using the web for educational purposes.

For the most part, I can see the shift to using more digital technology to educate in schools where the teachers are starting to forget about their old ways and incorporate more interactive online technologies. I know when I was teaching in my second week of my practicum, I tried my best to incorporate online applications like Kahoot, Mentimeter and online research activities. I could rent out a cart of laptops so that all the students had the proper access to the web. I saw that the students were motivated to learn in these settings being interactive, thinking critically and even creating their own multimedia project. It was a fun and interactive way for them to learn the concepts, inquiring on their own.

Doing the multimedia reflection as a Twitter essay was a huge learning curve for me. As I do not normally use twitter, I struggled when trying to use the format to the best of its abilities. I tried to make each tweet involve some sort of GIF or a poll to make them a little bit more interesting than just the plain old text its self as a tweet. I also found it hard to keep my thoughts within the 280 characters even though they had just recently increased the character count from 140 characters. I feel like I may think too much to simplify my thoughts in one tweet. Another struggle I came across was just through the posting process. I kept posting a tweet and realizing that it wasn’t attached to the tweet before or I just simply forgot the hashtag that we needed. Over all, I think that the twitter essay is a great way to share thoughts and opinions, being something that I would consider using again. Access to my multimedia reflection on twitter is located here, as well as some snap shots of some of my tweets below.

After reading Dr. Michelle Jacobsen’s article, Teaching in a Participatory Digital World, and watching the video, Henry Jenkins: The influence of Participatory Culture on Education, I feel that I have a deeper understanding of the importance of incorporating technology into the classroom in meaningful ways, and I hope to incorporate these techniques into my classroom in the future. The article made me realize that my elementary and secondary teachers could have done a better job at using the technology available. This does not mean they were bad teachers; however they may not have had the learning opportunities needed to understand the advantages of technology and therefore could not pass this on to the class. Like Jacobsen discusses, it all starts with the teachers. We cannot expect to have digital literate students who use technology to make deep, meaningful connections if we do not have teachers who can pass this knowledge to them. This is something that seems obvious but I had never really thought critically about before reading this article. Of course we need to provide teachers with the necessary knowledge and skills if we expect them to incorporate technology into their lesson plans. I feel that this course is a great way to provide pre-service teachers with a foundational understanding of technology in the classroom setting and provide future educators with many different resources that bring active participation, reflection, collaboration and web 2.o aspects into the learning environment. During practicum, I had the opportunity to implement technological aspects that brought active participation into the classroom. Not only did the students’ respond well to it, but my associate teacher told me that they loved the resource I used and plan on implementing it again in the future. The knowledge I have gained from this course so far has been very useful in the classroom and has helped a teacher (my associate) and many future teachers’ (our class) enhance their practice.

Many “old school” style teachers punish their students for using technology in class, even confiscating devices. Rather than reprimanding the students, teachers should show them how to use technology responsibly in the classroom to gain knowledge, make connections, reflect on their work and actively participate within the online community in a meaningful way. I wish that my teacher’s would have given us this opportunity, as I feel there is much to learn by connecting with people around the world, as we saw first hand in our twitter discussion last week. As future teachers, it is important for us to continue brainstorming the ways in which we can create the optimal learning environment for our students by incorporating technology that will help push their educational experiences to the next level. This being said, I also feel it is important to recognize when technology is simply being used in substitution for an analog model and when it is used to transform the ways in which students gain knowledge.

For my multimedia reflection I decided to create an animated sketchnote using the app “Scribble Together Whiteboard” on my iPad. I screen recorded while I sketched on the app and then put these videos to music using iMovie. Although buying an apple pencil by no means turned me into an artist, I feel that this medium allowed me to express my thoughts thoroughly through text as well as doodles. The Powtoon video I created for my last reflection was visually nicer, however the sketchnote looks much more organic and real, and I am happy with the final product. I also had more creative control, as I could draw, write or add in any images I wanted. The app is actually a great tool to use in the classroom, as it allows you to “share your whiteboard” with others. Anyone who has access to the board can add their own thoughts and ideas, allowing students and teachers to collaborate further. You may want to incorporate into a lesson at your next practicum!

I hope my childlike drawings make you smile! 🙂

I read the article Teaching in a participatory digital world by Dr. Michele Jacobsen

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

This article talks about the benefits of shifting the digital learning into participatory digital learning and the steps required to make this shift.

The quick evolution of digital technology to participatory social and academic environments calls for changed mindsets about schooling. Students and teachers are always connected and communicating online, so combining inquiry and technology opens the door to powerful new teaching and assessment practices.

Every person who is a part of the education system needs to be engaged in this shifting process starting from school jurisdictions , principals to teachers and students.

To improve this type of learning, teachers along with their professional learning opportunities should be engaged to strengthen their digital competencies to be able to guide and mentor the students  to be engaged successfully in 21st century work. This change will open lots of opportunities for these students and develop the competencies they need for expert adult performance. To enhance this learning style, students and teachers should reflect on their own work because students will learn better and teachers will strengthen their own practices.

Overall, I agree with the ideas in this article especially after my  practicum, I noticed how students are into technology in classrooms but schools have deficiencies in technology devices and some teachers, including myself ( a future teacher), are not ready for this shift yet. I think teachers are not ready because they did not receive the proper education that gives them confidence to use technology professionally and effectively in their classes.

For me , thinking of the idea of using technology in my class scares me because of my limited knowledge  in this area specifically and growing up thinking that the best and only way of teaching is pen and paper. Exploring technology especially in this course had changed my approach to technology because I am learning how effective it is for teachers and students when implemented and used correctly. while reading this article, I related to how frustrated I was to use twitter but turned out to be a good experience ,so I think as teachers we need sometimes to step out of our comfort zone for the benefits of our students .

I chose to make a piktochart this time. I really enjoyed it, it was easy working with  but the only problem I faced is the limited choice of graphics they have.

#UWinDig

https://create.piktochart.com/infographic/saved/33856581