Category: EDCI 336 (Page 1 of 3)

And here we are, at the end of this tech journey called EDCI 336.

Overall, I learned to love tech more than I did at the beginning of this course. While I am open to new experiences, new perspectives, and new ways of knowing, doing, and being, I am also a simple person that can live a satisfied life with what I already have. I don’t need more stuff – I just want to go deeper with the stuff I already have.

Of course, I recognize how technology makes our lives easier – easier to communicate, easier to get from one place to another, easier to find information. But I also wonder about the balance of ease with the need to experience hardship to learn how to appreciate. As a social scientist, the underlying questions I seem to always be asking are: Won’t the ease of everything primarily help to foster some of the undesirable qualities or behaviours of humans, such as reliance, impatience, and entitlement? Has this type of technology created, fundamentally, more connections or more disconnections?

How do we measure the true costs of having this type of technology, when considering both the social and environment factors involved in having this type of technology?

And just like the concept of biomagnification, I also wonder if introducing children to screen tech at an early age will only cultivate the aforementioned qualities along with the inability to think critically and autonomously, to communicate profoundly, or to get a true sense of what hard work means.

I value organic experiences, holistic communication, and a planet of profound connections.

I also recognize that the global macrosystem is bigger than me. And while I can choose to deny some aspects of technology into my life, there are some technologies that are here to stay. And like the narrative that has been replayed over and over again throughout our species’ history – adopt the new technology or perish – I have the option to fully deny technology into my life and become a relic in the rearview mirror, or walk with everyone else and continue to provide an example of employing a critical lens.

If I believe that, with my life experiences and the reflection on those experiences, I have something to offer younger generations that will help them move forward in an honourable and respectful way, than I must adopt the new technologies to remain relevant and interactive with those who have grown up in this age of technology. To make a connection with students who may need to see me as technologically competent as a prerequisite for being open to idea of having a relationship with me and giving me their attention enough for me to bestow them with the values of a caring humanity and not shy of accepting the hard work of perseverance as a way of being,

I will need to have some present-day technological know-how to be invited into their trust.

And so, it is with this perspective (which also represents what was most challenging but also the most valuable), I keep my antiquated heart open to the possibility of an engagement with screen-based technologies.

What, from this class, will I take with me?

Again, the underlying theme for me having taken this class is being open to changing my perspective to include the positives of technology and to try and find a balance. All of the apps and programs are just means to this attitude – all of those apps and websites are impermanent fads, and as it does not make sense to comment directly on one or another, it seems more important to comment on what, from the humanness, I will take from this class into my teaching practice:

• Be aware of the tech and information-sharing policies of the district you work in
• If you don’t know, ask
• Even if you think you do know, it doesn’t hurt to ask anyway
• Teach students to be critical thinkers with every medium they use
• Be open to learning new things
• Be flexible and not so stuck in one way of knowing, doing, and being
• Don’t be too hard on myself – ChatGPT can create an outline for a unit a lot faster than I can – but I have the ability, and responsibility, to humanize that unit outline
• Smile and have fun

I need soil to grow vegetables more than I need gigabytes on a phone plan. I would prefer clean air and pristine water for everyone more than the ability for us all to get to work faster in a self-driving motorized vehicle operated by a signal from a satellite. I would prefer a music circle than a music streaming app; a face-to-face conversation rather than a text message through a screen. But I would also rather be walking with the whole than just by myself; helping the next generation become deliberate thinkers and critical consumers of information rather than offering my back as I crawl back into, or out of, the cave.

Because our instructor was at a conference in Paris, France, we had our second last tech class online in a Zoom room. Although we have had many guests join us via Zoom, this time it was we that attended virtually, which I find to be a fitting end to a tech class. I may have even been disappointed had we not had at least one class via Zoom to reaffirm this ability to have a synchronous classroom forum in times when getting together in the same physical space is challenging or impossible as an obvious benefit to using tech in the classroom. Although I could sense my eyes were tired by the end, I did find it easier to take notes during the class.

Gamification

The subject of today’s class was gamification, and, although I haven’t played many games, I was happy to hear when someone mentioned Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I also agree that gamification can take dry content and make it engaging to students. I have had many experiences in Japan relating to this very idea…

While a kindergarten teacher in Japan, my role was divided into two – a homeroom teacher during the day and an afterschool English teacher for graduates of the kindergarten in the afternoons. A lot of those students who came once a week to learn English, especially as they moved into the middle school and high school years, had so much regular school work to do, that they didn’t really care about learning English. If language is a tool for survival in a social setting, the students probably realized that there was no immanent need for English, as there was no one in their microsystem that required them to speak in English. This meant that my job wasn’t primarily about teaching English – it was about making the class environment enjoyable enough that the children wanted to be there. And what better way to do that than through games?

I used games to introduce content, do informal formative assessments during content, and informal summative assessments at the end of the content. I also came to the realization that games need to be used sparingly, or at least, not overused. For some classes, games became the carrot on the stick to get through content, or a way to manage classroom behaviour. Using games is such an easy way into the social world of the child, but the teacher always needs to be reflective and continually consider the cost/benefit of using games with particular students, particular subjects, and particular classrooms. The whole child always needs to be considered, as the whole child in relation to all the other whole children in the classroom and beyond into the macrosystem. But, for me, the point of using games was to make the classroom environment fun, engaging, with a space for natural consequences, teamwork, and life lessons.

(Image edited from this image)

Our guest today, Lara Kehler, talked about particular qualities that make a good game a good game – the game provides feedback, challenges are leveled and become increasingly more difficult, requiring more skill. This made me think of Csikszenmihalyi’s (2004) model of flow as related to challenge and ability. When the challenge is high and the ability is high, a person can reach a state of flow. And that is probably why children get so into games – they are experiencing flow, and it’s an experience that we naturally strive to return to. What we, as educators, as parents, should be cognizant of is that if video games are the only way a student/child can experience the flow state, of course they will use video games to seek the experience again and again. We may wish to ensure that there other outlets for students/children to experience flow.

Another interesting concept that our guest, Lara Kehler, briefly introduced was the term grit pathways, which I took to be related to perseverance, endurance, patience, goal-setting, bearing with and working through difficulties until success is gained. Again, I am reminded of Japan and two of the social values/qualities that are taught to Japanese children from a young age and into adulthood: 頑張る and 我慢; two values/qualities I wish Canadians would put to the forefront of our enacted values.

Other tech talked about in class that seemed appealing and that I will spend some time checking out over the break are:

Interland – a digital skills game with a Mario Bros-esque sound; Octalysis – a site that talks about the fundamentals of gamification; and, Lost Garden – a blog resource for game design theory.

EdCamp for EDCI 336 – a day to unconference.

Using miro.com as an online whiteboard, the members of our class typed in topics for conversation/exploration on digital sticky notes. After the topics were organized and sorted into themes, with digital stars, we each voted for the topics we wanted in the EdCamp discussions. Decolonizing learning; How to manage difficult behaviour; Unstructured play; Authentic community engagement for students; Tools for ELL students; and, Implementing inquiry programs in a public school were the six topics chosen.

With two twenty’ish minute timeslots and three session areas, we could choose to sit in one-to-three sessions per time slot. I stayed in one place for the duration of each timeslot: How to manage difficult behaviour during the first 20 minutes, and Implementing inquiry programs in a public school for the second 20 minutes.

Of course, this activity allowed everyone the opportunity to offer a topic for discussion; to democratically vote on which six topics would become the EdCamp; we were given autonomy to join whichever discussion we wanted to – and we could stay or topic-hop, however we pleased.

This activity reminds me of Piaget’s theoretical process of assimilation and accommodation, which is, as well, connected to the importance of play. As we are given, or experience, new information, our brains need to sort, code, and connect this information to prior knowledge, or existing schema. The more we are able to play with that new information, the more connections that piece of information develops to the prior knowledge or existing schema. This discussion activity allows us to explain what we know, listen to the perspectives of others, and ask questions to invite further discussion, and ultimately, play with ideas. This type of activity could a great way to do formative assessment at any time of a unit, and I imagine with some parameters and expectations laid out, it could be used for summative assessment as well.

I WILL do this type of activity during my practicum, but I imagine I won’t use the computers to organize it. I seem to recall two comments in class about the benefits of using the miro.com app being: the ease of privacy and, not needing to waste resources (i.e. paper, pens, etc.). I agree with the privacy aspect. It was very easy to type in a topic and vote on a topic while remaining anonymous. With some easy planning however, this level of privacy could also be done with paper, albeit with a slightly longer process. But I would also argue that if we want, for example, governments or corporations to become more transparent, practicing transparency from a young age might assist in our transparency endeavours. By practicing openness, as a society, we may shift our trajectory to becoming more open.

The other point, which seems to get overlooked, especially when we’re talking about technology, is one that a lot of people seem to overlook, or want to overlook…

While I understand the argument that using paper-based post-it notes may, in fact, perpetuate a culture of one-time use/waste, I don’t think post-it note companies are cutting down old growth forests so that we can jot down ideas. To make computers, however, there does seem to be a lot of mining going on all over the planet (and hopes of mining beyond our planet). There are also a lot of factories in Asia where employees aren’t making a wage that reflects the market value of the product they are assembling.

But, I don’t know. Maybe the big tech companies, the social media companies, and the governments that glean from everyone are right: continue buying. It seems slightly ironic though, that using tech for privacy concerns, such as voting for a topic of discussion in a university classroom with adults who are going to become future teachers of our children is more important than the privacy concerns of GPS always knowing where you and your phone are, of having all of your photos, videos, chats, preferences, etc. stored in a server for future use. But again, maybe I just don’t know. Overall though, it was a great Friday afternoon discussion with peers, and a much needed activity.

This past week our guest was Meghan Carrico, who is an online inquiry teacher for Island Discovery Community, a school operated through qathet School District, District 47. Meghan seems to have a long history with alternative forms of education, as she, herself, attended, what became, Windsor House School, an alternative school eventually adopted by the North Vancouver School District. Having experienced both alternative and public schools as a student, a teacher, and a principal, Meghan is now an alternative education consultant and a teacher of inquiry in an online forum. Meghan was very passionate as she described her interactions with the education system.

She shared her screen and us brought us through her Google Drive, as she explained her day-to-day experiences of using inquiry to work with students in an online classroom. (With the permission of her students) we were able to see a few assignments, what discussion forums looked like, and how she assessed student learning. Within her Google Drive there were a few intriguing resources of which I hope to receive at some point. For now, however, I will settle with the list of resources offered on her personal web page.

Especially for an online class but also as a supplement to a face-to-face classroom, I really like how organized Google Classroom. Meghan walked us through her dashboard and folders, and it seemed extremely user-friendly. I have yet to use Google Classroom, but I can see myself using it with grade 4/5s and up, sparingly at first and increasing use as the students get older.

That the COVID global pandemic is still fresh in our minds, I think it would be beneficial to have an online forum always present, so that, if ever the transition to online learning needs to happen, it can happen smoothly with everyone understanding how to use/access the forum.

Again, I am not a huge proponent of completely online, or even mostly online, but because we are responsible for ensuring students practice the skills they need, having some online presence makes sense to me.