Structures Module Walkthrough

After endless hours of creating, I have finally completed my Structures and Materials Grade 3 unit!

Prior to creating this module I completed a course profile which outlined the format, outcomes, materials, assessments, and student considerations. I then planned my assessments using a Gradual Release of Responsibility Model. I had originally planned for this to be a simple sequence of lessons, but as I got into my creation, I ended up creating 8 lessons. To be clear, I understand this is not what was required, but having this planned means I can share with my new teachers and have the unit ready to teach when I’m back in the classroom.

Each lesson follows the format below:

Teacher materials with outcomes and indicators

Student materials with I can statements

Each Slides presentation begins with an overview video recorded using Screencastify. The teacher material has a video explaining the lesson, materials, and important discussion points. The student assignment video goes through each of the slides, how to do them, and how to click on the links to access resources. I have audio recorded, using Cloud Audio Recorder, all instructions on the teacher material and student assignments to increase accessibility for all students. This was inspired by my reflection on my classmate feedback.

Technology

For this age range of learners, I felt it was important to scaffold the use of new technology, and limit the use of technology just to use technology. The technology I used to create my module are:

Watch the video below for an in depth walk through of my unit (I would recommend watching at 1.25 or 1.5 speed as my video is 15 minutes!):

If you want to check out the modules on Google Classroom, enter the class code dh533k7 or visit this link to join!

I hope you enjoy the module, let me know in the comments if you have any feedback or questions!

Happy Teaching,

Leah

To Post or Not to Post

The first time I felt fear about using technology in the classroom was at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year. We were told our return to school plan included live streaming of our classrooms, while supporting both our in person and online students, while creating assignments for both. There were a variety of issues that concerned teachers with this plan:

  1. Student privacy in the classroom
  2. Teacher being monitored by parents at all times
  3. Recording of students and teachers
  4. Creating both in person resources and online resources
  5. Not having adequate technology in the classroom to support this

As a result, many teachers within Prairie South wrote letters to the members of our Board of Education. The Board then decided to launch a Virtual School, two days before in-person learning began. I immediately phoned and applied to be a part of the Virtual School. I loved technology before, but this opportunity developed my skills in creating online content. Throughout this semester, I see that while I developed more skills, I could have developed my students skills more than I planned for. With this comes some other ethical implications.

Lovepreet’s article Ethics of Teaching with Social Media states that

When we ask our students to tweet, blog, post, share, or co-construct their texts with the rest of the class, we are asking them to perform in public or semi-public arenas. In this situation we are faced with the ethical question of whether this practice is caring for the identity of our students. How can we promise students that their digital footprint (online conversations, interactions, personal details) will be confined to the classroom context?

Henderson, Auld & Johnson

I think back to the assignments students created, and if those platforms were confined to the classroom. For my grade 3 students, I used mostly used Flipgrid and Google Slides. I feel confidant that this will be confined to the classroom. However, if I had students create their own blogs, this would be a much greater concern. If I were to do this I would want to have parental involvement and control. Having parents informed on the learning benefits, access to the content, and awareness would be important. This would include possibly a pseudonym, no images of the students, and comments disabled to prevent cyberbullying (as described in Shristy’s article). I feel like this would protect my students privacy while engaging in classroom based online communities. This would be one way to navigate introducing students to creating content in a controlled manner. The chart from Dylan’s article this week Chapter 2: Beware: Be Aware – The Ethical Implications of Teachers Who Use Social Networking Sites (SNSs) to Communicate has a great table that outlines the ethical considerations in K-12 settings:

Through this class I have been exploring using TikTok and Twitter. I wrote previously about how previous students found me on TikTok. Under the “Privacy & data security” section, I liked the option of having two profiles- one private and one public. I have followed this model, having my Twitter and TikTok as public life, and my Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat as my private life. I feel like this has worked for me, as even on my private accounts, I’m not much of a sharer!

Privacy and the permanence of a digital footprint are concerning for everyone. I think that introducing students to strategies to keep their identities safe, and be responsible digital citizens is the first step we need to take as educators!

Happy Teaching,

Leah

A Day in the Life of Mrs. Cheese Robot Lady

When I was visiting a classroom this week for a literacy lesson, a student called me, “Mrs. Cheese Robot Lady”, and I loved it. So yes, I am Mrs. Cheese Robot Lady.

Chris’ article this week “A Reminder that ‘Fake News’ is an Information Literacy Problem- Not a Technology Problem” resonated with me in the part that writes:

Most importantly, in the eyes of the Valley, every problem can be solved exclusively through technology without requiring society to do anything on its own. A few algorithmic tweaks, a few extra lines of code and all the world’s problems can be simply coded out of existence

Kalev Leetaru

With such a large part of my position revolving around technology, I do have a bias about the benefits of technology. Even planning Professional Development Opportunity on Outcome Based Practices in High School, as Learning Consultants we talked about the ease of setting up your My School Sask gradebook to match outcome based practices.

When teaching Digital Citizenship I make sure to talk about the language of coding, media, algorithmic data, cookies, and problem solving. The images below is how I often introduce coding to students. I’d like to build a lesson on how monitoring and checking your coding is related to literacy.

In the Classroom

Two weeks ago I was able to go into Bart’s class to teach Digital Citizenship. We looked at how influencers may try to manipulate our emotions or stage an apology. In the future I’d like to add a section on misinformation and mal-information from Holly’s reading “Fighting Fake News in the Classroom”. The article shares tips for Informational Literacy:

  1. Check your emotions
  2. Use Google News
  3. Reverse image search
  4. Look for the checkmark (verified)
  5. Know there is trustworthy information
  6. Identify the source
  7. Check Wikipedia
  8. Keep a list
  9. Leave the page
  10. Look for existing fact-checks

Thank you do whomever in our class posted this Cybersleuthing Activity, I think this would be an excellent way to get students involved in digital identity creation. I would have them research themselves first before passing judgement on another persons.

It’s My Life 🎵

In my own media consumption, I generally stick to the same news sources that are admittedly more left leaning. If I see someone has posted an article on social media, I will often read it then search the topic and observe the headlines to check for biases. If I see conflicting headlines I will read from well-known sources and compare the information found. To decide which headline is true, I will compare the commonalities to form my opinion.

Most often I lean towards doubt when presented with an extremist article, statistic, or headline. I try to identify how the article is trying to make me feel, if it is trying to persuade me to be overly emotional, I need to investigate why. If there are lots of statistics, I generally think it is rooted in reality. A fault of mine is assuming that because it is shared on Facebook, it doesn’t mean it is false as Amanpreet’s reading investigates. I have also resisted deleting people from social media based on what they post, as to not create an echo-chamber for myself. This is what I find the most difficult.

I’ll admit like other classmates (thanks Brenda) that my news consumption affects my own mental health. However in order to have respectful dialogue, I have to know the facts. It’s is valuable modelling to say, “I don’t know enough about this topic yet to form an opinion”. We don’t have to be the expert, we do have to be capable of finding them. More often than not, the truth about an author is just a few clicks away!

Happy Teaching,

Leah

Time for TikTok Update

Privacy

Screenshot from TikTok

For the purposes of this class I kept my profile as “public”. I also want to continue keeping it as public if I want to use this as a tool to promote myself. I’ve leaned more into the social part of TikTok, rather than using it as an educational tool. I’m not using a pseudonym, as I usually do for my “private” social media, and already have previous students following me under their own pseudonyms. Normally I do not accept any student requests (even after they are long graduated), so this has been very different. However, I plan on using my Twitter and TikTok as a reflection of my teaching practice, using Twitter as an informational piece and TikTok as a curated version of my personal life that can showcase my humor. I love to bring my dog into every lesson I can, and can see using these videos as “attention grabbers” and to share my life with students in a controlled manner as a relationship building.

Digital Literacy

TikTok has an account named TikTok Tips which states, “We’re on a mission to promote privacy, safety, and positive vibes!”. There are many videos I could use as an introduction to Digital Literacy, but they do not provide in depth exploration. It is interesting to note that the videos that are educational (and longer- +1 min) on this channel have about 18-43k views , whereas the more humorous videos (and shorter) have up to 1.5 billion views. Engagement on shorter videos is increased, which lessens the opportunity for the video to provide meaningful education on a topic.

Engagement in verticals also increases the chances of reaching a larger audience. So people who are not seeking digital literacy opportunities will not likely be exposed to it through their TikTok algorithm. It is clear even though I’m beginning my TikTok journey, that the videos of my dog got much more engagement (1482 views) than my teacher-related content (15-328 views)

I did have to spend time engaging in content to correct my algorithm. I spent a little too much time if I’m being honest. In fact, it may be my new favorite app. My next step is to test out more features such as duet (I want to replicate Christine’s lessons), stitch, and reactions.

Educational Application

Edutopia lists 3 suggestions for using TikTok in the classroom:

  1. Bite-sized lessons. I did test a plant adaptation video that would prevent me from dragging my house plants to class for a lesson. I would continue to create these quick engagement videos, but anything above 30 seconds would likely have the same affect as a Youtube video.
  2. Increasing participation. The examples given in the article are including TikTok in math equations.
  3. Connecting with students. I think this is the most impactful for humanizing teachers to students. It also seems to me the most natural progression as I continue on my TikTok journey.

I’ll be sure to update you on my feature testing!

Happy Teaching,

Leah

Media Literacy

I have a previous post that talks about my group’s discussion of Media Literacy in a post named “Emotional Damage”, please check that out! I had posted my blog response for the wrong week, oops.

For this week’s reflection, I want to look at our group’s Mentimeter results:

Word Cloud

Agreement Scales

Media literacy has many aspects that can contribute to confusion surrounding the final “definition”. As the Center for Media Literacy states,

Definitions, however, evolve over time and a more robust definition is now needed to situate media literacy in the context of its importance for the education of students in a 21st century media culture. 

Center for Media Literacy

I can see that even in this class we have a large definition for Media Literacy, as can be seen in our Word Cloud. There are few repetitions in our responses, although they all contribute equally to the evolution of Media Literacy. Of course, this Mentimeter was limited due to the 3 responses per participant and there are several synonyms in the Word Cloud. There are many responsibilities involved in Media Literacy whether we are consuming or creating content.

Gratefully, we live in a society where we do have the option of being Media Literate, we can now clearly see the effects of a government controlled media affecting the Putin Russian invasion. It is surreal to see war being played out on social media, and we can see journalists and citizens risking their lives in order to protest and share (mis)information.

In essence, my (shortened) view of literacy is being able to consume, comprehend, analyze, understand context and format, respond, and apply in different contexts. This means I can apply this to Mathematical Literacy, Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening Literacy, Science Literacy, and Physical Literacy (plus more!).

As Chris’ article is appropriately titled, “A Reminder That ‘Fake News’ Is An Information Literacy Problem – Not A Technology Problem”. This article investigates how anonymous posters are not examined for bias. It is interesting that reputable journalists, scientists, and experts are increasingly scrutinized but we still aren’t looking critically at all the media we consume. Our EC&I 832 class appears to agree in the Agreement Scales, as under the statement “journalists report facts” our class fell almost directly centered between strongly disagree and strongly agree.

Patricia’s article, The Challenge That’s Bigger Than Fake News, summarizes this sentiment:

Determining who’s behind information and whether it’s worthy of our trust is more complex than a true/false dichotomy

Sarah McGrew, Teresa Ortega, Joel Breakstone, Sam Wineburg

Bart’s article, What is Media Literacy and Why Does it Matter?, tells that Americans spend an average of 473 minutes each day consuming media. This highlights the increasing importance of Media Literacy.

Check out our groups video on Media Literacy for an introduction to Media Literacy and how to teach it to your students:

Thanks to Bart, Christine, and Patricia for creating this video with me!

I began my journey of teaching Media Literacy by introducing Digital Citizenship to Bart’s 7/8 class last week, check out the blog post for more information.

Happy Teaching,

Leah

Structures Reviewing the Reviewers

Hello everyone,

I’m going to be looking at the reviewer feedback on Module one a section at a time. To make it clear I’m going to post the reviewer’s comments as a quote in my blog and complete my reflections underneath. Let’s get to it!

Overall Comments

Because I am not familiar with google classroom (and I think other parents might be in my boat), I did not understand that the stream is just posts/comments at first, some have links, some don’t?!…it took me a minute…

Reviewer 1
Course Stream

Unfortunately, this reviewer missed the first Announcement in the Stream and proceeded the review through the stream, rather than through Classwork. Rather than seeing the course as is shown below, they viewed the course as was inserted/edited in Google Classroom. There’s not much else to say about this other than some user error. Does anyone else who uses Google Classroom have a suggestion to make it clear to head to Classwork? When I used Google Classroom with my Grade 3’s previously this had never been an issue.

AMAZING organization!

Very user friendly!!

Great job!

Reviewer 2

Very opposite reactions to the overall impressions/comments, but let’s continue with the reviews!

Feedback/Comments on the Course Shell

I think if the kids are familiar with google classroom, then they will probably have an easier time navigating and understanding it better than I did right off the start. She did give an overview of the lesson for structures she would teach, but the activity and lesson may be in the wrong order, maybe google classroom does this on purpose? There was a cute self assessment afterwards for module 1. The slides in the lesson seem well organized and she did put a lot of age appropriate thought and info into the lesson.  The objectives within the course lesson were not clearly stated, so as another teacher, I am not sure what the goal is except introductory conversation.  

Reviewer 1

Again, unfortunately, this reviewer did not use the LMS correctly, and didn’t proceed through Classwork or the other lessons beyond 1.1. As I reviewed others’ course units I saw that they had added the “I can” statements to the instructions, so I will definitely be adding that!

So easy to use! Everything is laid out so nicely it is very easy to work through! All the information is right there for students and students can click and get right to the task! It would also allow the teacher to stay very organized! I am not sure if this is an option on Google classroom and jamboard or maybe I just missed something… but if students were able to use a talk and text feature and hear audio questions it might be beneficial! I know it would be a challenge for some of my grade 3’s to read the questions and answer! Although I’m sure they could just set up a meeting time with you and ask you personally to read the questions!

Reviewer 2

I do introduce in the lesson video that students have access to Google Read and Write which uses the screen capture tool to read text on the screen, but I am definitely going to look into the option of adding audio into the Jamboard! I think this would be much easier than using their Read and Write extension. I’ll try to use Cloud Audio Recorder to do this.

Feedback/Comments on the Course Modules

Similar to what I stated above, if a child is familiar with google slides, it would probably go well.  It seems grade appropriate.  The lessons would be done via zoom, it is not recorded for students to watch on their own time.  Are the zoom meetings mandatory?  Will the lessons be recorded and posted? Is this course meant to be for kids who are in the class daily and we are just using google classroom, or is it meant for kids who are at home for whatever reason?It seems engaging for the students and like they would enjoy the conversation.  She does have a plan for feedback that seems appropriate for students and the students will connect with her through jamboard and a self reflection. The outcomes for the lesson are not stated in the course itself.  I don’t believe it is in the blog profile either.  The first introductory lesson in the blog states they are building newspaper towers, in google classroom, module 1 is to talk about structures.

Reviewer 1
Course Profile– Where it addresses Reviewer 1’s Zoom Question
Course Profile– Where it states the outcomes

I believe that Reviewer 1 looked at my second post about the Structures Module, rather than the Course Profile. These questions are all addressed in my Course Profile, so I’m wondering if I accidentally sent them the wrong link!

I think this is extremely age appropriate, simple yet engaging! The entire unit is interactive and accessible to do at home or in class if necessary. All elements are present and could be adapted by educators to hit into their teaching styles. 

Reviewer 2

Again, we have two very opposite reviews! I do appreciate that they believe it can be done at home or in class. While I was creating this I was thinking of a previous grade 3 class I taught, but simultaneously hoping this could be used in class for when I’m back in the classroom. I hadn’t really thought about other educator’s teaching styles, and now I’m wondering if giving some lesson options would further help educators fit this into their teaching style if I were to post this on TPT.

Feedback/Comments on the Course Profile

I think the profile was well thought out but very wordy.  I think as a teacher it would have been good to have some point forms in there for easy reading and getting to the point.  I had to scroll back up and read a bit to find out which grade this was for. It is well organized and the rationale seems to fit the age groupings.  I do wonder though if the school is providing the materials for the activities or if students are expected to find newspapers and such at home.

The modules do not seem to line up with the modules listed.  Maybe a list of modules and how they fit into the overall theme would be helpful to connect the two.

Reviewer 1

As I stated above, I think this reviewer looked at my update to my course profile, rather than my Course Profile.

Lists of assessments throughout the Module on the Course Profile. Does anyone know why this posted without spaces?

I do have a list of materials in my Course Profile as well. Students are expected to have the following materials for the unit:

I do expect students to find these materials, as it was told to parents by our division that they were responsible for providing students with learning materials if they choose to enroll their student in our Virtual School. However, I did have some students who didn’t have access to materials. In the future I would ask parents if they need support finding the supplies in my weekly emails and mail out supplies to students as needed out of my classroom budget. I did this with seeds, and many students write me letters from saving my address on those envelopes!

The profile is well thought out and appropriate to meet the outcome and goal of the course. I feel like I could read this profile and implement in my class right away! 

Reviewer 2

Once again, very opposite opinions! I’m open to more feedback, if anyone wants to join my Google Classroom, please do. The course code is listed below. Comment some additional feedback if you have some time, I’d really appreciate it!

Class code: dh533k7

Happy Teaching,

Leah

Walking the Talk

This week Bart and I made some progress towards our major project. As he put it, “she has the know-how, and I have the students”. While he also has the capacity to teach it, it can be a nice reprieve to have someone else come in and talk to your students, you never know who might engage!

I kept my lesson simple, as I wanted to engage students into leading their own discussion and come to their own conclusions about digital citizenship. My (short) plan for the minilesson was as follows:

Digital Literacy – Flipgrid Lesson

Building Background Knowledge

-Display question on board: “Why might we make a video for something instead of writing it out as a blog, article, post etc.?”. Discuss as a class, guiding them towards thinking about the purpose of choosing an appropriate format

-Show slide of “Canceled” celebrities. Discuss: did they deserve to be canceled? Why? 

Lesson

-Define digital citizenship

-Jamboard: What makes a good video? What makes a good comment? 

-Look at comments on slide- are these good comments, why or why not?

-Review Jamboard- anything to add after we looked at some examples?

Application

-Flipgrid tutorial

-Create own Flipgrid video with your reflections on digital citizenship and how it applies to you.

-Respond to at least 3 others student (moderated comments to be approved by teacher)

Discussed tweets and what makes them problematic, as well as how they “age”

We questioned if apologies are enough. In this case she had to make an apology for her apology video

we looked at if our data was really private by thinking about the users on each platform

Slides from the Google Slides Presentation I shared with students

Overall students were engaged, and made good connections during the discussions. Head over to see Bart who will share the Flipgrid results on his blog!

Happy Teaching,

Leah

Emotional Damage 🎶

In Digital Citizenship

We can warn people about being socially appropriate for our audience when posting, but it doesn’t always seem to make sense until you’ve made your own media “mistake”.

Teaching students about netiquette and visibility settings is a great place to start. But it isn’t enough to protect students from all possible situations they might encounter on the internet. What we should do is teach strategies when consuming and creating media.

Some things to consider are:

  1. What audience am I trying to reach?
  2. What media is the best format for what I am trying to share?
  3. What platform should this be shared on?
  4. How are my emotions? Will I still feel this way in 1 day, 1 week, 1 year?
  5. Does this add anything to a conversation?
  6. Does my voice need to be heard, or should I be lifting up others voice? (Do I belong to this community?)
  7. Are there facts to support my opinion?
  8. Do I want this to be a part of my permanent digital footprint/identity?
  9. Is this safe for me and others to share?

There are many resources and lessons available for teachers to teach about digital literacy and digital citizenship from many sources including, Edutopia, Be Internet Awesome, InCtrl, Common Sense Education, and so many more!

I firmly believe that this isn’t a one time conversation. Digital citizenship needs to be integrated into many areas of curriculum, not just a one day intervention to be forgotten about (I’m looking at you- one-day sexual health education programs). This can be in Social Studies in the context of citizenship, English Language Arts in the context of author’s purpose, Health in mental health and well-being, Science in technology, and almost every other content area.

Digital Citizenship Lessons available for Prairie South Schools Staff (log in required)

I feel thankful that our division has prioritized Mental Health and Wellbeing these past two years, and have integrated that throughout the organization, including digital citizenship. We also have Learning Consultants (like myself) available to go into classrooms to introduce topics such as digital citizenship into schools. I am lucky enough to be going into Bart’s class this week to do some learning around digital citizenship!

Through my exploration of this topic with my group this week, I really began to see the value of emotional literacy through the podcast Connect Safely. Watch our group’s video below:

Thanks to Bart, Christine, and Patricia for creating this video with me!

I feel like the education sector in Saskatchewan is beginning to see the value in training teachers about digital citizenship by offering post-secondary courses to teachers about media and digital literacy in education. Classes such as EC&I 832 and EC&I 834 through the University of Regina, and the addition of Educational Technology as a route for MEd students. However, we still have lots of teachers who do not take these courses. We have to build capacity in all our educators if we expect them to teach digital contexts, and add explicit language about digital literacy throughout our curriculum.

This week I’m challenging myself to creating a digital literacy lesson for grades 7/8. I’ll do a follow up blog post this week to post the lesson and my reflection.

Happy Teaching,

Leah