Category Archives: EDTC 300

I think I’m helping?…

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During this semester, I felt quite challenged when we were presented with the task of contributing to the learning of others. Now don’t get me wrong, that is LITERALLY what I will be doing for the next 30 years plus of my life, but I’ve never been tasked with contributing through twitter and through blogs, it is always through my teaching, something in which I am much more comfortable with. This assignment definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing looking back now.

How I contributed through Twitter

I have been using twitter for close to half my life time. However, when I do use twitter, it is generally for personal reasons. I love following sports news mostly and that is reflected on 90% of my personal twitter feed. Twitter through this course has really pushed me to be more available and interactive professionally and I was finding myself enjoying it when I started gaining a bit of a following and interacting with people that I didn’t normally interact with. Twitter spaces can be really fun if you find the right one that you are passionate about and you can converse with people about a common interest that you wouldn’t normally interact with.

I was able to share ideas, resources and experiences with my classmates which I really enjoyed. I hope that my classmates would think that I did at least a little bit to contribute to their learning.

Check out my twitter to find out! twitter: EDUZumstein

How I contributed through EDUsites

EDUsites is also something that is very new to me. It was super interesting to follow everyone’s Learning Projects along with their takes on the assigned blog post. I do think that my experience as a practicing teacher really helped me with the assigned blog posts and I’m appreciative of that.

My only gripe with EDUsites is that it was quite difficult to find all of the comments that I made. I made a lot of comments throughout the semester but wasn’t able to find other contributions that I made. I would have liked to have been able to look back more easily on more of the contributions that I made.

Check out my full blog for more information that I shared throughout the semester! EDUsites Marcus Zumstein

Below is more of a summary of contributions that I made throughout the semester through screen shots and link! Contributing to others

STOP the MOTION

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Well, my stop motion project has finally come to an end and I have learned a lot along the way… mostly patience. There is a lot more that I’ve learned while working on this project. I learned to embrace my creativity a bit more. I’ve never really thought of myself as a creative person, but this project has really helped me realize that sometimes I can think of some creative ideas and that once I get ideas rolling, a tend to branch off of them quickly. I’ve learned how to use YouTube as a research tool for University rather than to simply look up funny videos. I’ve also learned how to connect with my students a little more through this project as I assign a “Genius Hour” project to my students every year. Now I can truly reflect on the work my students do and can give them better advice and feedback based on my own experiences with a similar project.

I’ve already shared my final project when it comes to Stop Motion, but I would like to share with you a full summary of my journey through the past 3 months.

Learning Project week 1 – Where do I start?!

When I started this project, I really had no clue what I was going to do. I didn’t have much of a plan and I really didn’t know where to start. I figured that if my students in grades 6 and 7 could do good work with Stop Motion, how hard could it be?!

I ended up watching some YouTube videos and looking at a few articles to get me started, but it was slow going to begin.

Learning Project week 2 – Here. We. Go! (Joker voice)

During week two I found my most important resource for this project, the Stop Motion Studio app. This app was easily my most used tool. I used it to create all the videos I made as well as for many learning purposes as it provides many tutorial videos on it which helped so much for a beginner such as myself.

Learning Project week 3 – Lights, Camera, timelapsespinACTION!

Week three I finally got to it and made my first stop motion video. I watched a lot of tutorials through the Stop Motion Studio app and tried my best at something super basic. I made a video of a Lego figure spinning. It was a good start and gave me some confidence moving forward.

Here was my first video: Spinning Harry

Learning Project week 4 – A LOUD Wedding

In week four I really focused on adding sound effects to my stop motions. I looked through the sounds that the Stop Motion Studio app offers and even added in some of my own sounds. This was a fun experience and I felt confident in my abilities to add sounds after this week.

Here was the video I made for week 4: Happily Married

Learning Project week 5 – Nothing to see here… but a lot to talk about

This week, while I didn’t make any new videos, I spent a lot of time researching about stop motion and how to make better videos and to find new resources. I read a couple articles, watching some videos. I tried to find some blogs about it but had no such luck finding anything that really enriched my learning. This was a good week to take a step back and figure out how I could refine some skills that I already learned.

Learning Project week 6 – The Many Faces of LEGO Stop Motion

This was the week that probably challenged me the most. Using the Stop Motion Studios app allows you to add faces to blank LEGO characters. This sounds really neat, and in all honesty, it is a really cool aspect of LEGO stop motion… However, it is quite challenging to be good at. It takes a lot of practice and patience, I hope one day to get better at this aspect of stop motion. I did create a video using the different faces the app offers while also continuing to add my own voice to the video.

Here is my week 6 video: Faces of Motion

Learning Project week 7 – Walkin’ Towards Progress

During week 7 I learned how to make LEGO mini figures appear to be walking which is really cool to watch come together. It takes 9 images alone just to create 1 walking rotation of 2 steps. Makes a full length video with a lot of walking would be incredibly tedious just to create the walking animations. This shows how much time and work can go into a simple motion a LEGO stop motion video. I made a short video illustrating a walking sequence with a LEGO mini figure.

week 7 walking video: Storm Trooper walking video

Learning Project week 8 – The Beginning of the End

During week 8, I really started to focus on my final project and how I could bring everything together. I got my students to help me come up with a story line and started putting together some sort of script. I realized that it was going to take a lot of work but I was excited to get started on my final piece of work.

Learning Project week 9 – Jack of All, Master of None

This was the last progress post that I made. I was really struggling to actually get going on my project, mostly because I had such grand ideas but was struggling to figure out how I was going to realize those goals. I was often comparing my work to stop motions that I saw on YouTube and how well done they were. I had to take a step back and admit to myself that the people making those videos most likely had a ton of experience and I was very much a beginner still. I settled to the fact that I just need to focus on what I CAN do and not the skills that would take much more practice and mastery.

All in all

As this project comes to a close, I am very happy with my final product. I learned so many skills that I didn’t have before this project started. I really learned about all of the time and effort that goes into these projects and other stop motion pieces. I spent upwards on 12 hours to create a 5 minute video, which compared to other, more sophisticated LEGO stop motions, was a very average work. This is just an example of how much work and time goes into the really well done LEGO stop motion movies. I hope to one day reach that level of creative work if I keep on working on these skills.

Here is the link to my final product, which was combined with my Summary of learning for EDTC300:

Final Learning Project and Summary of Learning

Enjoy!

The Summary of my Learning Project – See what I did there?

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Over the past few weeks, I have been working on ideas to present the final product of my learning project as well as putting together my summary of learning. I thought to myself, “What better way to show my summary of learning than THROUGH my learning project?!”

After brainstorming with my students of how I could mix together Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Simpsons, I was able to put together a combination of what my learning project has taught me with everything that we have learned in EDTC300.

I started my final project as I mention previously, through brainstorming with my students. Once I heard a few great ideas, I started putting together a script. The idea of combining my learning project with my summary of learning came to me while I was thinking of how I could present it. What better way than to use the skills that I’ve been learning all semester long through stop motion than to use that to share EVERYTHING that I have learned so far. I started with the idea that Vart (changed name for copyright purposes) would have an upcoming test on blogs and the functions of Twitter. Hairy Potta (again, copyright) and his friends would be able to help Vart study a bit while he explains the functions of those topics. Afterward, those characters end up on the S.S. Killstar (you get it at this point…), where they landing in a room with workers talking about online safety, didgtal literacy and digital identity.

I thought this would be a fun way to end my learning journey and I’m happy with what I learned along the way. From having 0 experience with stop motion to creating a short film with 400+ images and tons of audio mixed in, I learned a lot during this process. Someone who has never done stop motion might think that taking 400+ pictures would be the most tedious part of the process, however the Stop Motion Studio app makes it so easy. The most tedious part by far is adding the audio and making sure that the audio and images line up properly. At this point, I’ve spent many hours putting together different stop motions and learning different skills. My final product might not be perfect, and it is nowhere near what professionals can do but I’m proud of what I’ve created and I hope you enjoy my final product!

Who is the REAL Jordan Puscus?

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For someone who doesn’t know Jordan, figuring out who the real Jordan Puscus would not be an easy feat to get to the bottom of. Lucky for me, I do know who Jordan is through a few social events and a mutual friend, however, for someone looking to get the dirty details about Jordan, they would be hard pressed to find any. I started by delete Jordan off of Facebook to really see if I could find any information about him without cheating. To say that this was a challenge would be an understatement. Once I deleted him off of Facebook, there was no trace of his account. Through Google, I could not find much personal information on him, however, I was able to find a little bit of information… Jordan sits as the Vice-President for Regina Catholic Services, he is also the Secretary for the Regina Touch Football league. Other than that, I was only able to find small accounts of Jordan through Google such as his Twitter (which I was already followling) as well as some Spotify playlists that he has as public. Safe to say that if you google Jordan Puscus, you will not find much other than a few professional details.

Where I found most of my information about Jordan was on his blog. Jordan was blessed to be born with a twin brother, he has a social work degree and a masters. He has a wife who is a teacher and he has a daughter. If you would like more details on Jordan’s life, feel free to browse his blog at your leisure, but as far as being an internet sleuth goes, there is not much information available about Jordan that he isn’t willing to share via his own free will.

Digital Identity

As we begin to explore Digital Identity, it is interesting to know that most people actually have multiple social media accounts, on multiple social media platforms. Sometimes, with more than 1 per social media platform. While I say that this is interesting, it is also not surprising to me at all… As I am one of those people. I use Twitter primarily to get most of my news, more I mostly go on Twitter for sports news rather than political news, although I get a mix of both. I have several Twitter accounts, Instagram accounts and Reddit accounts. Most of which you would never be able to find unless you had access to my phone. These accounts are used, as Nicole Lee suggested in her article Having multiple online identities is more normal than you think, to share different opinions and interests that not all of my regular follows on my personal account would be interested in. Rather than flooding different feeds with posts about niche topics, I have chosen to separate my interests with different accounts on different platforms.

Using different account can also be helpful for other reasons. Someone might have some controversial views and opinions that they do not want associated with their personal self. Using a second account or “burner” accounts could be helpful in sharing very controversial opinions while minimizing the risk of people knowing who is the real person behind those thoughts. Be careful though! One would be cautious when switching between these accounts as there have been cases of some high profile figures posting certain opinions or messages while forgetting to switch to burner accounts… *cough cough* Kevin Durant *cough cough*.

Jon Ronson shares an interesting story during a TED talk, which I have shared below, about Justine Socco, who sent out a tweet that was meant to be a bit of a joke but ended up being catastrophic for her life and career. A quick lapse of judgement, that Justine most likely thought not many people would see, turned into the most trending tweet on Twitter at the time. With the emergence of cancel culture, people and especially celebrities, need to be as cautious as ever with what they share. The slightest misstep could prove to be catastrophic to any life or career.

Jack of All, Master of None

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Doing this project has been a great learning experience and I’m more than grateful for it. While doing this project, I learned a ton about stop motion and all of the little things and movements that go into it. The editing definitely being the most tedious of all the skills that I learned. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been fooling around with the app more and trying to pin point my ideas for my final project. Over that time, I have come to a tough but simple conclusion… While I have learned a lot and am miles ahead of where I started, I am nowhere near being a master, which has been kind of tough to accept, even though I really haven’t been working at this as long as I’m sure many people around the world have.

It is very difficult to be really good at stop motion and I’ve accepted that my final project is not going to be a professional piece of work… It is going to look choppy at times, the sound effects won’t be perfect, and the editing is going to take a long time simply to make a short story video.

While my final project is coming together nicely, I’d like to share a lot of the content that I’ve found along the way to help me improve!

A lot of the videos I’ve found to help have been through the Stop Motion Studio app. They have a fantastic library available to help beginners with their work and the videos are quite easier to follow and are great for instructional work. I’ve also been on YouTube to help find other tips and tricks as well as ideas for videos to make.

In previous posts, I’ve highlight articles that have helped me on my way with tips and tricks and I’ve even had the opportunity to talk to some of my current and previous students about their experiences with Stop Motion and how they made their projects work.

Overall, it has been an amazing experience and as a practicing teacher that implements Genius Hour in their classroom, this project has given me the opportunity to show my own students the “Genius Hour” project that I’ve put together myself. It definitely speaks volumes as a teacher to be able to show students that I’ve done the same type of project as a student myself and what I’m expecting of my students is not unrealistic!

What do you mean I can’t use Wikipedia?

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I believe that digital literacy is super important in the classroom. While teachers are teaching students how to do proper research and to find trustworthy news outlets, it is important that teachers shows students what that really looks like.

As Damon Brown mention is his “How to choose your news” TEDtalk , There are so many outlets available that it is tough to know what is real news and what is not. While they are so many to choose from, the amount of information can sometimes leave us less informed than before we started reading or listening because it is hard to know what is real and what is fake.

Another TEDtalk by Noah Tavlin called “How false news can spread”, Talks a lot about fake news and branches off of what Brown said in his TEDtalk. The way that fake news floats around is incredible and the internet makes this much more prevalent. With so many contradictory opinions around and people trying to prove their points, it is hard to find the origin of most information, and most elementary students do not have the skills, nor the patience to figure that out. It also brings up the idea of researching articles that prove what we want to prove instead of simply proving the truth, which also causes a lot of issues in society when fake news is so prevalent.

I do try my best when it comes to teaching about digital literacy in my classroom and I often enjoy getting new up to date ressources to use. The New York Times lesson is an interesting one that I believe students would really find engaging. It also shows how easy it is for a news outlet to be convincing and act as a true and trustworthy source. I will definitely look into using this lesson plan in my own class going forward!

The NCTE Framework is a really good resource for educators to learn about what students are learning and why students  are learning about digital literacy. I really enjoy that the website almost lays things out like outcomes or “I can statements”

From ncte.org

It focuses on how students can work to figure out what sources are good and reliable, while also teaching educators about the different strategies that websites might use to sway readers into believing that their information is true. This is another resource that I will be using when I focus on digital literacy with my students.

The Beginning of the End

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I feel like at this point I have at least tried all of the skills when it comes to Stop Motion and using Stop Motion Studio that I feel comfortable trying right now without pushing myself too far and trying skills that I wouldn’t be able to master. Now is the time to start working on my final project.

I started by asking the help of my class for ideas for script/story line. This was a lot of fun as I only gave them a few parameters to work with. I have a lot of LEGO at home… I gave them the ideas of Star Wars, Harry Potter and The Simpsons to work with. I also gave them the option to come up with an original idea as I have a lot of regular LEGO that isn’t affiliated with any sets. We bounced some ideas around the class, some absolutely ridiculous and some were actually pretty good. It was a really good opportunity to hang out with my class in a casual setting and for them to get to know that I am still participating in creative projects as a student right now as well!

I have started coming up with some of my own ideas based off of what they brought forward and I’m making some progress. The idea of a Star Wars/Harry Potter crossover could be a lot of fun, and also hilarious. I’m still open to ideas! If anyone has any fun ideas of how I could incorporate the themes that I proposed above, that would be amazing! I think I’m going to have a lot of fun putting together my final project and can’t wait to really get going on it!

Let me know if you’ve got any fun ideas as well!

Time To Write Typewriter Concept

Photo by Ivelin Radkov

I made a video game! My childhood dream!

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Well today I definitely learned something new! I coded my own video game! Doing an Hour of Code on code.org, I have successfully coded my own video game. The instructions were fairly simple to follow… Even though a couple times I wasn’t quite sure what to do, the program lets you know of your mistake and allows you to correct it before you move forward. This activity definitely felt a little more than a beginner activity but it was a lot of fun to see the work some together in the end. I took a screen recording of the process which is quite long, but it was a lot of fun for myself. Tune in here to check out my progress!

As far as coding in the classroom, I think there is 100% a spot for it. One of my few regrets in life is not learning more how computers work on the inside and with code. Technology is such a huge part of our lives and culture nowadays that I think it is so important that students learn at least the basics of coding. Now that I’ve been able to gain a little bit of experience in coding, I would definitely feel a lot more comfortable letting my kids play around with these programs and I’d feel confident that I would be able to help out students who are beginners in the area of code.

Pre-adolescent boys programming robotics at digital tablets in classroom

Photo by Hero Images/Hero Images

Walkin’ Towards Progress

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This is most likely not going to be a very long post, however, I did learn a new skill when it comes to Stop Motion! This week I learned how to replicate a walk cycle of a LEGO mini figure. It was a pretty basic skill to learn but it is also essential to making a short film using the LEGO figures. Below is the walk cycle illustrated in one frame.

LEGO walking sequence

I did make a little video as well with some waving action from the mini figure. This Storm Trooper walking video will probably be the last video that I post before I start working on the final project for this assignment. I feel like I have made a lot of progress along the way and I’m excited for my final product and what I’ll be able to produce!

Thanks for tuning into my quite short progress post!

Can Saskatchewan produce digital citizens via the classroom?

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This was a very interesting assignment. I have spent some time doing a little bit of research to try and find something in the Saskatchewan Curriculum about digital citizenship and it has been quite difficult to be honest. In all honestly, I focused mainly on the middle year curriculum, grades 6-8, as it is my area of teaching. As a result, I have STRUGGLED to find anything relevant when it comes to digital literacy or citizenship.

I did, however, find a few interesting things while doing some research. The only outcome in the 6-8 curriculum that I could find that even eludes to digital citizenship a little bit was in the grade 6 Health curriculum which was the following outcome:

This outcome does not say directly that it includes digital citizenship, however, one could make a fairly easy argument that it falls into the category of developing identity as well as dealing with mass media outlets.

During my research, I was able to dive into the Regina Catholic School Division staff portal and find some of the ressources that they offer to their teachers. Unfortunately, I cannot share any of what is on the site through this blog as one would need access to the RCSD staff portal which is only available to staff members… Another important note is that as I was looking, I noticed that the RCSD site eluded to the fact that the PAA curriculum has some Digital Literacy things in it, but when I clicked on the curriculum for PAA on the government site, there was nothing there on Digital Literacy.

As I sit here and say the government has no ressources multiple times, I’d be remised to neglect the Digital Citizenship Ministry Continuum. This IS a document that is provided by the government which outlines Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship. All of the nine elements are important to digital citizenship in the classroom. These elements are especially important when students can access the internet so easily, communicate with others and need to focus on navigating through our digital world securely and while keeping in mind a healthy balance of screen time, relationships and education.

As a current practicing teacher, I ensure that I always focus a little but on Digital Citizenship in my classroom. These lesson often fall into my Health class or Religious studies class as that curriculum includes healthy relationships. I absolutely believe that Digital Citizenship has a place in school and curriculum, I’m just not quite sure that the Saskatchewan curriculum is all the way caught up when it comes to outcomes for middle year students, the age at which most students are first learning and interacting with technology in a more vulnerable way.