#UWinDig 2020

I would like to inform you that I did study the article “Digital Ghosts in the class room” by Ashley Hinck. I made a sketch note with key points.

This article describes on the lack of creativity coming from students when it comes to Digital Pedagogy due to how they are taught in the school system. It talks about the fact that students are so afraid of failure, that they will not try something new or more challenging. For this assignment, I planned to carry out a sketch note. I would like to challenge myself. I usually stay away from anything pertaining to art, but I wanted to try something new. I carried out this assignment on banking concept for financial information, knowledge of technology as a platform to update for internet and relative websites information. Creative school and traditional cultures had significant impact on digital ghost ideas.

The first topic I would like to add was the activities of GIF, HTMW and the process of using CSS websites, videos etc. The Article explains how students always think to do the assignment that will be less creative, but will give the teacher what they want. Students are taught throughout their education that doing simple drag and drop tasks will get you the top marks. I updated the logos of YouTube and Canva. Ashley Hinck goes into detail about how Canva, YouTube and Facebook work together to bring the users a easy drag and drop experience. This helps people put aside their creative side and take part in a simple user experience that these platforms use.

The next topics I visited were the degree of digital media applications, the idea of books and electronics as Hinck calls it, and the importance of trial and error. The concepts that people have so much potential when they use more complex applications, instead of drag and drop apps that they usually use. “The New Worksheet” idea looks at how the basic digital projects that students know well, is like giving out an old fashion worksheet. Like a worksheet, there is no creativity in a linear digital project. I put trial and error because the article expresses the important process of trying, failing and getting it just right. We can not trial and error as world having a lot of different applications.

The professional ideas and banking model topics I tackled on my sketch note were the examples of the lego, the linear and ethical thinking of digital projects in education, and the idea that we are all makers, creators, and speakers. The article uses the example of a lego to explain what kind of digital projects we should be doing in the classroom. Building legos with no instructions allows us to be open, creative and have agency. The article says these things should be in all digital projects throughout our schooling. The author feels that digital projects in traditional school culture only provide a linear approach to thinking, instead of being open, creative, and having agency. The article also tells that teachers should be giving students the tools to be makers, creators, technologist and speakers. Instead of linear projects, there should be more complex projects that allow students to reach their potential.

Thinking a sketch note helped me to put the information from this article into action. I carried out of my comfort zone and tried something I was not comfortable with. It allowed me to try some trial and error creating this artifact. It did not turn out exactly how I wanted it, but I will keep trying to perfect it throughout time. This article provided me with a lot of information that I will take with me into my classroom. I will add some creative digital projects that will allow my students to use their creativity. I will try to give my students the tools they need to become makers, creators, and speakers. I will also help to increase my Digital Pedagogy. Multi-media had a series of product based influences for personal risk and that market was natural. YouTube, Videos, GIF, HTMW, CSS were the updated applications to get information as social media. Finally, professional knowledge could incorporate all of those ideas in practical aspects of school creativity.

I read “Digital Ghosts” in the Modern Classroom written by Ashley Hink.

As an avid user of Canva, I was skeptical prior to reading this piece. I was ready to be critical of her arguments and defend the website. However, Hink was not attacking my precious, free, online, user friendly software Canva; she was speaking to a much larger problem that exists in the school system.

Similar to myself, many students struggle with more advanced web developing software because they never have had to make something from nothing. Furthermore, when we are encouraged to do so, and “fail” we never pick the mechanism back up because we think we are no good at it – which is not entirely false. We are no good at it, but this is because it requires a skill we have never been encouraged to exercise before. We live in a climate where finding easier ways to do difficult tasks is praised.

With how I have chosen to conclude my Sketchnote, it feels necessary to comment on what it means to use the materials that I did to complete it. The use of markers and pencil crayons speaks to a sense of amateurism. This term has a negative connotation; however, I do not mean it as such. I am using the term in a context of accessibility both in the making of the product, and the receiving of the information of the article. “Digital Ghosts” focuses on independent thinking digitally. However, for my given knowledge, skills, and resources, a hand drawn Sketchnote was the best medium to communicate the information.

The ability to achieve something aesthetic without any specific skill or talent is desirable and many artists have based their practise around this concept. However, in order to achieve this success students must understand what it means to be using these mediums and how they are limiting. Once this is achieved they will be able to critically participate and act as solitary beings in digital creation, giving themselves agency in their work.

I read the article Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom by Ashley Hinck. I chose to summarize this text in the form of a Twitter essay, as I have been an active member of the Twitter community throughout my youth. Ashley Hinck attempts to define the term ‘Critical Digital Pedagogy’ in this article, and makes mention that students lack true understanding of digital media making. This is due, in part, to commonly used template/shortcut platforms, which Hinck refers to as ‘Digital Ghosts’.

I found it particularly interesting to read that the reason Hinck refers to such platforms as ghosts is because even after the discarding of such technologies within classrooms, student learning is still affected by their existence.

As a student, there was always the typical ‘format’ for assignments: size 12 font, Times New Roman, double spaced, etc. There were a limited number of times in my education when a teacher gave us students the freedom to complete an assignment in any which way we preferred. Even when given the chance to choose between various platform options, there were always limitations. As students, we were always working within a narrow tunnel to produce an artifact our teachers deemed acceptable. Little authority does a pre-determined template application provide.

Can we even blame students for thinking easier is better and that by following a series of steps, they will be successful? Not really. As Ashley Hinck argues, student assumptions regarding digital media making exist because the ideas reflect what students have been taught throughout education: that only one right answer exist. This is something that I have personally come across in my experience of tutoring students, particularly in Math. There are multiple ways of achieving an answer to a math problem, much like how there are many forms of digital media making. Yet, students are taught by their teachers that there is only one way to achieve such an answer. This reflects a portion of the message that I believe Hinck is trying to stress; Shortcut/template platforms promote the idea that there is only one way to produce an artifact. And that, is just simply wrong.

Overall, Ashley Hinck’s article challenges teacher candidates, like myself, to recognize these digital ghosts and realize how they affect student learning. As educators, we should be encouraging our students to be creative in their own unique way! In order to do so, we must become GHOSTBUSTERS *shouts lyric*!

You can read my whole Twitter essay regarding this article here.

I read the article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” by Ashley Hinck, and I created a Twitter essay in response. And no, Hinck does not talk about the kind of ghosts Scooby Doo is afraid of. These ghosts are the ghosts of worksheets and tests in school where there is only one right answer, and the student’s main goal is to come up with whatever answer will please the teacher.

Essentially, Hinck argues that drag and drop templates are the same as mass-produced worksheets in school that leave no room for multiple answers. We have to break away from these template/shortcut platforms and encourage our students to make new creative content from scratch. 

Tools like Canva templates, Snapchat filters, and Facebook’s posting system give the illusion of creativity, but students are really only inserting information without creating anything new. Teaching students how to use tools like Scratch, HTML and CSS allows for more than just an illusion; it is a concrete way for students to create content on their own, without the work already being done for them.

Hinck argues for a total reinvention of how we think about the learning process. Students are too used to doing what they think will make the teacher happy. This ensures they get a good mark, but they aren’t actually learning. Instead, we have to see learning as a trial and error process. We have to stop fearing mistakes and failure, because failure shows us that something is fixable.

Hinck discusses the limitations of pre-made digital templates, and I had an interesting experience working within the limitations of Twitter. I haven’t used Twitter since high school, and I forgot how much editing it can take to get your tweet to fit the character limit. This was especially difficult for this assignment, where I had to figure out the best way to divide the text I wanted to include into separate tweets. 

Although the character limit was frustrating, it really allowed me to see the affordances of Twitter as a platform for creating digital content. The thread function made it easy to keep all of my content contained, and the site itself is fairly user friendly. It did not take long for me to figure out the reply functions and learn how to add gifs to my tweets. Twitter is a good tool to use to create content if you do not have a lot of technological experience. It is definitely a tool that I can, and most likely will, utilize with my own students.

After creating a Twitter essay, I can see firsthand what Hinck is talking about. I had the luxury of pre-made gifs and a clear word limit. So I had creative licence, but it was within limits. I don’t think we should discount template/shortcut platforms completely, because we can accomplish a lot within their restrictions, but there should be a push for new creative content that does not place limitations on a student’s ideas.

After reading the article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom” by Ashley Hinck, I decided to create a sketch-note.

In her article, Hincks discusses the influence that digital shortcuts/templates have on how students perceive digital media, and how these shortcuts basically take away creativity. She discusses how when students are given assignments that involve using digital media, they assume that these projects are a simple, series of steps that are clearly defined, and just need to be followed. Students also believe that due to the steps being laid out, digital media projects are prone to failure.

I agree with everything Hincks talk about. When I think back to my experiences as a student, every time I was given an assignment involving digital media, I was excited . I always resorted to using powerpoint, which was super quick and easy to use. The provided templates don’t require any thought of colour choice, and make life that much easier. Everything I needed was basically at the click of a button!

Now that I am able to view this situation from a teacher candidate perspective, I can point out how restricting tools like PowerPoint can be. Although students may appreciate how quick and easy these programs can be, they are not requiring students to exercise their creative mind within the classroom. Hincks also talks about how even when these “templates”, or “shortcuts” are not being used in the classroom, the expectations that they have still linger throughout the classroom, influencing decisions that students are making. As current educators as well as future educators, we need to be empowering, and encouraging creativity, thinking, and letting students know that they do have options they are able to choose from. All of the expectations that these shortcuts and templates have made make students feel that failure is not ok. We need to let students know that FAILURE IS A GOOD THING. It is a natural process, and sometimes it even helps unravel a path that we have yet to travelled down.

After reading this article, I put all of the main concepts into a sketch note. This is the first time I have ever made a sketch note. Now, I am not the most creative person, but I love doodling, and colouring. I did face some challenges on deciding on how I was doing to incorporate drawings into some of the main concepts. It really had to think abstractly. In the end, I’m extremely happy with the way it turned out. I will definitely be incorporating sketch notes into my future classrooms!

Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed my sketch-note!

I decide to do a sketch-note on the podcast “Questioning Leaning” with Chris Friend and Amy Collier.

The podcast had many great ideas about critical pedagogy which made it difficult to sketch. So, let me walk you through my thought process while creating this sketch-note.

I started off at the top with Critical Pedagogy explaining the idea from the podcast that “best practices” is being too standardized causing us to strip away from individuality, which is the reason we want to learn. So from my understanding we need to be stepping away from the idea of standardized practices to be able to build and grow into individuals. If we constantly stayed with the the same constraints we as individuals simply would not grow or progress. Each student is different therefore we need to apply the proper teaching practices in order to achieve optimal results.

This follows into the learnification movement which is essentially doing just that by developing the classroom into individualized learners instead of a community of learning. When you focus solely on learning you eliminate the relationship of student and teacher which is defined by the paradigm shift in my illustration. Amy stated in the podcasts Questioning learning that this “relationship is at the heart of education or the heart of learning”.

In the podcasts Chris and Amy explain pedagogy as being a method of teaching that is essential for our education system and shape the youth of tomorrow. In the podcasts the Chris and Amy define critical pedagogy as being an ideal learning practice. Chris and Amy use online classes as an example to reinforce this point by stating that online classes are equal to canned learning. As they dive into it we begin to understand more and more the detriment to our kids learning when everyone is expected to learn exactly the same.

Lastly, the bottom illustrations were just to capture other key ideas of critical pedagogy. Amy talked a lot about how we all need to get comfortable with asking questions to avoid making assumptions. She also mentioned how as teachers we should be always willing to improve and stepping out of the box to take risks. She highlights that risks are good, but it’s important to take calculated, safe and purposeful risk because it is still your career and the education of students at hand.