Category Archives: EDTC 300

A New Culture of Connection

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Participation, engagement, connection. These are three things I’ve been hearing a lot about in the past few months. These all play a huge role as society has been forced to suddenly shift to online learning and communication, and it will continue to be a priority as we move to maybe a more blended teaching system in the upcoming school year. Most of the teachers I’ve spoken with have said engagement and participation are one of the biggest struggle they have been facing. One teacher I spoke with said that it’s frustrating, because they are putting in the effort, and not seeing anything back, which is overall demoralizing. My partner is a grade 8 teacher, and every morning I watch him log onto his Google Classroom, and barely a fraction of his students show up.

Photo Credit: Marketoonist retrieved with permission

Michael Wesch’s video on Youtube and the web was fascinating to watch, particularly because it was created in 2008. It’s unbelievable to see how far technology, and Youtube in particular has come in just 12 years. For example, one of the first videos he talks about is the internet sensation that was the “Numa Numa Guy” (AKA Gary Brolsma). In Michael’s video at around the 4 minute mark, he shows a screenshot of how many videos are uploaded under the term Numa Numa. This shows roughly 58,000 videos have been uploaded. To the best of my knowledge Youtube no longer shows the number of search results, but when I used Google today to look up the same thing, I got roughly 144 MILLION results. There was roughly 92 Youtube videos posted today alone (although some of them probably did not directly correlate with the song).

One thing Wesch mentions around the 5 minute mark in the video linked above, is that through the internet and sites like Youtube, we are creating “global connections transcending space and time”. This is surely an undeniable fact as we are more connected now than we’ve ever been in history, but how meaningful are these connections? Anyone who has chatted with a group on a video communications app like Zoom or Facetime, knows that technology has not yet evolved to truly replace face to face communications. There are no side conversations, it’s difficult to have more than one person talking. It feels more like a sharing circle than a real conversation. Problems like these are going to be huge as we move forward through this abrupt digital shift, particularly among students where that social piece is so important for their development.

I also think that there can be some perks from this shift. People are generally pretty reluctant to change. I hope that at the very least this forced change can lead to to good change. Perhaps a blended teaching style of face to face and online communications will be the new way forward. Maybe it will work better for some students. While students who were already present and wanting to participate will, I’m sure, continue to do so, maybe those who are less than willing will find their footing in a new way forward. I am at the very least hopeful and excited at what prospects can develop from this unique time. Though there will definitely be some struggles, challenges like these are not new to educators. Good educators face adversity every day and are constantly trying to adapt to students learning needs with no ulterior motive of their own. If anyone can push forward digital change during this time, it will be educators.

Where the Green(ish) Grass Grows Week 3

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This week was a bit of a let down (which at the very least balances out last week!). We were lucky enough to get some rain, but then it rained almost the entire week which prevented me from getting out into the backyard very much! The biggest project on the go is to finish cleaning and staining the deck and fence. However I need a stretch of nice warm days to get that done, which unfortunately didn’t happen this week. Another reason I didn’t get to go out into the yard much this week was because we had the yard sprayed to kill the horrendous amount of weeds we get back there. I explain some of the reasons why in the video below but ultimately I decided this was one job that was best left to the professionals. These guys did an awesome job!

One thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet is our giant dirt pile. When we purchased this home, the grading along the outside of the house had been significantly washed away. We had some dirt brought in so we could help restore the grading, however we got a little bit more than we bargained for and we have been trying to use it up. All of this rain highlighted one area on the front portion of the house that needed a bit of help since it was directly underneath a downspout. The water was coming out of the downspout and pooling along our foundation, which is big trouble! I found this article through Pinterest that talked a bit about splash blocks, and I decided to DIY the project using some of the large rocks from our dirt pile. I think this will have to be a temporary solution, but for now it will do.

Lastly I tried to tackle a project I initially thought would only take me a couple minutes, but ended up taking much longer. One of the boards along the driveway was almost completely broken off, but under a bit of inspection I discovered that the screws weren’t simply missing, they were broken and lodged inside! This article from Lowes gave me some simple solutions to get it out, but also used some tools that I didn’t have available. The drill we own also is not the most powerful tool, which was quite the hindrance in this project. Because the tip of the screw was nearly flush, and the replacement screws location didn’t matter too much, I decided to just leave the broken screw in place. However I still ran into more problems when trying to get the replacement screw flush, and was unfortunately not able to succeed as any further attempts were simply stripping the new screw, creating an even bigger problem. This is probably the first ‘fail’ that I’ve encountered thus far. It wasn’t a great note to end the week on, however the weather for this upcoming week looks much nicer, so hopefully the future will be filled with more successes!

Twitter in 2020

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I haven’t used Twitter in about two years. I used to browse through it a fair amount, but a few years ago I got a new phone, couldn’t remember my login in, and just figured I’d be better off without it. I was excited about jumping back into the Twitter world for EDTC 300, as I knew it wouldn’t feel so daunting since I knew the basics of it.

One of my favourite features of Twitter is the trending tab! I love reading peoples thoughts on things, so you can often find me in the comments sections on articles, even though a lot of the time they can make me feel a little angry if it’s a particularly polarizing topic. I think one of the things that makes Twitter special is when you click on a trending topic, I don’t just get a bunch of news articles popping up, I also get peoples thoughts. I’m admittedly not much of a poster on any social media platforms, I’m more of a lurker so I’m still struggling to get out of this habit.

The SaskEdChat from last week was a lot of fun. I am someone who tends to ramble, so I feel as though the character limit on Twitter pushes me out of my comfort zone and makes me really think about what I want to say, and say it concisely. This made me a little worried going into the experience as I was worried I might not have anything to contribute. Once things started, I was no longer concerned. The questions were open ended and sparked many side discussions. Some of the questions were more aimed at practicing teachers, and it was great to see their interpretations of the questions. The chat was very fast paced since so many people were participating, so I do wish we might have had a bit more time to discuss things in depth with such a knowledgable and experienced group of people. The hour flew by, and I hope I get to participate in another SaskEdChat in the future!