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Day 5: May 21: Assigned Blogpost

It’s clear this week that the world is changing and always has been and schools are having to catch up. After watching our lecture and Wasch’s talk, I have started reflecting on the fact that our classrooms are not really separate from the digital space anymore, but rather they are extensions of it. Students these days practically live on the internet. In the lecture, Katia mentioned how our reaction to new technologies really depends on when we are introduced to it. It is definitely a fact that these kids are getting exposed to smart technology, AI and social media even younger and younger. 

Memes, internet slang, trends, youtube, tiktok, instagram, etc are all part of our students everyday lives. As mentioned in this weeks lecture, teen’s screen time has massively increased in the past decade, and they aren’t just consuming content, but they are also participating in the creation of it. This what Wesch calls the “culture of participation”. I think it can have both positive and negative impacts. 

Ironically, there is a common meme that acknowledges when it comes across something really difficult to describe on the internet. When there are memes that have changed and mutated because they have been remixed so many times, you might see the reply “imagine explaining this to a victorian child”. LOL. I find the image pretty funny. For example, those weird italian brainrot memes. What even are those OMG. If I find it weird, imagine explaining it to a victorian child! Internet culture is always rapidly changing and evolving. 

During my pre-internship last semester, I was shocked to hear six-year-olds using internet slang that my friends and I might use. Often times, these slang words have sexual or misogynistic origins. Even the children without phones are going to learn these things, because they will inevitably be exposed to it at school, from children with unlimited access. As mentioned in this lecture, there is no more parental mediation. This is our new reality. 

What should we do?

We could try to fight the change, ban phones, punish the use of memes, etc. However I think that approach is all wrong and doesnt get us anywhere. There is also a good side to this participation culture on the internet. I always believe the answer is so embrace the change and go move with the tides. 

In my classroom…

• I’ll incorporate memes into lessons. Not just for laughs, but to make the content more engaging and relatable to students.
• Ill help students analysize online culture. This requires critical thinking skills.
• Ill communicate with parents about what their students are being exposed to on the internet. 

I wonder…

• Do you think it should be mandatory for teachers to stay up to date on online trends?

Day 7: May 28 : Assigned Blogpost

(posted on June 25, 2025)

I was shocked to find out in class that 92% of American toddlers have a digital footprint!!!. That statistic blew my mind. It makes me wonder the percentage of toddlers with a digital footprint back in 2005, when I was a toddler. Social media and the internet in general are changing so rapidly and it impacts how we live, learn and communicate with each other. 

That’s why as a future teacher, I know I cannot ignore our changing world. In my class, I am going to embrace digital citizenship and make it a theme in my classroom, to help prepare my students. You can’t just learn digital citizenship in one lesson. If we don’t teach our students how to use the internet wisely, where/how will they learn it??

How I will teach digital citizenship in my classroom, based on this article

• Digital Etiquette and Communication: I plan on making it very clear to my students that what you do/say on the internet lasts forever. Stories like that of Amanda Todd are traumatic, but important. Her story among others where taught to me in elementary school to help us understand the significance of this lesson. Students need to see that such consequences are possible. I will make sure to help my future students explicitly learn the do’s and dont’s of online behaviour. Remember, future school and employers will easily be able to google you!
• Digital Fluency: I wont take the approach of banning technology. Instead, I will teach my students how to use it responsibly. 
• Digital Access and Equity: I’ll be aware that not every studnet will have access to the same tools, such as iphones, computers, wi-fi, etc at home. I will aim to mitigate this inequality and be flexible for my students. I will never rely on students to have their own devices for class activities.

My favourite memory from my three-week block last semester was my social studies, using Google Earth to “travel the world” and see places that my students have never seen before. It ignited such curiosity. It was amazing. The internet is a very powerful tool that can be used for good, if the correct online behaviour is taught alongside with it. 

I wonder…

• Do you think its ethical that most toddlers have a digital footprint?

Day 12 (June 16): Assigned Blogpost

The AI resource I used is Suno. It is not very conventional, and you would not think about it when choosing AI learning tech, but hear me out: come together as a class to make songs that are beneficial to all. Include important information/facts that will be on a test, math rules, science facts, the spellings of words, classroom rules, etc. Songs are very catchy. If you put it into song form, the kids will definitely remember it. 

• • Its taking the old method of making up rhymes and sayings to remember facts, and turning it up to the max with the help of AI. 
• It can help support different learning styles because not everyone memorizes the same way. It also really helps with the repetitive nature
  • • It engages creativity because as a class we can come up with the lyrics together and choose which tune we like (for every AI generation, Suno gives you two options)

I have used AI for my lessons plans before. There was a story in a lesson plan that my cooperating teacher wanted me to use, but it was just written down on a piece of paper and didn’t have any pictures. So I made images using an AI image generator called Midjounrey to make the images for the book and I put those images o a canva presentation to flip through as I told the story. The kids loves it and the images turned out great. Unfortunately, I think Canva deleted my masterpiece. It was over a year ago.

AI is an amazing tool and an asset. It help take the lad off of us as teachers and it also can save us money. Of paying for fancy lesson plans and worksheets online, we can generate images for our own worksheets. As long as youre making sure the actual information your are conveying is always correct, AI should be used in every classroom, as its beneficial for both teachers and students.

1. would you consider using this website for this purpose?
2. do you use AI when creating lessons?

Week 11(June 11): Assigned Blogpost

For this blog post, I tried out 2 games on Code.org: a Barbie game and a Story game. I had no previous coding experience. I definitely have very different opinions on both of these games. 

Barbie Game

I had high hopes because it looked fun, but…

• The instructions were super confusing! How do kids follow along with this? I kept doing what it told me to do, but I still failed.
• I like that the game had multiple mini-games. Lots of options. 
• It made me feel like I was bad at coding. I gave up on this game eventually.

Story Game

This one surprised me, but in a good way. I didn’t know coding could be so connected to the arts.

• It lets you code your own interactive story, which is really fun for me as a creative person.
• It sort of reminded me of how ChatGPT works.
• It made coding feel less confusing.
• The instructions were SO clear. I really appreciated that.
• I like how you can download your finished story

I definitely would have loved this as a kid.

Would I use these games in my future classroom?

I would definitely use these in the classroom for my students, because they are learning an important skills they they are having fun with games. Getting exposed to coding as a young child can open lots of doors for the future. Since they’re playing ith it so young, it would not be as intimidating if they want to approach it at a higher level in the future for school/work.

my verdict on the Barbie game: 2/5 stars booooo

my verdict on the story game: 5/5 stars woohoooo

1. What was your first impression of coding?
2. Which coding games did you try this week?

Day 10 (June 9): Assigned Blogpost

The internet has a lot of crazy stuff on it. Fake news spread very quickly and children are exposed to it everyday. But how do we help kids learn discernment? Especially in the younger grades, like pre-k to grade 5.

We need to help kids develop critical thinking skills young. As Linda Jacobson mentioned in The smell test: Educators can counter fake news with information literacy. Here’s how. , kids already know how to start questioning. This habit can be molded into a strong critical thinking skill.

Its also important to make sure that our students are aware of the fact that biases play a big role into pretty much everything they will read. We tend to fall into confirmation bias, which to seeking out information that confirms what we already believe and ignoring what contradicts that. The Why Do People Fall For Fake News? article from Thompson Rivers University does a good job of explaining this concept. I would really like to incorporate lessons that encourage students to notice when stories seem like theyre coming from a certain angle to try and impact the reader to think one thing, over the other. 

Finally, I really liked how the Lessons in Critical Thinking e-book by Peter Pappas talked about using these concepts for many different subjects. It inspired me to think of different assignments/activities to do in my class to encourage digital literacy!

Examples:

• Comparing headlines: take one event in the news and look at how various publications titles their headlines on it. Notice how different the emotions they evoke are! For example, this article and this article are both about the same event! 
• Spotting the AI: show two images and ask students to point out which is real and which one is AI.
• Which story is fake?: read a story and ask students to decide if they think it is rea or made-up

Day 8  (June 2): Assigned Blogpost

This class, we talked about digital footprints and cyber-vigilantism. You would think that by now, we all know that what we post stays online forever. However, people seem to keep forgetting that!

Cyber-vigilantism: what a powerful tool that has been used for both good and bad. In theory, it does sound like justice in a way, when a person cant actually get prosecuted by the law: people come together to call out someone who did something wrong. But what about when the vigilantes get it wrong? I have seen innocent people get doxxed/attacked online, simply because they share the same name with someone who got “cancelled” online! That isn’t justice. Its so sad to see.

This is where cancel culture comes in. I think that it has been taken a bit too far. I think its reasonable to cancel people who call for violence or ave actually hurt people, especially children (well, lets throw animals in there too). But a lot of the time, people online take things to the extreme and it doesnt always seem like the punishment fits the crime. People losing their jobs and having their names tarnished forever, over a political disagreement. The only people who seem to bounce bag from that are celebrities/influencers who already have a following/fans. Regular people suffer. That is why it is a really goo point that we must build up our positive digital footprints, to counteract any negative mis-haps that could occur.  

I have noticed that digital footprints general seem to be getting worse, not better, despite increasing awareness of the negative impacts of a bad digital footprint! Social media is now a spot where people compete for attention by doing the most ridiculous things. 

As a future teacher, this is really important to me. I have encountered people in my classes that say that its “unfair” that teachers are held to higher standard online. I see their point, but I dont fully agree. Teachers are role models. If I was a parent, I wouldn’t want someone teaching my child who has a negative digital presence. Its more about being responsible as opposed to being “perfect”.

The internet definitely isn’t going away any time soon. Although we cant control others, we can control how we show up online. Our digital footprints are how to world sees us.

Day 4: May 14: Assigned Blogpost

Canva has been such a helpful tool in both my personal and professional life. 

This week, I took a step back to think about how often I actually use it for posters, lesson plans, presentations, school assignments, instagram posts, EVERYTHING. You can use it for pretty much everything visual. Its a free website that allows you to make very professional-looking products.

It has templates for presentations, flyers, instagram posts, etc, with infographics and free images. 

How to use it:

1. Sign up for a canva account 
2. Choose the type of project you want to make (slideshow, worksheet, poster, etc)
3. Choose a ready-made template or make one from scratch
4. Use the tools on the left-hand side to add images, illustrations, shapes, colours and text.
5. Download your final-product into whatever format you want.

How I use Canva in my professional life:

• I designed worksheets for students from scratch
• Presentations to coincide with my lessons
• Games
• Event posters and announcements 
• checklists

I used Canava for every single lesson during my three-week block last semester. I made really fun presentations that aided in my teaching significantly. I added fun text, videos, and effects.

The SAMR model in the classroom:

• Substitution: replace paper worksheets with slides
• Augmentation: add interactive elements/audio/video clips
• Modification: Students can work together on digital projects/group posters
• Rediniteion: Students can create visual essays, digital portfolios, and even their own websites with canva

I have found that Canva is especially helpful with visual learners and EAL students. 

Conclusion:

At this point in time, I don’t understand why teachers would not be maximizing their use of such a great tool. I cannot imagine how boring my lessons would have been with the help of Canva, or how long I would search the internet for a specific worksheet that fits my lesson, instead of just creating it myself on Canva! Its a 10/10, definitely recommend!