#UWinDig 2020

For this multimedia reflection piece, I chose to reflect on Ashley Hinck’s article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom”. To portray her main ideas, I made an infographic using Canva.

Very often in schools there is a focus on two things: the “right” answer and the “wrong” answer. By teaching and testing students in the form of worksheets and multiple-choice tests, they are not able to discover their own creativity. I acknowledge that sometimes one “right” answer is required, but there are many other opportunities where students are missing out on expressing their creativity. When I was younger, a lot of teachers used worksheets and multiple-choice testing forms and I think it becomes a sort of security blanket because they know what to expect. Branching out to new, creative teaching ways is scary at first, but the students can really benefit from it.

Students learn following linear, standard steps that lead them to one answer; the “right” one determined by the teacher. These students are more concerned about getting to that final answer that they forget, or just don’t have the opportunity, to be creative and to learn something new through trial and error exercises.     

Hinck discusses some of the issues regarding the use of technology platforms that are available to students. She talks about how drag-and-drop platforms hinder students’ creativity because of all the templates that are available on them. These platforms would include Google slides and Canva, for example. By using them, students are guaranteed a working product at the end, with little risk of failure. The templates act as the “right” answer and don’t allow students to organize their information in their own ways.  

When coding something on your own using HTML and CSS, for example, there are “errors” that can be made and problems that will have to be troubleshooted along the way. These templates can often lead students to present their information in a certain way, and they can also restrain students due to the chosen template. The process may take longer, look messier, and be unexpected, but the results will be creative, the students will have total control over what is shared, and there won’t be a focus on a “right” answer.

As teachers, we need to eliminate the “ghosts” in our classrooms by giving students the opportunity to show their creativity through the experimentation of technology. We need to acknowledge all the possibilities. As role models, we should be encouraging and giving students permission to “try, fail, and revise”, and to make it a learning experience for everyone, not just the students.

For my artifact, I decided to use Canva to try and prove the point made in Hinck’s article. After receiving this assignment, I read through the article, made notes, and went on to pick a template on Canva. I think I spent a good thirty minutes, almost as long as it took me to gather my information, to decide on a template. There were many things to consider as I was trying to pick which one would fit the information I wanted to present to my audience. The drag-and-drop feature allowed me to insert text boxes and images, and although I changed the information on the infographic, I kept to the overall theme and format. If I had to design my own infographic from scratch, I don’t think it would look like the version below. Although this one is effective, it didn’t allow for very much creativity on my end. Going forward, as a teacher, I want to incorporate these ideas into my own classroom. I think that it is important for students to be able to express their ideas in their own creative ways.

For this assignment, I decided to read Ashley Hinck’s “Digital Ghosts in the Classroom” article, and chose to create a Twitter essay as my artifact. The main message I took away from this article was how students were struggling to demonstrate creativity when learning digital skills because they were stuck inside of a linear learning mindset. 

As I read through the article I was fascinated by this idea because I had never considered the sheer amount of digital tools that are based off of already made templates and worksheets that limit expression for the sake of “an easier time.”

When I reflect back to the majority of my time in school using digital tools, I was never expected to realistically use something outside of PowerPoint, and was therefore never taught how I could potentially explore beyond the creative expectations that were set for me. 

Hinck alludes that a major reason why students use these shortcuts is that their assumption of media is equal to their understanding of the school system where there is always a right answer, and that you earn the right answer’s through a basic step-by-step method.

Students aren’t willing to commit to trial and error because being willing to fail has not been what they have been taught during their time in school. It is because of this that Hinck suggest that students start looking at school projects as works in progress so that they do not have to feel as critical when evaluating their work. 

When students are willing to take risks they will find their best chance to go beyond linear thinking and have a greater sense of exploration in their work.

As I continue to develop my digital pedagogy, I want to incorporate a system where students understand that there is more than one way to solve a problem. By making troubleshooting and tinkering a common practice in the classroom students will not be as afraid to explore more in their creative practices, and become more engaged participants in their work. 

When a project is allowed to simmer and cook instead of coming out half-baked it’s a more rewarding result for both the student and teacher, and helps to further break the expectations that have maligned themselves in classrooms for years.

I recently read the article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” by Ashley Hinck. In the article Hinck discussed where our educational system stands in terms of technological skills and where she would like the system to turn. In the article Hinck speaks about how the educational system has encouraged Template/Shortcut Platforms for students to complete assignments online. I found this extremely relatable, as this is exactly how I felt in school! In the article, Hinck mentioned that the template/shortcut platforms “are rigid”, and that, “(they) accept a narrow set of predetermined ‘correct’ answers”. Hinck continues to talk about how she has attempted to move away from the cookie-cutter platforms in her class, with a ghost of them being left behind!

I found that Hinck’s analogy of the Ghost’s in the class room very creative! When I think back to high school, I often find myself reminiscing of the projects that I completed just for a mark, that have nothing to do with who I have become today.

Ken Robinson – “We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national educational systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make – – and the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities”

Hinck mention that students learn to “create the product the teacher wanted – that counts as the right answer. I couldn’t agree more! Students aren’t trying to answer the questions on the test the way they feel the question should be answered, they are trying to provide the answer the teacher wants. Hinck’s goal in their classroom was to praise the students for struggling through mistakes, it helped the students become stronger and persevere! As Ken Robinson mention, “Mistakes are the worst thing you can make”. Hinck spoke about her students and that they “perceive their hesitancy and trial-and-error as a failure”. I feel that students need to learn to fail, and by staying inside of their comfort zone they will never be able to adapt and learn new things!

I prepared this Sketch-Note in a pretty reasonable amount of time. I found the sketch-note as a pretty good way to organize my thoughts about the subject as well as an easy way to link my ideas together. I like working with pencil and paper because I feel like I have a lot more control over the medium, compared to making a similar presentation on my computer. I was able to do a few rough drafts to organize my thoughts and how my ideas were going to be linked together.

I read the article “Digital Ghosts in The Modern Classroom” by Ashley Hinck in which she works to define Critical Digital Pedagogy and the effects of the digital ghosts in classrooms. I  have created a Twitter Essay/Rant in response to what she writes. She considers questions around authority, roles, and agency to explain how we, as teachers, can truly make a difference in the classroom. Overall, I think Hinck makes a sound argument, but she also makes a point that, in my opinion, is flawed, so I will touch on that. 

Students assume that digital media making simply involves drag-and-drop, standardized steps, and a guaranteed outcome; by creating my twitter essay, I learned that that is NOT the case. I never thought that picking GIFs to go along with my tweets would be so difficult.  I see so many GIFs online and think about how well I relate to them, but when I need to find a specific GIF, it is like a good one does not exist. I also never thought writing a tweet to get a message across while staying within the character limit would be so difficult.  Through this assignment, I learned that Hinck is right. Students assumptions match their understanding of digital technologies. I also learned that Twitter is a great networking took when I noticed that Hinck liked and retweeted some of my tweets. Because I have never used Twitter before, I did not have a deep understanding of the tools within it and how I could use them to make my point. Through trial and error, mistakes, and many failures, I finally made it work. 

However, I do not feel that we have to completely move away from templates to be creative; this is the part of Hinck’s argument that I do not agree with. I believe that, quite often, creativity evolves from some sort of inspiration. Templates give students a foundation to work from. As students move up to new grade levels, school becomes more demanding, and time becomes more limited. By completely avoiding templates, we are teaching students to be creative, but we are also disabling them from utilizing their resources. As a pre-service teacher, I have learned the value of working with resources, so I believe that we should teach our student to do the same, if they wish, with a creative twist. From my experience, even if I use a template, I still need technological knowledge to successfully edit or make something out of said template. As a teacher, I would still give students the option to use templates if that could potentially ease any stress or anxiety for them…as long as they make it there own, that is.

The important thing here is that, despite the medium that students chose to work with, they make it their own with their ideas, as opposed to the teacher’s. We must teach them to see mistakes as a valuable tool to learn, to expect the unexpected, and to create what they envision, regardless of what the outcome may be. My perspective is that, though we should evolve from multiple choice, handouts, and, to a certain extent, templates, these things don’t entirely disable openness and experimentation. It all depends on how the students learn and what will better help them in the process. As a final thought, as Hinck suggests, we should use our authority as teachers to enable our students to claim their own agency as makers, creators, and speakers. The people who hold the biggest responsibility in helping students redefine “good learning” are teachers, so let’s do our part and  shape the path to success. 

 In the article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” (http://hybridpedagogy.org/digital-ghosts-modern-classroom/), Ashley Hinck argues that students  today have become complacent in their learning due to the shortcut or template format of learning. In both the classroom and online, students are used to searching for the single correct answer, or dragging and dropping things into place without being required to think critically on the subject matter. Students are not being asked to think further into a topic, instead they are able to commit the correct answer to memory, regurgitate it onto a test and pass the course, while loosing any pertinent information from their memory after the course is done. The template approach to teaching digital technology is no different. Students have much higher rates of digital literacy and use their digital skills on a daily basis, when using social media, or PowerPoint, of GIFY. These simple template programs enable students to complete relatively simple tasks, and when faced with a more difficult program like Photoshop or when using a computer language like Java or C++, students are faced with a daunting task because these digital skills require more in depth thinking and problem-solving skills, and there is no predetermined correct answer. In order to have success with programs like these students must become comfortable with troubleshooting, trial and error and revision. It is our job as educators to help students become comfortable with making mistakes, and working towards their own creative goals, instead of the classic single “correct answer”.

After reading this article, I found myself agreeing with many points brought up by Hinck. I believe that in order for a student to learn they have to find their own way to the answer, even if their learning style is outside of the predetermined template. By adding their own creative method to finding an answer or achieving and outcome, that experience will lead to greater retention of information for the student and gives them the ability to use that info on a test or in a similar scenario. This holds true for my own education, as I am a person who needs mental hooks in order to keep the important info in my brain, ready for use. I have a much easier time if I have to figure my way through a problem using trial and error, that way when I eventually reach the desired outcome I can remember the process and use it at a later time. The small successes that come with trial and error when working towards a goal serve as an anchor point for valuable information, or lessons I learned from my mistakes. Whereas with a template/shortcut method, I have no mental hook to help me recall information during a test for example, because I was mindlessly following along with the template.  The template method is good for formulaic, predetermined answers, in math or science, where the formula is needed to get the answer, however in more creative processes like art or English or Digital Tech, it is important that students are able to make mistakes in their work without feeling like it is the end of the world.

My Digital artifact is a sketchnote, I was very apprehensive to use this method, as my writing and drawing skills are not flattering at all (who let a chicken write all over my page?), but after watching a few tutorials I felt confident enough to try it. As I was reading the article, I noticed myself using strategies I was reading about without even knowing. I have 3 rough sketchnote drafts scattered around my work space, I was able to use a very open-ended tool to explore my creativity and convey my ideas, and I look forward to being able to open my students eyes to the value of their mistakes and different ways of learning through creativity and trial and error.

Technology hinders creativity. A statement that would surprise, anger, and bewilder most. One would believe it inconceivable that technology inside of the classroom actually hinders the creative learning of students of all levels and ages in our education system. Technology does not teach students how to create rather to apply technology to a program created by another individual, technology does not allow for students to take risks with their knowledge, students are afraid to fail and create technology that is imperfect compared to already existing programs. Lastly technology handcuffs students, not in a sense that they are handcuffed to their devices but in a sense that students are handcuffed to how they believe they should apply their devices to learning. 

If shortcut/template websites and platforms are the “new worksheet” as Skallerup Bessette argues, then we might shift to a more critical digital pedagogy by leaving those shortcut/template websites and platforms behind. Templates to create visual presentations along with infographics actually hinder the creativity of students. Students do not create their own work, they take information that they retrieve from another source and plug it into their piece of media. As educators moving forward we should be pushing students to find new methods to create their media. It is important that we force them to be creators not only someone who can apply technology.

Technology limits the ability of a student to take a risk. Students in the modern age are nervous to create their own technology as they believe it to be “wrong”. Wrong in the sense that they see their creation as a failure compared to those of multi-million technology companies. Although their media may not look as appealing as a professionally built piece educators must celebrate the effort and risk that students take when they think outside the box in their creations of media.

Technology in education today places boundaries around students. Educators for many different reasons feel the need to restrict students to google docs and powerpoint. Why is that? If a student wishes to find a new creative method to submit a piece of work that he or she created themselves why should we as educators force them to use only one single program? Educators need to force students to create something that has never been seen before. That is how technology would be a support to learning inside the classroom.

What are you drawn too?

For this assignement I decided to use Piktochart and creat a process like, step by step infograph.

Students are drawn to learn new things but learning something new means lots of questions. Ashley Hincks states in her article “Students I work with assume that digital media is: drag-and-drop, a series of well-laid out, linear, and standard steps; and a guaranteed working product at the end with little risk of failure” (Hincks). Her statement is exactly what students were taught to do. We had to follow the rubric and meet the criteria and expectations. Usually based on what the rubric states and what the teacher has asked the students to do, things should be clear. However, the small details are still the things that we concentrate the most on. We follow the checklist to make sure we have everything; it states in the article, students tend to ask, “What font do I use?” “Is that right?” “What’s my next step?” this type of learning has been embedded in our learning process since we were young.

Fast forward into the future, the way of learning is changing. Students are given more freedom on how they want to present their work. Many would think having more freedom and creativity would benefit the students on their learning process, but it only makes them think about it more because they do not believe it is correct. More and more technology is becoming our educational learning platform. By teaching student that there is not only one good answer, it sets them in a better direction for learning and applying their knowledge inside and outside the classroom. We know that technology is everything and that it is everywhere. When we were kids, some of us played with LEGOS. You had the children who followed the exact instructions and then you had the children who dumped the pieces and made something of their own. “Amy Collier points out, building LEGO without directions can invite openness, creativity, and agency”. There is no difference between LEGO’s and the new teaching method. This way of technology sets the tone to turn students into makers, creators and speakers (Hincks). 

I hope that some day when I’m a teacher I’ll be able to incoorporate all the new technologies and tools into my classroom. Giving my students a sense of self and worth, giving them the chance to be able to express themselves in their own work.

• Heick, Terry. “4 Tips For Transitioning Your Classroom To Digital Media.” TeachThought, 28 Aug. 2017, https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/4-tips-for-transitioning-your-classroom-to-digital-media/.
• Hinck, Ashley, et al. “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom.” Hybrid Pedagogy, 29 Mar. 2018, http://hybridpedagogy.org/digital-ghosts-modern-classroom/.

The article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” by Ashley Hinck discusses the common misconception that students have regarding what “digital skills” actually are, and how that misconception leads to “digital ghosts” being present in the classroom. Today’s students understand the importance and necessity of digital skills in the workplace and classroom; however, students believe that simple tasks (such as dragging and dropping something or following a linear set of steps with low risk of failure) constitute “skills”. This common misconception illustrates not only their understanding of digital media, but of school as well: They follow steps and come to a “correct” answer, which negatively impacts their learning experience if discovery is the goal. Students are very familiar with using common websites (sometimes referred to as “template platforms”) such as Canva or Facebook to create; what students don’t realize is that these platforms actually limit what students can create because they are so basic. Other more complicated platforms like Scratch or HTML give students much more freedom to create freely, but when they actually use them in class, the template platforms continue to impact the learning experience because students are so used to using them, following linear instructions, and coming to a correct answer. The lingering of template platforms in classrooms is what Hinck describes as “digital ghosts” in the classroom; the template platforms might not be physically there, but the thought process with which students associate them continues to linger in their heads. This ghost impacts students in a number of ways; students may lose confidence in their digital abilities more quickly, they may see the trial-and-error process as a “failure”, and they may be hesitant to see themselves as creators. Obviously, using more open-ended technologies are much more difficult and can get messy, but there are ways for educators to help banish these digital ghosts. Giving students permission to fail (and even encouraging students to fail), encouraging discussions of what it means to “make” something, and celebrating student successes on a difficult project are all critical pieces of what it takes to banish the digital ghosts and allow open-ended, authentic creation in the classroom. Educators absolutely must help their students see themselves as creators and the possibilities beyond the “right answers” to which students are so accustomed.

I decided to do a Twitter essay for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I use Twitter very frequently (in fact, it’s my favourite app to use), so I already feel relatively comfortable using it. Secondly, I see Twitter essays very frequently when I scroll through my news feed, and I always enjoy reading them, so I thought it would be fitting to create one myself. There is something about clicking on someone’s thread and reading all of their ideas in a series of tweets that appeals to me. I like the fact that someone can share important ideas on a fairly non-academic platform, but still have the ability to get their point across in a medium other than a scholarly journal, for instance. I think that the ability to share such ideas on a common social media platform is (and will be) very attractive to the next generation of students coming into classrooms in a digital age. When looking to incorporate technology into an assignment, all educators should strongly consider allowing their students to express themselves in creative manners, such as Twitter essays. Personally, I would love to provide this option to my students one day and see what masterpieces they create; doing so would give me a high level of satisfaction as an educator, knowing that my students can use digital technology to communicate their knowledge and ideas of a given topic. Students as well would also benefit, seeing themselves as true creators in an age where the use of digital technology is becoming more and more prevalent in everyday life. It’s a win-win situation! 

Now, enjoy my Twitter masterpiece! If you want to read from a particular tweet, just click on the image and the thread will open for you in a new tab. To benefit fully from my Twitter essay, click on the images and read it on Twitter itself… that way, you can see the GIFs move!

(After you read my Twitter essay, be sure to continue reading, as I discuss some applications of Hinck’s article in my personal life and my ever-evolving teaching career!)

When I was a student using different digital technologies in high school, I felt very similar to the students that Hinck describes in her article: Looking to follow a clear, linear set of steps to achieve a correct answer and a good grade. Looking back, I realize that there weren’t as many opportunities in my own classes to use template platforms, let alone open-ended technologies, as there are in today’s classrooms. The vast majority of assignments that I did were either essays in Microsoft Word or presentations in PowerPoint, which did get quite boring after four years of mostly the same thing. There were a couple of exceptions, though. When I was in Grade 10, I took a class called Introduction to Business, and for our final course assignment, we had to make a video in groups about any course material of our choosing. My group made our video using Powtoon, and while it was a neat experience, I can admit that the only thing on our group’s mind was getting that good grade, so unfortunately we focused more on that and less on the actual process of discovery. In my Grade 11 Travel and Tourism class, we had to make an infographic using Piktochart for one of our assignments. This assignment was done individually, and again, I was only focused on getting a good grade as opposed to actually discovering my inner creator. Those assignments taught me that during my time as a student in university, I should start putting more of an emphasis on learning more about digital technologies within an assignment, and what I am capable of creatively. Furthermore, as an educator, it will be critical for me to stress the importance of trial-and-error and mistake-making as part of the learning process to my students. It seems normalized for students to believe that they need to get everything perfect, but in a world where digital technology becoming more and more relevant in everyday life, students need to understand that mistakes will occur, and that’s alright! When I am in a classroom teaching (any subject), I will do my best to encourage mistake-making and emphasize the fundamental importance that mistakes play in the learning process. If I can manage to master that, then I think my students will develop respect for me and thank me for opening up their minds to seeing how valuable mistakes really can be.

You have reached the end of my blog. Thank you for reading! I actually had a lot of fun making this, so I hope you enjoyed it!

Reflection

I chose to do my multimedia assignment on Ashley Hinck‘s article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” . For my artifact, I chose to do a twitter essay because I’m familiar with using the app in my personal life, so I thought it would be interesting to use it for school. I’ve seen them before, but had never done one myself. One thing that I didn’t account for was how much organization went into doing this. I had to plan out each tweet with understandable sentences that fit with the character count. Another difficulty that I faced was that once I tweeted something in the thread, I didn’t have the liberty to edit it without having to start the thread from the beginning. For example, after I had finished tweeting everything, I noticed that I had a typo in the first Tweet of my thread, so I had to redo everything.

As for the article content, I never realized that I have been conditioned to using templates in the classroom where I only believed that there were either right answers, or wrong ones. While reading the article, it was very difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that some teachers allow students to make mistakes and revise them, and that these teachers don’t always follow a linear plan.  As a teacher, I want to give students this opportunity to learn non-linearly and linearly. Although I’ve never done any non-linear learning as a student, I’d like to learn to teach this way so that I have a mix of teaching methods that allow all student to be as successful as possible.

https://twitter.com/AWhiteUWindsor/status/1178561003275067392

In my own personal experience, I wish that I had had the opportunity to learn digital skills. My brother took a class in high school where they learned basic coding, learned how to develop their own website, and learned how to use tools such as Photoshop. When I try to do stuff like this, I have to search tutorials online and try to self-teach everything and that ends up taking hours to make one small tweak.

I’m an avid user of platform based social media, but this assignment has made me rethink how I spend my free-time. That’s not saying everything is going to change, but I definitely want to make a conscious effort to think outside the ‘box’.

As a child I was very creative, and now, after reading this, I wonder if I lost that sense of creativity after being exposed to all of that template learning. I used to make crafts with anything I could find: sticks, beads, glue, anything. Now I need specific instructions to follow to make something crafty. It also makes me wonder how different my life would have been if I knew that it was okay to make mistakes. Would I have been more apt to participate in school? Would I have anxiety about sharing my opinion?

As a post-secondary student, the thought of failing stresses me out even more. During my undergraduate experiences, most of my classes were very template based with the exception of some essay writing. Although template learning in schools can create a negative learning experiences, they have prepared me for university. So if we’re going to try and avoid template teaching and learning, all institutions need to be involved or we’d be just setting students up for failure.

Now, as I start my journey of becoming an educator, I need to make sure that my experiences don’t restrict my teaching abilities. As a new teacher, I need to be open to teaching new things and I need to be open to progress my teaching methods to stay relevant and to allow students to be set up for success, something I wish that my educators would have been open to.