#UWinDig

The article I chose to look at was “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” by Hinck, A (2018). http://hybridpedagogy.org/digital-ghosts-modern-classroom/

The Ashley Hinck begins writing about how students are interested in taking digital media classes because the want to learn to create media through, photoshop, HTML/CSS, and even personalized GIFs. However, what they are really looking for is to learn how to use drag-and-drop platforms to make what they’re looking for. These shortcut/template platforms have huge effects on students because similar to everything else in the classroom, there are blank spaces that the student copies information and pastes to. To me, this was often the case when using technology in the classroom. My teachers always gave us projects where we would just learn about how to create posters, presentations and such from programs what required us to just find information and paste it into the spaces. As a music teacher, I expect my students to use expression, and creativity when performing because music is about personal and group discovery and learning to bring out the beauty within. How can I as a teacher expect these things when I can’t do the same when using digital media.

As well, the article states that these shortcut/template websites and platforms are becoming the new “worksheets” and that we should be trying to get away from this and turn to technologies that promote openness and experimentation. The issue with these approaches is that students will draw from their previous experiences which happens to be the programs that are holding them back. We need to find a way to get students away from these programs from the get go so that these habits are never instilled in them.

On the other hand, when we look to these programs like HTML/CSS, Raspberry Pi, and Scratch, what we don’t realize is that these platforms don’t guarantee a finished product in the end. There is so much openness and exploration that students become very frustrated from working for long periods of time only to be met with error after error. Students are not comfortable with making mistakes and having to diagnose the problem by themselves but through trial and error and a little bit of patience, the struggles do eventually pay off. Digital media is a struggle and is full of the unknown, but allows more control over the final product.

Moving forward, we must learn from our mistakes and take the time to learn about these programs so that we can effectively teach our students. As well, we must lead the way and help guide/show them that mistakes are okay and that they must learn to try and try again until it works. If we can get to this point, out students will see that they can become great makers, creators, and speakers in the digital world.

Lastly, when I started this assignment, I decided I would look at a bunch of the recommended platforms to see which one I thought I could get fairly comfortable with before starting any of the reading/listening. When doing so, I found that Piktochart was really interesting and stuck out, especially because all I needed to do was to find a template and copy and paste my information into it… However, once I read the article, I had a moment where I laughed out loud because of how ironic it was. From here, I decided I would go and start with a completely blank page and see what I could come up with. This was an interesting time because I actually had about three other info graphics that I started only to change my idea and start a new one. I ended up with this one because I thought it worked well for what I was aiming for. There is a lot I would change but I am happy with where I ended up at with all the trial and error and I know now to try to get away from all of the copy and pasting.

– Jon Chaif

https://create.piktochart.com/output/32980414-new-piktochart

Hinck’s article Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom discusses how most students only know how to create digital media using the template/shortcut platforms, and I am one of them. I remember taking a course during my undergrad where I had to use coding to create a basic website, and I can recall feeling frustrated and discouraged by the difficulty. I’ve always been more comfortable using applications and websites that don’t have a big learning curve so that I can get through the task, and move on to the next one. I like assignments that require me to give an answer that is either right or wrong, because it’s the way that I’ve been trained. Hinck compares template/shortcut platforms to using worksheets in the classroom, which reflect a standardized model of education. Students are using pre-set fonts, colours and layouts, while their ability to make choices is restricted in the digital media making process. As teachers, we need to show our students that they are not limited to using templates, and that there is much more available at their disposal so that they can showcase their creativity. By promoting students to become creators and makers of original and thoughtful digital media, teachers can embrace an authentic model of education. As teachers, it is our job to design tasks for our students that involve technology based on Puentedura’s SAMR model. When technology is integrated to redefine a task, it allows for more creativity.

After reading Hink’s article several times, the word that stuck out to me the most was “tinkering”. I knew the meaning of the word, but looked it up in a dictionary to see the true definition: “attempt to repair or improve something in a casual or desultory way, often to no useful effect”. I love the idea of tinkering with different things – exploring them in a casual manner and seeing what happens. Unfortunately, this opportunity has not presented itself to me in my educational experience. We should promote to students that trial and error should be encouraged rather than being perceived as failure. In the real world, trial and error is important and unavoidable in order to learn, therefore it should be valued just as much in the digital making process. Providing students with opportunities to make discoveries on their own without always having explicit instructions allows for a more rich learning experience. We can put students out of their comfort zones by not giving them linear instructions. Although there will be failures during the process, it makes celebrating successes so much more rewarding. It is a much more gratifying experience to accomplish something you didn’t know you were capable of, rather than just accomplishing a redundant task. I liked how Hinck modelled her own failures and troubleshooting to her students, because it’s important to see that they have value. We should have our students reflect on their experience with failures by discussing them in class, or by having them submit a written component about the challenges they faced and what they have learned from mistakes that were made in the process.

Let’s encourage students to take control over the programs they use and the final products they produce. Let’s take away the power from templates and platforms and develop students who are makers and creators.

I created an infographic because I do not have a lot of experience creating digital multimedia and I wanted to start the first assignment with something relatively simple, while still challenging myself. I chose a template, but I made a conscious effort to change the layout, images and colours that were preset. The template help me to start my assignment, but I still took control over the final product so that it didn’t look like anyone else’s artifact. The most challenging part for me was synthesizing my ideas, rather than developing them like in a writing assignment.

The podcast: HybridPod, Ep. 10

To encourage learning in the classroom, teachers must realize that there is seldom a clear answer for how a lesson should be taught. Each student that enters the classroom has a different way of learning. During my years as a student in elementary and secondary school, I found that I learned best when shown visuals and given handouts; I was fortunate enough to have most of my classes providing me with this method of visual incentive. Unfortunately, some of the other students in my class indicated that they learned better by being taught one-on-one. The teachers were grateful that I stepped up to assist these students with this learning aspect as I had a good grasp of the concepts being taught. But, not every teacher will have this kind of help available in their classroom; as such, other methods to teach will have to be experimented in order to try to allow every student to learn. The notion that every student that happened to be born the same year must take the same path to achieve a good grade is unrealistic. There are students that cannot learn at the same pace and need more time to absorb new knowledge. This problem is complex and doesn’t necessarily have a single solution; but, it does follow a pattern which is what the teacher should be following. When the teacher works with students they should look for a pattern with their learning to work through the problems – this will help the students to individually learn in the classroom. The education boards must see the importance of allowing teachers to take risks and not allow technology to replace teachers. The concept of risk is important in the classroom because the students will enter a world outside of school that isn’t a safe haven of learning. In order to learn in society, one needs to take risks and make mistakes which takes the individual to that next step in their knowledge. The idea of complex problem comes into this as well as the teacher is taking risks to find the solution – this is an emergent practice. When a teacher is willing to take risks for their students and allow them to participate in it; this allows them to already have a risk-taking experience. The integration of technology is useful in the classroom; but, it cannot replace the teacher. In one of my placements, my associate teacher explained to me how she encouraged her French class to speak to a former exchange student that came from France to learn a new perspective. The students were prepared to ask questions in French and were able to learn about French in a new aspect and from a different voice. There are advantages of having technology, but the teacher figure should always remain to always have a connection to the knowledge and encourage discussion. The students are able to learn from the teacher and the teacher, in turn, learns from the students. As a teacher candidate I use augmentation from the SAMR model, I add audio and videos to my presentations to teach my students as I find it is a good way to allow the students to absorb the knowledge being taught. Integrating technology, taking risks and learning from each other are a few of the important aspects to consider in the classroom to ensure an effective learning environment.

The Friend/Collier podcast is a discussion about the education system between two people, Chris Friend and Amy Collier. The interviewer is challenging the thoughts of the guest to get their true thoughts about the topic. The guest begins to rant about their opinion, which shows their true passion for the topic. I chose to do a rant due to their passion of the topic and my passion on the topic. I find that a rant allows a person to get their point across with emotion and it can be done visually, which is why I selected to do it as a video. The guest explains how the system needs to evolve in order for students to learn from the teacher; move away from standardized education to an individualized education (to an extent). I believe that students should be given different paths due to their differences in learning and this is strongly believed from the guest as well. The rant represents how individuals feel about a topic, emotionally and visually, you can see it in the face and the sound of their voice; and explains their opinion clearly for the audience to understand. This is why I chose to represent my opinion and connect to the podcast through a rant video.

The platform I used for the video is MovieMaker; it is provided with the Acer computer. I found this platform restricting to use in the way of editing; adding effects, colour changing, etc. The difficulties I also had was finding a reliable site to use to edit my video. The sites required money or too much restrictions that it made it difficult to edit. I tried a program called VideoPad, but it was too difficult to use, I did not understand the different buttons and tools. So in the end I used the platform MovieMaker to polish off my rant.

I chose to read “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” by Ashley Hinck and decided to use Twitter for my reflection. I thought Twitter would offer a nice template (character limit) while allowing for some freedom of creativity (the tweets themselves, GIFS, images, etc).

While going through the article it allowed me to reflect on many past projects between the faculty of education, faculty of human kinetics, high school and elementary school which were very template oriented focused mainly on the drag and drop aspect as mentioned in the article.

There are so many useful tools and resources on the world wide web. And there are many platforms which allow for open-ended learning and exploration, but the expectations and assumptions of templates linger in the classroom. These template platforms set the tone for another way that students “try to get the right answers”. But the question is, are the students learning anything from these platforms? The notion that students find trial and error as a failure is baffling to me, I think that students have such a fear of failure that they look for the simple, straight shot answer. Using shortcut template platforms resonate with today’s society of getting to the destination as quick and as easy as possible – students often use these platforms as a scapegoat to try and please their teachers by doing what they think their teacher is expecting and wants.

Below are some screenshots from my Twitter thread, and the link to my thread is right here –> https://twitter.com/guchimane1/status/1046273261972201472 

I chose to analyze and illustrate the article on Hybrid Pedagogy, Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom. The article starts off by explaining the common reasons for why students may take on the endeavor of learning about tech. Some of the reasons being that it is fun, interesting and that there are job prospects. From a personal perspective of both a learner of tech and future teacher of digital pedagogue, I created a poster to compare two very broad concepts of learning. The first category is an image of a teacher at the traditional starting point of learning, a blackboard. Within this blackboard there is an image of a laptop. Much like in the article there is a concept of traditional learning and teaching. Although the teacher is teaching a new subject he is still using an old teaching method of a chalkboard and self-centered teaching. If the viewer takes a closer look they are able to see that the computer screen has little avatars dropping and placing various images and texts on specific spots. This is a representation from the article of how the many of the current types of tech teaching in classrooms resembles the past ghost of fill in the blank hand out toil.

The right side of the versus contains individual design which can mean many things to different people. Perhaps the concept of dragging and dropping might be one person’s cup of tea and may be how presidential Obama marketing made their campaign, or perhaps it can also feel restrictive for those looking to make their vision come to mind. I chose this specific graphic for this side as it portrays many things spilling out of the screen without a proper place to land. This is how much of tech works as it can be messy business and will not always go as planned. There are various small icons within this graphic such as color pallets, eyedropper, camera, etc. All these images imply that there is not just one way of doing things but rather multiple mediums to the computer tech world and how we go about implementing our ideas right in the middle.

Now, what is good learning? This can vary from individual to individual. For new teachers, good learning is stepping away from standardized education as the article discusses that in previous classrooms this was the norm. The article emphasizes the need to depart from the ghosts of traditional classrooms in the digital world so students are able to experience good learning instead of traditional learning. Good learning is not perfect learning, meaning there is room for failure, success and growth.

What is building without direction? Well, with any stable project or endeavor a firm foundation is needed. This foundation can come in many forms, if it comes in the form of a template then it is based on one direction with spots to fill until the template is complete. Now when it comes to building something like a sculpture or an HTML webpage, there is no solid template, yes there is the initial blob of clay which is the foundation. There is the original HTML code that sets the framework, but the rest of the sculpture and format of the website is rightfully dependent on the maker.

Overall I agree with the article and that is why I chose to illustrate the main concepts of it in a self-made photoshop image. The fonts, colors, images have all been edited and altered by me to fit my own vision of the article Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom. There were a few trial and error copies that I discarded and even started from scratch at one point. I chose to create my own piece on a non-template program to further push the concept of individual design and individual learning. I am a self-taught photographer and amateur graphic designer. My experience outside of the classroom such as henna art, a photography tumblr, advertising jobs, lead me to the discovery of the tech world. Which further pushed me to learn about photoshop, lightroom and HTML through online articles and youtube videos. I believe the tech world is very much based around individual learning, individual design and individual variation, a concept of having one’s own voice and being a maker. I believe digital pedagogues must reclaim this right and allow their students to fail, succeed and fail again through inquiry-based learning in the tech world.

Yours in education,

Mrs. Ahmad

In episode 10 Questioning Learning of the podcast HybridPod, host Chris Friend and guest Amy Collier engaged in an informative discussion about the flaws of blindly adhering to standardized pedagogies.  One of the  important concepts from the discussion was the necessity for teachers to take risks and deviate from standardized models in order to meet individual student needs and maximize student potential.  I decided to outline a few of the issues of standardized pedagogies described by Amy Collier using an infographic as it was an effective way to visually represent the important details of the discussion. To create the infographic I used the website Canva.  This was my first experience using this website, and while there were limitations and struggles, it was a very easy site to navigate and proved to be a useful tool.

Eric Dunmore