Here is my Summary of Learning video for EDTC 300!

Being in the first few years of my teaching career, I’ve found collaboration to be the most useful and easiest tool that I have under my belt as a teacher. Especially starting my career in the middle of a pandemic, I noticed that teachers are in it together. Now more than ever, working together to navigate the constantly changing world of education, teachers collaborate. In EDTC 300, we got a chance to practice this collaboration and communication with our peers through technology allowing us to all learn together. Whether it was collaborating on an idea, sharing resources, or posing questions to further another’s thinking, this allows us to continuously learn as a community. I believe this practice will allow the members of the course to seek out more collaboration opportunities in schools. 

Commenting on other’s blogs

One way I contributed to the learnings of others in this course was commenting on my fellow classmates’ blog posts. I loved seeing and reading the different learning experiences my classmates were having throughout this course. From reading different blog posts, I found myself constantly making connections to the Genius Hour project I have been able to see in many different schools as a substitute teacher. Although expectations vary depending on the classroom teacher, Genius Hour is where students (usually middle years) choose an activity or event to learn about. They choose whatever interests them and pick a way to document their learning, and just learn about whatever they have chosen. It is incredible seeing what students choose and are capable of learning. I saw students learn origami, crocheting, making stop motion films, making candy, and so many other amazing things. Since this is pretty much what our task was in our #learningproject assignment, it was almost impossible to not make that connection. 

When doing something out of your comfort zone, I find it is all about confidence. For me anyways, I need to feel confident in order to continue with these tasks and keep going. Most learning projects in this course, seemed to take place outside of people’s comfort zone. So I felt like confidence was key during these learnings. One thing I tried to do when commenting on my classmates’ blogs was to provide encouragement in order to help their confidence. Here are a few examples:

Another way I tried to enhance the learning of my classmates was to pose questions about their blogs and learning projects. I think it is important to always be critical of your work which goes with the responsibility of being a responsive teacher in the classroom. Never reflecting on lessons, activities, and instructional strategies might spark challenges in the classroom so I aimed to kick start this way of thinking to my fellow classmates.

Twitter

Twitter was another way I contributed to the learning of others in this course. As I am not a Twitter gal (yet), I found that the #SaskEdChat allowed me to ask questions and start conversations comfortably on Twitter. I was able to not only chat with my classmates, but also other educators in Saskatchewan. 

Twitter also allowed me to shared different resources and information with my classmates.

Lastly, Twitter made it easy to reach out to classmates through their posts and mine, and have conversations surrounding different topics.

All and all, there were a few ways I contributed to the learning of others throughout EDTC 300. Practicing this collaboration technique (through technology), has made me feel more confident to reach out to other educators through these platforms as a teacher. Theres so many resources out there in the world of technology, you just have to reach out to find them.

Teaching digital literacy to young kids is hard. Most of them are not on social media yet where a lot of digital literacy and citizenship teachings focus on, so teaching this concept to little ones can be tricky. Although, I have heard a lot of younger kids mention that they are active on some Kids Messenger app, either way, teaching digital literacy is essential in the classroom.

I am an elementary focused teacher. I taught kindergarten and will be teaching grade 2/3 this upcoming school year. In kindergarten, my students didn’t use much technology. I tried to incorporate the SMART Board into most lessons, but with technology like iPads, there just simply wasn’t enough for everyone. That didn’t stop our conversations about using technology at home though. Most of the students had a tablet of some sort or shared with siblings they played games on. Mostly our talks were about learning focused games, but others involved some sort of shooting/killing. Whenever I hear or see students reenacting those kinds of games, and yes that even happens as early as kindergarten, I always use it as a teaching moment. Why we shouldn’t play those kinds of games at school and how it would be scary if there was any of that at school is usually the focus of those conversations. Reflecting on the many conversations I’ve had with students about what is school appropriate and what’s not, reminded me of Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis’s article “Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online”. This article speaks about different ways the media can manipulate just about anyone. It got me thinking about how easy it could be to manipulate young kids playing games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Among Us, or any of the other games they play online. A lot of these games have the option to play with or against people and a lot of the time it’s strangers. I think as an educator, it’s important to have conversations surrounding this type of digital literacy and manipulation playing these types of games. Even if it’s not a directed lesson, I think it is still a way to teach digital literacy.

At any age, students discuss current events. Whenever this would happen in classrooms I was in, I would turn their conversation into a whole group discussion. This happened a lot with COVID, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the whole Regina Public Schools being hacked, etc., kids knew what was going on. Whether or not they had correct information was another thing. I think it’s important as a teacher to take those conversations and turn it into an opportunity of learning digital literacy. Making sure their aware that it’s easy to spread fake news online. Incorporating little activities like Facticious, Break the Fake, and examining articles like the Tree Octopus, are great ways to teach digital literacy in the classroom.

Overall, I think it is important for teachers to discuss and examine concepts of digital literacy in the classroom. Having the goal to provide students knowledge and resources like Sweet Search instead of scaring them in terms of trust and technology should be the focus of these teachings especially in elementary years where students will be starting their journey as digital citizens.

For this cybersleuth-ing assignment I was in a group of three and was “sleuthing” my bffs sister! I already knew a lot of things about her but was interested on what else I would find. I found some basic information on Facebook including her which school division, what she took and where she went to university, where she went to school and where she is from, and who her husband is and when they got married.I also found her birthday, that she lived in Regina, some family members on Facebook, and some videos of her and her friends. I did do a little more digging into her profile and discovered that she worked for K & K Swim School and for Evraz as a life guard/swim coach, rescued a dog and it’s name is Simba, and a picture of the house her and her husband bought in 2020. She also has a lot of pictures on Facebook of her family and friends dating back all the way back to 2008.

I tried to google my partners name after examining Facebook and I actually couldn’t find a whole lot of other information. I first tried her maiden name and found a ton of people who shared the same name but something about my partner. I then googled her married name and couldn’t find anything either since both names are so common. The only thing I could find on google was a possible Teachers Pay Teachers account.

My partner has an Instagram account but under a different name. I was already following it but I don’t know if anyone random would be able to find it. I found out the my partner is big into Oxygen Yoga and Fitness as she was tagged in pictures from a photo shoot they did around Christmas (which is awesome because I used to work there!!). Her Twitter is very professional and includes her pronouns and posts including different resources and articles related to teaching. I also found her Tik Tok! No posts yet but 15 followers.

Overall, I didn’t find anything too new and exciting in my cybersleothing… Just some nice pictures of my bestie when she was little.

Reading Jason Ohler’s “Character Education for the Digital Age,” and Nathan Jurgenson’s “The IRL Fetish,” got me thinking about a few things regarding digital citizenship in my life. First, how I am as a digital citizen in today’s era, how I incorporate and teach digital citizenship in the classroom to the future leaders of the world, and how students use technology outside of the classroom when there is no one to them hovering over them. Reading these articles made me think that teaching digital citizenship in the classroom requires some trust between teacher and students. Trusting them to use what they have learned in their everyday lives. Having the goal as not to scare them – “Anything you post online will be there forever and can be seen by anyone!” – But to acknowledge this large aspect in students’ lives and try to teach safety and caution behind it. 

As Jason Ohler talks about whether to teach students one life or two, one being where school is separate from technology used at home, and the other being the opposite, I began to think about my own school experience with technology. I think there were definitely some teachers throughout my schooling teaching the unplugged version as Ohler puts it. Not integrating the fast moving technology everyone began to use. I do believe there are still some teachers teaching this way in our school system, but I have begun to notice many teachers using the “one life” approach in their classrooms as a substitute teacher. This digital integration seems to occur more in the middle years and high school grades, but I am able to see this integration begin in early elementary classes as well. Whether it’s incorporating an iPad into a working rotation, using the classroom smart board, or having students use the internet, this is still a part of growing digital citizenship. I think this article is important so that teachers understand that even if this “one life” as Ohler describes is unfamiliar to you, lots of the time it is the only life students know. 

In comparison to Jurgenson’s article, instead of stressing the need to integrate this digital citizenship, it is stressed that students need to put their devices away. I liked this article because it discussed lots of points that I think about on a day to day basis. Do I spend too much time on my phone? Should I delete my social media accounts? Am I making the most out of life when I am constantly thinking about this device in my pocket? For me, I think it’s hard to balance the “In real life” debate Jurgenson discusses in this article. When I see young kids obsessed with devices, it makes me sad that they don’t experience the get out and play lifestyle that I grew up with, but I think that is also something that needs to be taught to the “one lifers”. The balance between online and offline, and the space between. 

It is really interesting that it isn’t until grade 4 that students are asked to view and respond to visual and multimedia texts on websites in the ELA outcomes in the Saskatchewan curriculum. With the points discussed in Ohler’s and Jurgenson’s articles, we almost see similarities to the “two life” lifestyle Ohler is describing where kids are offline until they get home in grades K-4. The reality is as we connect to Jurgenson’s article, students aren’t really offline at school no matter what grade they are in. I’ve seen technology used in many ways in classroom K-4. Whether it’s using iPads during a daily 5 station or using a Smartboard for lessons, that is still exposing students to technology at school. Although the curriculum doesn’t specifically say to incorporate technology into the classroom in any grade, most likely it is and that is when teachers need to be aware of how students are demonstrating digital citizenship. As the Digital Citizenship article we read in class discusses the 9 elements to digital citizenship, teachers need to be aware of how they are going to teach and incorporate these learnings into integrating any sort of technology into the classroom. Although the curriculum provides very little guidance in teaching these topics, I think teachers should be using a cross-curricular approach to get their messages across. What comes to mind when thinking about how to teach digital citizenship in the classroom, is connecting it to the Health Decision Making outcomes. Teachers can easily plan some digital citizenship lessons surrounding this outcome. Since the curriculum does leave out digital citizenship, I think that planning different lessons hitting different outcomes in different subjects is necessary to teach this topic in schools. 

To be honest  – I have never been a fan of twitter. I used it once in high school French class and have not used it since. I was a little leary when I found out we would be using it for this class. I found participating in the #SaskEdChat very interesting. I thought the concept of this chat was a great idea. Allowing different educators to come together and discuss topics of the classroom is a wonderful resource and network tool. I did really like being a part of this chat, but I did have a few critiques. I think it is hard to decipher levels of professionalism on social media. From being active and a part of this chat, I was able to identify different levels of professionalism from the participants. I also felt a little intimidated replying to the questions asked in this chat. I had some replies to some of my answers that made me feel a little insecure. I understand that Dr. K. Christopherson wanted to challenge the thinking of all the participants, but I felt as though by refudding my answers that meant I was just wrong. By the end of the hour, I felt a little defeated and did not want to answer any more questions. 

With that being said, I do think Twitter can be a good professional networking tool. Depending on who you choose to follow, I think Twitter can be very informative for teachers and educators. Events, spirit days, and other informative information is shared by different schools around Regina and school boards to update their followers. I follow the Regina Public Schools and the Prairie Valley School Division’s Twitter account which are the two school divisions I sub for. They post and repost information from different schools in their division and different accomplishments from their students and teachers. Another way I think Twitter is a good tool for educators is that this platform makes it easy to reach out to different resources, companies, and professionals that could be used or incorporated into the classroom. As long as teachers educate their students on how to use this platform, it could be easily linked to curricular outcomes and inquiry projects. 

I think I could become a fan of Twitter for a professional reason but not a personal reason. My partner, David, uses Twitter constantly. He loves using it for following sports updates and current news topics. I, however, do not share the same feelings for personal enjoyment. From the exposure to Twitter from our class, I do see myself using it for professional resources and networking when I have my own classroom. I think I would be able to find different lesson and unit ideas on Twitter, as well as different ways to incorporate certain teaching philosophies, like play-based learning, into the classroom.

Here are a few accounts I followed for inspiration and ideas!

@ETFOeducators

@SFLECEI

@SaskTeachersFed