Month: March 2024

In today’s world, there is an infinite amount of media to consume. Some of it can be educational, some can be entertaining, some are just for laughs, and others are to inform. Being connected to what is happening in the world around us is very important as it can aid in determining the small and large decisions that we must make. But during a time when everyone wants to have the next big headline, and satire is often indistinguishable from reality, how do you tell who is recounting the true story?

To begin, we must be equipped with critical thinking skills that can be developed in school. The article How do we teach students to identify fake news, explains that using websites such as “FactsCan, org, Snopes, Hoax Slayer, and tools like Google’s “search by image” feature,” can help students begin to think critically about the information they are consuming. An interesting point to note is that FactsCan and Hoax Slayer are no long active websites which is a shame in a time when arguably we need them the most. This article goes on to state that students should be aware of bias by referring to who is posting the information. Katherine Koskie has created an excellent worksheet about bias in the news. She highlights that their are many different biases including, bias in the headline, bias in the images, bias in word choice, bias through the selection and omission of information, etc. This worksheet would be great to give to students as it provides three example articles for them to work through to find these biases. There is also an interactive media chart that can be used to explore the bias and validity of a source.

Another important not to make with students is the potential harmful consequences that can occur when spreading fake or misleading information.

https://archive.nytimes.com/learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/skills-and-strategies-fake-news-vs-real-news-determining-the-reliability-of-sources/

https://archive.nytimes.com/learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/skills-and-strategies-fake-news-vs-real-news-determining-the-reliability-of-sources/

This New York Times article provides good examples of this topic. As seen in the image on the left, there are clickbait articles that are fairly easily determined as false, however, make the reader think for a second. All in all these types of posts to not have any real harm present other than spreading meaningless facts that are not true. The image on the right, as the article explains, created a much more harmful result. The FBI claimed these two individuals as suspects of the Boston Marathon bombing. Upon seeing this several forms on the internet began digging through thousands of videos and images trying to find as much information as they could. What started out as a genuine attempt to help resulted in images being fabricated/ altered, false accusations, and any small piece of potentially incriminating information being posted everywhere, all in an attempt to be the one that solved the crime.

I do not think there is one easy answer for this problem, nor is there one specific way to teach students about misinformation and disinformation. However, we must open the door for them and shine light on this issue. Helping them to gain some critical thinking skills and hopefully getting them to stop for a second before believing everything that they see and hear. False information is only going to get harder to spot so we must treat it as the serious issue that it is.

Thanks for reading! See you next week!

During class when we were first presented with the task of exploring code, I was struck with panic. I have never been exposed to coding other than while talking to some of my university friends who were taking computer science classes. The way they described it went right over my head and seemed extremely complicated. However, I suppose this makes sense as they were learning how to code websites and games and more complex entities, using scripts such as Java, Python, and C++. To me, it seemed like I would have to learn a completely different language, and to some extent that is true however, there are resources out the to make this process a lot less daunting.

One such website is called Hour of Code. The concept is to teach code in a video game-like setting which makes the process of learning code more approachable and would be very engaging for students. It is geared towards everyone, from pre-readers to grade 9 and beyond.

There are a number of check boxes, as seen above, that allow for teacher and learners to select their available material, which subjects they would like to focus on, and generally modify their experience to best suit their needs. Some that stood out to me is the pre-reader section as I believe this could be extremely helpful for English as a Second Language learners. Although most of the themes are aimed at pre-school level students, there appears to be several options that do not have a targeted age and are more generalized experiences.

When I went to try out the program I selected an application from the grades 2-5 range. I thought this would give me the widest range of options when it came to difficulty. I decided on a program called Code Farm: Plant a Garden. Your goal is to create code for a robot to collect and/ or plant food on a designated path towards a target. When entering into the game you are greeted by a video outlining the game as well as how robots are used in real world farming settings. A link to the video can be found here.

The first mission sees you debugging already existing code which I think is a great way to learn the program. However, after this you are on your own for the next level. It does take some trial and error to get the spacing correct as there are no designated lines or square to indicate 1 meter which can prove a bit frustrating.

Here is an example of a debug level, where you must run the code to see the issue and then fix those mistakes so that your robot can collect all of the plants. The code does become fairly advanced fast as there are a lot of different things to think about all at once such as movement, sensors, and planting and plowing gadgets therefore I would recommend this game to someone who is at least slightly familiar with using the tools of coding.

Overall this was a pleasant and enjoyable experience and I am definitely going to be spending some time on the Hour of Code website to test out some programs for my classroom.

See you all next week!

Digital citizenship is an important part of modern society. We spend most of our day online and digital platforms are responsible for a large part of how we obtain and share information. With that being said there is some learning that needs to be done to navigate this sphere, safely, efficiently, and effectively.

When I was in school the internet and social media were discussed purely in terms of education benefits. How to search information and use Google Docs and Google Slides for projects. It was not until 2012/2013, around the time of the Amanda Todd story, that I remember our school discussing the word cyberbullying. It started out with scare tactics, telling us that the internet can be a dangerous place and creating the notion that you never know who you’re talking to online. I feel that for some of us, this worked initially, however, as we became more comfortable with the platform the idea that every person you talked to on the internet could be a potential predator became a little more unrealistic. Who could blame the adults for using scare tactics though. I feel like it was more of a reaction on their part than a strategy. They themselves were scared of a rapidly changing world that was hard enough to keep up with but now it was putting their vulnerable kids at a higher risk than ever to be put in a dangerous situation.

Over the years we have gained more information and realized that scaring kids or telling someone not to do something is an ineffective strategy in education. As this Jason Ohler article suggests, we must take a “one life” approach to technology by understanding that it is everywhere in the student’s life and should not be separated from their education. Personally, I feel that when I teach digital citizenship I will approach it from the understanding that students will encounter potentially harmful things on the internet. Rather than dismissing it or telling them to simply avoid it, I would like to give them strategies and techniques to deal with these problems. For example we can learn how to identify misinformation on websites and in videos, we can discuss comment sections and how to deal with receiving negative comments.

With this being said, Nathan Jurgenson’s article brings up some interesting points about having our lives online. It suggests that we are living in a disconnected world, and everyone is yearning for the days of old with less technology. I myself notice a significant shift in my stillness and flow when I am off of my phone for a while, however ironically that very thing I am trying to get away from also has all of my meditations and music which help with my flow state. Instagram is another place that can bring me out of joy as I mindlessly scroll for hours watching meaningless videos. But once again my algorithm also gives me inspirational videos and moments of mindfulness. The point I am trying to make is that we are so intertwined with our technological lives that the answer isn’t simply to stop using your phone, it is to learn how to use it. Let me explain!

I am sure most of our morning routines are quite similar. Wake up, turn off your alarm (that’s probably on your phone), and check some form of social media, news app, or emails, while still in bed, while getting ready or as your are eating breakfast. I was no different, but because of recent circumstances in my life I noticed that my daily practice of checking Instagram before I got out of bed was putting me in a low state before my day had even started. Shortly before this realization I had made the commitment to myself to finally purchase a mindfulness app that was created by a spiritual teacher that I look up to named Gabrielle Bernstein. The app includes a daily mantra, a journal, weekly lessons and a wealth of meditations available at any time. I decided to shift my technology use in the morning to click on the mindfulness app and do my daily meditation before anything else. This has greatly improved my mood, and my relationship with Instagram is much more positive after I have placed myself into my flow state.  The lesson here is that I did not change the amount of time spent on my phone in the morning, I simply changed what I chose to do with that time. I believe this to be the key to teaching our students healthy technology habits, because we all know they are going to use them, so let’s guide them to make decisions that are going to keep them happy and healthy.

Until next week,

Kyle