In the article, laptops, classrooms, and matter of electrate concern, they discuss the use of laptops in the classroom. The discussion surrounds whether the laptops have a positive or negative effect on a student’s learning. The article discusses a study done to test the use of laptops and found that students who use a laptop to write notes result in lower understanding on tests and those also distracted by students using laptops result in lower understanding as well. It then goes to explain that the education system needs to rethink their views of laptops. Instead of disregarding the use of laptops, educational systems should rework their pedagogy to fit the use of laptops. The word that the article says is “electracy instruction”, which is the shift towards this new type of pedagogy that should be implemented into the classrooms.

I agree with the article- I believe that we need to shift towards this type of electronic-centered pedagogy. The use of laptops in the classroom are becoming more popular among students. Throughout my years of going to school I always wrote my notes; but, being French Immersion made that difficult for me. I was not able to write notes fast enough during lessons and it made it difficult for me to read them afterwards. I am also a perfectionist so when I handwrite notes I get distraught when my notes become disorganized. Throughout high school, I was told that we were not allowed to use to laptops to write notes; so, I continued to handwrite my notes even though that wasn’t the best method for me. Once I reached post-secondary I saw other students writing notes on their laptops which influenced me to give it a try. After writing notes for 5 years I have found that I am less stressed, and I am more organized. I also found using Microsoft Word made it easier and faster for me to write notes. This method improved my learning and I strongly believe that we allow students to choose as well. Each student learns differently and finding that note taking method is important to allow the student to be able to learn. What I learned from this article is that there are ways to execute this new pedagogy into my classroom effective. For example, the article mentions leaving the front two rows for students that don’t want to be distracted by laptops. That method could work to allow students that prefer to handwrite notes for my lessons they will be able to do it effectively and it won’t affect their learning.

There are benefits of using laptops in the classroom as well that help the students to improve their learning. Students can have online collaborations, in ways such as talking to other students from different classes or schools, or they have the ability to be able to collaborate with students in their class in online-discussions. I have done online discussions over the past few years and they allowed me to learn new information that I would have never found myself. Another benefit is being able to search more information, for example if a student does not understand a certain concept or term, they can immediately look it up on their laptops to better understand. The students will also have different ways for to learn the information, such as videos, images, or interactive websites. I am a visual learner, so going on the Internet to understand a concept better helps me to grasp it rather than only listening to the information being taught. The next benefit is the students will have organization. The students need organization in order to succeed, the laptops have notes that can be left on their home screen and there is a calendar built into the laptop that leaves notifications. I use my calendar on mine and it has helped me to stay organized and complete tasks on time. The next benefit is teachers can assign work online, such as on open source learning websites. Students use their laptops almost daily and assigning work online will help students keep on tracker with what is coming up. When I was in elementary and high school assignments had to be written down in my planner or given to me as a handout, but now the Internet allows for teachers do both, give a handout and assign it online. I have found it much easier for me to be check Blackboard for my assignments rather than having to carry around my binder with the assignments. The next benefit is review/feedback process is easier for teachers. If students hand their assignments in online the feedback and edits can be given instantly rather than waiting to give it to students. If assignments are close together I find it beneficial to get my feedback and edits faster to be able to start the next assignment. The next benefit is it improves student’s computer skills, which becomes useful for the students. The students will be using computers in the future for their jobs as it has become a desirable trait to have. As a student becoming a future teacher having computer skills is important, I had to teach myself how to use computers and now using my laptop more often has helped me to work towards better computer skills. These are the benefits of having laptops in the classroom and ways to improve students’ learning.

There are different ways that laptops can be useful to facilitate students learning in the classroom and outside of the classroom. A new teaching style is starting to become popular, which is called flipped classroom learning. The flipped classroom style is assigning a video or an article the night before a class to give the students an idea on what they are going to be learning the next day. I didn’t experience this kind of learning until university, which I would have liked to learn more this way. The students will be required to answer questions or come prepared to discussion the topic beforehand that way they have a little bit of knowledge before the lesson. The other usefulness of having laptops in the classroom is having online discussions, this could be with fellow colleagues in the classroom or with other individuals around world. I got to experience talking to another student from a different school in grade 8, which we called a pen pal. In the classroom we would write letters to our pen pal, but it became lengthy and difficult getting the letters back and forth. The technology now-a-day allows for faster responses to other schools or places. The other way that laptops can be used is to do research during lessons or for assignments. During the lessons students do not understand every aspect that is being taught and having access to a laptop allows them to research aspects in which they do not fully understand. Throughout high school if I didn’t understand an aspect of the lesson I would not think about or research it until I had to study that aspect. Now with laptops students are able to search for terms or concepts in an instant. The other way that a laptop can be used is to do online quizzes, rather than printing off multiple quizzes, the students could access them on the Internet. There are sites that I have used in the past, such as Quizlet or Plickers. I found them to be very useful to give students marks on their learning either after a lesson or the next day. The other usefulness of laptops is to edit, review, or give feedback either from the teacher or fellow students. I used a website called Peergrade that allows students give feedback to their fellow classmates. This will help students to learn new things from their fellow classmates and to practice edit and giving feedback to others. These are some of the many ways that allowing and using laptops in the classroom are useful.

With all these benefits there are limitations to having laptops in the classroom. The first limitation is students becoming distracted on their laptops. During lessons when students no longer have the attention span during lessons they begin to message friends, check emails, or go on social media. This could affect their marks, but that depends on the students as well as some can still succeed on tests if they only get distracted for a few minutes. I have become distracted during lessons as well during school, but I still succeeded in my classes and went onto to working towards my dream job. The other limitation is students not having access to the Internet or laptops. Some or a majority of students may not have access to laptops or to the Internet, but there are solutions to that problem as well. Schools are now assigning iPads or Chromebooks to students that need them to use in school and at home. The teachers will also have to allow students to work on assignments in class to make it fair for all students. I have always been lucky enough to have access to Internet and a computer to work on my assignments, which I understand not everyone has. These are the limitations of using laptops in the classrooms.

I choose to do an infographic for my multimedia reflection, I choose this because my family was sent an infographic for our Russell’s 3on3 Hockey Tournament fundraiser and it inspired me to do one as well. I have never made an infographic in the past and making one for this made me nervous. I didn’t know how much information is too much or not enough. After making one though I feel more comfortable making it, I understand more what goes on them and how the organization aspect of them is important. The infographic I created is my view of having laptops, so I put an introduction, the benefits, a statistic, the limitations, the applications, and a conclusion. These certain things will help individuals to decide whether they agree with my view or not.

Infographic – You Never Know Unless You Try here is a PDF version as well.

The Article (original)

laptops, classrooms, and matters of electrate concern

The much more creative response (Original by: Kyle)

The Writing Part

I chose to do Piktochart again because I think this format can have a lot of fun and get the point across very quickly. The format also fit the article I chose to respond to, in case you missed it https://profalexreid.com/2016/05/17/laptops-classrooms-and-matters-of-electrate-concern/  is an article that goes on to say that technology is very scary and nobody has a real plan for it yet. When I say nobody has a plan, I mean nobody: not the teachers, not the students, not the parents or the principals. Yet this is an emerging area of learning that is only growing and it cannot be ignored, and it cannot be contained by a small plastic pouch.

It is easy to dismiss technology and call it a fad that is not worth investing too many resources in. However, is that what teaching is really about? I always thought teaching was about pushing the envelope and refining your lessons and making them as interesting for the students as possible. Technology is giving us (the teachers) a chance to teach in a way that was not available before and will improve before we know it; and I intended to embrace it and try and help my students see past technology as a faucet for social media. When I decided on becoming a teacher I envisioned myself being the laid back English teacher who would do things as boring predecessors had done before me. As I spent more time in the ed program I realized how fun being new could be and all the technology I had at my disposal could help me make a difference. In my placements I never really used tech at all, aside from a slide show or two. Reflecting on those experiences I realize how I can add to each lesson or change them entirely with different mediums that I never would have thought could be used for teaching. Twitter and instagram were becoming less of a social media construct and became a way to easily share and reflect on one another work. Technology is something I will be using in the future and it will be something I’m going to fail at using but its going to be something I never stop trying.

Technology as I stated is always changing and improving which is why I chose to do a Piktochart again. If this platform is still relevant I wanted to show that I could improve on my work from the previous lesson because I felt that I could still do better. As long as a platform is relevant I do not see the problem in using it again as long as you can get a firmer handle on how to use it to your advantage. I think technology only becomes a problem when you are lazy with it. If you are constantly trying to better yourself like with any new skill, such as, juggling it only becomes boring when you stop adding more balls. When you feel like you’ve mastered all juggling has to offer go try a new skill. With regards to technology I feel like I have mastered Piktochart and I am eager to start my next response in a new platform I can grow with.

After reading the article “Leave no Dark Corner” I immediately thought of how different our lives would be if we grew up in a society with a social credit system.  As described in the article, citizens in this system would lose credits which would ban them from certain benefits/privileges in society such as using public transportation, travel, or certain jobs. The citizens in this system could potentially lose credits for what they buy, who they date/marry, who their friends are or who their parents are.

The article made me think about how different our childhood could have been and for some reason I thought of one of my favorite childhood TV shows (since I am being the shows character for Halloween). I chose to depict a scene of Steve from Blues Clues happily receiving a letter only to find out the letter is informing him that he has lost 10 social credit points. He does not understand why he lost these points, then in the next scene we see Steve’s twin brother Joe robbing a jewelry store suggesting that Steve undeserving lost his social credits due to a case of false identity.

I chose to represent this scene using the resource Storyboardthat.com because it is a new resource that i was recently introduced to that is easily customizable and i believed could be used to effectively present my thoughts on this subject.

I foresee a lot of issues with this social credit system. First of all in a world where identity theft is such a big issue, I see a lot of potential for undeserving credit loss. Secondly, I do not agree with the reasons you can lose credit. I believe the reasons for losing points will leave a lot of people vulnerable and isolated based on factors they cannot control. For example, losing points based on who your parents are and what they do is socially unjust and will only lead to cases of intergenerational poverty. This system will unfairly isolate those who are already born into oppression.

I completely disagree with this Idea of a social credit system mainly because this system will oppress people based on things out of their control. For example, my grandmother was born in an orphanage along with her nine other half brothers and sisters. She was one of the few who were never adopted and lived her life in orphanages or group homes until she turned 18 and was kicked out into the world. She was born into poverty and when my father was growing up he worked hard to escape that life and to provide a better life for his own children. If we lived with this social credit system, my father would have had to work twice as hard to get where he is now. He would have lost points due to my grandmothers misfortunes and due to the fact that my grandfather was an alcoholic. This would have most likely affected my life as well and my grandchildren as well creating a chain of intergenerational oppression.

I believe one of the biggest problems with our society is that people work against one another to get to the top and once they’re they they use their power to oppress those below them rather than help lift them up. This social credit system will only make this issue worse. As a teacher I want to help my students achieve their best potential in life. I believe in equality and not a system of social classes/cliques. Imagine you are planning a field trip for your students and then you find out that one of your students cannot go because he has a “social credit” of 50/800. Even worse, the reason he has this poor social credit is because he is the son of a criminal.

In conclusion, I believe a social credit system which grades citizens and can determine their quality of life is inhumane and is a horrible idea.

At first glance, some may find this article about the Chinese Social Credit system set to fully role out in 2020 not directly relatable to education in the Western world. It reads as the script of a Black Mirror episode (in fact, it eerily reflects this particular episode.) The basic idea is that the State will use their vast surveillance system to give citizens a social credit score. Citizens will receive rewards for higher scores, while those with lower scores will receive punishments. An example of a punishment would be blocking them from flights and high-speed rail – i.e. restricting their movement.

While it seems this is happening a world away, this is something we should be examining. The State is controlling behaviour of their citizens with a behaviour reward system. It sounds a lot like the type of systems many teachers are using, like Class Dojo, to manage behaviour in their own classes.

Before reading this article, I didn’t think much about tools like Class Dojo. I thought they might be helpful tools but had thought very critically about them. After reading more about China’s social credit system, I can see some real dangers in this type of system in a micro-culture like a classroom. There are three major issues that it has illuminated for me: how do we decide what behaviours are acceptable, is it okay to publicly (or even privately) shame students for their behaviour, and what kind of biases do we have towards students because of the people they spend time with?

As teachers, how do we decide exactly what behaviours are acceptable? While examining the social credit system in China, this was one of the things that struck me. Who decides what is proper moral behaviour? In the classroom this looks different than what we might see on a grander level. For instance, if a student continuously stands up and walks about the classroom, many teachers may decide this is undesirable behaviour. They may loose points on their class dojo. BUT, what if this student thinks best while moving.

The second issue this brings up is the idea of shaming students. The social credit score publicly shames and assigns a number to someone based on their behaviour. This number is likely very difficult to change once it goes too far one way or the other. This is similar to a student in a classroom. If we are using systems like Class Dojo are we labeling students with a number and shaming them publicly. How difficult do we make it for students to turn their behaviour around and start over?

The last point I’d like to make is that one of the behaviours that will have an impact on social credit score in China is who you are friends with and spend time with. Even if your friends post something negative on social media about the government, you will loose points for it. Do we punish students for who they are spending time? Or more likely, are we biased towards them because of the people they spend time with?

While I believe things like Class Dojo are still a far cry from the system that is rolling out in China, I think it is something we should be examining. How do you view behaviour management systems in the classroom? Do you think they are similar at all to the surveillance systems that exist in China? Or are we going to far in this comparison?

Click below to view my Prezi!

I chose to analyze the article “Tackling tech: How some Ontario teachers are attempting to limit students’ cellphone use” by Nadine Yousif. I thought that this article was written to an older audience, like students parents and grand parents who would be reading it thinking, wow that’s such a great idea. No offence to those who believe that it is, however I think it past time for teachers to welcome technology, including cell phones into the classroom. Yousif says “Its just another attempt at the seemingly impossible: separating teens from their smartphones”, in reference to a teacher who decided to lock his students phones in bags that can only be opened with a special device. Perhaps we shouldn’t try to go against the culture, or against what is normative for teens. Instead I think we should shift the focus from separating students from their smartphones, to integrating them in meaningful ways. The idea of banning cellphones in schools and classrooms is regressive in todays society.

Cellphones are a powerful tool that allow us to have access to the world at our fingertips. We have a wealth of knowledge in our hand, it is a library, a thesaurus, it allows us to connect to experts and thinkers in all fields, as well as have social connections and PLN without much effort. Teachers should welcome such an incredible learning tool and integrate it into their pedagogy and teaching practice. Doug Ford also suggests in a citation from the article that schools should have a phone ban to maximize learning time. I don’t think this will help math scores or school performance from students. I think it is not reflective of the real word. I think that having hard lines like a ban only makes students use their phones secretively, and when that’s the case they will never use them as a learning tool. No student is going to sneak on their phone and risk getting in trouble to look up information or fact check. Even the teacher who used a less severe method and had students put their phones in a bag that had Velcro (as a deterrent due to the noise) strikes me as a very authoritarian approach. This reminds me of an industrial teaching model where students are workers and the teacher is the rigid supervisor. I think teaching approaches are moving away from this model and becoming more student centered, and a student centered model considers students needs and learning preferences.

As a student in high school I remember having a total phone ban. If (or should I say when) a teacher caught you using your phone they would take it away and bring it to the office. We never were allowed to use our phones during class, nor did we have computers anywhere except the library (no tablets either). We were unable to access any information outside our often dry text books. As a student I find researching subjects, and looking at examples online very beneficial for a deeper understanding, and for idea generation. Sometimes when I don’t know where to start a quick google search helps me, as I am a visual learner. Also, even though we didn’t use our phones for education we all would use them to text as soon as we felt the teacher wasn’t looking. Due to the fact that they were banned I don’t think they were used to their potential.

My associate teacher in a grade 8 classroom had a great system going for appropriate use of technology. He had made a pouch at the back of the room where each student had a slot for their phone with their name on it. Students put their phones in the slot during direct instructional time. When he had them working on an activity or looking up information they were allowed to go and get them and put a orange piece of paper in their slot. There where times were he would ask them to keep their phones in the pouch, and he  would make some keep their phone away if they abused the privilege. I found that students were very respectful, and this system worked well. My AT was aware that they may check a few texts or Instagram, however they did not take advantage of that. My AT was very engaged with his students and would walk around interacting with them during seat work. This classroom did not have computers or enough tablets for every student. Much of the research and information gathering they did was on their phones and with a handful of tablets. I think his classroom was a great example of what student led learning looks like.  In my future classroom I would like to follow a similar structure. I would also have an ongoing conversation with my students about being polite while being tech savvy. I do think its rude to be on your phone while someone is talking to you, but if the teacher is done talking and the student is engaged in learning, tech and phones can aid and engage students in the process!

Tabitha Klein

I decided to do a rant style video on some initial thoughts I had while reading the article.

#rantandrave

Matt Rosof’s article, Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app from their phone in the last year, says study, discusses the results of a recent study which indicates that nearly half of young facebook users, aged 18-29, have decided to delete the Facebook app off of their phones. The study found that some decided to delete the application outright while others have elected to take a break from Facebook. Facebook’s stocks have taken a hit, 20%,  due to the volume of users that are moving away from the core Facebook application.The recent Facebook scandals, FBI russia probe and the Cambridge Analytica incident, are a large reason for the current Facebook exodus. What concerns users most is how their data is being manipulated by others for their own personal gain.

I chose to do my multimedia artifact on this article due to the fact that I have been contemplating deleting Facebook for some time. I really like how Facebook can connect us with people we haven’t seen in along time or help us to keep in contact with those people. Another great reason to keep Facebook is the group chats that, for example, we have started here at the Faculty of Education. Those group chats have the potential for great collaboration once we get into the field and begin teaching our own classes. In saying this, I believe that the potential issues that can arise due to the application outweigh the positives. I, like many others, have purged my Facebook account of anything that is deemed to be slightly unprofessional, however I can’t be sure that I have deleted everything. To me deleting the application seems like a smart option. Another issue that could arise from Facebook is if we are tagged in a photo that is deemed unprofessional then we could face consequences from administration. Also what if our accounts were to be hacked, seeing as Facebook’s security is in question lately, and something inappropriate is thus said. We would take the flack for such an incident. I simply don’t think the positives outweigh the potential negatives. The fact that our feeds can be manipulated along with our data, like the article explained, is enough to scare anyone let alone someone in a profession in which their content is constantly scrutinized. Having now read the article and combining it’s ideas with my previous feeling’s I have decided, like many others, that I will be joining the great Facebook exodus.  

Pdf: MindMup 2 Oct 27 18

Brandan Joyce

Looking back to 2008/2009, I thought Facebook was the ultimate tool for connecting with friends and finding new friends who didn’t go to my school. Seemingly everyone between the ages of 12 and 30 were using Facebook, and if you weren’t, you were missing out. Fast forward to today, and you’ll realize that Facebook no longer holds this same level of popularity among young social media users. Currently, I only really use Facebook in order to keep in contact with fellow students, as it is an easy way to communicate without having to exchange numbers. I rarely post anything. This seems to be the case among many of my other friends who are just barely hanging on to platform. According to Matt Rosoff’s Article, 44% of millennial users have decided to delete the Facebook app from their phone. This drop in user popularity goes beyond trends and new social media platforms.

Rosoff explains that Facebook’s declining popularity among millennial users is closely linked to Facebook’s scandalous year. Facebook was found to be involved in two main scandals; allowing Russian operatives to utilize the platform spread fake news in an attempt to manipulate the 2016 US election, as well as instances of improperly using the personal data of its users. Obviously, these scandals have struck a nerve with millennial social media users, but why mainly them? What is causing these young people to jump ship?

The largely media literate millennial social media using population has become less and less comfortable with sharing their personal information on a website such as Facebook. A solid understanding of the importance of protecting personal information has driven many young users away from Facebook, for an understandable fear that their information was not safe. Many people of older generations may not have this same media literacy, and are much less bothered by the scandals that Facebook has been involved in. This may explain why Facebook remains popular among older social media users. These older social media users may not have the necessary media literacy skills to decipher between ‘fake news’, shared with them in order to manipulate their opinions on certain matters. This skill may also be absent among the younger generation. Although they are highly digitally literate in their own ways, our youth may not always be able to look at everything they see online through a skeptical lens, as they should be.

This article helps to reveal the real issue with posting online. As teachers, we are constantly reminded that anything we post on social media can be found by anyone. This is why it is so integral to be careful with what you’re posting on any particular platform. We have to now pass along some of the useful lessons of this article to our students. Our youth needs to understand the implications of having personal information on social media. Although we often think of ourselves as the manipulators of these various platforms, it is we who are being manipulated. We need to remind our students that personal information should stay private, because you never know how that information is being used.

This article definitely shifted my opinions on the matter of privacy and social media . Previously, I had never really been too weary about putting my information on social media. I had thought that anything that was marked as ‘private’ would stay as such, and that anything that I deemed ‘public’ could be shared. Unfortunately, platforms such as Facebook has proved on multiple occasions that they cannot be trusted with our private info, which will undoubtedly result in its continuing downfall. Personally, I will continue to use Facebook for communication purposes, however, I will stay away from putting up any personal information. I will bring the main ideas of this article into the classroom as I believe that it is integral that students understand that their information is not as safe as they may have initially thought.

#UWinDig

Link to my twitter essay

Link to Matt Rosoff’s article

Throughout our brave new technological world, social mediums have become remarkably popular, and some would argue, now have an iron grasp on our society’s youth. The development of social media giants, such as Facebook, have changed the world that we all live in. Mark Zuckerberg’s creation has undoubtedly connected various people across the world, particularly through Facebook’s instant messaging. Having a strong connection with both Great Britain and Norway, I personally know the positives that social media applications, like Facebook, can have upon people separated from their family and friends. Although Facebook has its positives, it has become increasingly obvious that there have been systemic problems with Facebook and its users’ privacy.

Matt Rosoff’s article, Facebook Exodus, depicts how once loyal Facebook users, within the coveted 18-29 year old demographic, have increasingly ‘unfriended’ Facebook, which according to the author, has a direct link to the negative press surrounding Russian trolls and Cambridge Analytica’s usage of the social network’s platform. These various scandals have seen governing bodies across the world, for example, the European Union, question Facebook surrounding its policies with regards to personal data. This is not solely a European phenomenon, as in the United States, Facebook’s creator and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, testified before the United States Congress, ultimately attempting to explain how personal data is collected and used online. In this world of increasing technological complexity, some have questioned how we, as a society, have got here and how to ensure that younger users of social media platforms, like Facebook, are protected online.

It was this question that piqued my own interest as a fledgling educator. I was fascinated to think critically of the ways in which we can ensure that our students, and their digital footprint, is protected. As touched upon within my Twitter essay, I feel that the best way that we can make absolutely certain that our students feel safe and secure online is through teaching digital and media literacy. Without this, our future students will fall into the same traps that many of us have fallen into, such as believing in fake news and leaving our online footprint vulnerable to those who may wish to use our data for nefarious purposes. I believe that our goal as educators of the next generation is to ensure that they do not repeat the mistakes of our past. If, you too, feel that this is important, teaching authentic and engaging digital and media literacy is paramount. This can be done through different ways, one of the main means through which I will seek to promote a strong understanding of media and digital literacy in my classroom is through informing students of privacy settings and how even by a relatively minor adjustment, their data can be safe from harvesters in the future!

Although schools and students were not directly mentioned in Rosoff’s article, I could not help but reflect upon my own educational experience with regards to data and my digital footprint. My Grade Twelve History teacher used Edmodo exclusively, which has been in the news as a result of hacking that breached the accounts of millions of users. I feel that my own journey through education was fairly limited in exposure to good technological and online practices, thus, I have had to develop my own knowledge and consult online and print sources in order protect myself in our rapidly developing technological world. As the educators of tomorrow, we must first have an understanding of our increasingly digital world and secondly, celebrate our acquired understanding with our students. Hence, partially remedying the lack of technological know-how that I feel characterised my own educational experience.

Rosoff’s article was outstanding in its ability to not only break down issues that Facebook has had with regards to its users’ data but left me critically thinking, where do we as a society go from here? Is it possible that we have already surrendered to an Orwellian state, where we are constantly watched and increasingly controlled by powerful corporations? As in everything, it is the future that will inevitably inform us if this is the case.