The digital world has changed significantly even in the last decade. The technology that was available when I was in elementary school is quite different from what we see in school’s today! I would say a lot of these leave a positive impact and can benefit our classrooms in a variety of different ways. These tools provide us a new way that we can connect and learn from one another.
As Wesch described in his video, in the early youtube days, people from around the world connected through silly youtube videos about dancing to a song, and funny home videos. It in a way built a digital community, which I think is a lot of what we are doing here by blogging. With our assignment blog posts we are all commenting on the same writing prompt. For our learning journey we are all writing about our own experiences with different tools and learning projects! We can make connections, learn from each other and I believe there could be ways that we could collaborate on some of our learning tasks.
For our classrooms, I would argue we already see a lot of the benefits of being able to use technology. As a practicing teacher, I have seen tools such as using youtube to find audiobooks for students, digital textbooks, using digital tools like canva to create posters and presentations. Offering different options for a student to create a final product. For many project based assignments students can choose from writing an essay, creating a podcast, making a movie trailer video, digital posters, powerpoints and so much more. I think this is a positive move out of the static classroom that many of our teachers taught in. Some of our students will thrive by writing an essay or using a textbook, but as we all know we have a variety of diverse learners and these options can make their educational experience a lot more positive.
It also goes beyond our students’ summative assessments. Teachers are able to incorporate these different digital techniques in their teaching styles. Rather than the typical lecture from the front of the classroom there are digital escape rooms for students learning and web exploration activities to offer a few examples.
I think it can be quite tough trying to find that balance and that is evident this year with the change in cell phone policies in schools and classrooms. This is a tough subject in a sense because I do agree that phones were becoming a significant distraction in the classroom, and it was reflecting on our students behavior, focus, and their overall grades. I also recognize that phones have many benefits. Some students thrive by listening to music while they work, or using their digital calendars and reminder apps to put in upcoming due dates. I have some students that struggle to keep up with notes so they would take a picture of the board and write the notes later. Plus other fantastic tools, especially for students with learning disabilities who use voice to text to help in writing papers and spell check. Obviously we can still offer this with the use of laptops but We can’t offer that for every student unfortunately.
I really liked in Wesch’s video he talked about how the Numa Numa dance was more than just a dance that went viral and started a trend on youtube. Rather it was a “celebration of new forms of empowerment” and it is a new form of community (Wesch, 4:42). I think this is especially evident and something we can be grateful for a few years ago while we were isolated in a pandemic. The pandemic was very isolating and lonely for many of us. We were limited to who we could see, removed from safe spaces such as school, and in a sense the digital world offered us a community that we could communicate in and be a part of. (Don’t get me wrong, I never want to experience that again, and there were so many negative aspects of this time in our history).
Wesch, M. July 26, 2008. An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube. Youtube. Accessed Oct. 25/24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU
