This is my final Networking Learning post and my main focus of this blog post will be to share with you, my readers, how I have contributed to the learning of others. Throughout my EDTC 300 journey, I have learnt a lot and networked with many people that I did not know at the beginning. I began this experience without a Twitter Account, not knowing what Slack or Zoom was and I had not blogged in over a year. I have used all of the below medias to network with other people in EDTC 300, EDTC 400, other classmates and other educators from around the world. I never realised how many networking doors could be opened by using these medias, especially Twitter. I personally have grown and learnt a lot throughout this class. Many of the medias or information I learnt will continue to be used in my life. TWITTER (@MissHMercier) Twitter has been the main source of my networking, there are many educators on Twitter that I was able to reach out to. I did not want a Twitter account, I had successfully managed to avoid Twitter for 21 years of my life until this class. My mindset was that I would do what I needed to do on Twitter and then at the end of the class, I would delete my account. I am happy to report that I will not be deleting my account. I will most likely not be as active as I found it hard to Tweet about multiple things a day, but I will still use it at my own level and continue to network wherever possible. I contributed to the learning of others by posting on Twitter - allowing people to see my thoughts, beliefs and interests as I tweeted and retweeted things that I found interesting an important. This allowed me to connect with classmates who shared similar interests and to put myself out there as an educator for other educators to see.
I worked as an EA substitute during this semester so I would share experiences or resources I found while in the classrooms I worked in - I was mainly in Elementary School classrooms so although these resources did not directly relate to my High School experience, I posted them because I knew that many of my followers were elementary and could make good use of these ideas. I shared interesting topics or information from other classes I was taking in order to share the knowledge that I thought was important. It also allowed to inform followers who were not in that class, on what I was learning about in other classes. This also allowed me to connect with classmates from these classes and even some of my professors at some points. I shared resources that I came across throughout the semester as well in order to give my other peers these ideas for those who, like me, will be entering our careers in the fall or for those that are still in classes and might be entering internship in the next little bit. I also tried to share English related things such as books that reflect diversity that maybe I can or my fellow English majors can teach in our classrooms one day.
While using Twitter, I tried my best to tweet about things that I cared about or had an interest in, but also things that I knew or hoped others could relate to or talk about. I asked questions, shared things I found, retweeted, linked my blog and just shared random pieces of knowledge with my classmates, followers and anyone else who happened to see my posts. Also on Twitter, I did my best to comment on others' posts and share my opinions with them. We learn best through each other, so everytime I commented on someone else's post or they commented on mine, we learned from one another and our horizons were slightly broadened by listening to opinions and ideas that may be different from our own. Commenting on others' posts and them commenting on mine also created a space for support which is a huge part of creating a strong network. Sharing little things like how we all study differently and then sharing what works best for me helps create that network. Sometimes small little ideas such as how we study can impact our network: it's like a small way of helping each other out. Same with the second example, little things like sharing advice that I would have given to myself in my first year. This grows my network and helps others learn because maybe if they see that tweet, they might take my advice or maybe its something they can relate to as well. As you can see from the above examples, I have connected with lots of people - mainly people from class, but I created a positive and supportive relationship with other people as well including my mentor, Jayden and people such as Andrew who is not even from Canada. It amazes me how far a tweet can go and something as simple and me tweeting about the struggle of studying for a test can be found by someone from another country and they can comment back and wish me a good luck! My network has grown and it is full of rich knowledge and tons of support from all of those around me. Lastly with Twitter is Twitter Chats. To be completely honest, I was not a huge fan of Twitter chats. I loved how fast it was to make connections with people from across the globe, but I found it to be extremely overwhelming and hard to keep track of everything that is happening so fast and all at once. The other downside was that many of the chats that interested me happened on nights when I had night classes so participating was sometimes harder. My first one was the CTE Chat which I found overwhelming, but also quite enlightening.
BLOG: Many of my peers have taken the time to come visit my blog and have left me kind and encouraging comments. I have done the same for them as well. Our EDTC class has created a supportive network by the amount of support and words of kindness that we have provided each other. We have all been doing amazing things in our Learning Project and the community and network we have created by watching each other learn and grow has been amazing. When my peers would comment on my blog, I would try to reply if I felt it was needed. It took me a little while to figure it out how to comment back, but eventually did. It helps to strengthen the network when it becomes more of a conversation between me and my readers which is why I tried to respond once in a while. SLACK COMMUNITY: Our Slack Community was a very supportive and helpful. I did not participate as much as I would have liked to, but many of the questions being asked were things that I had no idea how to solve or was trying to figure out myself. Whenever I could answer something, I got to it right away and gave my two cents. It was an awesome resource to have though in order to reach out to my network for anything I needed. COLLABORATIONS AND CREATIONS: Throughout the semester, I had the privilege of collaborating with some of my peers a little closer due to some of the assignments and activities that were asked of us. It was nice to get to work with my peers especially in an online class because I expected it to be a class with less interaction. I was happily proved wrong when I spent lots of time talking to my peers in online discussion and a few in person to collaborate on projects. Creation wise, I was able to create a few artefacts for my learning project which would hopefully help any of my peers or people in my network who want to learn how to sew. I created a how-to video where i explain and show how I sewed parts of my blanket together. I also created a step by step process with pictures in case anyone else ever wanted to try it. Both of these creations have been linked in my learning project posts, but I will share them here again with you. I have learnt so much throughout this class and did not know how important creating and having a learning network is. I have met so many new people and many of them I follow on Twitter now so we can stay up to date on each others' lives. I have created friendships with many of my classmates and have bonded over digital citizenship with them! I thought I knew a lot about technology, but this class really opened my eyes. I did my best to contribute to my peers' learning by creating tweets and blog posts and commenting back to them. I collaborated and created a few sewing resources in hopes of helping others in my network or drawing more people into my network. Having a strong and supportive network has been helpful throughout this journey and I look forward to working with and relying on each other in the years to come. Thanks for the great experience in EDTC 300.
Best Wishes!!!
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We were asked to share a summary of learning video with the class. Pretty much, just a 6 to 8 minute video on what we have gained and learned from this class. Erinn and I worked together for this and made the video below. We have learnt so much: awesome resources to use in the classroom, how to tweet and participate in Twitter chats, how to help our students identify fake news or how to be sake online and so much more. We have covered so much in such little time! lease do not judge us too harshly on how cringy this may be. Thanks for watching! I'm just going to say it.... I did not enjoy coding. I first tried to make my own, struggled for an hour and then gave up. I decided maybe playing a game would be easier which it was, but still caused some struggles. I decided to play The Grinch: Saving Christmas with Code from Hour of Code because I LOVE the Grinch. I eventually got the hang of it, but I did not enjoy doing it as I found no interest in doing it. However, I did learn a newfound appreciation for those that do code and create games as it is not an easy task. I wish I would have liked it more, but as we all know, everyone has different interests and passions. Honestly, I don't think I will ever use this in the classroom as I did not find it beneficial. I can understand how for younger kids, it might help with their cognitive abilities, but in a High School English classroom, I don't see its value. With that said, I've only had a few hours of coding experience, so if you have any advice or ideas as to where this would fit, I am more than happy to hear you out! I would not go as far to say it is not important as I believe that all students learn a different way and this might be the way some learn best which is great. But will I promote this or assign this in my own class? Most likely, no. I started to feel more comfortable with it once I practised for a few lessons, but I found it tedious and grew tired throughout the experience. Overall, I am glad that I tried it and I am proud that I was able to figure it out after a few tries. I'm impressed by those that do this regularly as it is not an easy skill to master. Although, coding was not for me, I do see some benefit for other students! Here is my screencast video if you want to take a look at how I did: I am just going to start off this week by writing the blog post prompt for the week so that you and I can follow along better as there is a lot of material to cover!
"Required blog post: Increasing our collective digital literacy seems like the best way to combat fake news and the dangers that accompany it. What might it look like to teach about digital literacy in your subject area/grade range? What ties can you make to the curriculum? How might you incorporate the goals of the NCTE Framework?" I am going to answer this week's blog post question by question as that is the way I like to organise my work and my thoughts. 1. What might it look like to teach about digital literacy in your subject area/grade range? This is something I have struggled with throughout my teaching experience. I found it difficult to teach about digital literacy when I am not 100% sure what that term entails either. I also found it difficult because in order for us to use laptops or go to a computer lab, I had to book weeks in advance and I normally was not planned that fully at that point. So we had laptops a few times and then the students had their phones. It is hard to teach anything to do with technology when I have no way of providing my students with the technology. With that said, I have discovered a few ways to teach students about digital literacy in an English Language Arts classroom from grades 9 to 12: One article called "How do we teach students to identify fake news?" has some useful tools and tips with how to deal with it. One that I thought would be helpful in an English classroom would be teaching the students how to use and read a Media Bias Chart. It is a nice layout for students to reference to when searching the internet for sources to use in their homework or in their essays. I also liked the mention of Catfishers because not only is that a very important thing for students and youth to be aware of, but also there are many videos and articles that could go along with that to make it an engaging and memorable lesson especially at the high school level. Another article I looked into is called "What's News: Fake, False, Misleading, Clickbait, Satire or Carefully Reported?". This article also provided good tips in helping students decipher what is good news and what is not. A few of the tips were "Investigate the URL/Site" and "Be Critical of Images". I also thought this would easily fit into an English lesson as during my pre-internship, I taught about Clickbait and during internship, I taught about Satire. They are easy words and lessons to add into the classroom as they are easy enough to explain, interesting enough to grab attention and relative enough for students to care. 2. What ties can you make to the curriculum? The English Curriculum touches a lot throughout the outcomes on critical thinking which was mentioned in an iBook I read. The iBook is called "Lessons in Critical Thinking" and has a few student-designed lessons for multiple subjects. The one that I was most intrigued by was an English lesson called "Using TV Ads to Teach Persuasive Writing". I read through it and I think it is a super cool idea. This lesson was aimed for students between grade 3 and 5, but it could easily be adaptable for high school students as well. The teacher explained the different types of persuasive techniques and then use TV ads for the students to figure out how each one is persuading. There is a little bit more to it and an actual worksheet that goes along with it. And like I said earlier, that worksheet could definitely be adjusted for a higher grade level. I thought it was an awesome activity to keep students interested, but also to hit that critical thinking piece as well as many English courses have persuasive writing in their outcomes/indicators as well. Also as I mentioned earlier in the post, words like "satire" are very important to English. In ELA B30, understanding satire and possibly writing in satire is actually in the curriculum, so any type of activities that explain or work on that are awesome for the English classroom! 3. How might you incorporate the goals of the NCTE Framework?" Firstly, before reading this article, I had no idea what NCTE is so for anyone else in my position, it stands for National Council of Teachers of English. Everything in their framework is important to English teaching and covers a lot of the curriculum outcomes. They all connect to some very important aspects of English. I have written a few bullet points underneath each framework so you can see what I think about each one individually. "Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology"
"Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought"
"Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes"
"Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information"
"Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts"
"Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments"
Overall, Fake News and helping our students be digitally literate is a huge part of our job as teachers in 2019. It may not be easy, but it is an important part for us to reflect on and work towards becoming more digitally literate as an individual. Thanks for checking in this week! This week was interesting week as the assignment was to Cybersleuth (aka Cyber-Stalk) one of my classmates. I had the privilege of cybersleuthing one of my best friends, Erinn Flory. This was a little harder since I know Erinn very well, but I only noted things that her digital presence could tell me. Here are my findings: Instagram: Erinn's Instagram is private, but since she is one of my good friends, I already had access. Without having access, all I could see is she is a student at the University of Regina and that a few characteristics that describe Erinn which is "Kindness" and "Hilarious-ness". And as her friend, I can confirm both of these are true statements. Once I looked at her open privacy, I discovered that she enjoys spending time with her friends as most of her pictures involve them. She graduated from Balfour Collegiate in Regina based on one of her pictures. From her pictures, it is clear to see that she enjoys spending her time with friends and family, coaching volleyball and doing outdoor activities. Facebook: Erinn's Facebook account provides a little detail into her life:
Twitter: Erinn has two Twitter Accounts: her professional one and her personal. I dug into both of them. Professional Twitter (@MsFlory): She states in her bio that she is studying to be a Social Studies and Physical Education teacher. Some of the things she believes in are "positive relationships" and "every student matters". She enjoys witty banter and travelling. She posts a lot about students being treated fairly and creating positive relationships so right away, I get the vibe that she is dedicated and is going to be an awesome teacher who will create an equal and supportive classroom for her students. Her Professional Twitter provides a clear outlook on what her classroom will look like and I am excited to see where she goes as I know she will make an awesome teacher. This is not just because she is already my friend, but because everything she tweets and shares has so much value and wisdom to it. Personal Twitter: Her personal Twitter is not as active and I did not learn anything new from her Twitter. It was more older photos and gave me a slight look into some of her High School memories. Overall, she has a good sense of humour based on the things she shares and likes. Blog: Erinn's blog is highly professional. It is filled with wisdom and experiences for her readers. Her learning project posts were entertaining to read and it was awesome to watch her progress. Overall, these blogs mainly just reiterate everything else I already found. She is going to be an awesome educator and I look forward to keeping up with her blogs and her learning posts. Google Search: Erinn has a few results when she is Googled. Her Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and blogs appear which is interesting because out of curiosity, I Googled myself and did not find any results that matched me . Either way, it made my job way easier to have all of her social media in one place. The one new thing I learnt from this is that she works as a Summer Intern with WestHill Church. She works with the children and youth of the church. This was a fun activity! I enjoyed diving deep into the lives and the social media of one of my best friends. I had never taken the time to actually full on stalk her before so this was super interesting. Overall, Erinn does not overshare online, she is generally a pretty private person on the web. Based on what I can see, my main take-aways are that she is a very friendly, family/friend-oriented person, she enjoys sports and being outdoors and she is going to be an amazing educator. *All pictures have been approved by Erinn*
*For her privacy, only her professional Twitter and Blog has been linked* Digital Identity: Another part of our homework was to look at our digital identity on a more general scale. I watched a TED Talk by Jon Ronson called "One Tweet Can Ruin Your Life". I found this video very interesting because it really puts it into perspective how one wrong move online can flip your life upside down. In the video, Jon talks about a woman named Justine who wrote a racist tweet before boarding her flight. By the time she landed, it was everywhere and she was trending and not in a good way. She was fired from her job and targeted on social media due to her actions. Although I do not agree with Justine's actions, it is insane how fast word travelled and how one stupid thing she wrote decided her life. This is a terrifying thought, I don't post very much on social media, but it is always a process for me to post something. I am terrified that I will accidentally post something that the teacher's board finds inappropriate and I will suffer for it. Every time i post, I think "is this an appropriate message? Is this an appropriate outfit? Is this an appropriate caption?". I am constantly in my head because I do not want to make a mistake like Justine did. It boggles my mind how much social media has grown in importance over the last few years. It has created a huge boom in the world and because of that, people are suffering consequences because of their online life. Jobs are beginning to cybersleuth your profiles online in order to make sure you are an appropriate candidate. And all it takes is for you to post one bad post, someone to screenshot or share it and after that, it belongs to the web and there is no turning back. This video was definitely alarming to me, I was pretty sure all of my pictures and content were appropriate, but I felt the need to double check. Everything seems fine on my social media, but it is still crazy to think that one wrong post can turn my life all around. We need to be extra careful when online and be very aware of our own digital identities. Thanks for reading! The following conversation was held between Garrett J. Bates, Hillary Mercier and Erinn Flory. It is a conversation on whether or not Facebook should or should not be used within the classroom. The conversation was recorded and is transcribed below.
Erinn: I am Erinn and I am taking pro-Facebook in the classroom. Hillary: I am Hillary and I am also doing pro-Facebook in the classroom. Garrett: I’m Garrett and I am anti-Facebook in the classroom. So we can just start by sort of saying our personal experiences with Facebook, like, when did you guys get on Facebook? How old were you/what grade were you in? Erinn: I didn’t get any type of social media, including Facebook, until first year university, so I had never used Facebook in the classroom or in high school. Hillary: I got my own personal Facebook account in grade ten I want to say. But none of my high school teachers used it in the classroom or anything like that, so I’ve only ever known it as a personal platform. Garrett: I remember I got Facebook when I was in grade five. It had just come out and all my friends were talking about it. We all got on it at the same time. There are pictures of me, on Facebook, when I was in grade five. So I’ve had it for over ten years now. Erinn: Yeah it’s definitely more of a personal platform than a communal platform. Garrett: So why don’t we just jump right into it. Why is it good to have in the classroom? Erinn: Well I’m thinking that it’s great for creating a class community. So teachers can create private pages that have privacy settings on them that only their class members can join. It’s just a great way for the class to interact with each other, I feel at least. What about you Hillary? Hillary: Yeah I agree and the article I read talked a lot about how it’s heavily used by everybody. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t have it, so it’s very easy to connect and it’s available 24/7. You can reach out to these people and it will ding in their pocket and they’ll look at it almost immediately, so it’s not like you’re waiting for emails where it could take a day for them to respond. People respond to Facebook quite often. Garrett: People kind of treat it like texting almost, to a certain degree… Why Facebook instead of something else, is my big thing. Why Facebook instead of something like Google classroom? Or anything else that’s more private and can’t be seen from the outside right? Cause after looking into Facebook in general, especially the link I sent you guys, the Guardian article said that 50 million users data was breached. Erinn: I think it kind comes with what Hillary said, like everybody, or almost everybody, would have Facebook so I think it’s something that students would already know how to use. You wouldn’t really need to teach them much on how to use Facebook, and I think that when they’re scrolling through their news feed they can just click on their classroom page and just see what’s going on. Hillary: Yeah, and also to add onto that I don’t think it’s such a question of why Facebook over other things, I think it’s more: why not use Facebook in addition to Google classroom? Using all these different types of technologies in your classroom. Because, for instance we use Twitter in our Ed Tech class and I’m still not a huge fan of Twitter, so it’s kind of nice that if like students had multiple platforms they could go to, and like one better than the other. Garrett: Okay yeah, so you guys are advocating for multiple things, not just a Facebook strictly, it’s an addition to multiple things. Erinn: Yeah, like a why not? Instead of a why, a why not? Garrett: Okay yeah, I guess for me it all comes down to privacy, especially for my students, and depending on what grade I’m teaching too, like, if it’s a grade 9, 10, 11, 12, if I do get into high school then privacy isn’t much of an issue, but I’m more thinking of elementary level. Definitely not. Would you guys say that you would only use it in high school and not in elementary? Or would you use it wherever, in anyway? Hillary: In my personal classroom, I would only use it in high school, just because I only got Facebook in high school, and any earlier I probably would’ve been so confused. I don’t think little children need to be on that type of media at that age. Erinn: I agree, I think it is a high school thing. I think you need to have a maturity to understand how to properly use it, and wouldn’t advocate for it to be used in an elementary classroom. I think that’s just not something that should be done. Garrett: Okay, well, just to go further on that point, would you say that when you start your class right at the beginning of the semester, or the school year, kids walk in, teenagers I guess. Would you say: “Okay we’re gonna have a Facebook group, so I want everyone to join that.” Or would you have a big lesson on digital citizenship and all that privacy stuff? Would you say you’d start with that and then move into using Facebook, or would it just be strictly a “This is our group. Join it. Go home and join this.”? Erinn: I think they coincide with each other. I think you’d get them to join the Facebook group and through that you would teach them and they would learn through hands on learning that would be digital citizenship and privacy. I think that learning how to interact with others online is a huge part of it, and I think they don’t really understand that until they actually have to interact with others online. Hillary: And there’s like that big collaboration piece we touched on a little bit, and how important it is that they can reach out or talk to these people right at their finger tips whenever they need to and whenever they want to. That kind of takes that class dynamic out of the classroom. Garrett: So what I’m kind of gathering here is that it’s not so much a substitute for anything else, it’s not really for like assignments or what not, it’s more just to foster a community within the classroom, right? Erinn: It’s another tool that’s already familiar to the students. Hillary: It could be used for assignments I think, but generally it would be really good for group work, or like journal questions that you want to send out over Facebook every night or something. I don’t know what you’d want to do, but there’s ways to do it as an assignment. Erinn: I mean yeah, creating fake Facebook profiles for characters in books, when you have to write: “What is their bio? What is their job?” Things like that, just making it a real life personal thing. Hillary: We did that in internship. I had them make Facebook profiles and they really liked it. It was awesome for me to go through them and find all the different pathways, like “What are you interested in? What are your hobbies?” And all that stuff. I thought it was a really cool assignment. Garrett: Is it possible that could be extended into, not just assignments, but maybe that you tell students to create a new Facebook account. Use a pseudonym and that will be like, you in this classroom. That way you can post assignments and opinions and stuff without having to worry about it coming back to you necessarily. If you know what I mean? Erinn: Yeah! Like making a separate account, not one that you would have all your friends on, but one that would be more your professional one? Garrett: Yeah! Erinn: For sure, but I think as well in that, if you’re going to have students do that, you still need to ask them to evaluate their friends’ profiles a bit, like their profile for their friends and say: “Are you having good digital citizenship? If somebody you didn’t know looked at this, what would they think of you?” I think it just comes along with really good lessons about how you’re presenting yourself in the digital world. Garrett: Definitely. What subjects do you think this would be the best for? Hillary: I teach English and it worked awesome, like I said we did the character profiles so I’d recommend it for that. Erinn: I can see it being really good with social studies as well. Group projects, even finding current events, things like that. Garrett: Speaking of current events, with the advent of “Fake news”, do you think the kids are susceptible, teenagers I guess, to seeing fake news? Like seeing things like that isn’t necessarily true, and then internalizing that. Really believing that. That’s one of the big problems, apparently anyways, with Facebook that spreads a lot of misinformation. So should we be wary of that if we introduce Facebook into the classroom? Erinn: I think that goes along with teaching them what is a credible news source. If you’re looking online, maybe the Buzzfeed articles are not necessarily the most credible, but what about the CBC, the CTV, and The National, and things like that. I think teaching them what are good sources and teaching them kind of what you can invest your own belief in. Hillary: I agree. Garrett: Is digital literacy, digital citizenship, is that an English curricular thing? Or is there even one? Is it health? Hillary: Not as far as I know is it in the curriculum. Garrett: Do you guys think it should be introduced to the curriculum? Hillary: Probably. At this point, in 2019, I feel like it probably should be in there. I think that especially with all the different platforms and social medias there are, I think of how bad some people’s posts are. I think we could definitely learn a lesson from that and educate our students on that. Garrett: Absolutely. Hillary: So a question for you then Garrett: what is your counter? Why would you not want to use this in the classroom? Garrett: With Facebook doesn’t just come a classroom element, it comes with the big idea called FOMO. Don’t know if you guys have every heard of it, it’s F. O. M. O. It’s the “Fear Of Missing Out”. So, yeah we can use Facebook in the classroom, and it’s all good and well, and we can use it for assignments and what not, but at the same time, students are still on Facebook. I try to totally avoid it. The reason being that it, in my opinion, fosters two different things: anxiety big time, and the fear of missing out. So FOMO is basically that you see all your friends, they are, it looks like they’re having fun. They’re going to parties, they’re doing all these things that you’re not doing, right? So when students see that, anyone see’s that, it triggers something in them that’s like “Aw that hurts. I wish I was there too. Like why isn’t my life as fun? Why isn’t my life like that? Why aren’t I as cool?” Right? So it just breeds comparison, which is unhealthy for for our students especially. You could say that they’re going to be on it no matter what, but in my opinion, the less social media, anybody’s on really, the healthier mentally they are. So that’s why I am very hesitant to bring it into a classroom setting instead of something like Google classroom where there’s no actual social media element to it. Erinn: I can understand that. Garrett: So that’s why. I just think it’s like unhealthy mentally, but that’s obviously a personal opinion. I don’t know if the studies are still out on that, cause social media is a new-ish phenomenon. Hillary: No, I’ve heard all that before. I think the only thing that I could say, is that, if we use it in the classroom it wouldn’t really be a personal level. Like we had talked about, maybe like changing your name, like what we did for our Twitters, we put our teacher names, kind of thing. And that Facebook would be specifically for school, so you wouldn’t be posting pictures of you having a good night out kind of thing. Garrett: Yeah. Hillary: In the school setting, I get that it might still cause anxiety for people but I think that it would be a lot more of a community place and not a “look what I’m doing and you’re not doing” kind of thing. Garrett: I can definitely get on board with it if there’s two separate accounts. You have, like, your private account that’s like your life, and then you have a public account that’s like, your public life essentially. I can get on board with it that way. But if you’re supposed to use your Facebook account, like the one I’ve had for the last ten years, there’s no way I’d be comfortable with doing that. Especially cause like, even as teachers, going back and like scrubbing our social media accounts of anything stupid that we did when we were kids. Especially me because I have like, you know like grade 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. I had to go back and make sure through all that time I didn’t say anything dumb or offensive or anything. So yeah, I could get on board as long as there’s two. Erinn: I definitely see both sides of the argument. I can understand why, especially people would be hesitant to do it. I think it’s something that people should be open to. But I think it also just goes with your classroom climate. Judge “who are your students? Do they get along well? Do you think they can grasp the concept of a positive digital citizenship?” I think you have to evaluate who you are as a teacher . Will you be able to keep up with doing the online stuff? Will you be open to other options? Will you be able to work with students? Do you think you can adequately put things online for it in a way that everybody might understand? I can see both sides of the argument for sure. We ended the conversation there after reaching a pleasant middle point. Thank you for reading. This week, we were tasked with watching a video on YouTube called, "An anthropological introduction to YouTube" by Michael Wesch. I found this video to be extremely interesting as I grew up with technology - it was not as developed as it is today, but ever since I was born, technology has been present. I struggle to think of a time before the internet now, it seems like it has been around forever. It is interesting to take a look back at how it all started and the how and why behind YouTube's success. I It was to learn about participant observation. Some people may follow a trend simply for the fun of it, but others follow it and remake videos in order to immerse themselves in the experience. By actually participating in it, they are studying the culture in a much more intense way. Our world is constantly changing with no sign of it slowing down anytime soon - it is terrifying to think what the world might be like in fifty years. Like he said, YouTube started with one video and now there are billions of them and they keep coming. Everyone wants to belong to the culture and you can't blame them when we live in such a technological and digital world. People participate in trends because it allows them to be part of the culture and also allows them to express themselves. Like Wesch had said in the video, a lot of people who make vlogs use it as a reflective period for them. Not only for others to watch, but also for the creator to look back on. When you are talking to the camera, it dies not seem as big or as real. Once it is posted, you have now opened yourself to possibly billions of people. It is crazy the amount of power the internet has. One of my favourite quotes he said in his video was "At once the most private space (bedroom, etc.), it is, also, quite possibly the most public space on the planet" (Wesch). That quote stuck with me because it is so true, but also something that is easily looked over. So many people post daily without putting much thought into what they are releasing to the world forever. And when you post, you are showing that portion of yourself to anyone who is willing to watch which is possibly anyone with access to the internet. In all honesty, I am a little afraid for mu future classroom. I think there are a lot of advantages to technology and having students create their own digital citizenship is important and it is crucial that students understand how to use and be on the internet in a safe manner. There are so many opportunities when technology and the internet is involved. The reason that it scares me is because students and people in general are getting so accustomed to technology that it is like a second nature to them now. The internet holds a world that you can control with the click of a mouse: a world where you can be whoever you want to or say whatever you feel with no consequences. Like the video talked about, people will comment ruthlessly on videos for no reason other than to hurt people because they know they are anonymous. It is scary to think about students entering my class who have been raised with a cellphone in their hand because they are born into technology and inherit both the advantages and the consequences of it. Schools may one day become obsolete and everyone will take online classes - I really hope not! Students are spending so much time online and life is becoming digital in general: so many places refuse to take physical copies or applications or resumes, you can shop and order online, research EVERYTHING online. Libraries, schools and classrooms might be a thing of the past in a hundred years. Students are learning to participate online and become a member of online society from a very young age, Watching my six-year old cousin walking around with her very own IPhone terrifies me. I was 15 when I got my first phone so it boggles my mind how fast the world has become digital. In our class discussion we talked about how our world is a digital environment. It seems as there is so much happening online - in our chat we had gotten a little sidetracked with memes, but many valid points about how easy things get out of hand or how fast things change. It is crazy that every day or two there is a new viral meme going around. The world is constantly changing and it is an exciting and possibly terrifying place to be. Only time will tell how technology and education grow and develop. I would love to hear your thoughts on the digital world and whether you are excited about it or terrified! Now just for fun, here are some pictures of some memes: https://www.pinterest.ca/mrsorman/teacher-memes/
http://www.3plearning.com/blog/top10funniestteachermemes/ https://runt-of-the-web.com/dwight-schrute-knows-best I just finished (or maybe a better word is survived) my first Twitter Chat with #CTEChat (Career/Tech). The last question posed was to provide one word on our experience and mine summed it all up nicely: enlightening. To be honest, it was an intimidating process. All of the other participants were very kind and supportive, but as a first timer, it is daunting. During the experience, I was constantly thinking about what to say, what to comment or how to answer a question. I think my hesitation came from my lack of knowledge on chats. I felt like I needed to always say something important and interesting to relate and have conversations with these people who are more experience than me. I think Twitter Chats are meant to be worked on. Talking to strangers about on-the-spot questions is scary, but once you ease yourself into it and practice it, I'm sure it will be more comfortable. In general, Twitter is still somewhat of a mystery to me so I am slowly moving through it and figuring things out.
Although, I found Twitter Deck to be quite helpful, it still was a crazy experience with columns constantly moving and changing with new updated tweets - that will take some getting used to! It was very cool to hear what another educators from around the world had to say. It was nice to get some new ideas and new knowledge. One of the participants introduced me to Wakelet. I have not had very much time to roam around in it, but so far it looks pretty useful and interesting. It is a way of creating a collection of pretty much whatever you want: articles, videos, tweets, etc. Anyways, I'm still trying to figure it all out, but so far it looks like a great resource. My number one take-away from this experience is that sometimes it is okay to not have an answer or to simply say "I do not know". It seems like an embarrassing statement to make, but I find that the other participants want to help you understand or gain knowledge in any way they can (well what do you expect when they are mostly all educators!). It is okay to not know what to say and instead just read the other responses or comment - you do not always have to have a response or an opinion as sometimes you just need more time or information to fully wrap your brain around it. Hello everyone! This week, I created an account with Feedly.com. I was a little skeptical of how I would feel about this app as it seemed harder to work than I wanted. After getting started, I realized that it is so simple and useful in the life of a teacher. I followed many educational accounts which provided articles on experiences, resources, tips and so much more.
I also created a second feed called "#English" as that is my major and finding resources and support in that subject area is extremely important to me. While choosing which accounts to follow, I was trying to follow the ones that I thought would be able to benefit me with the areas I struggle. Classroom management is always an ongoing struggle so I followed a few based on the articles they posted about that. One of the key topics I was searching for was technology in the classroom, which is also why I am taking this class. I love to put on PowerPoints or videos in the classroom, but I'm quite lame when it comes to how much more I could be doing. My goal through this class and through Feedly now is to find fun and engaging ways to incorporate technology into the classroom without taking away from the actual lesson. I love Feedly so far - I'm interested in poking around a little more and maybe discovering some new accounts or features on the app itself. Either way, this app is my best friend for finding and sharing resources! Here is a picture of my feed board right now in case you want to check out any of the accounts that I follow: Hello readers! This is my first time blogging in a long time so please bear with me!
My name is Hillary Mercier and I was born and raised in Prince Albert, SK and moved to Regina to pursue my goal of becoming a teacher. I am a fourth-year student studying Education at the University of Regina. My major is English and my minor is French. I've always had a passion for language and literature which is the main reason I have chosen my major and my minor. In my spare time I enjoy reading and writing (which would justify my major), spending time with my family and friends, running (or at least I am TRYING to enjoy it) and travelling. This is my first time taking an Education Technology class which makes me a little nervous. Although I am in the generation of technology, my skills do not compare to lots of my peers. I'm a traditional person when it comes to teaching English - I like paper/physical copies of books and notes. So honestly blogging and creating online portfolios is not my forte. That is one of the reasons I chose to take EDTC 300. I know the world is constantly changing and my future students will be masters at technology so I have to keep up and learn along with them. It was interesting comparing my high school experience to the one I witnessed and helped provide during internship. When I was in high school, technology was used quite often, but not nearly as much as it is used today. During internship, I was asked to create my own website (click here if you want to check it out) and upload assignments and notes for students to access. Not only that, but all students had access to my email, all day, everyday. This all took me by surprise because I realised how connected me and my students were at all times. Those types of opportunities are awesome for the student, but generally pretty new to the education scene as now educators are trying to keep students connected to school even when they are not in it. So far, it has been an interesting new experience and I'm sure there is still so much to come and learn from during this semester and during my career as technology continues to change. Throughout the semester I will tweeting on Twitter as well so feel free to follow my account and join the many conversations to come. You can find me on twitter by using this handle: @MissHMercier Thanks for reading! |
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