#UWinDig

Hello all, and Happy Halloween!

I decided to do this multimedia reflection on the Chris Gilliard/Hugh Culik article, “Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy (link found below).  I found the article very informative in both a modern and a historical sense.  I learned about redlining in the United States in the past and how the concept of redlining can still be observed today in other forms.  These forms include the inability of students at community colleges to access certain information when using their school’s network.  Furthermore, these students also have little to no privacy as the school will be able to block searches it may deem to be inappropriate, even if they my not actually be so.  Also, the school may be sending usage diagnostics to third parties for research purposes, thus lessening the privacy to an even greater extent.  I was unaware of the presence of redlining today and I worry about the effects it will have in the future.  I also am concerned about redlining at the schools in my own community, including those at an elementary of high-school level.  I believe access should be the same across all institutions so, it is scary to think that access to information may be blocked to some students who are just trying to learn!

The causes of the redlining can be the funding of community colleges, the neglect of the institution to openness in all areas, the lack of questioning by the tech companies implementing the privacy programming, and the lack of awareness of the issue at large.  This issue is important as all students should be able to have access to important and up to date journals in research fields, or other websites if they are educational while at school.  The fact that students with private, personal WIFI have an advantage over those who only have access to school internet is not just.  In a lot of cases, it seems that the community colleges throughout the United States had lesser online access than that available at the higher-level institutions.  This is digital redlining as it stops groups from access based on socio-economic status and institutions need to take steps to limit the occurrence of this through questioning their current policies.

In terms of my own experience with redlining, I feel that I do not know if I have experienced it.  I am fortunate to attend a facility where research is regarded highly and I feel that I have had access to the things I’ve needed while on campus.  Also, I do have access to WIFI other than that provided by the school which I attend so at least I have options where some others may not.  I believe the problem for me arises in the fact that if I have ever not had access to certain websites or I have been blocked from pages, I have been completely unaware.  I feel that this unawareness would be fairly common among my peers as I have not personally thought about what types of boundaries have been implemented on the WIFI of my school and I don’t believe others would have had a reason to.  Thinking about it now makes me curious about what I can do to become more aware if there are limits to my searching capabilities.  I’m sure there are ways to find the policies used at an institution and become aware of what types of materials may be unaccessible, however, I am uncertain if there are steps I can directly take to avoid them.  I feel that education of the presence of redlining and the negative effects would be needed for the student body at large, followed by an outcry and petition for full access to the internet.  This makes me frustrated as many students trust in their institutions to provide them with the means to learn and not to limit them!

I used the platform Piktochart to make my multimedia reflection this time around and I have to say, I am impressed.  This option was very easy to use and understand.  I ran into very few difficulties and found setting up an infographic, finding graphics/images, and organizing my thoughts to be extremely efficient on this site.  I would recommend using this for summaries and reflections to my peers as well.  Even as future educators, I am sure this platform would be useful to explain topics or post information for an entire school to access easily.  The difficulties I ran into were easily solved and involved trying to make sure the work I had already completely was saved when I was on slower internet connections.  I found that Piktochart recovered all of my work when I thought I had lost it except for in one instance where I lost an image.  It took little time to remake the graphic so my opinion on Piktochart remains a very positive one.

Here is the Piktochart I have created to summarize the main points of the Gilliard/ Culik article, hope you enjoy it!

References:

Article: Gilliard/Culik. https://www.commonsense.org/education/privacy/blog/digital-redlining-access-privacy

Piktochart: https://create.piktochart.com/output/33882319-new-piktochart-conflict-copy

Hey everyone! This time I decided to use Piktochart  for Dr. Michele Jacobsen’s article “Teaching in a Participatory Digital World” and Henry Jenkin’s video “The Influence of Participatory Culture on Education“. Last time I attempted to make a sketch note…and I have come to find that Piktochart can be used in a similar way, except much less time consuming. The best part is being able to edit my assignment unlike the sketch note where once I write something down with pen or marker it’s set.

For this assignment it really started to open up my view of participatory culture and how digital society creates helps to promote participatory. Prior to reading through Michele’s article my perspective of teaching and learning with digital technology was low. I wanted nothing to do with it. I have continually taken a stubborn position in resisting the change because it has seemed too daunting for me to do online participation. I have tried to stick to only in person collaboration. BUT, I’ve come to learn that it is not as scary or difficult as I first thought and that it can actually be quite effective in learning and help keep both myself and students more engaged in whatever lesson or material is being taught.

During my placement my associate teacher was using a few different platforms and technologies that I found really enhanced the classroom learning environment. There was technology used that connected the students to the teacher online even after school and in a safe manner; there is always a concern that teachers need to be careful in communicating with students to ensure no inappropriate relationship is developed. Even the parents were able to connect to the same website between the students with a special login. The parents are able to both easily message the teacher and view the marks of their kids on this website. I found the students become continually engaged in participating in something called “missions” which is like a multiple choice quiz, but it also includes short teaching reminder videos in between. This was easily used because my associate teacher books an iPad cart for his class quite often. The students are really able to participate together in the online learning it really has boosted the class collaboration.

Another part I found interesting was the benefit of not just the students, but the teachers collaborating together as well. My associate teacher frequently participates in extra professional development and exchanges ideas with other teachers and this helps him to learn and improve upon his own teaching in the class room, especially with keeping pace with other classes in the same subject and grade.

The way I organized my piktochart was showing the new shift in digital technology and digital learning. I  described how there are many benefits in teaching more in this way.

Link to my Piktochart