#UWinDig 2020

Collaborator module on Ontario Extend

Have you ever worked with others and thought to yourself afterwards, wow I would have never thought of that on my own? The insight and refection that can come from others experiences and education is truly valuable. Collaboration is a gateway that allows for this sharing of ideas, and professional growth and development. I have chosen to critically evaluate the Collaborator Module on the Ontario Extend website. In this module, we are introduced to the idea of collaboration by using technology tools, to develop intentional, global, interactive and engaging connections with others of our choosing.  The way to accomplish this collaboration is to create a professional learning and teaching network, also known as a PLN.  This PLN is a digital space where teachers learn from other’s ideas, opinions, connections, and references which ultimately fosters new views, enhanced understanding, growth and a sense of community.

In the overview section on the scenario page, the main objectives of the collaborator module are highlighted and include; exploring tactics to build PLN, approaches to engage and extend your PLN and ways to empower teachers to develop a PLN.   For me this process will involve reflection of my goals, and purpose, looking at what individuals I want to engage with and why. In going through this process, I will effectively extend my professional connections, and experiment with digital tools such as Twitter, YouTube and Educators PLN, as suggested in this section.

In the “Explore: Why Collaborate?” section of the module we critically examine the why behind collaboration and look at the role of digital communities such as Twitter. In the video entitled “Where good ideas come from?”  Steven Johnson talks about how we are all interested in creative, innovative and intrinsic work, however often ideas need time to develop, flourish and grow.  Often these ideas lay latent, until ideas of others come together with “hunches”of our own, to formulate something new.  This has been the cornerstone of innovation through the decades.  Today we can research instantaneously all throughout the world and tap into our PLN to find the missing piece of the puzzle we seek. 

When I reflect on all of the major science, chemistry and engineering advances that have been made over the last 100 years, I think about how much slower the process was, and how in comparison little connectivity and sharing of ideas took place before the internet. There may have been hunches, however the ability to bring them together, collaborate and build on them, took much longer, due to lack of connectivity and collaboration. Think about the works of Henry Ford as he built his first car, the works of Ernest-Rutherford as he constructed the model of atom, the works of Einstein and his theoretical physicist teachings, and the list would go on and on.  How much closer would we be to curing cancer and tackling our environmental issues if scientists and researchers could connect globally with a developed specialized PLN, 75 years ago? Also imagine the time and resources saved by billions of researchers and collaborators!

Alec Couros in the Explore section of the module highlights the affordances of Twitter in relation to a PLN, and how through the ages Twitter has worked to transform collaborative online communication.  He explains how educators are no longer “hoarding” their knowledge, but instead sharing relevant up to date perspectives and knowledge.  This encapsulates a “growth mindset” practice for all, which should be what teacher’s aspire for, not only for their students but also for their colleagues. 

As educators we have the responsibility to explore online learning communities, and incorporate multiple perspectives in our teaching and learning. Therefore having PLN members with varing opionions is vauable and insightful. Following new hashtags such as #edchat, #scichat as well as new people such as professors, and influential teachers, my associate teacher, teacher candidates within my disciple will help me to remain up to date. Thank you Bonnie for exposing me to the world of Twitter through this class. Since joining Twitter I now follow #Ontarioextend, #apchemistry, #chemchat, and #chemEd.

A PLN is a network you create, with people you wish to engage and share with or even just simply follow or “lurk” among, as Marc-Andre Lalande points out in his video. As a biology and chemistry teacher I have begun to create a PLN of educators, scholars, community officials, and influencers, who would actively engage in conversation about ways to combat global warming and explore genetic and drug research as well as help to develop teaching, learning and assessment aids. 

These diverse topics are very personally relevant to me, and covered in the curriculum, so creating a PLN devised around my interests, passions, personal needs, ambitions and goals aligns with the purpose of a PLN. My goal is to gather new ideas, share, collaborate, build off of each other’s insights and contribute to building new ideas or expanding previous works.  In my future school I would hope to be involved in the “Eco Team” and connecting with other schools, who have made impressive gains towards the implementation of the zero waste policy. I would also like to connect with other chemistry and biology labs teachers as it can be difficult to think of new exciting ways to teach the cirriculum and develop new labs.

Connectivism is one of the major theoretical frameworks that validates the use of PLNS. Here we recognize that learning is socially constructed, and involves the expansion and augmentation of others work and hence the adaptation of our own. Here the learner is seeking knowledge and constructing their own reality. In my placement, many of my students worked best, by constructing their knowledge with hands on activities, especially in the applied and locally developed classes. The learning idea of a constructivist as Piaget describes, is centered around learning being an active process where students construct information actively rather than receiving it passively. The Social Cognitive Theory, aligns to a greater extent with the development of a PLN, as knowledge is constructed by the interactions with others in a social world, through modeling, teaching self-efficacy and active co-construction.

It is important to follow the steps outlined in the Extend and Empower, module where it describes how to cultivate and map your PLN. To begin the cultivation process, it is important to find a professional group that aligns with your interests. Then going where your people are, being strategic, strengthening connections, limiting your follows and culls as well as looking critically at the identity you are creating, are al vital steps of the process. In cultivating my PLN having etiquette and creating an on-line identity are of utmost importance to me as an educator, as you never know who you will see at a conference or collaborate with in the future.

In mapping my PLN I had to think about my focus, which is science and chemistry education. I placed my science topics on the map (global warming, genetics, and drug advancements) and identified the nodes (names) of at least 5 individuals or industries I wish to network with. Then I identified their roles, weight of connection and tried to identify any relationships between nodes. Surprisingly there were connections between nodes that I had forgotten about, which made me think of potential collaborative research projects in the future for my students.

In the Extend module there is a Ted talk “Beward of the Online Filter Bubbles.” Here Eli Pariser describes invisible algorithmic editing of the web that occurs with online tools like Google and Facebook. This means that your inquiry results are personally tailored, and we are seeing only what the internet thinks you need to see, and is filtering out the rest. Because of this it is important to look critically at our internet searches, and make sure we are always looking for ways to understand the other side of the story. Adding people to our PLN who have opposing views is therefore of extreme value in the “era of the filter bubble.” I have successfully begun the process of cultivating my PLN through Twitter, and have seen many of the lesson plans, assessment strategies, science projects, conferences and media groups science educators are a part of.

I used Canva to make my final artifact. Canva would be a great educational tool as it allows for reflective and creative expression in a variety of forms including a poster, logo, video, presentation, flyer, card and info-graphic.  Giving students choice in how they wish to apply what they have learned, is appealing to me as an educator, because not everyone can apply and display their knowledge in the same way.  Plus adding the text, color and pictures adds to the meta-cognitive processing of the material, and its creativity thereby increases the likelihood that the material will really stick. Creative projects by design, always engage students in analytical, evaluative higher order thinking. These projects are not focused on supplying the right answer, rather they are concerned with extending and applying information to find solutions or develop new ideas, much like a PLN!

I decided to create a sketchnote that summarizes the key points of the collaborator module created by Ontario Extend. The collaborator module emphasizes the importance of connecting individuals who share a similar interest. It is essential that teachers build connections with others, ask and solve questions collaboratively, and strengthen their independent thoughts. This is possible and easily accessible by using technological tools.

I created a sketchnote because I enjoy the way they look. I like how you are not restricted to a specific template. I knew that this would be challenging for me since I am not a drawer, however, I was excited to see what the outcome would look like. The process of creating the sketchnote was very time-consuming. I first created a rough draft to make sure I knew all the ideas I wanted to incorporate. I then started to make the final copy by drawing a template that was later coloured in. Overall, I had a good experience creating the sketchnote. This would be something that I would share with my students in the future.

The first thing I drew was people communicating with each other. This emphasizes what collaboration is all about. People sharing their thoughts with others. Teachers being open to collaborating is key to developing a personal learning network (PLN).

Steven Johnson explains a concept where ideas take time to form and people are usually in a dormant state where their ideas are slowly processing. He calls this idea “slow hunch”. I’ve always felt that when two minds come together, there is a greater opportunity for something great to come from it. In my experience, I’ve always found it easier and faster to create something when you can share your thoughts with others. For this reason, I recreated the illustration that was shown in the video. I drew two people, each with their own ideas. When they come together, they are able to share their thoughts and build upon them to create something new. I drew a turtle with clocks around it to represent that creating important ideas is a timely process.

In my own experiences of teaching and learning, I would say that you are always needing to collaborate. You need to be able to bounce ideas off of each other. For example, when planning for a lesson, a teacher may seek assistance from others around them. With technology being a medium of communication, it becomes a much simpler task that can be done at any moment. When I am creating lessons, I almost always search the web to find creative ideas that other teachers are sharing. This greatly facilitates the overall process. I found it interesting listening to the “Using Twitter Effectively in Education” video because I had never really thought of the importance of hashtags in the learning community. There are hashtags devoted to helping teachers communicate with other teachers, such as #kinderchat, which is specialized for primary school teachers. This is something that I would like to further explore and utilize in the future.

Marc-andré Lalande explains that a PLN is a group of people you choose to interact with in order to learn from their questions and reflections. The people that you are associating with are connected to others, which ultimately leads to a large network of individuals. The primary goal is to learn from others and have others learn from you. In the sketchnote, I wrote out the acronym PLN and what it stands for. I thought this was important to incorporate as PLNs are the basis of collaboration. As a teacher, this would be a good thing to create since your personal development will be easily accessible.

Howard Rheingold provides steps on how professionals can build their PLN. He explains how they first need to explore multiple media such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. They then need to search to get a sense of the community surrounding the space of interest. They can then follow other activity streams and tune their network by choosing who is worth paying attention to and who is not. They need to feed their followers with valuable information and engage with them. When you have questions or responses, don’t hesitate to engage. I believe that these are important steps for teachers to follow when creating their own PLN, which is why I added these steps to the sketchnote.

Eli Pariser’s TED talk video describes invisible algorithmic editing as filter bubbles. These bubbles trap us in our own online universe that is tailored to our preferences and blocks us from information that could broaden our view on society. As teachers, we need to inform our students about these filter bobbles that occur in our online world. We need to teach students to be aware of them so that they can understand that there is a world that they may not be seeing. To represent these thoughts in the sketchnote, I drew bubbles that are surrounding individuals and preventing them from reaching each other. In reality, that is what these filter bubbles are doing; shielding people from a greater world of information and knowledge.

Mapping your PLN is an imperative process as it allows you to visually see your network. Using tools such as Coggle, Google Drawing, PowerPoint, etc. are great ways to create this. Some also offer collaborative value by allowing users to share their knowledge and creations with others, such as Coggle. In the sketchnote, I drew a map. This symbolizes mapping out your PLN to make connections from one place to another.

I believe that collaboration is an important aspect of teaching. As teachers, we must be constantly adapting to the latest technological platforms. Being able to communicate with others around the world who have insightful and useful information greatly helps to develop as a professional.

I decided to explore the Collaborator Module by Ontario Extend. This module is a resource intended for open education to share and spread knowledge. In order to share its main concepts, I decided to create a sketchnote that represents my understanding of it. At the top of my sketchnote, I wanted to highlight the word “collaboration”. Collaboration is the main focus of this module. I added arrows as connectors to represent the important points we need to have to achieve collaboration.

The Explore section of the module, focuses on the importance of collaboration and explains ways in which we can collaborate. It discusses how collaboration provides the opportunity for new ideas to appear and spread. When one idea lurking in someone’s mind can be shared with someone else who may have a slightly different idea, these ideas are able to converge and potentially develop into a larger “breakthrough” idea. This is where good ideas are made. Therefore, to ultimately share thoughts and ideas with others, we need to develop ways to connect with society. This can be done by creating online networks. To accomplish this, it is important to participate in digital communities for learning such as Twitter or by building your own personal learning network.

Keeping the Explore section in mind when creating my sketchnote, I decided to include a sketch of two individuals who are sharing an idea (represented by a lightbulb). This is meant to symbolize how it requires connections with other individuals in order to create breakthrough ideas.

Under the Engage section of the module, it discusses personal learning networks (PLNs). PLNs are organized around your own personal or professional learning interests. You decide who is included in your network and you choose how you would like to engage with them. Thus, every PLN is unique to the individual. PLNs are based on a theory of connectivism. This is the idea that when someone is knowledgeable it reflects how they have connected concepts and ideas over time. Someone gains this knowledge by forming networks and sharing ideas.

When designing this section in my sketchnote, I chose to include bolded letters “PLN” to turn the focus on this concept. Underneath, I chose to include what each letter stands for. “P” for personal, this is because PLNs are personalized to the individual. Attached to that, I included a sketch of  a pair of eyes and dialogue bubbles. These represent how individuals can choose whether they want to be lurkers (check out what people are saying) or sharers (share and distribute information) within their PLN. As well, I chose to incorporate a puzzle under this section. This represents how knowledge is connected by different ideas that ultimately produce a deeper understanding of that subject. 

Under the Extend section of the module, it describes how you can build your own PLN. Howard Rheingold provides 8 key steps to help you begin building your PLN: explore, search, follow, tune, feed, engage, inquire, and then respond. I chose to incorporate these points into my sketchnote because I believe these are easy to follow and would benefit someone who needs some direction when planning their PLN. This section of the module also cautions users to beware of getting trapped in their own online universe. They term this as getting stuck inside “filter bubbles”. Filter bubbles are created by invisible algorithmic editing that personally tailors your search results to your own interests. This prevents individuals from being exposed to new ideas and perspectives that can broaden their view of society and ultimately reduces the opportunity for collaboration. In my sketchnote, I incorporated a drawing of people trapped inside bubbles. This symbolizes how people can become stuck in their own online universe. The ghost located behind these bubbles symbolized how the algorithmic editing that occurs is invisible.

In the final section of the module, Empower, they want you to map your own PLN. By mapping your PLN, it allows you to reflect on your own learning network and determine ways in which you can improve it.

I enjoyed being able to explore this module and deepen my understanding of collaboration. Collaboration is an important aspect of learning and teaching. It’s how ideas are created and strengthened. As well, being able to create a sketchnote based on this module was a great learning curve for me. I have never created a sketchnote before. This enabled me to see the importance of imagery and symbols when representing concepts. Although, I did find some concepts challenging to represent in a picture form and thus, included some writing. I enjoyed how much creativity you can have while creating it. In the future, I would love to incorporate sketchnotes into my classroom, perhaps by including it into an assignment for my students.

The Technologist Module is a step-by-step guide on how to design, create, and then implement technology into a classroom setting. It outlines various methods that educators can use to utilize technology, and provides many resources that can aide in the creation/usage of a tech platform. To present my findings on the module, I utilized the artifact of a twitter essay.

I found twitter to be a very good format for submitting this essay style. It was good too be able to condense different parts of the module into individual, easy to read tweets. The format allows users to compartmentalize their thoughts, but still make one coherent thread. I find Twitter to be very simple, useful, and accessible. I will certainly be using Twitter in my future classrooms.

In my personal opinion, I think the technologist module breaks up a process that is already internalized for the majority of people living in the information age. It reminds me of a game we used to play at school where we had to break down making a PB&J sandwich into the smallest, most specific steps possible (first, walk to your kitchen, then open the drawer, then grab a knife etc). The module seems to preach many unnecessarily specific steps making it occasionally difficult to read.

However, I can understand that the module may be more beneficial for older teachers who do not have a solid grasp on technology. For the technologically illiterate the specific breakdown the module provides would likely be very beneficial.

I think that the best part of the module is the resources it provides. The program is very useful for bringing together ideas from educators all over Ontario. I will certainly be accessing the module in the future to utilize the plethora of resources on the website and possibly even be making contributions.

Overall, I like the concept of the module and what it can do for teachers. It’s most helpful aspect is the collaboration that it provides. I will be gathering materials from the module for as long as possible.

For my final artifact, I decided to do a sketch note to show my deep dive into Technologist, written by OntarioExtend. I have never been an artist before, but nonetheless I wanted to try something new; something that all teachers can do. This module emphasizes integrating technology into the classroom while using the design-thinking process. Even though I didn’t use technology for my artifact, developing digital literacies is a process and reading this module is just the beginning.

My sketch note expands my thoughts into the design-thinking process. from finding out what is needed, narrowing the tool search to designing and connecting the technology with the curriculum.

Let’s start with Empathize; however before we can get going we need to understand that our tool or design will be used by other people. It is important to know what is needed before determining the task at hand. Challenges will arise, once we narrow down the search but that’s why we determine ways to work and fix them through(hopefully with technology).

Once we have the focus on what is needed, it’s time to narrow that search down. It’s important to start small and work you’re way up. Now that the challenge is identified, it’s time to lock in. If your first solution didn’t work then try adding technology!

It can be a extremely demoralizing trying to find the perfect technology tool, especially when there is always the new and improved tools being released each day. In the Ideate portion, of digital thinking we try and decipher between the perfect situation and what just simply works. In an ideal situation, you consider all the tools; however its not always practical so we try and consider a few before moving on to actually implementing.

After everything is figured out, it’s time to get working! Let’s put it all together with a real life prototype. Before teacher’s can use certain tools with their classrooms, it would be smart to do a little trial and error themselves. What better way to be an expert than by doing yourself? (I can now say I’m a semi-professional Canva user.) Prototypes incorporate designing, sharing and refining. We can’t be perfect without knowing what works and doesn’t work. The key to a good prototype is refining through the mistakes. Listen! Listen! Listen to all the feedback; both positive and negative.

Finally, let’s reflect and connect. Curriculum documents are the backbone of our lessons, as teacher candidates it’s important to establish reflecting and connection through these documents and our lesson. Learning goals can be taught and achieve in many different ways. As a future educator and a technologist, connecting technology and learning goals is just another way to ensure the student is learning and achieving all the necessary goals to be successful.

The infographic above was made using Canva. Ever since I learned about the platform, I wanted to experiment with its functions. For someone with little-to-no experience using editing software like Photoshop, Canva was a good step to explore my creativity. Creating this infographic was a healthy challenge for me and I think I will continue to use this platform for other projects.

This was the first time I had ever been introduced to the Extend Ontario modules for educators, and I was pleasantly surprised at its simple format and accessibility. Of course, what else can you expect of a site that aims to promote technological integration?

For this part of the course, I decided to explore the Technologist module in-depth. As a student, I was often taught using the traditional lecture-style method: teacher talks, words are on a board or a screen, and students copy. I found myself falling into the same pattern during my first practicum, so I wanted to use this opportunity and see if I could glean anything from the module for myself.

The main message I received from this module was that every step of a technology integration initiative should involve those affected by it. As I mention in the infographic, there are clear parallels between Extend Ontario’s definition of design thinking and student-centered practices. In other words, how teachers use technology in the classroom is intricately tied to constructivist views of teaching and learning. Because my own teaching beliefs are also centered on how students construct their own learning experiences, I found the module easy to follow.

The module pursues one design thinking process – empathize, design, ideate, prototype, and connect and test – but it is not the only pathway. An embedded link to UXBeginner.com describes several design thinking methodologies and their associated terms. The particular process used in the module places a strong emphasis on feedback and reflection at each of its five steps. If there is one thing I have learned so far during my time as a student teacher, it is that reflection is the cornerstone of personal and professional development. The Technologist module taps into this concept in a very practical way by including Extend Activities at the end of each design thinking step. Every stage is part of a work in progress, and educators should not expect perfection after a single try at technological integration.

One thing I would like to see in included in the Technologist module is educator testimony about how the module has helped them. Similar to how different products and services include customer interviews in their promotions, anyone new to the world of technological integration may gain reassurance learning about the experience of those who have been through the wringer. Although the module includes embedded links to various digital collaboration platforms, such as a Learner Challenge Bank Padlet, using photos or a video provides a more personal connection.

After all, making a personal connection is one of the key ingredients to a successful educational experience. This is why ‘people thinking’ is so important in the Technologist module and in all other aspects of classroom pedagogy.

Thanks for reading! Cheers to you, people educator.