I believe strongly in being a lifelong learner. We learn things everyday even if we do not realize it. We are also contributing factors to other people's learning even if we do not realize that as well. This blog post is going to demonstrate my contributions to my peer's learning throughout EDTC 300 Beginning with commenting on blog posts. In all honesty, keeping on track with commenting on blog posts every week was difficult for me. Not only was I busy with moving and work, but I am also living in an area where my connection is not great and I could not always access the blogs. By the end of the course, I tried to comment on as many blogs as I possibly could so that I was still interacting with others and supporting them on their journey! I was also so grateful to the people that had supported me on my journey by commenting on my blog posts. There were so many interesting blogs for people to read that I did not get many comments, but the ones I did really made me feel a sense of accomplishment on my personal journey throughout this course. Here are some of the comments I posted and received: My personal blog posts kept me accountable for my personal learning and my learning project! It gave me a platform to share my progress, my learning, and some phenomenal resources I found throughout this course. It gave me the opportunity to not only think about how I can incorporate my learning from this course into the classroom, but also how I could incorporate blogging in the classroom for my students. I learned how to play the guitar throughout my learning project which has helped me begin to learn a new skill, teach others about this new skill, and provide them with resources I found beneficial when learning! Finally, Twitter. Oh Twitter, I dreaded you so much at the beginning of this class. I complained about having to Tweet and how uncomfortable I was doing so. I started off pretty inactive, but as I became more comfortable with being out of my comfort zone I settled right in. I realized that this is an amazing platform to use to connect with people that are interested in the same things that I am. People actually wanted to see what I was posting and I actually wanted to see what they were posting in as well! A nice reminder that everyone is in the same boat here! After completing this class, I have learned how important it is to have connections with people when you are learning. This support system helps you stay accountable for your learning and it allows you to have a strong support system. These different platforms allowed me to grow my personal learning network by interacting with my classmates, other educators, edtech companies, and so much more. It gave me a place to voice how I was feeling and what I was interested in at the time. I was able to push myself out of my comfort zone and create opportunities to learn new things everyday, as a lifelong learner always does.
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Here is my final post for EDTC 300! Surprise, surprise technology decided to be unpredictable and not show some of my pictures on my slide but, I tried to adapt! I feel like as a young student I was always exposed to new technology. We had chalkboards, then whiteboards and now SmartBoards.Teachers were constantly exposing me to new kinds of technology that enhanced learning and made it even easier. Now, I feel like students are often exposing teachers to new forms of technology that better help their learning. This isn’t saying that teachers are stuck in the chalkboard era, but teachers are being exposed to new forms of technology that they do not have previous experience with. The students are born into the technology filled world where they already have that basis of knowledge of how to use a computer or an iPad and how that can help them learn. When being exposed to new forms of technology, we act cautiously because we do not know what to expect. Youth are born using said technology and are okay with trying everything even if they are wrong. Often I don’t think of this technological bridge between generations. I help my parents with technology and I never understand why they are not okay with just clicking buttons to see what they do, but they never had this as a kid. I grew up using technology all the time so of course I am less cautious when using it. It's not that they are afraid of technology, it is just that generational gap that restricts them from having the same confidence as I do with it. As a future elementary/middle years teacher, I think that teaching students about digital literacy is very important. At these ages students want to use technology, they get excited about it. With this excitement, they do not fully know how to filter real news and fake news. They do not fully understand that you cannot believe everything you see on the internet. I think it is important for students to not only understand that not everything is as it seems on the internet, but to also be able to begin to and ultimately fully understand the motivations people have behind posting fake news. It is important to understand what fake news is, how to identify it and how to identify the motivation, but another important aspect of teaching digital literacy is to teach students how to deal with that self conflict they have when their facts are not right. As discussed in the comic You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you, there are so many facts that we have deemed as correct our entire lives but in reality, they are actually false. It is hard to hold a fact near and dear to your heart and believe it to it’’s full extent and have someone prove this fact wrong. We all know it is easy to accept a fact that aligns with your worldview. Of course we want to believe what we like to hear. In the article It’s Easier To Call A Fact A Fact When It’s One You Like, Study Finds discusses this idea of how our personal beliefs and biases shape what we believe is true or false. So when teaching children about digital literacy, how can we teach them how to not be clouded by their personal judgement? It’s hard. I know I personally struggle with this. We love the consistency of these facts that we have been told were true our entire lives and when that is taken away from us it is hard to determine how to stand. We need to teach children how to identify this backfire effect that is discussed in the comic so that we are willing to have that internal fight, listen to other facts, and then ultimately change your opinion to what now best suits what you believe and the facts that are associated with it.
In the Grade 8 English Language Arts Curriculum, outcome CR8.5 says, “Listen critically to understand, gather information, follow directions, form an opinion, and analyze oral presentations for diverse opinions, presenter’s point of view, values, and biases, stereotypes, or prejudices.” When teaching about digital literacy it is important to have students understand and gather information to properly form an opinion with the presenter’s point of view, values, beliefs, biases, stereotypes, and prejudices in mind to ensure that they are giving and receiving the best possible information. Being digitally literate in this age is so important to help our students become the most knowledgeable and empathetic versions of themselves.
I’ll say it, I love to cyber sleuth. Any new person I meet should expect to be creeped on all forms of social media (sorry not sorry).
This week I was able to cyber sleuth my friend Sam Froude. I decided to start by using her full name, Samantha, and the first thing that comes up is an old Facebook account. Anyone that doesn’t know her previously wouldn’t know this is an old account so I think she might be upset that I found this page (sorry Sam). This is essentially full of all of the things you would expect to see from a young girl on social media: old pictures, Wizards of Waverly Place, Justin Bieber, dogs, and so on. Since I am friends with Sam, I have access to her actual Facebook account which is much more current and gives a better idea of who she is. If you’re curious, it seems like Sam is still a huge Belieber. I think her Facebook page really shows how much she cares about her education and becoming a teacher. She is always posting different quotes and stories regarding education. She is also very interested in issues that we see all over the media in our area. She is an advocate for Indigenous rights and she is very vocal about this. This advocacy will truly benefit her as a teacher. She is also an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. We can also get a sense of who she is as a friend. She is always supporting her friends via social media. Sam is from Swift Current, Saskatchewan and she attended Swift Current Comprehensive. She played badminton in high school and it even says she got fourth in girls singles. Sam’s E-Portfolio also comes up when you search her name. She has an amazing “Who Am I?” section in her E-Portfolio which tells you a lot about who she is. She loves travelling, murder mysteries and documentaries, garden indoors, and working with kids. She is an active member of her community and she truly values the opportunities volunteering allows her to have. Digital identity is permanent. Social media and technology is a lot of fun but we have to remember that what we post stays there forever. Having a positive digital identity in this day and age is very important. So many employers search the people they are hiring on the internet to find more about them. This activity has caused me to really reflect on who I am on social media and the internet. In the article, ‘Having multiple online identities is more normal than you think’ they discuss how a different version of one’s self is on different social media platforms. I completely agree with what they say. My Instagram is private and I use it to reach my friends more than my family. My Facebook is intended to reach my family and my community members. Twitter is something I have never really used until I started this class but I now use it as a more professional platform for my teaching career. As they say in this article, “Different sites, different audiences, different people.” I think oftentimes I come across as a different person on all my social media sites, so now I sit here and think, is that a bad thing? I don’t think that it is. I like that I can organize how I post based on the audience I am posting for. Not only does it keep me more organized, but I believe that it’s good that I cater towards my audience. Sometimes people do not really care about what I post on Instagram or Facebook. I think the important thing is to remember to be smart about what we are posting. In the TED Talk, How one tweet can ruin your life, we are reminded about how important it is to think before we post. Social media is harsh. When we post shameful secrets and ideas, people we do not even know become invested in what we say. Our audience automatically becomes much larger and much more judgemental. All in all, we need to remember how much bigger the world of social media is than our personal world. We reach so many more people via social media so we need to be careful about what we post and remember what we are putting on the line when we post something. I know that I personally plan to be more active on social media about things I care about but, at the same time, really monitor what I say and how I say it because it is so important to give my audience the best possible version of myself. We understand that digital citizenship is essentially being a good person while using technology. As teachers, we try to teach our students what it means to be a good person at all times, but what is a “good person”? You can Google what it means to be a good person and you will see a bunch of common adjectives that describe what people believe makes someone a good person. Some of these adjectives include:
Check out this video of kids defining what it means to have good character! In every subject of the SK Curriculum we see the Broad Areas of Learning and the Cross-curricular Competencies and these areas of the document help our students develop skills that help them learn. When diving into these areas deeper, it is evident that not only do these skills help students learn, but they will also help students in their effort to become a “good person.”
When looking in the Health Education 6 Curriculum we are able to make possible connections to Ribble’s nine elements of digital citizenship. Outcomes USC6.1 and USC6.2 can easily be connected to the fourth element of digital citizenship: Digital Etiquette. These outcomes align to this element because it is all about thinking about others and creating relationships with others. The outcome USC6.4 specifically with outcome (b) Inventory the kinds of situations that may create anxiety for grade 6 students (e.g., family break-up, moving, getting/unable to afford braces/glasses, public speaking, body image, academic pressure, foster care, death, economic status) can be related to the elements Digital Access and Digital Commerce. We can create this link by considering students' access to technology in and outside of the school and the economic aspect of technology. In my future classroom, I want to enforce the importance of digital citizenship. We live in a time where technology is so prevalent especially in young children, so I believe it is important to teach students how to develop an appropriate digital presence. First things first, I want to ensure that I include digital citizenship in my classroom rules. In my classroom, students will be required to demonstrate qualities of a “good person” while using technology. Making rules does not always work though, As a young child I didn’t always follow rules, no one does. Therefore along with making these rules, I am going to teach students why we need to have an appropriate online presence. I want to include the Amanda Todd videos to teach students why online presence is so important because I feel like her situation can be related to in many ways. Teaching students about digital citizenship is so important especially in middle years classrooms where a lot of their identity is associated with their online presence therefore, I am going to prioritize my students learning and development of digital citizenship. Before this course, I had never used Twitter. I had to go unearth my Twitter account from years ago that I created purely because it was so popular at the time of creation. Now that I am taking this course and I am required to post on Twitter, I have used the app more than ever before. There are definitely other members of this course that have engaged with it more than I have, but I am still impressed with my slowly increasing comfort with the app. If I am being honest, I am still not all that comfortable posting on Twitter. I think that my biggest challenge with posting on Twitter is that I worry about what the people that follow me are going to think of what I post. I decided to use my old Twitter account because of it's convenience, and yes it is very convenient, but I tend to worry about what the people that follow me (who are not in this class) think about what I post.
I understand how Twitter is a beneficial professional development tool. With Twitter, we are able to connect with so many different people that are passionate and knowledgeable about the same things we are, which allows us to bounce ideas off of one another. As I write this blog post, I have come to the sudden realization that I need to begin looking at Twitter as a professional development tool that allows me to connect with people in my field rather than just a platform to impress random people. I am going to start looking at Twitter as a way to make myself as an educator better and more knowledgeable. I think that participating in #SaskEdChat was actually super interesting. It allowed us to engage in important topics regarding education with other people that are also passionate about education. I liked it because it was such a stress free environment. There was no obligation to answer every single question asked, just the ones that we felt the most comfortable with answering. All in all, I don't like Twitter yet. I still feel uncomfortable using it, but I am working towards building my comfort towards it. Ultimately, I think that it is mostly a mindset issue, but I am working on fixing said mindset. My name is Taylor McPhee and I am from Radville, Saskatchewan. I have lived in Radville my entire life, in the exact same house, even in the exact same bedroom. I moved to Regina in 2019 when I started University and throughout the school year that is where I reside. In the summertime, I return home to work and live at Ceylon Regional Park. My favourite part of being home for the summers is that I am able to spend so much time with my family, friends, and my dog! I enjoy playing sports. I am currently playing ladies softball with the Ceylon Devils. Typically, I try to spend time coaching but doing both school and work this spring and summer I decided against it this year (but there is always next year!).
Personally, I really do not have a lot of experience with educational technology. I don't really know what "educational technology" actually means, that is what intrigued me to take this course. I started creating this website in my first year of University, but I never really understood what the point was, what to include, and how to organize it. I hope that this class can help me develop this page so that it can benefit me in the future. I enjoy using technology and I am typically the "tech wiz" of my family, but I think I have so much to continue learning. I have never done any type of blogging. I do not really know what to include or how to phrase things. If I am being honest, I don't really understand the purpose of blogging. I am willing to learn about how to blog and put my best effort towards it! |
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