So much spinning around in my brain stemming from this course:
Thought #1: On the first day we had an interesting conversation about teachers being present professionally online. Or how we aren’t but should be. This conversation has also arisen with a colleague and I a few weeks ago. My colleague had mentioned to our police liaison officer that he has no online presence at all. The officer was shocked and suggested that my colleague should have a presence in order to build a positive profile and to better be able to see if someone was building a profile without his knowing it.
Take away: -Build a better professional presence online in order to protect myself and stay aware of any negative uses of my name online.
-Encourage my students to do the same for themselves. Make them aware of the consequences of having a negative online profile (reduced educational and employment opportunities).
Darren Laur -white hat creeper -friends students in schools he is presenting at (shocking to students who he is in the end) -digital first responders
Thought #2: Jenny posted a response to my connected-self and culture post by asking me to think a bit deeper about how technology affects the learning process and ourselves. From this I have been thinking about how much online learning I have been doing for this program but often feeling a bit empty about my learning. As a very social being who processes information better when it has been delivered within a face to face format I have struggled with the online only aspect of my T-L diploma courses. As a result of this experience I have vowed to seek out a Masters program that is cohort based as opposed to on your own and delivered online. My most enjoyable learning experience has been as a cohort. Leaves me to my own conclusion that I need to remember that technology is a tool for education facilitation but may not be the best mode for actual delivery.
The other positive that comes from face to face learning is the idea of personal connections. Face to face interactions are more meaningful and will result in better longterm professional connections that are then strengthened and maintained through technology. i.e. Teacher-librarians use twitter to stay connected once they have all meet and formed a hashtag for their group. 😉
Take away:
-What research exists about cohort and face to face models of education that incorporate and utilize technology versus technology only based models of delivery?
-Face to face personal connections, in my opinion are more meaningful –> allows for conversations that spark more ideas. Why? Faster to say than type?
Thought #3: Time for technology?
Eking out time for learning about new technology, trying new technology, incorporating new technology, and managing technology within just our educational lives can be overwhelming.
How do we as educators set up the time within our busy work schedules to do this? What are some of the ways to find time for good technology integration?
I wonder if our lack of time is one of the reasons why teachers have not used technology in their professional spheres as much as other professions?
Take away: Set up a Pro-D group within my school that meets at specific intervals (once a week, every two weeks, once a month?) to explore a technology topic or program. Power in collaboration and socially networked learning (we could twitter with each other)
Thought#4: Information Literacy versus Digital Literacy
I view these two concepts as being very different. Info Literacy is the ability to recognize what information is needed for a specific task or purpose and all that is related to the process of finding that information. (search skills, determining reliability, determining usefulness of a source…)
I view Digital Literacy as being able to navigate (hopefully for critical purposes as well as entertainment) in a digitally based world. (using software, trouble shooting problems, knowing the uses of different devices, using social media, understanding tech vocabulary…)
Take away: As teachers we should all be trying to constantly improve our own digital literacy and to intentionally encourage digital literacy in our own students through our teaching practices.
As a teacher-librarian it is my task to specifically teach information literacy skills (these are our set of Learning Outcomes) but recognizing that these skills increasingly overlap with the digital world and require that students also have strong digital literacies.
Thought #5: Uses of Twitter in the classroom.
See blog post.
Thought #6: Bring your own devices? Use of cell phones and personal devices in the classroom and at school? Access to WiFi? Policy regarding these issues?
These questions all began rolling around in my head after day two conversations about the connected self and culture in relationship to education. If things are changing and we are expected to incorporate technology into our teaching practices we need to unlock the barriers to doing this. The first step is to ensure we have the tools to teach with technology in our hands. What is the best and most ethical way to get hardware in the hands of teachers and students? What is good policy regarding internet connections: speed, wifi, permissions? What policies exist in other places regarding these issues?
Questions that I would like to explore as a potential final project topic because in my school is complaining about but not talking about these issues. I feel that doing my research on this could bring information to the table from which we can begin a discussion at my school.
Feeback via Twitter hashtag and blog forum
Thought #7: Appreciation for this method of learning and to at least participate in it as an ideal model of what learning should look like. Now if only UBC could adopt the Pass/Fail model that SFU has.
You brought up such an interesting topic about our online presence. I was really reluctant to start my Twitter page with my name on it. Being a shy person, the thought of being judged by the world just seemed scary to me. However, never even considered that someone could create a presence for me. Thanks for sharing that!
I agree that being face to face is very valuable. one thought I had for students is that by having them work in groups to prepare a presentation with only one device between them they have to interact and are not silently looking at their individual screens.
You have so many juicy thoughts and take-aways, I could comment for Gigabytes 🙂 When you said it in class, and reading it again here, I completely agree with you regarding face-to-face learning. Perhaps concept comprehension, and yes talking vs. typing collaboration, is stronger and more attainable through the personal, in the flesh. It’s a process being reinforced through this class, and what we should remember to facilitate into our own practice. Learning takes time, and immediate response for many, clarifies and assists. I think that ICT is essential for Information Literacy, as you defined, being that “we carry the sum of human knowledge in our pockets” (2012, Richardson), we best ensure students learn how to navigate, seek, question, synthesize and more. However, I don’t know if I can separate information literacy so clearly from digital literacy. If students are selecting a current event to process and share, aren’t these also found through digital as well as print? Isn’t the header, the layout, the advertisements surrounding the article all modes of construction in print as well as digital? Critical and visual literacy are required throughout the process of most information literacy whether it be print or digital, and what about the necessary literacy of processing the masses of information that are communicated and internalized through the social, such as social media and digital forums? I think you make excellent distinctions between digital and informational literacy, it’s just that the complexities and interconnection of them make such a division a challenge cognitively and culturally in the classroom.
I would love to see a grass-roots teacher effort to occupy online social spaces with productive educational discussions. Not only would you each be in a better position to protect your own good names, but you would be in a better position to articulate public perceptions of teachers and teaching.
With regards to online learning, there is statistical evidence that it is more difficult to complete online, individual courses than classroom based courses. That said, if online courses were designed to build collaborative social relationships as an essential aspect of the learning process, especially if there were intermittent opportunities for face to face encounters, these statistics could probably be changed significantly.
If we consider our lives as inseparable from technological phenomena, and our need to be sophisticated users of digital technologies in order to provide leadership to burgeoning knowledge era society – how does that change the ‘time to do this’ argument? I mean, what are we putting our time into, if we aren’t putting it into become leaders of the next generation of digital tech-savvy citizens?