When trying out coding for the first time, I chose to head over to Hour of Code and try out one of their short coding activities. I have actually done quite a bit of playing around with Hour of Code throughout my life, in some high school courses and in some university courses. This initiative has been really interesting and I’ve kept it in the back of my mind because of how child friendly and accessible it is. This is absolutely a website I could use in lessons and in the classroom, purely because of how much variety in activities there are. My Hour of Code I decided to get…

When learning about the whole concept of digital literacy, these were the three resources/articles that impacted me the most and helped me to understand both what it means to be digitally literate and how to get there: “You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you” Comic. It’s Easier To Call A Fact A Fact When It’s One You Like, Study Finds The Smell Test: Educators can counter fake news with information literacy. Here’s how. Learning How to be Digitally Literate The first resource that I took a look at was the comic “You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you”. This comic was really…

I have to start out by saying, cybersluething is much more difficult than I thought it would be. I partnered up with one Jenny Castonguay and went on a search for anything about her online. I have known Jenny for a few years now, and so I knew that this process would not be easy, she is essentially invisible on the internet and doesn’t have many social media accounts to even find. But I used all of the information that I had about her to my advantage, because if I didn’t, then I would have nothing to talk about for this post. Jenny has a very faint digital identity, her…

Digital citizenship and views of digital citizenship have changed so much in a really short amount of time, on a societal level more than at a curricular level. Five years ago when I applied to university I was advised by almost everyone to keep my digital footprint to a minimum. This is something that I am seeing change a lot as it becomes more of a norm to have social media than to not, and so as a future teacher, I am having to shift my mindset towards one that promotes digital citizenship more than it stifles it. Digital Citizenship in the Classroom Looking at Ribble’s elements of digital citizenship,…

In Michael Wesch's Lecture "An anthropological introduction to youtube." He discusses the increase in content and ability to connect with people at a rate never seen before because of the internet. He talks about how simple it is for regular people to put content out and connect with people from all walks of life and all across the world.

In my very first blog post, I mention being a little bit social media averse. I have a lot of social media accounts and I check them regularly, but I almost never post things myself. Before this class the last and only time I had tweeted was in 2018, I haven’t posted on Instagram since 2017, and my Facebook has been all but abandoned since 2016. So I knew how to use twitter but making tweets was very much brand new. Over this process, I have found that I quite like twitter and the quick, simple, uncomplicated format that it allows for sharing thoughts and ideas. I have so far,…

Getting Started This week I started using the RSS feed Feedly. If you’re like me, you had absolutely no clue what an RSS feed or reader was, and if I’m honest it sounded very complicated and a little scary. Luckily, I could not have been more wrong! A RSS reader’s main purpose is to help organize and compile websites and blogs that you might be interested in. I used Feedly to do this and finding websites to follow was as simple as typing in a topic I was looking for. I started off with three pretty broad categories to organize the content that I was looking for: Classroom Ideas, Education,…

Learning to Blog: Trial and Error Welcome to my first true blog post! I’ve posted a few things here and there on this site throughout my last four years of education, but this is the first time I’m really getting in to the spirit of blogging. Even with the (very minimal) experience I have with blogging, I am still a bit intimidated by the whole format, so I’m trying my very best to keep an open mind. Despite that, I am diving in head first and going to give this my best shot! I am a little bit social media adverse so even though blogging has always been intriguing to…