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.
My Sketch Note summarizing Hink’s article.
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.
A small sketch of a teacher praising her students’ uncertainty.
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.
Marshall McLuhan quote written in crayon found here.
Students created the product that the teacher wanted and they count it as the right answer. Worksheets, templates, digital media, and multiple-choice tests are often at the heart of this kind of learning. They leave behind worksheets and templates and take up different technologies that encourage exploration, open-endedness, and experimentation. The assumptions and expectations of those worksheets and templates linger on in the classroom, affecting students’ expectations of learning and approaches to it.
Professional technologies like image editing software, HTML/CSS require students to make font, color, and size choices themselves, inviting students to retain agency and exercise control over the program. As critical digital pedagogues, we often analyze the technologies in our classroom, the structure of our lesson plans, and our relationships with our students — how the desks and tables are arranged or how our learning management system controls learning. We don’t often turn our attention to the technologies that are absent from our classrooms. Shortcut/template platforms and websites, even when absent from our classrooms, they affect student learning. Instead, we should help students move from users of shortcut/template platforms to makers, creators, and speakers in their own rights.
We might help students redefine “good learning” apart from the banking concept of education reinforced by their experiences with the web — to give students explicit permission to try and fail and revise. For example: this semester, students shared critiques of school culture with students, helping them to see the pedagogical choices clear the vision for learning where students embrace. Students look forward to joining students in reflection about our individual and collective personalities in relation to participatory to social culture.
Social culture: Students are used to seeing themselves as makers, creators and speakers. They can find their own effort and those identities. Students should know how they can claim them for themselves. Students should know about the right technologies and how they offer them these identities. They can motivate how their technologies steer them away from these identities. They might re-imagine digital media making and learning. They should fix up cultures and tradition for personal identity.
Overall, analyzing the differences between various media platforms can enhance students overall judgement and personal growth within the classroom. Utilizing a variety of resources within the classroom can assist with various types of learning and allow students to prosper in their best learning environment. Allowing students to be in control of different medias within the classroom can expand the lesson and allow them to retain information in their respective learning style. In order to assist with students finding and handling their own identity, I recommend utilizing a wide variety of resources that promote the futures next makers, creators and speakers- as they continuously strive to build their own platforms. In addition, this will allow the students to critically think of the repercussions of the influence of social culture towards their progressive learning.
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.
Ashley Hinck liked this tweet of mine #SuperCoolMoment
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.
#PreachIt
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.
I chose to read Ashley Hinck’s article “Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom”. I chose this article because the title immediately sparked an interest in me. Which is also why I drew an actual ghost right in the middle of my page to start off my sketch note. I enjoy having visuals and I am very much so a visual learner, so having that image was helpful to get me started. I chose to do a sketch note because I thought it would be the most effective way to show all my ideas. Since I was young, I have always thought in pictures. By this, I mean I associate objects, words, even dates, with images in my head. Although I have never been an artist and am not the best drawer, I still believed this would be the best choice for me to get my message across.
In the center of my sketch note I included the many “ghosts” that unfortunately still linger in modern day classrooms. Something I thought was important to include was the point that students have been taught to follow a set of directions that will lead them to getting the “right” answer, then they will hand it in and receive praise. I drew this in the format of a cycle because students will follow this cycle in every subject area because they have been taught to believe that this is the key to success academically. This type of teaching and mentality has led to decreasing amounts of creativity in the classroom. It has led students to believe that there is either right or wrong and no room for creativity in between. I stand by these points strongly because I am a student who has been taught in a similar fashion. I even saw these qualities in myself while doing this assignment. I found it to be stressful in the beginning because there were not specific guidelines for me to follow that would lead me to guaranteed success. At the start, this left me feeling stuck, however I actually used the article as a means of motivation to let myself explore in order to create. I hope that I can use my experiences as a reference while encouraging my students to challenge themselves and their creativity.
On the outsides of my sketch note, my goal was to provide a contrast to what was found in the center. I used terminology like creators, choices, experimentation, discovery, and trial & error to portray that all of these things are part of the creative process. I wanted to express that there are alternatives to “Traditional Learning” that can be just as successful, If not more. It is important to teach students the importance of exploration and discovery. Through these practices students are able to learn far more than just what the curriculum provides them with. It also gives students the opportunity to find themselves and to understand which learning styles are more suitable for them. I have always been an advocate for creativity, given I am a drama major. Through my craft I have gained so much more of an understanding and developed many skills I would not have otherwise. I want to encourage my students to think and work freely and to find what works best for them. Through technology there is so much to discover and explore, however these tools need to be taught in a more effective way so that students are given more opportunities. If teachers can learn to teach with more of a growth mindset, one day students will be able to free themselves from these “ghosts” that linger in the classrooms. Students will be successful because we are giving them the tools and the freedom, not the templates and the rules. Through courses like these and by educating myself, I hope to one day create change in modern day classrooms.
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.
This is a section of my sketch note, where I outlined the negative impact that digital shortcuts/templates have on creativity, and freedom.
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.
This is a section of my sketch-note where I outline that having no direction is key for challenging students to use their creative minds to complete classwork and assignments.
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.
Here is a summarized sketch-note of the podcast by Jaclyn Simard
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.
How can students adapt to learning and platforms that do not allow the student to have full control of the media that they are creating? Can classrooms become a part of the new digital landscape and allow students to break from traditional shortcut/template creation tools?
While many teachers may try to encourage students to be more creative and try new approaches, there may be an ingrained assumption that there is only one way of arriving at a solution and that any mistakes are a sign that they are not on the right path.
In the end there may not be a perfect solution to finding a balance between creating media efficiently and effectively using template/shortcut applications and but we as teachers can guide and encourage creativity by reflecting on our own mistakes and sharing how we progressed to a final media solution. Also, by comparing theses static and template-driven tools to more creative avenues to create their own work.
I listened to Chris Friend and Amy Collier’s conversation about Questioning Learning on the Hybrid Pedagogy Podcast. I found this to be a very interesting read, as it touched on many different aspects of teaching and learning. The concept of critical pedagogy is something I will keep in mind as I move forward with my teaching career. I want to be critical of what is thought to be “best practice”, to ensure that I am truly doing what is best for my students.
The idea of “not-yetness” and taking risks is another concept that really intrigued me. As a student, I have previously noticed myself being afraid to be wrong, and hesitant to take risks. However, I do understand that sometimes it is necessary to step out of your comfort zone to improve and grow as an individual.
Going forward as a teacher, I definitely want to create an environment where students may learn to take risks, and try new things, to experience self growth. There needs to be a balance between setting expectations, and allowing students some room to showcase their knowledge in different ways. Ultimately, each student has a unique set of abilities, and as teachers we must provide them with opportunities to show what they are capable of!
I decided to write a twitter essay because I was somewhat comfortable with this technology, however there was still an aspect of challenge. I actually found it to be more challenging than I anticipated! Since there were so many concepts brought up in the podcast, I found it difficult to choose the main points, keep it concise, and create a sense of flow from the first tweet to the last.
My approach for this twitter essay was to summarize the podcast while incorporating some of my own thoughts along the way. I wanted to formulate the main ideas into a quick and easy read that anyone on twitter could understand. Of course, a few good GIFs always make a twitter thread more interesting! Incorporating these gifs and photos required creativity and a bit of searching to find what I was looking for. Overall, this was a great learning experience, and certainly opened my mind to some interesting concepts regarding teaching and learning.
After listening to the podcast by Chris Friend and Amy Collier I came up with a sketchnote to summarize some of the important concepts highlighted in the show. This was my first time listening to a podcast and it was interesting to see how formal ideas were presented in an informal way.
One of the concepts that Friend and Collier discussed was the idea of ‘Best Practices’. Best practices are created by someone else and said to be the best idea for everyone in any situation. We must question who they are best for and what they really mean. Best Practices are something that I have generally taken at face value, I hadn’t thought about what negative repercussions they might hold. Instead of ‘Best Practices’ I believe we should have practices in place that cater to individuals and their needs. Often times when something is best for a majority, the minority suffers the most. In my own teaching I want to make sure that the best practices I have in place are ones individualized to the students I’m teaching.
Another idea that was discussed on the podcast was that of “Notyetness”, embracing the discomfort of not knowing and playing with an idea without quite getting it yet. Noyetness is so important to a critical pedagogy because it takes away the burden of having the right answer, instead it embraces the process to the answer and showcases the creativity in finding the solution. I often times ask myself when working on something, “How can I do this the right way?” and then proceed to stress myself out thinking about all the wrong ways I could be doing it. Embracing notyetness means to embrace that unknown factor of learning. This idea actually reminded me of a concept I learned in another class about flow, it emphasized how you can achieve the most optimal flow when completing work if you have a balance between challenge and skill. Notyetness seems to be a part of that process for me, you can only achieve flow if you are working towards something that challenges you, and something that challenges you shouldn’t be something to which you already have a solution.
Collier also touches on the idea of “Learnification” which is essentially individualizing education so the responsibility falls on the learner rather than the community. This student interest based learning was not something I had ever been introduced to before but initially hearing about the concept, it seemed intriguing to me. I liked the idea of students wanting to learn whatever they wanted to learn, this personalizes learning and sparks a passion for it as well. Instead of just following a set curriculum that might not meet the interests of some students, why not introduce teaching as a way that touches everyone? Throughout the podcast I also learned that this ideology is quite romanticized and takes away from the student/teacher relationship. Though I wish to personalize learning for my students, I also believe that a part of teaching is maintaining a relationship with your students where there is trust, respect, and consideration. Classrooms are meant to be communal places of learning where we interact and work with one another, but by individualizing education it merely becomes a self process and aspects of collaboration are lost. When I think about my own learning experiences, the best ones have been where there was room for self growth and discovery as well as ways to work with one another in order to achieve the best result.
When we become so engrossed by these ‘Best Practices’ and forget to work through ‘Notyetness’ we can become obsessed with the outcome. Outcomes provide a way to derisk learning; when you set measurable outcomes for what students are supposed to know, you take away from the opportunity to measure students on their own individual learning, growth, and understanding. Whenever I start an assignment of any sort, my first step is to always look at the rubric and outlines and see exactly what is asked of me. In my own placement experiences I’ve found that many students do the same and it becomes a way to achieve the best mark rather than forming an interest or understanding. Instead of Outcomes, Collier thinks that we should have Beacons. These Beacons can be big questions that students ask themselves by the end of their learning instead of reductive and incremental outcomes.
Overall, the points that Collier and Friend made in the podcast were those that I agreed with. It made me question certain ideals we have for learning and what they really mean and I believe it is this questioning that leads to better teaching. I chose to present the information in a sketchnote to challenge myself. I initially wanted to do the Twitter essay because I have an easier time writing words than drawing pictures but this assignment provided me with the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone. I struggled immensely creating the sketchnote and often wanted to give up and write the Twitter essay but I believe that the challenge helped me grow as an educator and really helped me to see how different forms of showing information can be helpful to students and for understanding. #UWinDig2020
