Over the course of the semester I have been able to contribute to the learning of my peers. By doing so, this has been mainly shown during communication on blog posts and during a Zoom time. Reflecting on this journey I have been able to read and engage on some great content that my peers have written. Greatly, I feel that this class has been the most engaged I have been with my peers. With this class being online and never seeing any of my classmates in person before I certainly feel that there has been amazing relationship building through an online standpoint. It truly amazes me what online platforms can provide for us and come together as a community to still meet in an alternative way. Throughout the course of this semester I have been able to communicate and engage with my peers. This has been able to happen through my peers Learning Blog and Professional Blog. As both blogs were great to read I found myself being able to have richer conversations with the professional posts over the learning blogs. I think the reason why this happened was because most of the time I was able to relate or build on what my peers were expressing. Additionally, I felt that most of the concepts that we discussed in class I was very engaged in and really was invested in which I really enjoyed. As you can see it is evident that peer engagement has happened throughout the semester. These are just some examples that are provided with engagement. In all honesty, some weeks were difficult to comment and engage with others. This was challenging because I am a full time teacher, so finding the time to complete this was sometimes hard. However, I tried my best to get it done and keep engaged with others, especially with blog posts. Some of the big highlights that I like discussing with others were the AI tools, coding and Digital Literacy. I was able to build and engage with others and was able to be inspired by others. With me being able to engage and participate with my peers' blog posts, I found it very difficult to be able to strike conversations on my own posts. This was a problem because I unfortunately received zero comments on any of my posts. I am not sure why this happened, but I guess it is what it is. There was a point in the semester that I relooked into my settings on my blog to ensure that my comments tab was open to the public. With double checking and knowing that the comment tab was there I still received comments. With that being said, I posted some evidence/bait that was good to hook some of my classmates in to engage in a conversation with me. The one that I would have loved to have a conversation about was the house hippo video and related to back when this was played on TV. With this something I unfortunately struggled with, I just wanted to make it evident that I tried my best with trying to get engagement on my blog posts. My overall contribution that I was able to do over the course of this semester and in this class was during Zoom, breakout rooms during class, commenting on classmates' blog posts and using URcourses. For Zoom, I was able to show contributions by engaging myself and participating in small group discussion. Reflecting back during the course, I feel that most of my contributions during class were during small breakout rooms. Personally I struggle with talking in a whole class discussion and feel more comfortable doing it in a smaller group. Another contribution was commenting and engaging on classmates' blog posts. This has been pretty evident and I was able to have good conversations with my peers. Lastly, another way I have contributed to my classmates' learning is by messaging and emailing peers on URcourses. This did not happen a lot, but there were a few times I had conversations with peers or had questions and they were able to help me. Another big thing with messaging and there were times that I would give resources to some of my classmates. This happened especially when we were talking about AI. At the end of this, I had a pretty unique way of contributing to others' learning and was able to gain relationships with others through online platforms.
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AI is something that has gained popularity within the last couple of years. Although it can be controversial for many, it can be useful to our everyday life. Personally, I have not been a big user on ChatGPT. However, for work, I love using Magic School. This AI tool has so many tools that save me so much time at work. The nice thing about this tool is that it is a great starting point when doing things. For example, need inspo on a lesson? Can it help? or need questions to a youtube video and you only have 5 minutes before your lesson? Boom! it can do it all for you. For my exploration tonight I decided to play around with Hey Gen. This AI tool allows you to create videos by using AI readers. Overall, I think this video is very cool, but I do not think it is that user friendly. Typically when I go on to an AI resource I can simply type something in and it will create or give me what I want. With this video tool, you still need to do the exact same thing like you need to do with like iMovie and the layering that you need to create with video, sounds, text and transitions. Another thing that was not ideal about this, is that you need to pay for it. However, your first video that you create is actually free but after that you need to buy tokens to make videos which is not the best. Please enjoy the video that I have created from this website! Please click on the picture to see it. If this video tool was free I definitely think this could be a useful tool to use with older grade students. When typing in your script you need to express the exact words that you need to say. This would be a great adaptation for students who have anxiety with presentations. Another thing is I think students would think that this is cool with all the options that you can do on it. You can change your character and their voice which I think some students might get a kick out of. From a teaching perspective I think this would be great! Especially back when it was covid and we were strictly teaching online. I do not think this would be beneficial in everyday teaching. However, I do believe that you definitely could use this in lessons to be funny or to create narratives for students. Overall, I am totally using AI in the classroom. As this concept is still something that is new to me. I want to bring this more into my everyday teaching. Currently the only tools that my students have used in my class that are AI is Twin Pics and Toolsaday. Anytime that students can use AI they love it. What I get from them is that it is almost this sense of wanting to outsmart the computer and for that I always find that they are more engaged which is great. On the flipside, I also think that it is important that students need to know the safety and appropriate way of using it. By doing this students have a better sense of doing their own work and not always relying on AI. A really good influencer I follow on TikTok she is teacher and shares all different types of educational AI tools her name is teach2ai on TikTok if you wanna check her out. Lizzo the singer that she is ‘quitting’. As little detail of what quitting means from Lizzo it was clear that hate and shaming online was a big factor in this decision. Although there has been some controversy on Lizzo in the past year for her accusations of harassing and assaulting some of her backup dancers. Regardless of these accusations being a leading factor, it is certainly known that Lizzo has been receiving hate since she began her music career. With that, I have taken a deep dive on some other examples of factors that have made Lizzo quit. In 2021, Lizzo posted a video on instagram addressing people for being fatphobic and racist on the hateful feedback that she was receiving on her new music video. In the article from NBC News it talks about how Lizzo how Lizzo’s image that she portrays and message that she wants her fans to learn from her music videos and songs is to be confident with your body and to be yourself. In another article it discusses how Lizzo instagram is full of people shaming her based on what she is wearing. As some people are hating her comment, it was hard not to do some exploring myself on her instagram.
As many of our students are exposed to the online world on a daily basis, I think it is important to begin teaching digital literacy at a younger age. Personally at a young age, particularly from grade 1-3 I think it is important to talk about digital literacy from a viewer standpoint on what they see online and on TV. Many students at this age are not particularly mature enough nor allowed to have an online presence on many different online platforms such as Instagram or Snapchat. However, I think it is important for students to have an understanding of internet safety on what is true on the internet and what students are watching. In the Saskatchewan Curriculum in grades 1, 2, and 3 health curriculum there is an outcome that is focusing on safety in the community. This type of topic is great to connect to digital literacy because it can be tied with what is safe on the internet and the negative things that could impact students. From grades 4-8 I believe it is important for students to understand the importance of influence and false conceptions that online can bring to our daily lives. Many students at this age are very influenced on what they see online and if educating students more on this could give students a better understanding of the disconnect from real life from what they are learning from online. On another note, students at a older age should know the concept of catfishing on how misleading their own information online can be seriously dangerous and can have serious consequences. Many issues in older class arise from social media outside of the classroom. There are a few occasions that this has happened in my classroom and many issues have arised because someone has made a fake identity online or posting false accusations about particular situations or individual from their class. Bringing this sort of awareness and lessons in the classroom is also important, especially when it comes to their own personal posts that they are seeing from people that they know. The Can you spot the fake news headline?, Spot the troll and Break the fake that was presented in class tonight I think is a great idea of why it is important to understand the cues of why the digital world can be misleading. As we take a quick look at something we can assume that it looks legit and real. However, the closer that we look at something we can start to see how things might not look factual. This is an important example of why students need to start learner about these concepts at a younger age. As we were discussing this concept, I could not help but make a personal connection that I remember seeing on TV when I was kid. There was this commercial that I remember watching and being so confused about. I remember asking my mom about it because it seemed like it was too good to be true. Please I highly recommend watching this video. I would love to hear if anyone else remembers this. Now reflecting on this, I can now know that this was a way of me being introduce to questioning what I am seeing in the digital world. For this evenings class I did some exploring on hourofcode. On this website I particularly was focusing on playing the game CodeMonkey. This game was fun and I certainly think this were be fun for students. This game in particular I think would be set up for grade 5 and up. One thing that stood out to me was how easy and user friendly it was to use. For someone that doesn’t have alot of coding experience I found this really easy to understand and I think it would be good for students to try especially if they are new to something like this. Another thing that was great about this is that it began any codes that you needed by simply clicking on the object that you wanted to move. For example, if you wanted to move a giraffe you click on it and the code would change to giraffe 1. That way you would just have to change the height of it for it to move. In a classroom setting I think that coding could be a great cross curricular component that could be used in the classroom. Based on my own experience, in my internship I used the Ozobots. The way I used them was that students wrote descriptive stories of their robot. After they wrote their stories they got to design a track that corresponds with their story. See below for a little picture of this! Overall I think coding is new interactive learning that should be more exposed in the everyday classroom. Students almost find anything more engaging when it involves technology so I definitely think that this could be a great component to be incorporated into the classroom because of all the teaching opportunities and complete cities that it can bring. In my own school experience “cyber safety” was something that certainly was not as common as it is today. In my older elementary years, I cannot really remember it being talked about other than not talking to strangers online. When I was in high school, I was a little bit more educated and internet safety was discussed a little bit more. For some reason, one of the biggest things that I can remember about this topic at school was that it was almost shameful to use technology especially when it came to using social media. Teacher almost made it sound sinful for posting things online and your digital footprint was going to come back and haunt you. I am not sure if this is because I went to Catholic High school or what the situation was. Some techniques that I can remember that were used were certainly the scary stories and horrific problems with a digital footprint. Looking back on this, I definitely believed it because many in classes had some problems that came out from posting on social media. So I kind of had a little fear of posting things online and was really careful about what I did.
With me being an adult now and educator I can understand the significance of teaching the importance of online safety. As talked about in the Character Education for the Digital Age article it talks about how there are two sides of technology for students in the class. One way is eliminating technology classrooms while at school or implementing it into the daily classroom routine. Based on this, I certainly can support the importance of incorporating technology in the classroom daily. Outside a school setting kids are using technology and are very intelligent in using it. Some of the students in my current classroom know how to use technology better than me. These future generations that we will be teaching will have never lived in a space where technology was not incorporated in their daily lives. So in this case, it is better to help guide and show students the smart and safe way of posting online and respecting the tools of technology. In my current classroom, I talk about technology safety and clean digital footprint in a few different ways. One of the big ones that I use is using the resource called Character Strong. In this resource it teaches lessons that focus on character development and showing how to be a good role model. I really like this resource because each month there is a “viture” that you focus on. Some of the virtues include respect, empathy, perseverance and kindness. This resource is super user friendly, the lessons are already made for you and there are so many great classroom discussions that come from this. Using this resource, it certainly can be tied into technology safety and building a good self of character when being online. Another way I talk about internet safety is talking about this in health. Before this class, I did not know about the 9 elements of digital citizenship. Moving forward, especially into next school year I am going to focus on most of these elements and create lessons that middle school students can understand. The app TikTok is a very popular social media platform right now. With almost 1.1 billion users using this app it is very popular with the content that is being on here. Most apps like Instagram, Facebook or X user scroll through their feed. Tiktok is very similar to these platforms, however users can only post videos. On Tiktok you can see 3 different types of feeds that you can look at. The first feed is “your following” page. On this page you are simply watching videos/content from people that you are following. On your second feed it is called “FYP” also known as your “for you page”. On this page you are watching videos based on your interests and past videos you have watched/liked. Lastly your third feed that you can watch is your “live” feed so simply it is people that are live streaming content. This app is really easy to use and super user friendly. When making a video you simply tap the plus sign to create a new video. Choose the speed and effects you want, then hold the record button to start filming. After filming you can add music or sound effects, and then you can add text, stickers, and filters. Once you have done that, you can preview your video and make any final adjustments before posting it. Based on the SAMR model. Tiktok could be used in a variety of different levels. For example this video could be a great example, it is not very educational but it could be a fun activity and great discussion in class. If we were to relate this video to the substitution level, the teacher might talk about this video and maybe discuss as a class how to solve this. In this level the teacher is referencing technology but not using it in the class to show the video. In level augmentation the teacher may show the video to the class on the projector and maybe use the white board to come up with methods. By doing this the teacher is showing the video but not further engaging using technology of how this could be solved. Next up, in the Modification level, the teacher might show this video to the class and then the students might how to go and record themselves solving the questions. By doing this, students are engaged in technology and apply what has been discussed to find the finished product. Lastly, in the Redefinition level students might have to find records and come up with a new brain teaser for people to solve. This could be something that could be posted in a private account for only classmates to see. When students view their classmates' brain teasers they either have to comment on the answer or tag them in a video trying to solve it. Based on the Wesch Video and this week's article it is interesting to see the similarities. With this video being over 15 years old it is interesting to see how Youtube and the connection of the internet has helped connect people with particular interests. In the Wesch video it talks about user generated and how this is the primary reason the internet gains popularity. In the connection of the video and to this week's reading it is interesting to see how Youtube continues to remain the most popular online platforms. As youtube is convenient and there are endless videos to watch it can be resourceful and entertaining. In the video it talks about how when videos are posted they are tagged into various categories. In today's society this is something that is constantly being used. On any social media platform or website that you are on, that platform is tracking your feed based on what you are watching and liking. When people show interest in particular things they will be shown more on their feed. This is why platforms like Youtube and TikTok have gained so much popularity. In the article it shows the stats on the increase and decrease on certain online platforms within the past 10 years. Many beginning online platforms have shown a decrease. This is particularly because platforms such as Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. I find this interesting, but based on the evidence talked about in the article I could believe that it is more work on these platforms because users need to read. On platforms like Instagram, Youtube and Tiktok it is easy because it is video or photo based so users find it easy to navigate and more common interests are talked about on their feed.
In a classroom setting, I can see the effects of technology with students. With me teaching 11 years old I can truly see how technology impacts their day to day lives. Almost all my students in my class have a phone and are active on social media. At the beginning of the school year we did a unit on internet safety. In this unit I like to focus on talking about the digital footstep, in most cases and at this age students do not know what this is and they are actively posting things on their media. It is definitely something that should be discussed at a younger age. With that, one other thing that I have noticed is that students are deeply influenced by what they see on the internet. There have been certain situations where students have done something or said something that is not school appropriate and most of the cases when I ask them why they did/said that they usually say that they saw it online. This is sad because I feel like many people lack individuality because if they do not see online it may not be considered “cool”. This is why I believe it is important to talk about healthy influences on the internet with your students and what you see on the internet is not always what they should believe. Using technology is something that I use in my everyday life especially when it comes to entertainment and work use. For my personal use I find the apps that I used the most are Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and Snapchat. When I use these platforms I find myself using them mostly in the evening when I am catching up on news, trends or socializing with friends. For work I find myself using online platforms such as Planbook, Google Drive, Outlook, Classroom Screens and YouTube. Many of these platforms are used to keep my day plan, classroom management and teaching lessons. The platforms and apps that I use simply seem to make my day to day life easier. Being able to use apps that have certain functions is amazing and so convenient during my busy day. That expression “There’s an app for that” is so relatable and can certainly be believable. Reflecting on my technology use I think that sometimes my productivity can decrease especially when I am doing work or university work. I find myself at times that I will be doing an assignment and I take a break to look at my phone and I catch myself being on there for longer than I should be. Most of the time when I am doing this I am scrolling on TikTok or on some sort of social media. I think why I do this is because it is a sense of boredom and looking for something to take my mind off of things. A couple years ago, I watched a documentary called The Social Dilemma on Netflix and it definitely was something that was eye opening to me. If you have never watched it, it is something I recommend watching. The main idea from the documentary is that it talks about how and why people are addicted to your phone. From watching it I have made some changes to phone habits especially when it comes to my notification that I receive. The only notifications that I receive are from my emails and text/phone calls. All my other apps are not turned off. Since I have done this I have noticed a difference in me checking my phone. When it comes to having a balance of technology with my personal/work life I find it important to be mindful of the time that I am spending on these apps. When I am doing work/school I will often set a three minute timer to allow me to be on my phone. With the timer, I find myself more careful on what apps I want to spend that designated time on before getting back to working. Another big thing that I noticed when finding a balance is putting my phone on so it does not disturb. By doing this I find myself checking my phone less. Before doing this, I definitely would have thought it would want me to check my phone more frequently, but I find when there is no notification or vibrating going off I find myself more concentrated. Lastly, another thing that helps me reflect on my technology use is setting a weekly summary of your screen time on your phone. On my phone, every sunday my phone will notify me how much time I have spent on my phone this week. By doing this I am able to reflect on what apps I might need to be a little more mindful of the time on.
Based on my own experiences, I have done some blogging previous to this class. When I was doing my undergrad in Education there were a few classes that I had to do weekly blogging. Some of my blogging experiences were based around my ECS fieldwork, EMTH or EVIS classes. When I was in grade 8 I experienced a unique version of blogging. In this experience we did book clubs and each week we had to answer questions based on the book we were reading and post it on this blog hub. Students from other schools would have to comment on your response. As I now reflect on this, I think it is really cool to have experienced something like this especially at such a young age. It is definitely something that I think about alot and I would love to do something like this in my own classroom now!
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