Module 4

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1. What would you say was your key defining ICT quality when you filled out the questionaire?

I would say my biggest ICT quality coming into this class was my willingness to stay open-minded and to become more connected in social and digital media.  Like many others, I am quite overwhelmed as well but the willingness and positivity toward ICT development and improving my connected-self is still inside me and I am enjoying my journey because I am learning so much!

How were you ideas about ICT in school settings influenced by “Why School”

My views of ICT in schools was quite negative before reading this book.  My biggest issues were, and still are to some degree, funding and time.  I came into this class wanting to know everything possible about digital literacy in schools so I can become the person students come to in the library for help with all technology and I still feel this way.  But considering everything we have learned already in one week, I am worried that I will never have the time to teach all of these thing.  After reading the book, I realized this isn’t going to happen overnight and that I just need to do as much as I can to incorporate digital literacy into my teaching whenever possible.  The other issue I have is funding. How are we going to be able to afford all of this new technology to improve digital equity in schools.  I learned from Richardson that the only way to be hear is to “scream” and get administration and the community involved.  This is exactly what we did at our school this last year and received a $4500 grant from our district for technology. With this money we purchased a 3D printer and 12 mini ipads for the library learning commons, which I am so excited about!

3. When you think about the cognitive, cultural, and technological dimensions of our connected selves, what stands out?

I still struggle with these terms and what they mean for me.  What I got from our lesson was that cognitive is everything that goes on inside you, cultural means what is going on among all entities, and technology is always changing because of the cognitive and cultural.  I feel you must have a confident and positive cognitive connected-self in order to want to use technology and become involved in the cultural dimension.

4. How do you define technology and information literacy today?

I have been using the “media smarts” website to define all types of literacy for myself.  I find it to be very clear in explaining the differences and the connectives between them.  www.mediasmarts.ca

5. What conceptual developments will I take away from this class as I move forward?

I feel the biggest concept I will take away from this class is the need to be and stay connected and to continue to teach digital and social connections and literacy skills to my students because no matter the obstacles (funding, time etc), education is moving in the direction of inquiry and technology, so we must all continue to evolve with the changes.

6. What inquiry topics am I considering for next week?

Because inquiry has become a major goal at my school, I plan on focusing on inquiry-based learning and technology next week. I want to see how I can become involved in these inquiry projects as TL.

 

Module 3 Information Literacy and Technology

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First off, I would like to thank Michelle for introducing us to “Media Smarts” today in the discussion form. It really helped me understand the definition of information literacy and digital literacy and their connection to technology.  I learned that the competencies for digital literacy can be broken up into three principles: use, understand and create.  “Use” represents the “technical fluency” needed to engage with computers and the internet; from things like the basic know-how to the more sophisticated abilities for accessing and using resources like search engines and online databases.  “Understand” are the skills that allow us to “comprehend, contextualize, and critically evaluate digital media,” so we can make informed decisions about what we find online. Understanding also includes “recognizing how networked technology affects our behavior and our perceptions, beliefs and feelings about ourselves and the world around us”–the cognitive and cultural dimensions of the connected-self.  Finally, “create” means to produce and communicate content effectively through different digital media tools such as blogs, discussion forums, tweets, photo and video sharing, etc. Being able to create digital media means that we are active contributors to digital society.

By engaging in blogging, forum posts, tweeting and pearltrees we are definitely being active contributors but I came to the realization today that these contributions do not come without hurdles. For example, when I tried to download the twitter app and the pearltree app to my ipad today, I couldn’t because my husband had changed the password and I did not have enough experience with the ipad to figure out how to reset it. Then, I found the wifi connection to be extremely slow today as well.  So, I immediately started thinking, “if I am running into these problems, what’s to say that my students won’t encounter these problems when I try to introduce these new types of digital media to them?” Not only that, I only have a total of 15 desktop computers and 10 mini ipads, how am I going to facilitate a class of 30 students?

This thought brought me back to “Why School” and the importance of “screaming” and getting administration and community members involved and demanding that more changes be made to facilitate technological equity in our schools.

Module 2 “Why School?”

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Will Richardson makes some interesting points in his book, “Why School?” comparing “Old School” and “New School” ideas.  He explains how, traditionally, school has been a place you go from September to June, to sit in a classroom with your peers and “learn” information (course content) from your teacher.  Then you memorized the information and are tested to see what you know.  He goes on to explain the up side and down side of this traditional schooling and introduces a “new school” approach, in order to evolve education to include the abundance of technology out there.

Some of the questions that arose for me while reading were: is education in our schools “evolving” fast enough?, going forward, do we not need to keep a mix of both old school and new school education? and finally, how do we address the lack of equity in our schools when it comes to technology?

Richardson points out that change in schools has been and continues to be very slow and gradual.  I feel that schools are not evolving fast enough to keep up with the rapid constant changes in technology.  As a result, for the time being, we need to continue to mix old school and new school techniques and ideas.  Especially since standardized testing still exists; which in turn, inhibits us as teachers, from completely changing our forms of assessment to fit what Richardson feels is the ideal way to assess 21st century learners.

He exclaims that “the world doesn’t care about what you know, the world cares about what you do with what you know.”  So, we need to get away from those “googleable” questions on tests and include more thought provoking, critical thinking, inquiry questions. In fact, my school starting to move toward these “new school” ideas by creating a grade 8 inquiry cohort for this September, where the social studies, english, science, and math teachers will work together to create inquiry projects that will incorporate all 4 subjects to get students working together to answer “real world” questions that relate to their everyday lives. I will also be involved as the TL who will make our library into more of a “learning commons” to facilitate inquiry. I have already begun to do this, by purchasing 10 new mini ipads for the library and by creating more information literacy activities, to make the students more technologically literate (this is one way I plan on increasing technological equity in my school).

This new cohort will address the idea of “the connected-self,” by forming more connections with teachers and students within the school, and also building connections in the local community as well as the global community.

 

 

Module 1 questionaire

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1. What policies govern your uses of ICT in your school setting?

-as far as I know, the only formal policies that we have, are written in the school agenda.  They include things like no plagiarism and using information from the internet “responsibly.”

2. What digital technological resources do you have available for teaching and learning in your school setting?

-every classroom has 1 computer for the teacher and a digital project.

-our library has 11 desktop computers and has just purchased 10 mini ipads.  Our 2 computer labs have roughly 25 working desktops each and we have also just purchased a 3D printer.

3. Please provide an example of an exemplary use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally.

-past students in one of our technology classes created a video game that was published and was also reviewed by a video game review company.  This was a great accomplishment for these 2 young students.

4. Please provide an example of a problematic use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally.

-well technical difficulties like downloading videos from youtube is always a pain.  Wifi also seems to go down too often at our school. Finally, the misuse of phones and other personal devices by students causes teachers to become very frustrated as well.  I do allow students to use their electronic devices for research but I continue to see this privilege being abused.

5. Please provide a brief history of how you learned to use digital technologies (personally and professionally).

-most of what I learned was through pro-d opportunities and from our “tech guy” holding short workshops on how to use different technologies

6. How would you rate your digital technological proficiency? 0 = low level of proficiency -> 10 = high level of proficiency? Why did you give yourself this rating?

-at this point, I would say 6 because I have learned a lot in the past year working in the library but when I go to different workshops I realize just how much I do not know and need to learn.

7. What do you hope to accomplish in this course?

 -I hope to gain as much digital literacy as possible so I can enhance the learning of my students, especially in the library.