Author Archives: Sean Alzner

Integrating Technology in Education, the Right Way.

While new and experienced teachers are constantly being told to embrace educational technologies, the sheer amount of choice and complexity in these technologies can make this a rather daunting task. Educational technologies must be reviewed for their ease of access, terms of service, and level of modification to the classroom. These technological resources require the teacher, as well as the students, to have some prior digital skills and literacies. This can cause issues if not all students (let alone the teacher) have a similar level of digital literacy. The Ontario Extend Technologist Module looks to alleviate some of these issues by offering a wealth of digital teaching resources. These resources help to improve and expand teacher’s digital pedagogies, as well as develop student-oriented framework for them to learn as well.

For this reflection, I decided to summarize the technologist module in the form of a Twitter essay. Twitter is a platform I use daily in my personal life, so I wanted to try using it in in an educational capacity. In the Twitter thread, I first summarize the sections and main resources in the module. I then connect to the module to topics we have discussed in class, such as Bloom’s taxonomy and the Cynefin Framework. The technologist module connects to Bloom’s taxonomy by utilizing the cognitive skills of analysis, evaluation, and creation in the design-thinking approach. These are the most significant skills for student learning, as they require the most student agency. The module also related to the Cynefin framework by falling under the complex and complicated domains. I hope you enjoy my Twitter essay, feel free to log into the platform if you wish to share or provide feedback!

‘Not-Yetness’ and the Constructivist Model of Education.

In the tenth episode of the Hybrid Pedagogy podcast, titled “Questioning Learning,” Chris Friend interviews Amy Collier about critical pedagogies, the concept of ‘risk’ in teaching, and the constructivist model of education. Collier’s research revolves around an idea called ‘not-yetness.’ She describes ‘not-yetness’ as a mental state where students have both an interest in a topic and a comfort in not yet knowing it, but lack the resources and teaching strategies needed for them to thrive. Collier believes that through a constructivist model of education, teachers can exploit this innate curiosity and create excellent learning experiences. Collier centres this experience on teacher-student relationships, which she believes are prerequisites for any successful pedagogy. She strongly states that teachers will never be replaced by computers, since it is neither an effective nor a natural progression.

For this multimedia reflection, I decided to create a narrated and animated sketchnote using my phone’s built in time-lapse feature and a small whiteboard. This idea was inspired by a relatively popular YouTube channel called “minutephysics.” This channel creates very simple but polished animated sketchnotes, and uses them to explain complex theories and phenomena in the world of science.

I assumed it would be easy to create a minutephysics-esque animated sketchnote, but I quickly realized that I was mistaken. Finding a mount to hold my phone was probably the most creative part in this entire process, and finding a way to cover its shadow on the whiteboard was infuriating at best. I have decided to include a picture of my workstation for this assignment, as I believe it to be both informative and humorous. I hope you enjoy my multimedia reflection, I look forward to hearing any of your opinions about this topic!

The whiteboard is sitting under my mom’s camera tripod. My phone was gently balanced on the two hangers placed underneath. The two lights on the sides are tilted lamps without shades, which were used to cover up shadows from the tripod and hangers.