#UWinDig

I decided to respond to the article Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy by Chris Gilliard by creating an infographic using Canva. The article talks about the invisible boundaries imposed on community college students due to the informational technology policies put in place by these institutions.  These policies and algorithms act like filters which limit the type and amount of information the students have access to, which impacts the future financial opportunities of the students.  This places the students at a disadvantage when compared to graduates of higher-level institutions, who generally do not experience these filters.  A core component argued by Gilliard in this article deals with the working-class roots of community colleges, and how digital barriers are being transformed to reinforce class, race and ethnic boundaries.  The article ends on an uplifting note that I agree with, a call for educators to be aware of the limits imposed on students by educational technologies.  We must be careful not to categorize our students like the IT policies do and strive for creating an open environment for learning and this can be done by carefully choosing the programs and activities we assign to our students.  We need to make sure these barriers are not something that we make students encounter.

Ill admit that I never really thought about how the policies in place at some institutions could have a more profound impact than simply not having access to that information.  I ignored the fact that if some students can’t access the information at campus, they can’t access it at all and the information does not exist for them.  My personal experience and upbringing has always allowed me the freedom and opportunity to pursue and use informational technology both at home and at school.  During public school, when I was blocked from playing games or visiting YouTube on the school computers, it made sense to me because that really wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing.  Now that I know about digital redlining, I have to consider the angle that I was being limited in my education because something like YouTube has profound educational use.

The most shocking thing about reading this article was the revelation that for some students without access to internet at home, their future job potential and equity is adversely affected.   I used to think that these IT policies put in place by some campuses were necessary to protect the users from harm from malicious websites or prevent access to websites that were inappropriate to a school environment.  While this is certainly true, it is hard to look at some of these restrictions in the same way knowing that it has severe repercussions for some students attending a different campus.    I now know that, intentional or not, the filters utilized by IT polices at community colleges reinforce the boundaries of race and class present in the real world.  With this new information, it is important that I approach the discussion and use of digital redlining with the gravity it deserves and try to use digital media to transform educational experiences for students, not diminish them.

My experience with Canva was not a smooth one, I became extremely frustrated by the limitations of the program.  I’m reminded of the Ashely Hinck article, Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom, describing the limitations of template programs and could not agree more here.  The free version of Canva has very little elements, images and icons available to use, with premium features available for one dollar.  This creatively limited what I could present and achieve, which made me feel that an infographic may not have been the best way to respond and reflect on the article.  The free and premium features  encountered could be viewed as a boundary or limitation.  Those without the means to afford a premium account are limited to the responses they can create, and the quality of their infographic is lessened.  I found Piktochart, the program I used last for the prior reflection to have more powerful editing options and gave more freedom with a free account.

Brandon Varga

2. Interesting questions by Henry Jenkins "Why are young people safer encountering social media on their own, outside of school?" While I was at high school, students were getting punished by the school for something they wrote on twitter. pic.twitter.com/fujlmDyH7o

— Drei Beniamin (@Andrei_3) October 30, 2018

4. Too much technology. I've had students ask me "why bother learning If I can google everything?" The point of school is for students to strengthen their problem-solving ability. If all they do is run to google anytime they get stuck, how is that helpful? #GoogleLessThinkMore pic.twitter.com/lT3FCg3tyd

— Drei Beniamin (@Andrei_3) October 30, 2018

6. Dr. Michele Jacobsen point about technology allowing for extended work hours reminded me of an article from CNN https://t.co/SYyD78HhNg

— Drei Beniamin (@Andrei_3) October 30, 2018

8. Benefits of using Web 2.0 – increases peer interaction i.e. exchange of ideas and experiences, allows for more indepdence and is more flexibile with respect to ways of presenting information.

— Drei Beniamin (@Andrei_3) October 30, 2018

10. One danger of integrating web 2.0 into schools is that it may force students or even teachers, into using a side of the web they otherwise would never have. If people should choose to avoid social media due to privacy, that should be acceptable. pic.twitter.com/O2HveTTGNk

— Drei Beniamin (@Andrei_3) October 30, 2018

12. "The most powerful thing teachers do to engage students is to design engaging, meaningful, and authentic work and technology-enhanced learning experiences." – Dr. Michele Jacobsen – Here is a link to the full article https://t.co/Njuoh9CpkK

— Drei Beniamin (@Andrei_3) October 30, 2018

Henry Jenkins’ brings up interesting points in his video, The influence of participatory culture on education. He first speaks to the dangers of social media and how teens are exposed to it at a young age with essentially no guidelines. The idea is to have teachers trained in the use of social media, so that way they may be better equipped to teach safe practices to their students. I’m ok with this idea because I know social media was an issue while I was in high school. A lot of students were getting disciplined for cyberbullying. Some students even believed it was ok because their account was on private. Having teachers constantly warning against such actions can be of huge benefit.

The second point Henry Jenkins touched on was open sourced learning. He claims that the roles of teachers would be to upload their lectures and content onto youtube and make it available to everyone. I’ve personally used an open source medium before. I found a professor on youtube who would upload his lectures. Whenever I needed the concept explained again, I would watch his videos. This is the beauty of using technology for education, if I missed a point I could rewind and listen to it again. Something I definitely could not do with the live lectures at school. Furthermore, I see no issue giving everyone the freedom to pursue knowledge in a topic that interests them. I do not think people stumble upon these videos on youtube, they have to be motivated and go search for them. I touched upon this point in my twitter Essay as well.

Dr. Michele Jacobsen article, Teaching in a Participatory Digital World speaks to using technology as a way to engage students. She states that participatory learning allows students to express their knowledge, thoughts, and ideas in a variety of ways (conversations, written assignments, media artifacts etc.). I like the idea of giving students multiple options for different assignments, projects, or general task. My issue is that I believe it’s a bit over idealized. What I mean by this is that just because technology is involved, does not always mean students will participate. For example, I did an online lab with my students and got a mixed reaction back. Some students loved it and went on to do other unrequired experiments, other student were just copying and clicking the “next” button as quickly as possible. I think students interest in the material needs to be “sparked” more than anything. Technology can help in this regard but not always.

My decision to make a twitter essay was one that involved much controversy, if you will. My journey began with trying to make a simple twitter account for the in-class open twitter chat. It immediately got shut down, so I made a second one and sure enough, it also got shut down. Later on, I made my third account (in class) and everything seemed good. The next day I try to log back in and the same thing happened again. At this point, my feelings towards twitter were very bitter. I’m three accounts in and nothing to show for it. However, I heard really good feedback from my peers about their twitter essays. Instead of making another fake account, I simply changed my name and decided to use my personal account. This decision was not that difficult seeing how I barely use my Twitter and I only have 9 followers. Once I began my essay, everything came naturally. I love the ability to use Gifs because it catches people’s attention, and can help further describe a point one’s trying to make. Also, hashtags are also really cool because they can connect you with multiple people with similar interest, or can be used as comic relief. The last tool I used for Twitter was the pool at the end to see how my 9 followers reacted to my essay. I would definitely recommend a twitter essay to my peers and encourage them to use all of these tools.

As a teacher candidate, I promote the use of technology. I believe technology makes lectures look more professional, it saves a lot of time, and it gives teachers a lot more freedom in terms of how they want to present material (video, images, activities, words, etc.) From a chemistry perspective, there are many ways to engage students with technology. Maybe the use of online labs depending on how interested your students are. If not, then for sure the use of interactive activities/simulations. For example, trying to teach quantum chemistry to teenage students can be very difficult especially since the topic is already incredibly abstract. My associate teacher used a simulation to help model the different theories of the Hydrogen atom. With my limited background in teaching, I believe this is the most effective way of articulating difficult concepts.

Before I read the article and watched the video, I was very pro-technology in the classroom. I still am but I can not say I have the same passion for it as Henry Jenkins. I do not agree with giving student complete access to the internet while at school. I am ok with the schools limiting certain content that they deem inappropriate. I also would understand why some schools would want to limit collaboration for students to an extent. One of the goals of teaching is to help students think more independently and not having to rely on other people. When Dr. Jacobsen spoke about the transitions schools would have to make to accommodate technology it got me thinking. It is very possible that teachers want to integrate technology, but the school does not have the funding. Like buying a camera and mic for each room to record lectures, hiring people to set these up, and then maintain later. This is true with all technology i.e. smartboards, computers etc. It’s possible schools want to do it, but simply can not at the momment. It’s a new idea that occured to me.

For this multimedia reflection I chose to watch the Henry Jenkins video and read the article by Dr. Michele Jacobsen. The overarching message that I got from these two sources was that participatory learning, or learning through online resources, is very important. Before viewing these sources, I was part of the group that Jenkins mentioned, where they believe that collaboration is cheating. I grew up in a way that unless it was group work, you did the assignment on your own, which included parents. I used to think students that had their parents help them with assignments (or in some cases, completely do the assignment), were cheating. However, now that I have viewed these two sources, I now realize that sometimes collaboration with others is not always cheating. I still believe that people need to do their own work, but reaching out to others for input can definitely be beneficial, and should actually be encouraged. I hope now that I know this, that I will be able to incorporate significant amounts of collaboration within my courses as a teacher.

So I decided to produce an infographic talking about this, as well as, the other messages that I felt the sources were trying to get across. To do this, I produced the “4 T’s” concept, which consists of technology, teachers, trying and retrying, and talking. These “4 T’s” to me are the overarching theme to the two sources, and are explained within my infographic. I also decided to include two quotes from the sources that really stood out to me. The first was from Jenkins about using YouTube. I thought this was important because as teachers, we need to be able to take the time and learn to use these online sources effectively, as opposed to wasting time trying to build something better. Likewise, I also chose a quote from Jacobsen which explained how important it is to include some of these online sources in our classrooms as teachers. Since we now know that students benefit from this online interaction, we as teachers, need to find ways to incorporate these methods into our teaching.

So to answer the question above, about if students are losing their creativity? No, I really do not think they are. I think students are very creative but we as teachers do not always allow for this creativity to flourish. Students are able to show their creativity through their social media daily, and we need to find ways to incorporate this creativity into our classrooms. As both sources indicated, we as teachers need to implement courses where collaboration is encouraged, as well as, using digital sources for our courses. These two things, along with continuously trying to reflect and better our teaching, will really impact our students in a positive way.

This blog post is a response to the article by Michele Jacobsen and a video by Henry Jenkins regarding participatory learning in classrooms. I choose to do a mind map on Coggle for this reflection because of the ideas presented in the two pieces and the concept behind participatory learning. We are currently in a transition period in bringing the digital technology that everyone uses in their daily lives into the classrooms. As such, the article explores the different possibilities that digital technology can bring to teaching and how we as educators can better prepare for the change. This is similar to a mind map, where a central idea is presented, and various aspects of that topic are mapped out or explored as diverging branches. In my artifact, I present four major aspects that are touched upon by the article, which are a shifting society, our changing pedagogy, the benefits of social learning, and the need for professional learning. All the images are obtained from Unsplash.

In our day-to-day lives, we are exposed to various forms of digital technology including cell phones, laptops, televisions, projectors, and so on. We use these devices to perform complex tasks, check the news or weather, or keep in contact with friends and family through social media. As such, our world has become incredibly digitized (when was the last time one went without using any form of digital technology listed above?). Even in work places, employers are incorporating various technology to improve efficiency and promote their businesses locally and abroad. They are increasingly looking to hire graduates with high digital literacy skills. As a result, schools are looking to improve the digital literacy of children. In participatory learning, teachers are demanded to develop lessons incorporating technology. This means that our pedagogy must change from one of traditional, teacher-centred essentialist mindset into one of more modern, student-centred constructivist mindset. From this, students can engage in social learning, and they can use technology to interact and collaborate more efficiently with peers and teachers, contribute their ideas more freely, and network with other students with similar interests. However, this also means that teachers must be able to keep up with the demands of society. They must engage in professional learning which can be provided through support from principals and other teachers, and through participatory learning communities online.

Overall, I think that a lot of the points raised in the article are important, such as the need for professional learning and the need to prepare our students within a rapidly changing society. In this respect, my opinions are mostly unchanged before and after reading the article. After all, they will become the backbone of our country in the future as they enter the work force. The author even states that participatory learning provides measurable benefits to students through previous studies. However, what I thought was interesting about the article was the types of learning that participatory learning can induce. I have not really given this much thought before, but it opened my mind a little into the teaching and learning possibilities. For example, the strong constructivist approach means that students can apply their own learning style to build their knowledge, which traditional classrooms may struggle to meet. However, it is also important to keep in mind the dangers and drawbacks of digital technology. I often hear in the news about cyber spying and hacking, and I believe that it is critical that this be addressed in classrooms. In my opinion, it is our duty as educators to educate students on the need for cyber security and net etiquette. From the article by Tufekci, the dangers of social media and digital technology are clearly highlighted. In addition, if these technologies are abused, they can easily be used for cyber bullying or cheating on assignments and tests. Furthermore, cell phones and laptops can also act as major distractions in classrooms if proper rules and management are not put into place. This was seen from time to time during my practicum when students will be engaged during activities such as Kahoot, but would browse social media during other times and not paying attention during class. As such, it is important to keep both the positives and negatives in mind when building a successful and meaningful participatory learning environment.

Using Coggle has been quite a learning experience for me. The platform was relatively easy to use, although it took me a while to figure out how to present the ideas in an aesthetic manner (i.e. formatting the lines and text boxes). I choose to use it over bubbl.us because it allows for image uploads on free accounts (albeit, a bit small). Manipulating the nodes has been straightforward as well and saving and exporting the finished mind map is extremely convenient and accommodating. It allows the user to either share it through a URL or export it in a variety of formats such as PDF and PNG. Coggle is a platform that I may consider using in the future, whether it is for personal or educational use.

We live in a world where finding resources like pencils, paper, overhead projectors and books in a classroom is almost obsolete. Digital technologies have taken over our education system and is calling for the changing of mindsets, especially from schools, teachers, learners and forms of assessment. In an article entitled “Teaching In A Participatory Digital World” by Dr. Michele Jacobsen, she begins to discuss the importance of incorporating and encouraging digital participation within our education systems, particularly in the classroom.

For this reflection I decided to use Piktochart to create an infographic summarizing and discussing Jacobsen’s article. Although there were many restrictions within the application that could only be accessed by paying for the premium version, there are still many ways to create and personalize the infographic. I really enjoyed that the background colour/image could be changed for each panel. Personally, I enjoy when all of my visuals are uniform throughout a project so I decided to go with the same background for each panel of this project. However, the option is there if you want to alter the background of any panel. It was very easy to navigate through the application, change text size and colour, add images and move things around. I would highly recommend Piktochart to anyone thinking of making an infographic for their multimedia reflection.

Throughout the article I got a strong sense of relationship and connection between teacher and student, especially in the digital world using Web 2.0 applications. It has been discussed many times, in many classes, how important reflection of practice is in the teaching profession. What this article touched on, that I never really thought about, was also how important reflection of student work and process is as well and how this student reflection impacts and effects the teachers reflection. A teacher must perform a reflective practice on their lesson, technology use in their lesson, was the use of technology effective for the purpose of the lesson and many other things. The teacher should also ask the students to perform a reflection on their work and their practice and this reflection should impact how the teacher reviews their lesson. Thus, a cyclical process between teacher reflection impacting students and students reflection impacting teachers. I had never made this connection, or realized the importance of this connection, until I read the Jacobson article and now I strongly believe it is something that each and every educator should make a part of their teaching practice.

This article also got me thinking of how I can make sure I am encouraging participatory learning within my own classroom, but also how I can ensure this is also being encouraged within my school, my school board and on a larger scale (i.e., schools within the province and with the Ministers of Education). With mental health issues becoming more prevalent, especially in secondary schools, there are more and more students having a harder time participating in class discussions due to things like anxiety. However, these students that may struggle with verbal communication can participate in online forums and discussions without any difficulties. By incorporating online discussions, whether it is through a blog or discussion board, a teacher can make these specific students still feel like they are a part of the class and contributing positively to the lesson. Including more digital technology and digital participatory activities in the classroom through various Web 2.0 applications allows the teacher to create a more inclusive classroom environment as well as producing forms of assessment and activities that target various students in the class with various learning preferences. Connecting this topic back to encouraging digital participatory learning outside of my own class, it makes me question how I can step into a new role of advocacy for this type of learning and what steps I can take to allow myself to take on this role of advocacy throughout my school board and the entire province as well. These may seem like big dreams but if there isn’t small people like me thinking of making these differences, quite frankly, I am not sure if they will every come to fruition.

Overall, I agree with many of the ideas put forth by Jacobsen in this article, but it does lead me to some questions. For example, not all schools have the same funds allocated towards technology availability to students. So, if you are teaching at a school like this, perhaps incorporating digital participatory learning may be difficult for a given class. Are there ways that we can get around this through things like trips to the public library, or online demonstrations only made by the teacher? But if we do that, the digital technology is no longer used for participatory purposes. Additionally, there may be a class that does not respond as positively to this method of teaching and learning. In this case, a teacher may need to alter the way they incorporate participatory technology into their classroom.

Well, those are my thoughts! Enjoy my infographic!

-Faith Hudvagner

P.S Because my infographic is so large, when I put the image in directly it is too small to be even legible. I have attached the link to this image to bring you to view it on the web. Hopefully this is easier for you! Darn technology, making our lives easier and more difficult all at the same time! Oh well, Enjoy!