Month: November 2023

As I have taken this course, I have also begun my first semester in the secondary PDPP teaching program. Most of my classes are discussion-based and they are with the same 30-60 people and it has changed the way I experience university. Being able to have a network of knowledgeable people in my life has made learning more fun to begin, but also so much more rich and engaging. Learning is most likely going to happen when the learners’ emotions are into it, this is why people learn best from people they respect and find easy engagement with. Here are a few reasons why I’ve found my PLN to be successful.  

Multiple Perspectives 

Throughout our elementary and secondary school years, we have been placed in classes with people who are the same age as us and usually, are growing up in the same neighbourhood as us. Students are only exposed to what they know and nothing more. The internet has changed this, kids are able to see what life is like in a different continent if they so wish, however, the difference is multiple perspectives are needed in the learning environment as well as the leisure environment. When we all came to university, it was the first time, for me personally, that I was in a room with hundreds of people with diverse backgrounds and unique perspectives. Unfortunately most first and second, sometimes third and fourth depending on the subject area year courses are solely lecture-based. All of these people are learning only one perspective whereas in a discussion-based class, students learn less content, but they understand it from multiple perspectives. To me, in my Arts background, this is more valuable knowledge than the sheer amount of things I can know at a shallow level. Basically, quality of knowledge (quality being depth of processing, various perspectives learned) over quantity of information stored. 

In my program I am constantly learning from people who took different undergrads than me, grew up in a different province or country from me, have diverse abilities, have families, have already had a whole career, and the list could go on, but the point is, since most of my classes are discussion based, I am constantly learning so much from my colleagues as their perspectives are not something I could ever conceive of myself. This is why having a personal learning network is so important if you are someone who is committed to lifelong learning and growth. 

Emotional Connection

Think of all the stories you remember from your childhood or the weird science facts you still remember, maybe it’s the significance behind a famous painting or the unit that you failed in math, you remember these things because there was an emotion attached to it. When you learn something and have an emotion at the same time, the hippocampus (the memory part of the brain) lights up at the same time as the amygdala (the emotional part of the brain) making the memory more effective. This is why we remember things our favourite teacher taught us, or we remember the unit we struggled the most with in science. An emotional connection does not need to be deep, there just needs to be mutual respect and a safe environment. I have been lucky enough to get to know my colleagues outside of the classroom as well which has strengthened the connection. Teachers can also strengthen the connection they have with their students by creating lessons that represent the students’ interests, telling students we care about them and want them to succeed, and being reasonable with classroom rules and consequences. I once had a professor say that the three R’s of teaching are Relationships! Relationships! Relationships! 

In my situation, a large percentage of my PLN was handed to me through my program, however when creating a PLN you are given the agency to choose who you want to learn from. You can seek out people you enjoy socially as well. Just because you are having fun doesn’t mean you’re not learning! If you are seeking out multiple perspectives too you might end up becoming friends with someone you never suspected, an added bonus. 

Accessibility

The final reason I believe my PLN has been successful is because we are all accessible to each other. We have “multimodal and interactive way[s] of communication” (Giudice, Peruta, Carayannis, 2014) for example, we have in-person discussions, and we use online tools like Discord and Instagram to communicate and help each other out. I had never used Discord until this semester and one thing I really like about it is how there can be multiple different conversations going on for different topics. It’s like a streamline to learning. There is a chat for my humanities curriculum class so if I had an interesting thought or question about that specific topic I could throw it in the chat and either have a conversation with them through Discord or also arrange a time to chat about it in person. When building a PLN I learnt that both online and in-person communication are extremely valuable. 

Final Thoughts 

Overall, I found this class to highlight a lot of really important topics that I will hopefully be able to teach my students. I am glad that I understand what a personal learning network is and realize that I am able to learn from all of the people around me! I started off this course with a pessimistic view of how social media can be a useful tool in the classroom but I do feel like I have come around and seen a different perspective on them. I enjoyed having a mini PLN to discuss the week’s topics with and being able to read everyone’s blog posts. All of it contributed to my learning. 

Source: Chapter 5. From Information Society to Network Society: The Challenge

By Alec Couros and Katia Hildebrandt

978-3-319-02490- 5_5.pdf (springer.com)

Media literacy is an extremely important skill to have and as an educator, it is my job to teach students how to develop and strengthen their media literacy. According to Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel, media literacy allows students to “understand how to best apply the media resources available for learning, and to use media creation tools to create compelling and effective communication products such as videos, audio podcasts, and Web sites” (2009). Media literacy is extremely important because, in the “age of knowledge” as Trilling and Fadel refer to it, people are being overexposed to information which can create a cognitive overload resulting in no information being processed, and can also lead to misinformation being consumed. In fact, this is such an important skill to have that it can be implemented into all three core competencies of the B.C. curriculum. 

The first core competency is Communication. Much of our communication in the 21st century involves technology. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in online communication and professionalism becoming a required skill to have a job. Just as we learnt how to behave in the classroom in schools, students are being taught about how to behave in Zoom meetings. In order to fulfill the communication competency students should know how to communicate information effectively online, and how to build and maintain professional online relationships. 

The second core competency is Thinking. It is split into two interrelated sub-competencies, creative thinking and critical and reflective thinking. Media literacy falls under both of these. Technology and media have loads of capacity for creativity, you just need to understand how to use the resources efficiently and effectively. In order to get students to tap into their creative sides, educators should be able to teach students about resources like Twine, Procreate, Coolors, Screencasting, and so many more. Students should both be taught how to work efficiently with these tools, but also be offered the time to explore the tools for themselves and learn how they best work with these tools. Media literacy and critical thinking go hand in hand. Students need to understand that no text is neutral. Everything they see on the internet has an author and it has a purpose. Critical thinking skills will allow students to ask questions like Who is posting this? What is their source? Do they have a bias? What perspective are they coming from? Do more people think this, if so do they have anything in common? These lines of questions are often taught in English classes when analyzing a text, however students need to start incorporating these skills into their daily lives as texts are constantly all around them. 

The third core competency is Personal and Social. It is split into three interrelated sub-competencies, personal awareness and responsibility, positive personal and cultural identity, and social awareness and responsibility. This is where students are learning the more subtle skills they might not necessarily pick up on or categorize as learning. These are things like learning Zoom etiquette through observing others or drafting school / work-appropriate emails and texts. Students should also be taught about how media affects their personal lives in regards to targeted ads, cookies, having an online image, and many other nuances. Students have a responsibility to themselves, and to their community to only share information they believe to be true and to not spread misinformation. Being personally and socially aware also means being able to stand up for yourself and others, so understanding the exchange of information that happens when you sign up for things. Something as benign as Google Classroom can take students to search history once the teacher has accepted the terms and agreements. 

Overall, media literacy is a very important skill for educators to be teaching their students. If we do not, we are not successfully following the core competencies. Students need to be taught the skills they will need in a life that is saturated with information. 

Source:

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times

Bernie Trilling; Charles Fadel

The idea of using social media as a learning tool is great in theory. Social Learning Theory says that we learn better with and from others. According to Vygotsky, knowledge is socially constructed, therefore, social media should be a gold mine in creating knowledgeable students. Social Media has gotten a bad rep in the education world due to the lack of knowledge surrounding it in early years, as well as the lack of regulations for kids and students. Cyberbullying became a massive issue as students were able to hide behind usernames and screens. There was also no reprieve from the bullying, as social media was a constant between home and school. Because of these consequences,when social media was first introduced, educators and school admin were adamant that it was negatively affecting not only the learners, but the learning environment. In my personal experience, the wifi at my highschool had all social media apps blocked from the server. This was the school’s attempt at stopping students from using social media, but as you could have guessed, it did not work. Students used VPN’s to get around the blocked servers and social media use was still going on outside of school hours. Based on what we know about social learning theory, hopefully there is a way in which educators can use social media to their advantage. 

The BC curriculum has 7 Core Competencies that teachers are required to teach their students. Of the seven, 3 fall under the Personal and Social branch. These include, personal awareness and responsibility, positive personal and cultural identity, and social awareness and responsibility. Before using social media to teach these 3 competencies, we need to dial it back a bit and teach students what it means to have personal and social awareness. We need to teach students how to use social media responsibly in a way that engages their personal and social awareness. One way that I would suggest doing this is having your students create a twitter or instagram account specifically for this class. For the duration of the semester, students are only allowed to have the class follow them, making the accounts a class community. There could be mini-assignments throughout the term like asking students to create a post sharing their opinion on the short story we read in class, or creating an online activist poster for an issue that resonates with them. This way you can teach students the benefits of using social media as a learning platform while also being able to monitor it. By the end of the term students will also have the beginnings of their own personal learning network! I am excited to try this out in my classroom one day! 

Overall, social media definitely has its pros and cons when it comes to using it in schools and for educational contexts’, however, if we are able to teach our students how to engage with social media in a responsible way, the pros can outweigh the cons. Students need to be taught about their personal and social awareness as well as how to engage critically with what they are being shown online. If students can grasp this, then the possibilities are endless for learning through social media! 

Sources: 

Chapter 9 Designing for Open and Social Learning

by Alec Couros and Katia Hildebrandt

https://vut.oer4pacific.org/id/eprint/12/1/Emergence_and_Innovation_in_Digital_Learning.pdf#page=159

https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies