Final Networking Learning Post

Austin Kearns1 Comment

Final Network Learning Post:

Reflecting on my semester I was very appreciative to be surrounded by such beneficial peers to my learning process and growing in the professional technology field. Here in this post I’ll be going over some of my contributions and interactions throughout the semester in EDTC 300.

Blogging:

My blogging contribution was beneficial as it was very interesting to see all the progress my classmates have made throughout the semester in both their learning projects as well as their weekly blog posts. Especially with topics such as coding and cyber sleuthing, it was nice to see some other perspectives on the topics. I wish I could have contributed more throughout the semester but am happy with the interactions I was able to have during our time together. It was hard to find screenshots regarding sorting my comments but I was able to grab a couple for the post.

Here are a couple screenshots.

 

 

Twitter:

Twitter was a great resource to post and see other content in an organized matter. My way of optimizing my use of the platform was to retweet to fill my feed with valuable posts and resources. It was definitely nice to be able to create the proper environment to grow my resources as a pre-service teacher.

Here are a couple screenshots.

 

Class:

My class time was great for interactions with my peers as through breakout rooms and group conversations I was able to further my prospectives on the concepts we were able to cover this semester. I’m thankful to be surrounded around so many great peers this semester and wish everyone the best moving forward!

Learning Project Wrap Up

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In a blink of the eye our semester is concluding and so is my journey in developing myself as a chess protege. Throughout the semester I have both grown in self skill in the area of chess as well as better appreciating the professionals of the game. To begin I’ll recap my journey thus far before closing on my current remarks.

Week 1: Tackling Chess

Getting my bearings in chess and understanding basic concepts, not much of a definitive goal at this point just wanted to be able to vastly improve from the bottom of the knowledge barrel. Also got set up with my chess.com account where a majority of my learning would come from.

Week 2: Diving Deeper into Chess

This week I dove deeper into the actually strategies in chess, in this case through openings and how to start the game. I found Youtube to be a valuable resource to have some actual in game examples of openings in play. Also moved into playing bot games on the chess.com site.

Week 3: Education Tools and Live Streaming

For my joint post in week three, I used a program called OBS which was a great tool for live streaming or creating overlays for recordings. It worked well for me to include a webcam on to my puzzle session on the chess.com site.

Week 4: Chess is just math, or so it seems…

For week four, I furthered my understanding of calculations during the game and deducing if certain trades were overall profitable for me. I used various articles online and then used these ideas in games against opponents online.

Week 5: Pro chess players aren’t no jokes ..

For week five, I entertained myself with some professional matches to see the actual skill difference. (Definitely an eye opener) I then moved into some more puzzle play to grow my decision making skills and continued with my ladder climb.

Week 6: Pawns that Hang?

This week I did some research on the concept of pawn hanging and how it effected my strategies moving into games down the road. I’m also starting to see visual differences in players skill calibre to the computers I’ve gone up against thus far.

Week 7: Free trials and foxes that play chess

This week I signed up for the free trial of chess.com and was able to fully get my use out of the best online chess resource. This lead to larger array of puzzles and quizzes at my disposal to better my instincts in the game. I also checked into some different articles for space concepts which I could integrate into my game.

Week 8: Revisiting the pros

This week I revisited some pro gameplay and was better able to follow the strategy and thought processes that went through the game. (To an extent) I also went back to Youtube to try to get a better grasp of what thought processes were needed to grow past my ladder position that I currently found myself in.

Week 9: A full circle moment

This week I found myself finding the most growth in my online ranking with chess.com and found myself back watching the same Youtube channel for growth tips that I began my journey with. I was diving into counter plays trying to strengthen the concept in my own game.

To finish off the semester I found myself growing far further than I thought I would have going in. I think it shows how far you can get in something if you just put the effort in and try to improve. I would also say it highlights the power of technology and how much you can teacher yourself with only resources online and help from peers.

To start the semester I had a placement score of 400 on the chess.com site and here is my final progress and stat lines. Thanks for following along this semester!

Cyber Sleuthing at its best

Austin Kearns1 Comment

Going into this weekly post I was excited to partake in an experiment that seems very important to understanding our digital identity. This week I had the task of creeping on Jorden Robitaille with permission of course and the process opened my eyes to a lot of things. I will give props to Jorden as I gave some effort into digging and didn’t find all that much to report on. Some of the only things I can say is she is doing research in musical therapy and has an interest in nightcore dance music.

Some things I can say is it doesn’t take much to start your descent down the rabbit hole and the more information you are able to gain the easier it is to move deeper. Even with someone having a private social identity it only takes keywords or nicknames to get further in what you are trying to find. To refer to the reading on multiple online identities, I think it is ever so important to realize that to find one identity makes it much easier to find other ones. Being in the education field it is easy to find my professional portfolio and posts but I didn’t know my professional identity exposed my private one as well.

I found this weeks project to be an entertaining one as well as a topic that seems ever so important to further our knowledge in.

Literacy in the digital world

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I would say that teaching digital literacy in the classroom is something easier than it seems. It might look different from subject to subject but the framework stays the same throughout. A simple way that comes to mind would be to expose students to fake resources that relate to your subject area, and the signs that indicate an invalid source. Digital literacy directly relates to valid research and what online should be used in an educational setting. As digital literacy includes using a variety of tools effectively and efficiently, as stated in the NCTE framework. Which can be translated in use of tools in any subject field, for example the use of online graphing calculators in math and indicating which resources are valid tools.

Topics such as fake news are easily adaptable to the social studies curriculum in finding valid resources when it comes to research projects. Being able to differentiate real from fake is a valuable tool that should be presented to the student to further their knowledge for future research.

It feels to me that this topic is more adaptable than teachers will give it credit and is something important that we should be presenting in the classroom at an earlier level.

A full circle moment

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We find ourselves at my second to last post on chess. My brain has done more computations and thinking in this project than a lot of my math classes that I’ve taken thus far in university. I think a lot of my progress and confidence gained thus far can be attributed to the lessons and computer matches that chess.com offers. Being able to improve without the stress of regressing in rank takes a lot of the stress load off where you can focus on learning which is the most important factor into gaining chess confidence.

For this week in chess research I looked into counter-play techniques, which consists of knowing the difference between a mistake and a bait at the higher levels. Ironically I found myself back on the GothamChess youtube page which was the first video that I watched in chess regarding the King’s Indian opening from post one. It almost felt like a full circle as I moved forward with my chess strategy.

 

 

To finish off this week I tried out a chess.com feature that I haven’t toyed around too much with this semester. This being puzzle battles which breaks down into a puzzle race against other people online. It seems like a great way to add pressure to the decision making process in a fun way. I ran into some great minds tho and seemed to lose most of the battles. I really was there for the learning process and not to have only the goal of winning the battles as they were in the learning process.

 

 

Here is to another week in learning too much information for my brain to process!

Links:

chess.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goW1cFHaxtU&ab_channel=GothamChess

Comp Sci Classrooms

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Thankful I can call myself someone with enough coding experience to be comfortable in the field. I can even add that I volunteer at a computer science summer camp so my critique comes with experience teaching kids in the field. Knowing what I do sets me up to be able to jump right into coding tools and see what benefits they offer to teaching the youth on coding.

Getting hands on with code.org, I think they way they simplify the coding process to visuals and events really simplifies the experience for students new to the field. The biggest problem I found when exposing new perspectives to the field is the feeling of overwhelming the student when trying to break down too many new ideas. The way this resource is set up we can really slow it down for the students to build the foundation before laying down the brickwork. Having the students take the lesson at this pace can also build interest in the field as having tools such as Minecraft lessons can extend the appeal.

Overall I think that computer science is a widely expanding field that a lot of future students will be specializing in and building an appeal as a younger age really sets the student up for success if they choose to pursue this field down the road.

Links:

Code.org

Revisiting the pros

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With only a couple more weeks left for my project this semester, I wanted to revisit the professional game and see if my perspective on the matter has shifted at all from when I last watched a professional match. I can say with certainty that it has, not in the way that I can call every move to be made or to correct the pros in any way. I can now say though I follow the game much clearer and am better at recognizing blunders as they are punished by the other pros. I’ve seem to move past the feeling of overwhelmingness that filled me as I reacted to pro games in the past.

Feeling like I’ve tackled most of the basic strategy principles this semester, I found myself browsing youtube for different ideas on mistakes people around my skill bracket make, and both how to solve them as well as taking advantage of your opponent when he makes them. I stumbles across a couple videos on the chess vibes channel on youtube with a couple videos targeting my bracket and appealing the feeling of where to go next which I was faced with this week.

 

I then took some ideas such as fork prevention into some more matches online, and found more success in later game decision making and I also found myself having to use less time in between moves. The whole game seems a bit more natural now which is something I’ve been aiming to achieve from when I started.

The main takeaway from this project so far has definitely to give extra credit to the professional players out there as it is mind-blowing how much works goes into making vast improvements in chess. I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress this semester but looking at the worldwide matchmaking numbers I haven’t even started

Total Rank Growth: 400 -> 800

Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwNPjA-Vcqw&ab_channel=GMHikaru

chess.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KknSpGmTLkg&ab_channel=ChessVibes

Classrooms with digital citizenship

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Looking at the adaptation of digital citizenship into the curriculum, I wanted to focus more on my specific target audience being high school students. I think that a great subject to integrate these ideas in would be through social studies and more specifically on the topic of worldview. As time moves forward technology and digital citizenship interlock more and more in how we view the world. For todays youth a lot of the time, technology is the biggest part of their lives. As we move forward we need to recognize this and adapt with it.

Some direct connects I found in the SK curriculum are IN9.2 which has to do with factors that shape worldview in society. This can be an easy segway into presenting the importance of digital literacy in our fast evolving society. Easily touching on topics in the nine elements such as digital access and rights/responsibilities. Another connection can be made to the grade 11 social studies unit on human rights. Which can easily be tied in to digital rights as they become ever so important in our society.

I think in my future classroom I aim to keep my perspective current and try to adapt and appeal to evolving technology. It is best to stay updated than to fall behind, it just leads to a longer update down the road.

 

Links: https://www.edonline.sk.ca/webapps/moe-curriculum-BB5f208b6da4613/

Free trials and foxes that play chess

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For this week of my chess journey, I ended up signing up for the one month trial of chess.com. This basically opens the door for unlimited puzzles and lessons regarding chess. I have spent a lot of time looking around the internet for different medias and websites to learn from but always ending up back at chess.com as it is the best place to put concepts and strategies into a reality.

For my strategy concept that I wanted to dive deeper into, I chose king safety. With king safety the objective is to position your king and know movements revolving the king to ultimately set yourself up to have the highest chance of winning. After all the entire game surrounds who’s king falls first. Reading up from an article by chessfox.com I was able to better visualize a middle ground between king safety as well as putting the opposing king in a position to give up the game.

I moved into some king defence modules where I was really exposed to some poor king positioning and was taught where would be optimal movement to put myself back into the game.

After a couple more puzzle modules I found myself back at the table to play more online opponents. This week I had my friend Travis watch some of my games to get live feedback which was one thing I felt like I was lacking from just trying to analyze my own mistakes. He pointed out things I wouldn’t have even thought of and it was nice to get an outside perspective on certain matters.

Another great feature that I wanted to touch on is the chess.com game reviews. When you complete a game the application will break down every move you made and tell you how you played based on optimal outcomes. Its not only nice to break down my mistakes but to also get a feel for what I did right regarding positive moves.

 

For next week I really aim to keep at practice matches as I’m wanting to improve my player score as the semester moves towards a close in the coming weeks.

Links:

https://chessfox.com/objectives-in-chess-keep-the-king-safe/

chess.com