Here is my summary of learning for the semester, thanks for watching/listening everyone! Happy holidays and good luck in the future
Finally at the end of the semester and our learning journey for this class. At the beginning when I chose to learn how to braid, more specifically a three strand braid, I was not feeling the most confident because my previous attempts were not very successful. However I thought this was a good time to practice, take my time and learn from making mistakes. Four months felt like it was an eternity but it really feels like we just started recently.
When I had decided on what I wanted to do for this assignment, I asked my partner and people I knew if any of them had a lead on a mannequin head I could use to practice. I didn’t really want to subject my partner to weeks of hair pulling pain as I learned step by step! So I was lucky enough to be able to find a friend who had one from her time as a hairstylist.
For my first few weeks of my learning journey I looked to two Youtube videos, How To Braid Hair For Complete Beginners and 4 Basic Braids For Beginners that helped me get started. As I kept learning and practicing I was able to use the videos to refer back to because they contained great tips on the basics. And really what i needed to keep practicing was the fundamentals to eventually get better at braiding.
The Rundown
My first and second weeks of my learning project posts were partly a reflection on what I thought beforehand, what I expected throughout the learning journey and what my goals were for the end of it. In week 2 is when I began to
- find resources like How To Braid Hair For Complete Beginners and 4 Basic Braids For Beginners
- began to actually practice braiding
In week three I stumbled on a new resource, aiiprofessional.com,
One of the most useful bits of help came from this site because it had some very important tips that I would recommend to everyone trying to learn how to braid.
1)Practice as much as you can
2)Always prep the hair (slightly damp hair/combed)
3)Create neat, even sections when making your three strands
4)Find a rhythm: find a pattern that works for you when weaving the braid and repeat it
5)Maintain a solid grip on each section, especially the center section
In week four I chose Imovie as a form of technology I wanted to explore but had not used before.
My trailer actually turned out okay for someone who does not have much experience editing videos or making videos at all. As I have mentioned before I appreciated Imovie because of how intuitive and easy to use it felt, maybe it is because I am so used to the apple ecosystem?.. but thats a WHOLE other conversation about the digital world. In discussing the SAMR model, I commented on how Imovie could be used in both the substitution and modification section of the model which attests to its adaptability.
My week five post was a response to a helpful comment I had gotten on my previous post. 
Being hard headed, I had figured that combing the hair would be good enough to get me through all my braiding practice. I had read on the websites I had been using for resources that you could comb/wash the hair to get better results and for some reason I decided it was either or.
Dumb mistake! But I knew it was easily corrected
So this week I decided I was going to start taking the advice and it was for sure a benefit to my overall practice as the semester went on.
In week six I found The Animated Knots website as a new resource to help my practice.
I liked this resource because it was a different material they were using for all their visual and instructions(rope) so I felt like it was a bit of a different perspective on what I was doing but using the same fundamental skills. Like a baseball athlete transferring their learned skills to the game of cricket, the fundamental skills remain the same.
Week seven was one of the harder weeks of the semester for me. A lot of things due, busy with work, busy with home life and not sleeping enough!
I decided to take a break from my normal three strand braiding because I was starting to get just a little bit frustrated. I thought that I could still practice the skills, try a different style of braid, and hopefully an easier style of braid so I could gain some confidence in my development.
It was a successful day and choice for me as I felt happy with my end product doing this style of braid, it was much messier than my previous tries. It was quicker to finish so I was able to practice more time and it is something I always try to do when I feel stumped, just do something similar but not exactly the same.
In my week eight post I did a review of the resources I had used this semester that I found the most useful. The four I landed on were
- How To Braid Hair For Complete Beginners and 4 Basic Braids For Beginners
- aiirprofessional.com blog
- My braiding trailer / Imovie
- The Animated Knots
And in my ninth post it was finally time for the big test at the end of the journey, braiding real hair on a real person!
This was the goal I had set at the beginning of the semester, to try to braid my partners hair and it not be a terrible mess.
Overall it was a big improvement from my previous attempts before I started all this practicing. The beginning was probably the easiest part for me as I had started off in a good rhythm but towards the middle it started to fall off the rails a little bit. I think what happened was my partners hair is much longer than the doll I was practicing on so my finger and hand stamina unfortunately wavered towards the middle and end.
From my partners perspective, she complimented me on no longer pulling the hair so much from being stressed about not knowing what I was doing, making sure to comb it and keep it moist with a spray bottle or wash beforehand, and taking my time when I made mistakes.
For my tenth and final post, the one you are reading RIGHT NOW, it goes through my learning journey through this class and the resources I have found along the way. I wont say too much about that because you have just finished reading it.
Final Comments
In the end, I found this journey to be rewarding and fun because we were able to choose what we wanted to do, how we wanted to document it and how we would go about learning it. Like we have learned many times in the education program, giving students agency and choice is very important to creating more confident and independent learners so that was a part I certainly enjoyed.
I found that online in the digital world the issue for me was trying to navigate through the endless amounts of videos and websites available to find the best ones that work for my learning style. Once I was able to filter through the stuff that I could see was not what I was looking for, my chosen resources carried me through the semester and I can say today that I do feel like I am a much better braider but also learner after this experience because I was able to take most of the control in my learning journey.
Thanks for reading everyone, all the best in your future !
Through my braiding journey this semester I have gathered a good pool of resources that have helped me go from mostly hopeless to somewhat proficient at braiding long hair! It was a great journey that felt like a mix between fun and work because of course I wanted to challenge myself a bit to see how much better I could really get.
If I could give it a number I would say I started at a 2 out of 10 for my braiding skills and am now sitting comfortably at a 6 out of 10! All in all I would call that a success.
These two videos were really the foundation for my braiding practice throughout the semester. I was lucky to have found them first week but it was after a search through youtube and instagram so a little persistence also paid off.
Both of these videos have clear instructions, visuals to match, and a clear explanation of what to do. I think for anybody trying to learn how to braid from almost scratch, they would find these videos to be exactly what they were looking for from a teacher. I referred back to them each week as I practiced and used the 4 basic braids for beginners video to help guide me trying to do a two strand braid near the end of the semester.
Another useful resource was the aiirprofessional.com blog called “How To Braid Hair: The Ultimate Guide For Beginners”
Complete with videos, step by step instructions and many styles to try out, the website had some handy tips for beginners.
- Practice as much as you can
- Always prep the hair (slightly damp hair/combed)
- Create neat, even sections when making your three strands
- Find a rhythm: find a pattern that works for you when weaving the braid and repeat it
- Maintain a solid grip on each section, especially the center section
For me number the only ones I was getting right was 1 and 4, but the rest I found I had to work at. Keeping the hair neat was the bane of my existence for a few weeks and still is. But these tips were a big help for sure.
My braiding trailer using Imovie was one of my best creations of the semester
As someone who had never used Imovie before it was a fun, new experience that showed me how user friendly Imovie is. Those pre made templates really are amazing and now I can show others this easy to learn way to make cool visual representations.
My last resource I wanted to share was The Animated Knots website. This resource has instuctions and animations on how to different types of braids and knots.
While the instructions and visuals are all done with rope, the basic idea is still the same so it fit well with my learning project.
These resources provided a solid foundation for my learning project this semester and I encourage anyone looking to learn braiding to use one or more of them because they are easy to understand and encourage you to work on the basics.
Throughout the semester we have explored the digital world from the education perspective and have had a ton of good conversations throughout the semester. One of the things that I particularly enjoyed in this class was the many different ways we communicated whether it was through blog posting, discourse or on zoom.
I think on zoom the highlight of the semester was the chat where a lot of good conversations popped up on the overall topic of digital literacy and what it means to be a digital citizen. Also a lot of funny comments that I think highlighted a lot of our familiarity with the topic but still had uneasy feelings about where the future is heading. I particularly enjoyed the chat because people who usually did not talk would chime in, and it felt a bit more informal than having to turn your mic/camera on to make your point. Just another new way to talk inside a way to communicate with others.
This was my first class using discord a lot for communication and I found it very convenient for its easy to use features. Definitely an app I would use for educational purposes in the future. Through our blog posts this semester I think a lot of learning has gone on through seeing everyone’s different learning projects and discussions on topics like digital literacy and digital citizenship.
I created a google slideshow to showcase my interactions throughout the term because I prefer that medium (or canva) to do visual presentations. One of the side positives from this class for me has becoming more technically proficient using multiple apps and websites at the same time, having them work together to create a final product for this class. This will be something that I think will only be more and more useful as education and technology integrate to a higher degree.
A quote from one of the slides, also linked is the post: “one of my favorite interactions of this class was this comment from Kacey. After one of my braiding practice posts she mentioned that I would be smart to use some product or water to make my life easier! Of course I should have been doing that from the start, rookie mistake by me. I took that comment and decided to make it one of my blog posts, incorporating washing the hair before starting my braiding. That was something I did for the rest of the time braiding. A good example of helpful advice from your peers and why input from others can be so valuable.”
Thanks everyone for all the conversations and informational tid bits throughout the semester! All the best to everyone in the future and throughout the holiday break!
For my AI tool I decided to explore Microsoft Copilot which is essentially Microsoft’s version of ChatGPT. As someone who has over the last year or so started using ChatGPT more often as a tool to help in different tasks, I was curious to see if there were really any glaring similarities or differences between these two AI products.
After playing around with Microsoft Copilot I came away thinking that it was an awesome tool but no better than ChatGPT and the fact that I was already so familiar with ChatGPT swayed me to really prefer it to Copilot. For me microsofts version appears to be more user friendly because the homepage contains various suggestions and prompts on how to use the AI tool. There is even a copilot daily update that updates world news, entertainment news, sports and anything else that you are interested in drawing from a seemingly infinite amount of online resources.
I think in the classroom Copilot could be just as useful as its openAI counterpart by doing many of the same things. Making a much more efficient use of peoples time, helping to do administrative tasks, helping come up with ideas and many more things. I believe just like a calculator or a pencil, AI can be used as a powerful tool for education as long as we can do a lot of the things we have talked about in this class. Educate students on being good digital citizens, the impact of their digital footprint and that there can be real consequences to their actions online.
Microsoft Copilot contains a pretty awesome translation feature that, as far as Spanish goes, works excellently well. This one feature could be used by teachers across classrooms everywhere to help students who are ESL learners and could use the extra tool to help them in class. Copilot also allows you to use your microphone to speak to it and it has a voice chat that speaks back as well. You can customize the voice that speaks to you and how it filters information. I think this could be a great tool for those students who like having things read to them, want to dictate their writing or questions and for students who do better when being able to think aloud.
Ethically, I think AI in the classroom is a weird grey area that will soon be better defined as we become more familiar with ever advancing technology. I certainly feel AI tools like Microsoft Copilot can and will be very useful to the future of education in a world where more information then you could imagine is in our pocket but like Uncle Ben said, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
We teach young people that having good morals and principles is the foundation to having a successful life, that in the “real world” we are accountable for our own actions and must act accordingly. So shouldn’t this be the mindset we should be teaching our students to mirror online? To me it feels like to a lot of people the internet and AI are more akin to the wild west where putting a bandana over your face (or using a fake name online) is enough reason to say and do things with reckless abandon. I know that freedom of speech is a very hot button issue right now and I understand why with the ridiculous political climates that North America finds itself in but if people could see digital education as an integral part of going to school I think society as a whole would benefit.
So as the semester wraps up and we get closer to the end of our learning project, I think it makes sense to either challenge yourself with doing something new in your learning journey. For me, I have planned since the start of my journey to at the end attempt to do a good braid with real hair. This week I took my first run at taking the next step learning how to do a three strand braid and overall it is not the greatest first attempt but it honestly went better than I expected! As you can tell, it did not turn out like the picture I was using for a guide haha.
I wanted to get a picture of my first attempt as soon as I finished so I could get a good idea of where I have improved. I know that before doing this project I would not even have been able to keep the hair apart this well or do more than a few weaves before getting lost and a little frustrated. My partner mentioned that I was a lot more relaxed now when doing it and wasn’t just tugging her poor hair as much in my attempts to keep the hair apart and neat.
It is also important to note that my partners hair is like 4 feet long (slight exaggeration) so for my first try I think I may be punching above my weight class for where my braiding skills are at the moment. Nevertheless, it was a good experience for me this time around and I am aways someone who doesn’t mind messing up because it is good to learn from your own mistakes and come back better. As the semester wraps up, I am feeling happy and accomplished on where this project has taken me because I have been able to learn a skill that I previously did not have.
For my future in teaching I hope to teach grades 7 or 8 and don’t really have a preference on subjects at the moment. I do think that for students in that age it important to be upfront with them about the pros and cons of the digital world. I think its important to treat digital literacy like we do teaching kids how to read, it is an important tool that will help them navigate the world for the rest of their lives.
I think you could tie in this type of digital education into the health curriculum because we know that the online world has such a pronounced impact on people but especially young impressionable kids. We learn in health about taking care of our physical body but also out mental and emotional well being. Well our emotional and mental well being these days is often very connected to our interactions with our online world. Through including digital education on how to protect yourself and others on the internet I think you can help young students realize that their behaviour online can have the same affects as if they were doing it in real person.
Online we are constantly bombarded with biases, and one of the most common ones is called confirmation bias. In the Mcluhan article about fake news it describes confirmation bias as the tendency to interpret or recall information in a way that confirms your preexisting beliefs. Today I think that is one of the biggest holes a lot of people fall into especially with how our feeds on social media can be curated and filtered to become an echo chamber of opinions we agree on. A lot of people do not even realize this is something that happens with their social media so I believe educating everyone on that would be a step forward.
The NTCE framework states one of its goals for its participants to be to “examine the rights, responsibilities, and ethical implications of the use and creation of information” and this is something we have been speaking about in class all semester long. The things you post out there, the pictures you upload, the data that you input into a website is going to be attached to you one way or another. Maybe you were a young kid who posted outrageous jokes not thinking much of it until a future employer of yours brings it up in a meeting, or maybe you are a young person who sent a sensitive photo to someone you trusted and then learned you really couldn’t trust them that much. These situations are far too common for kids in todays digital world and our duty as teachers is to give them the education and knowledge to avoid or work through these hurdles.
If you are someone who is constantly spreading misinformation (fake news) online then this can follow you and your digital footprint for a long time. Likewise, if you are someone who is believing everything you see online, this is of course a problem that could lead to many misunderstandings. Fake news and misinformation are two other big issues that plague the internet today and what better way to combat it then to educate and inform the youth on how to be critical thinkers and always ask the why/for who questions when seeing a piece of media.
Linda Jacobson’s article on how educators can counter fake news describes how recent studies have shown that young students ability to evaluate information on the internet is “bleak” while most people may think young people are masters at navigating the digital world this is not the case when evaluating what is real and what is not. It is the duty of teachers and other educators to help them see through outright lies and tell the difference between ads, opinions, articles and reported factual news. Media literacy should begin long before students are fully immersed in their phones and social media.
Resources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/learning/lesson-plans/evaluating-sources-in-a-post-truth-world-ideas-for-teaching-and-learning-about-fake-news.html?_r=0
http://www.slj.com/2017/01/industry-news/the-smell-test-educators-can-counter-fake-news-with-information-literacy-heres-how/
https://ncte.org/statement/nctes-definition-literacy-digital-age/
For this weeks class discussions we spent a lot of time talking about our feelings on whether cyber-vigilantism is wrong or right, and what is “too far” when doing this? I think humans as people always have a need to have checks and balances in our lives. In real life we have developed codes of laws, policies and social rules that govern our lives and give us structure. So it is natural that in the digital world, which lacks a cohesive set of rules and standard practices, that people want to make sure that others get “what’s coming to them” or “what they deserve.” That is why I think you get so many people that jump on others viral mistakes, many people want to have the roles of judge, jury and executioner and what better place to do that then an echo chamber where you don’t even have to show your real face!
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I do not think constantly harassing someone you have never met before because of what they posted or said is helpful in getting any type of justice but I also have strong emotions against people being blatantly ignorant online. People who are willing to say outrageous stuff like racism so publicly do so because they have gotten away with it their whole lives. I don’t stretch to say we have all met people like that who feel so smug because “they are just words” and they know in most peoples eyes the “morally right” thing to do is to be the bigger person. Of course this is from my own experiences, but I can not lie and say there isn’t some sense of satisfaction in seeing complete idiots get consequences for things they have been getting away with up until now. Do I think that this type of “justice” is accomplishing anything but a temporary band aid on a ever lasting problem? No, not really and that is because I think until we have a few generations who have grown up learning to be responsible digital citizens, the internet will keep being sort of a modern wild west, where the sense of responsibility for our own actions is not quite there for many people.
On the topic of digital citizenship, I have always been a strong believer in teaching students from a young age about being responsible online. I think by showing them that the digital world parallels our real world in many ways they can begin to understand that their footprint in the online world only grows and grows. It is important to curate that footprint and make sure you are being a responsible online citizen because as we know now your old past may still come back to bite you in the butt. When I was younger and first got access to the internet it was really free reign and no limits on what I could do and watch. Looking back now and I definitely made a ton of silly mistakes that I don’t think I would have if I had been shown basic online safety. Things like making accounts where I shouldn’t have, lying about my age on everything, uploading pictures to many websites, and never thinking twice about posting something because since it was online it doesn’t matter. For me it has thankfully never caused me issues but with all the risks out there of predators, identity thieves, viruses, misinformation and scammers it is more important now than ever to put digital citizenship at the forefront when learning about the internet and computers.
This week in the midst of practicing braiding, I started to feel a bit frustrated and irritated with the whole process! Instead of just saying ‘F’ it , I felt like maybe doing something similar but not the same thing would help me stay on track but maybe be less frustrating to work on.
I figured I would go down to trying to make a braid with just two strands of hair because it seems like an easier process while still incorporating the same skills I use during the three strand braiding.
Recently the bane of my existence has been trying to keep the hair strands separated throughout the whole process. I don’t know if it is just me having clumsy fingers or being too careless but my biggest hurdle now is not the time it takes, the technique or know how but keeping everything apart. It is certainly frustrating at times because it seems like such an intuitive and easy part of the process when I watch videos of others braiding. I assume that like anything we do with our hands, proficiency comes with a lot of practice and consistency over time.
I am staying confident and staying the course because putting it in perspective when I first started braiding the whole process to me was unfamiliar and strenuous because it was not something I had much practice doing. Now that there is only one element of the process that I feel that way about I think shows the progress that has been made in these couple of months.
Practicing the two strand braiding was a nice break from the norm and I feel like it helped me brush up on my skills and confidence in the process of braiding. By the end of my 3rd attempt at 2 strand braiding I definitely felt more competent in my hair braiding abilities! (whether this was warranted is still to be seen lol) Below is my last attempt at it and i am fairly happy with the result, even the messiness of it is minimal compared to some of my three strand braids. I think this will be something I will throw in each time I practice to split up the tasks I am doing to not be the same thing everytime.
As the semester end approaches I am left with a few goals I want to accomplish through this project. First I would like to do one final braid that is tight, neat and not messy at all! God knows it will be an uphill battle. And secondly, I want to try to braid someone’s actual hair because I know it is so much different than using a mannequin especially cause you can’t just pull someone’s head around all care free. I am still using one of my original youtube resource from the first week and I am happy with that choice because it is simple and straightforward, but then if you look at that channels other videos they demonstrated how to do many different types of braids and hair styles. If I want to continue improving and expanding my braiding skills then it is a great resource that would help accomplish that.
I think that as teachers the best way to approach digital citizenship is to keep on learning and educating ourselves about the technology around us. Doing our best to be informed so we know what students are facing in their daily lives so we can be supportive and answer questions when necessary. Social media, phones, computers, AI, all these things that students use to communicate and interact are 24/7 and a bigger part of their lives than their teachers. But it is our job to help them navigate the real world as well as the digital world, helping them understand the risks online are just as real as they are in the rea world. We are taught in our daily lives growing up to be “good citizens” based on good morals and that tends to be forgotten by some people because you feel a lot more disconnected and anonymous online.
In the Ribble artile, it talks about the guiding principle of being Savvy and creating well informed and educated Digital citizens. The constant growth of technology forces us all to always be learning and sharing what we learn with our students. Now as we become more used to it and the digital world becomes more ingrained into every facet of our lives, there is an expectation that kids are naturals at learning technology since they were born in the digital age. The more we get into the future, the more real this becomes as companies and app developers make them easier and easier to use for the public.
The article also talks about the Safety category and the importance of teaching our students to protect themselves from scams, predators, and untrustworthy people. Online they have to understand how to interact with the internet in a safe way because unfiltered and uninformed access to the internet can be dangerous for young kids. Students need to learn how they can try to keep themselves safe from things like doxxing, stalkers or identity theft.
I would try to incorporate the 9 elements into other subjects and topics that are being taught. Trying to integrate learning about digital citizenship in everything we do in the classroom whether it is using the computer at school to do research or taking pictures and talking about how sharing them online is not such a harmless and risk free thing as some may think. I think a lot of kids now a days do understand that being online and having that digital footprint is very real but I think some just need that education and reality check about the what being online really means.
Jason Ohler writes about how our inherent human need to communicate, survive and thrive in a community has lead to us needing to expand how we see citizenship. The online world has made the world embrace different cultures, communities, languages and many other things but with that also comes the need to teach our youth this new type of citizenship. Teaching and reminding our students to use empathy, personal accountability and common sense whether they are online or in the real world.
I included this video because i think it does a good job of explaining how digital citizenship encompasses our lives in kid friendly language!
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