Week 2 began with examining how students use technology and wifi as the media for self expression. Federman talks about the consequences of media/new technology as new changes and the cause/effect of technology. Do we consider the effects of technology on students and learning, or do we react after the fact? Times have changed for me! When I first started teaching middle years and high school, student were introduced to the social we and instant messaging (hi5, beboo), then fast forward to today and Web 2.0 platforms (facebook, tiktok) with its instant text/image/video communication capabilities.
Can we train students, subtly and over time, to adopt technology as the media for learning? To create the structure/context that technology can be the media to express one’s perspectives and worldview in the academic context will require educators to model that process. I share my M.Ed journey with my students, all the challenges of remote/on line learning and the effect that technology and the web on my achievement. I changed my learning mode to participate in online classes out of necessity and accommodation – not by personal choice because of my comfort level with technology. By modelling change with my students and colleagues has helped me understand how technology has changed my world. Creating the space for technology assisted learning, with all its connectivity and applications, can effect change from social web to web 3.0 (AI, dApps, the Cloud) integration. Educators (like me) are the role models and the more we embrace technology in the classroom, we can exercise power in how its applied. Thank you for reading!
Mrs. Ramona Alexson 
Hi Ramona. I enjoyed reading your thoughts about week 2! I think it is great how you are modeling and sharing your experience with your students. I am curious, what is the one thing you have enjoyed about incorporating technology into your teaching?
LikeLike
At the beginning of this school year, I assessed my own computer literacy skills and realized that I possess “most” of them: production, processing, creating, communiations, applications, etc. Where I think I fall short is my interest level and “old school” methods of teaching. If it’s not broken, it doesn’t need fixing right? Quick story: I referenced Snapchat in an ELA lesson, to have my students roll through the writing process. Their final edition/published piece was to use Snap AI to finalize their conversation. It was interesting to see the engagement. I like to see the connection that we can make between computer tech/apps and life. Letting my students choose their Snapchat conversation gave them choice/freedom to speak. I guided them to find non-fiction topics in their conversations (that’s where Snap AI came into the lesson). I like that technology still lets me be me! That I don’t have to change my style of communication and approaches to teaching but can let technology enhance their learning.
LikeLike
I struggle with this a lot, and I ‘ve come to the conclusion that it is nearly impossible to be knowledgeable on every single platform, app, or trend. I think this points to us teaching students a more general skill set for media literacy that can then be adapted to the current “new thing”. In much the same way that there was a push way back to teach people “how to learn” rather than intricacies that quickly become obsolete, we will need to impart how to evaluate the usefulness and trustworthiness of new technologies. In many ways the deck is steeply stacked against us – just as I was getting comfortable discussing how to cross reference sources with students, suddenly A.I. comes onto the scene and starts generating content with only a few prompts. Once again the status quo is changing and we’re going to have to pivot and adapt.
LikeLike