#UWinDig 2020

We are now in 2020, the age of technology and now more than ever we see teachers trying to integrate it into their classrooms. The key word here is ‘trying’. Not all teachers feel the same about technology, lots do not know how they can use it to better their classrooms. Through this blog post we will take a look into the ”Technologist Module” (https://extend.ecampusontario.ca/technologist-overview/ ) from e-campus Ontario and hopefully open your eyes to navigate the world of technology. 

First we look at Digital Literacies. These are tools we use to “locate, use, summarize, evaluate, create, and communicate information”  when we are using technology. Digital literacies can mean different things to different people. This is important for the teacher to assess before looking for technological tools. It is important to know what you view as a digital literacy before you teach your students. 

Next up is Design Thinking.Design Thinking is all about using resources to make a plan to follow through. There are five key steps to design thinking and these are all human based. First you should start with ‘Learn From People’, ask the people related to your study and collect that information. Next is ‘Find Patterns’, this is looking into the information collected and see if you can gather it into some sort of pattern. Then ‘Design Principles’, this step is figuring out how your information collected can be used in your final piece.  Then ‘Make Tangible’, where you start asking ‘how might we’ questions and begin figuring out what you can do to help. Last we have ‘Iterate’, where you should start looking for a solution. This will most lily involve multiple tries. After following these steps you should finally have a solution. 

When you are looking for a tech tool it is extremely important to empathize with your learners. I know from experience that using technology as a student can be very frustrating and it sometimes can feel that you teacher just does not understand. If you empathize and put yourself in the student and think about how they might feel, it may make the integration of technology easier for your classroom. I believe that no matter what you are doing it is important to think about how your students may feel. 

I think that when planning anything as a teacher it is good to define what kind of students you are working with. In this step you need to analyze how your students learn. Once you know how they learn you will be bale to easily find things that might be a problem with the tool you wish to use. As teacher we always want our students to be successful and tis step is a great way of finding a good fit for your learners. 

After you have a better understand of your students you need to figure out how you may use this tool in your classroom. The module suggests using mind maps to organize your ideas. I think mind maps can be very useful tools when you are dealing with so much information. By making these mind maps you may find ideas that you want to try out, which leads to the next step. 

Prototype is where I think a lot of the learning happens. This is all about making things and trying them. I firmly believe that you learn best by making mistakes and revising works and that is what the prototype section was all about. It mentioned getting feedback to grow, and I think that feedback is also important for our students. 

 When working with technology it needs a purpose. Yes technology can be the new shiny thing everyone wants to use in their classrooms but if it does not make any connections to the curriculum is it even useful? When looking at a technological tool it is important that you can make connections to the curriculum. I am one of the people who think ‘if I can do it in person why do I need to involve technology’, however I think that if a tool makes those connections it gives it a bigger purpose. 

Technology can be seen as such a powerful tool, but it can also seem so overwhelming. Hopefully by reading through this blog post you are more confident in looking for ways to integrate technology in your classrooms. 

I read Ashley Hinck’s Digital Ghosts In The Classroom http://hybridpedagogy.org/digital-ghosts-modern-classroom/ and I decided to create a sketch note to showcase my findings. I chose to do a sketch note focusing on pictures because I am a visual learner. This article is so fitting to this project because we were given plenty of creative freedom. 

The article was based around the different types of technological tools used in classrooms. The first tool is the standard ‘drag and drop’ software and the second tool is softwares that allow you to create. However it goes way beyond these softwares, in schools today the ability for creative freedom is lacking. We are teaching students the material the curriculum says the need then send them off into the world, and in the real world there is never just one right answer. 

The problem with the ‘drag drop’ softwares is that there is no room for exploration. These softwares give students boxes and expect them to fill it with the information. It is almost like those fill in the blank sheets you would do in elementary school. This leave no room for exploration or creativity. However, a good thing about this format is that you know your end product will always work. That you will get from point A to point B. This format can be intriguing for students because it is simple and they know the end product will be successful. These softwares have more control than the student creating them.The student just adds what they want and the software decides where it goes. Some students might not be bale to make these decisions themselves, so having the software control it makes the student more comfortable. This is still lacking a lot of room for creativity. 

Schools are really just trying to force all the curriculum information into the students brains and this does not really give them any room for exploration.  When teacher are too focused on getting the work done they leave out the importance of creativity and exploration. Teachers give the students tests to fill in all the information they are meant to know and that is all. This can work for some students, but some students, like myself, do not do well with fill in the blank tests. I always find that the fill in the blank tests could have multiple answers for one question. That is another thing teachers are doing they are forcing students to have the ‘right’ answer. This scares me because in the real world there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. Giving students the ability to explore gives them multiple answers to one problem. As students try these answers they found they will soon realize that some might not work, and that is ok. Creativity lets them explore multiple ways to get a ‘right’ answer. And not all ‘right’ answers are the same.  

Success is something that every student strives for, but how they achieve it is a completely different story. As said above, most students will feel more comfortable going the ‘drag drop’ method, whereas few others will go out of the comfort zone and try to create something new. Why do humans gravitate more towards the ‘drag drop’ choices in life? It is a fear of failing. Ever since we were in school we were told that failing is bad, that getting that F on a paper is a shame. But failing is such an important part of learning. No one is going to be perfect and master whatever they are doing on their first try, instead it takes many attempts. In the classroom students are scared to fail because all they have ever been taught is failing is bad. As a future educator I hope to be able to create a space classroom where my students feel completely comfortable to try new thing and be open to failure. Because when you fail you might unexpectedly end up creating something great. 

Lastly, I feel it is so important for us as future educators to start encouraging creativity in schools, or else the next generation will be reading an article about the creative ghosts that haunt the classroom.