Major Project: A Personal Journey into Media. 

Introductory Post – My Why

For my major project I have chosen to share my personal journey into media, where I explore and research 3 apps: Instagram, Threads, and Kahoot. Why these 3 apps? App popularity is always changing, with new and intriguing apps appearing and the “old” apps upgrading. As a primary teacher (grade ¾) I am already hearing and observing my students speaking about their online experiences and use of apps.

My first app I’ve chosen is Instagram as I am a daily user of Instagram, however I actually am unaware of the privacy terms and conditions, and implications it may have when looking at digital citizenship. Our school also uses Instagram as a means of communication and connection with our families. Do our schools’ actions help promote digital citizenship to our students? How does our division’s privacy policy align with Instagram’s? Is there a way to use Instagram from an educational lens?

Threads is another app I will be exploring. It is an app that I have never used, but one that I often have popping up and am intrigued as to what exactly it is. Is it similar to X (twitter)? What do you even use it for? Is this something that students are using? Could it be used in an educational setting? Is it a positive app that could help support students’ digital citizenship skills?

My last app, Kahoot, was a challenge to pick. I wanted to pick an app that is used in my classroom and my school at the primary level. I had contemplated looking into Snapchat, or TikTok, but realized as educators, we have been using Kahoot in our classrooms (at my school) and I know very little about the app itself. 

For each app, I will allow my time to explore the apps and become familiar with how they work and the potential educational uses for them. I will dive into the app’s terms and services, privacy policies, and data storage information, while also relating this information to the digital citizenship principles we have learned about throughout our course. 

In order to help me stay on track for this project, I created the following timeline:

This will allow me to have some flexibility but also keeps me on track for what I will be looking at. I will continue to do weekly reflections on my explorations and research, with my final presentation sharing my app overhaul. Currently I have been taking notes and writing out my reflections, so I will be typing those into more formal reflections.