Author: Carmel Frape (Page 2 of 4)

Modeling active citizenship is something that I believe that I have modeled from a young age and still do as a young adult age. Modeling active citizenship is not something new to me, but being vocal about social injustice topics on the internet is not something I do. 

I already do not like to post on social media and I have grown to be more comfortable since starting a business with my mom, and sister, and from posting on twitter for the EDTC 300 class that I am currently taking. 

The reason I tend not to share in digital spaces is because I like to be a private person and do not like to have everyone know everything I do. 

Writing this post is a big step for myself. I used to think people who posted controversial topics were asking for people to agree and disagree. However, from learning about social injustice topics, it is important not only to post, it is important to speak and open the conversation up for those minorities who need the help to spread their message. 

I feared being associated with harming someone by posting and fear that I would offend someone. This is ignorant of me. 

This past week has taught me that it is very important for educators to speak out against injustice online and in the classroom.  Teachers have the responsibility to show our students and anyone else who may be listening, what anti-oppression looks like and we have the power as future educators to be part of a change.

Being part of a change means educating yourself on what has happened in the past and what is happening currently. In a social injustice act of  not understanding the lives of minorities, the black community are protesting after a disturbing video surfaced showing bystanders pleading with a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, as he gasped for breath. Floyd died during the incident, the latest in a string of deaths of black men and women at the hands of US police.

There is no room to be silent. Being silent teaches my students that I am silent and that they should be as well. Teachers are the leaders in the classroom, we hold the power to create change, one student at a time, some years making more change than others. Being open and communicating shows that we must help those minorities whose voices cannot be heard by others. “Be the person you need for your younger self” is a quote I often reflect on. Who did you need? What did you want for yourself or others?

Teachers Must Hold Themselves Accountable for Dismantling Racial Oppression.

Other Resources:

• Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources
• Anti-racism resources for white people
• In online spaces, silence speaks as loudly as words

Participation and engagement are crucial for classrooms to function especially since classes have been moved to remote learning and both are equally important for inside the classroom. Michael Wesch’s video, called “An Anthropological Introduction on YouTube.”  on YouTube is a video I recommend others to watch.  It shows the growth of social media and how it has changed drastically over the past decade. Technology advances help support multiple students with different learning styles and enhance the information to be processed.  Here is a quiz to see what learning style you are. The website, education planner, has a series of twenty questions that must be answered, and then describes your percentage of the three types of learning styles. The three learning styles are: 

• Auditory: If you are an auditory learner, you learn by hearing and listening. You understand and remember things you have heard.
• Tactile: If you are a tactile learner, you learn by touching and doing.
• Visual: If you are a visual learner, you learn by reading or seeing pictures. 

On the left side bar, there is a resource that shows what study habits you may be able improve upon. Knowing how you learn best, may help you learn what you can do for yourself and may help you with your learning journey. Teachers may use many strategies in the classroom to ensure  their instruction supports the many different learning styles. Educators may use twitter or other social media to collaborate and share ideas to make their classroom inclusive to multiple learning styles. Not only are connections with other education teachers important, teachers  need to be aware of the apps that are being used today by our students; knowing about current apps may give teachers insight on how technology affects students. 

Growing alongside technology for our education professional development is necessary for our classrooms as technology has the power to enhance our classrooms.

• How do you learn best?
• What learning style fits you best?
• What are your study habits?

What are your projections for teaching & learning for this Fall? With information related to the COVID-19 pandemic constantly changing there is a lot of uncertainty. The public are continually learning new things each day about what is happening related to school, the workforce and the lives of people in Canada and around the world. As Saskatchewan plans to re-open on May 19 and slowly add more places that are able to re-open and more people are gathering makes myself personally a little nervous. I do not believe we are ready to re-open. When is the perfect time to start re-opening businesses is an answer I do not have. Do you feel safe and are you ready to get back to “normal?”

Learning in the fall may be different for all students. In particular, I read that the University of Regina released a statement, that discusses that classes may be online for the fall term 2020. As a student, this is a confusing time with so much uncertainty and is a concern for myself personally. 

I believe that I have an advantage if classes are moved to online because:

• I completed my first year of my education degree while living at home through online courses. This allowed me to be independent, learn about the resources that work for me, and explore zoom and UR courses more.
• I am currently in EDTC 300 which has helped me learn more about technology and the importance of having a PLN.
• I have access to a computer with good internet quality.
• I have a great support system here at home where my family is. 

For this I am grateful, blessed and thankful. Being grateful, blessed and thankful is something my family believes. (*Side note my sister and I made the signs below to showcase our families beliefs!) I understand that some families are not as lucky as I am which would be a huge stress and worry for the students and their family. 

What do you think teaching and learning will look like in 2025? I am not sure what teaching and learning will look like as we are still uncertain of what school will look like in the fall. In my breakroom in my EDTC300 class, the group I was in discussed how classes may be online for high school and post-secondary students, but we felt it would be difficult and may be a lot of responsibility for elementary students (and their families). We also discussed what if there was NO school in the fall. This bothered me the most because students may get behind very quickly if they are not at school. This made me think of some questions I have if all classes resume online: How will teachers approach different learning styles? How far behind will students get? Are we becoming behind or are we learning new and better ways of teaching? How many students do not have access to the internet or a computer? 

I remember January 20, 2013. This was the day I turned 13, and I was allowed to join Facebook. In order to join Facebook you had to be 13 or older to sign up. Many of the people in my class already had Facebook as they “faked” their age to be able to join. I could not wait to finally have a Facebook account and finally be able to have direct access to my classmates. I was so excited; I already had ideas of what I would post about and had a plan that I would be an active member of the Facebook community to connect with family and friends. 

After having social media for a short amount of time, I realized that I do not like to post as I was unsure of what to post and came to the realization of why I was posting and who am I doing this for? I decided I will be a scroller, who scrolls through the newsfeed and sees other pages and other people’s posts instead of a poster. See the poll I did on Twitter…

As time continues to pass, I rarely post about anything and even before I do, I think of why am I posting and what am I looking to get out of this?  I often find myself only looking on social media when I am bored, trying to buy something or selling something online. You would think this means that I am an introvert and a private person. Meanwhile, I believe myself to be an extrovert, who makes friends easily and is easy to talk to. 

Currently in 2020, at 20 years old, I have created my first ever Twitter account. I knew Twitter was the blue bird that tweets, but I didn’t know much else about it. 

Once creating my Twitter account, I learned very quickly this account is going to be slightly different than all my other social media accounts. My Twitter account is to make connections with current and fellow education students. I can no longer be just a scroller, I have to be a poster and post, like, comment and share frequently. Since starting this Twitter journey, my professional growth has improved dramatically. I have been able to meet and connect with more education students at Uof R and learn more about online resources for teachers. Most things Twitter related are new to me. I was most surprised by the live Twitter chat. If I had created this account as a personal account I don’t believe I would have learned as much. 

I will be forever grateful, blessed and thankful for this class, (EDTC300), my fellow classmates and Katia (our professor) everyone who has taught me about the Twitter world and the huge importance of connecting and collaboration. “We can do great things alone but even greater things together.”

I was impressed by how much Twitter has to offer for anyone who is willing to use. Twitter has so much to offer. The most interesting being the online chats like that Saskedchat my classmates and I participated in. It was overwhelming at first because I was trying to do so many things at once. I wanted to read everyone’s response, reply, like and do my own response.Very interactive, an efficient way of communicating and connecting with others! It was a positive and non-judgemental place and i am thankful to be able to connect with those who attended the saskedchat that night. I learned a lot about twitter that night, about current educators and future educators who I believe all have similar morals and values about teaching students. 

I am not an expert on Twitter, however, now that the saskedchat is over, I have had time to be reflective. I have realized yes I have met some awesome people and I am going to meet so much more. My plan is to at least participate in two more education chatrooms to further my professional growth during this semester. After the semester is over I want to keep reconnecting with others. 

Katia has given the students including myself a list of education chatroom where we can join the conversation. Here is a screenshot. 

Tamantha also shared some chatrooms! Where I found the chatroom #TLAP and attended. 

Some Things I didn’t like about the education chatrooms:

• It was very fast and overwhelming at first.
• I found it difficult to answer some of the questions as I have not completed my education degree. The questions seemed to be more teacher focused which I believe is the intent of these chats. To connect, support, and share resources/thoughts with  fellow educators. I thought there may be reflective questions. FOr example, what is one skill you wish you knew or what would you tell an education student. 

Some Things I enjoyed:

• Very interactive and met lots of new educators.
• Everyone is helping and supporting each other. 
• Great way to ask for help or advice.

Overall, I felt the education chatroom is a great resource of student’s on their path to be an educator or current educators. In my most recent education chat I learned a lot about google, teacher resources, and some acronyms (For example, Ss = students & Ps = Parents) I want to keep attending these chatrooms to learn more from others and about myself. Follow me on Twitter to stay updated and connect! #learningneverstops!