The final leg of my EDTC 300 learning journey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvensqyOqxk
Category: EDTC 300
My braiding journey has come to an end
I started off this semester with a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to learn online, I was gonna learn to double Dutch braid so that I could do my daughters hair for competitive dance. I did wonder if it was going to be a task that I would learn quick and then I would be left to figure something else out to get me through the semester. I was also concerned that it might be a boring subject for people to want to check out every week and how could I make it interesting.
Not only was I trying to learn something new online-I had to learn to blog which was something new to me as well. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and unsure if I could get it all figured out. My first step was to order a mannequin head from amazon that I could use as my braiding model.
Week 1: Let’s Learn to Braid
Objectives: share with everyone that I was going to learn to braid so I could do my daughters hair for her competitive dance.
Week 2: Where to start
To be honest I found this project really tricky to start. I was feeling super overwhelmed to carve the time out to dedicate to learning something new. I understand the importance of this project-it just felt like one more thing I had to try and fit in. I started off this journey showcasing where I was at in my braiding skills. This week I had to figure out how to get pictures uploaded into my blog-little did I know that they would all be too large and I would have to learn how to use the snipping tool-I didn’t even know that was a thing. Good thing I had a teenage techy daughter, lol.
Week 3: First step to learning something new
I took to YouTube to find a video for Dutch Braiding for beginners. The guy in this video was awesome, he talked slowly and I felt like I could somewhat keep up with him. It was a really big struggle for me to learn to braid backwards from what I previously lost. My fingers were jumbled together and I struggled. After restarting a few times I decided to do one straight braid from a ponytail because I figured this would be easier for me. It seemed to work and I successfully pulled off this braid. This week my “extra learning” included figuring out how to get my YouTube video posted onto my blog and how to link websites also.
Week 4: Learning everything new, some a success, some a fail
This week was double whammy! Not only did I have to continue on my braiding journey I had to video my progress and learn how to get it uploaded onto my blog. To be honest I had to got to my 17 year old for help. I needed someone to take the pictures of me braiding so I could make the video, plus I had no idea how to get my video uploaded. I decided to try out iMovie as it is an app that I haven’t really used before, my son likes to make stop motion videos on there, so I figured if we could make it work so could I. Getting my video made was a breeze, but how in the heck was I getting it to upload onto my blog?? In comes my daughter…she showed me how to upload it to YouTube and then from there I could copy the link into my blog. Worked like a charm!
Week 5: Can I make my braid look pretty?
This week I left things to the last minute, I went to YouTube and found a new how to video. I was able to link the video onto my post, but not the way I wanted it to go, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix it so I left it. I didn’t post any extra pictures of my success, so my post was pretty lame this week.
Week 6: Let’s try something new
I decided that trying to keep up with videos was tricky when I was still struggling to make things work perfectly, so I decided to switch it up. I took to google to try and find another way to learn and I came across a new website https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Dutch-Braid, that showed pictures and broke steps down that way. I found this to be an easier thing to learn from. I forgot to take pictures of my progress again this week. It was interesting to see that I wasn’t the only person that sometimes finds it easier to learn from words and pictures rather than videos.
Week 7: SUCCESS
I was feeling like I was getting no where and that I was failing each week so I decided I need to shake things up. I switched a couple things up this week, I decided to give my mannequin a break and I tried to braid my daughters hair. I also found a blog that I used to learn from too-this was a really awesome tool for me as I was finding that the video’s weren’t working the best for me. This week I successfully braided the best braid yet!!! I was so excited that it finally worked. I was surprised how excited I was that I had finally made my braid look presentable.
My classmates helped pump my tires and make me feel like I could keep going on this journey.
Week 8: Back to the usual
I was still feeling pretty pumped from last week so I decided to go back to YouTube and see if I could find another video on there. The video was good, but my skills were not. My braids ended up looking like a hot mess again and I was left wondering if I was going to actually be successful by the end of this journey
Week 9: Will I actually conquer this goal by the end
I was feeling pretty deflated and pretty sure that I was not going to be able to be a great braider by the end of the semester. I went on to use a YouTube video again this week and I decided to showcase my learning a different way this week. I took pictures and went to Canva this time to make a video. I hadn’t made a video on Canva before so this was a new learning experience for me. I found that it was pretty user friendly and it was much easier to share to my blog post than iMovie. I think I could really get used to using Canva as it is quite user friendly.
Week 10: A little bit of success goes a long way
I continued on my YouTube video journey and using my daughter hair to braid rather than my mannequin. I found that using real hair was much easier to work with so my poor mannequin has been just hanging out by herself these days. This week I had a bit of success, I was able to get the top of the braid tighter and closer to the top of her forehead, but the back was still a disaster. I gave into the fact that I never conquered that during this journey.
I have had a few take aways from this journey.
- Don’t leave it to the last minute-I would feel rushed and then everything always seemed to go wrong on these days.
- It’s good to switch up the way you are doing things-when I realized videos weren’t the easiest for me to follow I found a new way. The internet is an amazing thing and you have tons of information at your fingertips
- Even if you have multiple failures, keep going, it may be a rocky road. Enjoy the little success moments instead of focusing on the rough ones.
- There are sooo many apps to use, this was a great opportunity to learn the ropes on some new apps that I have never used before
- Blogging isn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be-once everything was set up, it was easy to keep it going. Something I need to work on is finding new ways to engage readers.
Even though I struggled to jump on the train and start something new, I am happy that I did buy a ticket. I have learned some awesome new things on this journey. My braids may not be the best out there and I’m probably gonna beg and pay people to help us get through my daughters last dance competition season, but I am proud of the success I did make- I can do more now than I could before I started.
With a little help from my friends
When I look back on how I contributed to others learning in this course there is a few ways I rocked it and some that I missed the mark a bit. I was not a frequent flyer on Discord…I struggled to get it to work for the first little bit and to be honest I was struggling to keep up with everything and checking in on there didn’t happen as much as it should have. I did try to check in a few times and I posted when I did pop on.
I attended class regularly and I took part in breakout sessions with my peers as well. When it came to commenting on my classmates blogs, I did keep up with this task. Not often did I comment on more than 3 a week, but I often tried to do more if they were posted when I was on there. I also made sure to respond to people on my own blog. I appreciate everyone that took the time to read and comment on my blogs-it’s great to know that these posts aren’t just sitting there unread.
I decided to make a short video of the comments that I shared with my classmates.
A little bit of success goes a long way
As they say a little bit of success goes a long way and I had a little success this week that made me feel like I got this! This week I went back to using a video to learn by, so I took to YouTube and this is the one I decided to go with.
My daughter let me braid her hair again this week, thank goodness as my mannequin head looks like it has seen better days. I took a tip from a video I used before to put the unbraiding side of hair into a ponytail, I thought this might help me when I get to the bottom as that seems to be my trouble area. Unfortunately it didn’t help a ton with that. I was super successful at getting the braid tight at the top and to start at the top of her forehead on both sides which has been a goal since the beginning of this journey. I was able to keep most of it together as I moved down her head this week. It wasn’t super tight on the sides, but I was able to gather and add it to the braid. Once again it got to be a big mess at the bottom, again I think that I leave too much and then I can’t get it add properly.
This week I also managed to do the left side of her head better than I have ever got it, which is success too! It got to be a hot mess at the bottom too, that seems to be the main issue now. I told her this the best one yet and she could almost leave the house with the way it looks. Hopefully next week I will be able to figure that out, as it’s the last week and I haven’t successfully nailed this yet! Check back next week and see if I can get this figured out on the last kick at the can.
Do you use and encyclopedia or google? No it’s AI
AI is another part of the new technology world that I have been hesitant to jump into. Honestly, I’m usually quite hesitant of any new app or “thing”, but once I get into it, I’m all in, lol. This week I was excited to be challenged to try some of these sites and see what they are all about.
I thought it would be fun to first check out ChatGPT as this is a site that I have heard about in the education world. This is the definition it spit out.
AI, or Artificial Intelligence, refers to the field of computer science that focuses on creating machines or software systems capable of performing tasks that would typically require human intelligence. These tasks include learning from experience (machine learning), understanding language (natural language processing), recognizing patterns (computer vision), and making decisions or predictions.
AI can be classified into two types:
- Narrow AI (Weak AI): This type of AI is designed to perform a specific task, such as speech recognition, image classification, or playing chess. It’s highly specialized and doesn’t possess general intelligence.
- General AI (Strong AI): This is the hypothetical AI that would have the ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge in a way that is indistinguishable from human cognition. General AI can reason, solve complex problems, and make decisions across different contexts.
In practice today, most AI applications fall under Narrow AI, and they are used in various industries like healthcare, finance, entertainment, transportation, and more. Examples include virtual assistants (like Siri and Alexa), autonomous vehicles, recommendation systems, and medical diagnostic tools.
I do think that ChatGPT can be a useful tool when writing papers. It helps to generate ideas or get started on a writing project. I don’t agree with using the whole paper that it spits out and handing it in as your own, but I do think you could use it as a stepping stone. I often struggle with knowing how to start a paper and I think if I could put my ideas in and it would give me an example, I could create my own opening without copying it. I think if we teach kids how to use this as another learning tool vs a “cheating” tool it could be a great feature to bring into our classrooms.
The next one that sparked my attention was Microsoft Copilot. We have been talking about Microsoft Lens to use with students that have reading struggles, so I wanted to check out copilot to see what it has to offer. I started off by asking the provinces in Canada, which it listed and then it asked if there was a province I wanted to learn more about so I put in Saskatchewan, which it gave me information about, then I asked it about elementary schools in Regina and it gave me another list of schools. I think this could be a super useful tool in classrooms also, its not much different than asking google questions. One of the concerns that I thought about was how true is the information and if there is a way to trace it back to something. But when asking google, not everything is legit there either and last week in class we discussed how to realize if information is fake or not. So maybe asking AI would be better, if we think that all the information they give is accurate.
I took a look at the video Math Problems GPT-40, I think this could also be an awesome tool for math strugglers. Again not to cheat, but to see another way that it could be done. Math seems to be a subject that success can be dependent on how it is taught and not everyone’s teaching style is compatible with students. This would give students another way to see it that might work better for them.
(1) Math problems with GPT-4o – YouTube
Next I thought it would be fun to try Animated Drawings with my son. I got him to draw a character and then uploaded it and let him play around with it. He loves reading graphic novels so this was right up his alley. I think this would be a super cool tool to use in Art. Each student could create their own character and animate them. I have posted his character that he drew and how we animated him. (I couldn’t get our video to upload)
Overall I think that AI can be taught as a useful tool to use in our classrooms for projects, and reality is I believe that’s the way our techy world is headed. Like everything else I think if we embrace this new thing and take the time and educate students the proper ways to use these tools they will be a welcome addition.
Will I actually conquer this goal by the end of this course???
Honestly, I think I’m not fit to learn to Dutch braid, lol. I am defeating the odds that you can always learn something new that’s for sure. I have definitely had some success, but I cannot make it these braids look pretty for the life of me. I have switched my model from my mannequin to my daughter (thank goodness she’s being a good sport) and that’s not helping 100% either.
This week I used a website that had both a website and followed up with pictures. I thought I would switch it up and watch the video first, and then follow the pictures and braid from there. I find it easier to look at pictures instead of attempting to keep up with the video or trying to pause it as my hands are caught up in hair.
One of my goals these last couple weeks has been to make the braid sides tighter and to work on getting my braid started at the top of her forehead. This week I felt like I did better at starting it at the top of her forehead and it stayed pretty tight on the right side of her head. Then as I moved down it all went downhill. When I got to the middle of her head I got mixed up on what strand I was on as someone talked to me, so it looks like a humbled mess there. I managed to get back on track and made it look right from there to the end.
The left side always tends to be a bit more tricky for me and that continued this week too. I’m not sure what’s up with that or what I can do differently to make it work better. I was able to get it started closer to the top of her forehead, but as I worked down it didn’t go extremely smooth. I didn’t end up with a big chunk of hair being stuck on either side like last week, so that was more successful. I’m still not even close to the stage to tuck the tails at the end of the braid and make it look the way it’s supposed to. As time gets closer to the end of the semester the more panicky I get that I have completely conquered this task. Hopefully we have a better week next week. Check back and see if I decide to go back to the mannequin or bribe my daughter one more time.
Spot the news-is it true or fake?
As we welcome technology into our classroom, not only is digital citizenship something that we need to teach our students, but how to figure out if information they find true or is it fake. Websites do a fantastic job at making their information websites look creditable when in reality they are filled with tons of misinformation. I think that there are many was that we can ensure that we are reaching the NCTE framework and alot of resources out there to use.
Not only do these sites give us untrue information, they can have viruses attached to them or lead us to pictures or articles that are not appropriate for our students. In the article How do we teach students to identify fake news, they give us 4 main suggestions: move beyond traditional -and often ineffective-information evaluation checklists, prioritize helping students helping students develop investigative techniques, teach students to identify biases, and bring real-world fake news examples that we encounter everyday into the classroom. As students get older it is important for them to figure out on their own if they are on a safe, creditable site and we can help them learn some core basics to look for. They also provided a poster to hang in your classroom, which I thought was a pretty good resource to use when teaching about fake news.
EdCan-Network_Facts-on-Education_Fake-News-1
I was relating this to if I was teaching in a grade 4 classroom and we were doing a science research project about plants and animals and their habitats. Part of their project would be to research a habitat and then be able to tell the animals and plants that could be found in that area. I went to look for some resources and I found articles like the ones that we looked at during class that we looked at, they were different then these ones that you could use with students before starting their research so they are aware that everything you see on the internet isn’t always true. I found this checklist that you could have as a poster in your classroom and it could be printed for each student to have and reference. Before they use information for their research, they would have to go through the checklist and show that they did in order to continue.
I could totally relate to the article posted It’s easier to call a fact a fact when it’s one that you like, I think adults and kids are both guilty of finding facts that we believe are already true to prove our point if they are or not. Or if it says something really interesting that could be on the fence of real or fake, we often retreat to the real side.
I think if we find resources that are fun and exciting to get students attention they will see the importance in it. I like little online quizzes like Can you spot the fake new headline? I am sure there are some that are more age appropriate for the age of your students that would get them engaged. I found this one on CBC kids and if you scroll towards the bottom it has other tools on digital citizenship and other online resources. Kahoot also had a good selection of quizzes about this subject area or you could make up your own on here as well.
Back to the usual
This week I was going to use the tutorial video that the dance club has posted on their website, but unfortunately the link was not working. So I found myself back on you tube searching for new videos to use. I came across this one that was based on making 2 dutch braids so I thought I would use it this week. As at the end I need to be able to have 2 tightly braided dutch braids.
My goal this week was to start the braid at the top of the forehead instead of farther back. I convinced my daughter to be my model again as I found her hair easier to work with than the mannequin last week. I started off by splitting her hair down the middle and working on the right side. I was able to start off more at the top of her forehead was a plus! I didn’t find adding more hair so troublesome this week and then it all went downhill….when I got close to the bottom of her head I took too big of a chunk of her hair and in reality most of it was supposed to be for the other side. This made it look bulky and well to be honest not very good.
Next I moved to the left side, this was my bad side last week and this week it proved to be the same. I couldn’t get it started at the top of her forehead and I actually started more to the side, which made the whole thing a helter skelter mess!! Once I got half way down her head it got way better and I ended off strong, but the damage was already done.
Today was not such a success, and the end result is definitely not stage worthy. I am running out of time to perfect this braid as class is running out. I was hoping to have more success stories to write about, but that hasn’t been the case. This experience is teaching me to persevere when things are hard-which is not like me, I often throw in the towel and give up. You’ll have to check back in next week to see if I have success again.
Is the other side of the screen as good as it looks?
Social media platforms have exploded over the years and I can admit that I am an oversharer on both Facebook and Instagram. My Facebook account is private, but I do allow more people from my life onto this platform. I often share pictures of my family and accomplishments that my kids have. On the other hand I have tried to keep my Instagram more for people that I actually have regular contact with, but often share the same information on both platforms. I can totally relate to the article about having multiple identities online, as my daughter has two Instagram accounts, one for everyone and one that she chooses people on it more wisely. My children also utilize the “private story” option on snapchat, where you can chose who has rights to viewing these snapchats.
As a parent I often hear “I’m not a Pinterest mom”, it saddens me to think that along with the pressures of being a parent we are also concerned at how other parents are judging us and how we do things. I often made Pinterest inspired Valentine’s and birthday party ideas for my kids when they were younger, which eventually dwindled away for my third child, but I never felt like I was doing it to keep up to anyone else or to be a Pinterest mom, I had fun doing it. We need to start being less judgmental and show compassion as these are all things that take a mental toll on all of us.
It is so easy to get wrapped up in what people post on their social media sites and believing that they have the perfect life or that they try to portray something that they are not. I have personally struggled with this throughout the last couple years of my life. I found as a family relationship began to break down I felt like I was being consistently slapped with things posted on their social media. It really started to take a toll on both my physical and mental health, which lead to me being quite ill, it was at this point that I decided to mute this person on my social media, I knew deleting them would create a bigger mess so I went through this avenue, and man did it help make a difference. Although this person insisted on liking/loving my posts which I still feel is their way to getting to me, so I have had to learn to ignore and let it be. Through all of this I can see how teenagers and young adults that are not ready for these types of decisions struggle and get caught up in it all. It is so important to talk to our people if we see something different happening in their everyday lives.
Another case of cyber shaming happened to a family friend in the school system a couple years ago. This teacher posted on their school sign with their students about how Farming chemicals negatively affects habitats. Although this is a part of our school curriculum and is a unit that they discuss, the farming community of this small town and surrounding communities was up in arms. Just a simple google search right now brought up a list of news outlets that were involved in this sign business. I watched as this teacher and their family were put through the ringer online, and how much it affected them. This teacher eventually left their job at this school and relocated with their young family as the public shaming became too much and took a huge mental health toll on them. This is just another case of people blowing up a mistake and creating chaos in an individuals life. But is it really a mistake when it’s something that we are supposed to teach? As educators these are going to be hurdles that we are going to have to deal with ourselves-everyone is watching our choices and you never know when someone is going to use them against us. I don’t say this this to scare anyone, but I believe that it is something that needs to be said so we are prepared.
This is a problem that isn’t going away so we all need to be aware and educate ourselves and our future generations to maybe take a step in the right direction towards seeing change.
https://www.pexels.com/search/cellphone/
SUCCESS
I finally feel like I have had some success on this braiding journey. I switched things up this time and I braided my daughters head instead of my mannequin head, I will say it was much easier to manipulate. I may have to convince her to sit down and let me do it more often during this learning process. I also switched up what platform I used this week, I found a blog that had a step by step tutorial. I liked this method, as I found last week it was easier for me to learn from pictures instead of videos.
The first step was to separate the hair in half, my kids don’t have a normal middle part so it gets a bit wavy looking when you look closely. My hairdresser gave me a tip this week: to hold my hands close together when braiding, so I tried really hard to follow that tip. I started on the right side of her head. I really struggled with this side and she eventually asked me to try the other side because her head hurt, lol.
I moved onto her left side, it went better but, still not very good, I didn’t do well with gathering hair from the sides which has been a struggle from the beginning. I had a couple restart times, but I didn’t want to redo it again so I left it looking a bit wonky and not the best.
I went back to her right side as I felt like I was a bit on a roll and I might actually be somewhat successful. This side went so much better! There were still some spots that I struggled to get hair gathered from the sides and middle, but overall its probably the best braid that I have done yet!
Next’s week mission to try to get to be a tighter braid and started more at the front of her head. Stay tuned to see if I have another successful try. Last picture is of a person who is super pumped that she finally had a successful post to write.