The Final Chapter

Throughout the course I have been blogging about my encounters with Flipgrid and TikTok. I have a smaller update for both of those, but in the last three weeks I have spent a considerable amount of time with Minecraft Edu and Canvas. I decided to include these two for my Major Project. I understand if you relate to TL;DR.

Flipgrid

Flipgrid ended up being integrated into my practice more than I originally planned! When beginning this journey I had pondered  Dr. Mike Ribble’s 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship, and used this to build a Digital Citizenship Lesson for Bart’s grade 7/8 class. For this lesson I focused on Element 3: Digital Etiquette and connected that to Element 8: Rights and Responsibilities via discussion about online communities.

Prior to returning to Bart’s class for our scaffolded practice lesson I created some lessons for my EC&I 834 Module for Grade 3 Structures and Materials. In this module I planned and developed scaffolded practice for using Flipgrid to show their understanding.

Lesson 1.4 Functions of Structures

Lesson 1.6 Design a Playground

Lesson 1.8 Design a Structure

This first encounter with Flipgrid is a low stakes, no assessment attached practice. During this assignments students were completing an experiment where they were testing the strength of shapes. Then they are going around their house to find any of the shapes we tested that day. There is an example for students to watch, but the only skill they need today is “point and record”

The second encounter with Flipgrid is a moderated topic. Students are again just “point and record” while they explain the playground they designed. This time they have to comment on their classmates using a structured 3 part comment. This is a formative assessment with a self assessment component.

The third encounter with Flipgrid includes a screen recording component. This topic is unmoderated and students are able to freely view and comment on each others structures. Check out the video below for a full walkthrough of this module (it is long- watch at an increased speed to reduce this time). I review this assignment in more detail under “Minecraft Edu” in this post.

Once Bart and I discussed our Flipgrid goals, I structured a lesson focusing on privacy, netiquette, and features of Flipgrid. Bart prepared three Flipgrid assignments for his students: solve a math problem, social unit project update with a text comment response, and a future Flipgrid uses with a video comment. We kept all these topics as moderated, as the students were not consistent in their practice of netiquette. We spent an entire afternoon completing this process with his students. There was a variety of levels of engagement, but Bart really engaged them in critical thinking about the uses of Flipgrid by reflecting on the positives and negatives of each format and context we tested.

Bart modelled note taking while I demonstrated Flipgrid features
Student positives and negative reflection on each Flipgrid assignment

I was impressed with students responses, and they were critical about what they enjoyed using Flipgrid responses for. The biggest barrier they identified was the background noise, and needing a quiet space to record. They also reflected that while they could be more creative with their videos, sometimes those creative features were distracting for the viewer. Essentially they came up with the result we wanted to hear- to carefully curate how you use these features to impact the viewer. I would say the group struggled the most on responsible commenting. This would be good to practice again before completing an assignment with unmoderated comments.

I have to thank Bart again for letting me join his class for this project. It was good to do some coteaching and get into a classroom again. Thank you, Bart!

TikTok

I began my journey with TikTok by downloading it. My initial fears were the amount of time that I would spend on the app, distracted from my daily tasks. Truthfully it has simply replaced some time that I spent mindlessly scrolling Instagram. My algorithms on TikTok and Instagram are still very different. My TikTok started me out on some wildly inaccurate verticals, so I did have to spend some time watching, re-watching, and interacting with videos (at least that’s how I’m justifying my time spent scrolling). How I wanted to use TikTok was for educational videos, but I seem to prefer the platform for quick videos about my dog, Mia. My TikToks that have educational content have between 18-333 views, whereas Mia has between 848-1490 views.

As with Flipgird, I looked at TikTok using  Dr. Mike Ribble’s 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship. What stood out to me were elements 3, 4, 5, and 9. Read more about my reflection on Digital Citizenship and TikTok here.

Throughout my increased usage of TikTok, I changed my ideas about future educational use. I reflected on how I want to build my TikTok as a curated version of my personal life that can showcase my humor. This feels like the most natural progression for my continued use of the platform. Using TikTok as a connection building tool even in classrooms I’m lucky enough to guest teach in has been very successful. Mia is always the star in these videos, and throughout the remaining time students always ask more information about Mia and tell me about their own pets. It has been a great way to build a quick connection with students.

Mia is the second dog (the first one is my in-laws best girl, Jesse), and this clip is one of my favorites of her!

Check out my last (for this course) TikTok below, which serves as my EC&I 832 Summary of Learning:

Canvas

I hadn’t considered test out a new LMS until three weeks ago! I was creating Guided Reading Professional Development for my division. I was reflecting on how I could create something open source for easy access even beyond our division as part of my digital portfolio, and remembered classmates sharing Canvas Instructure in EC&I 834. It took me about 15 hours to create this Guided Reading Module. Check out the student view course walkthrough below:

As someone who loves to create aesthetically pleasing content (but please don’t call it cutesy), there were some limitations on Canvas. I was limited by text size, colour, and heading choices. However, embedding images, Slides, and Forms was seamless.

I challenged myself to do some coding on Canvas to find a workaround to embed a Word Cloud on Canvas. I was not successful and instead hyperlinked a Padlet. I spent about an hour attempting to get my code to work, but when ran the code produced an error message. I used this as an example with some coding students, shared that code isn’t always successful, and shared this TikTok with them about the problem solving needed for coding.

A huge benefit of Canvas rather than Google Classroom (my usual LMS), is that you are able to lock pages and assignments with conditional formatting. For this PD module I wanted to ensure that participants were completing pages as they proceed through the course, so this feature is probably my favorite!

I am currently working on a Writer’s Workshop PD using Canvas, and have been asked to create a PD series for my division. I think Canvas works well for an adult context. I wouldn’t use this with elementary or middle years students, as I still prefer the ease of Google Classroom for this context.

I’d love some additional feedback on the Guided Reading Module before it goes live to our division. Let me know in the comments!

Click here to join Guided Reading PD

Minecraft Edu

I am late to the hype of Minecraft, I hesitated to use Minecraft Edu previously because I assumed that it was a case of “using technology for technology sake” rather than having actual educational benefits. I attended two Minecraft PD events through Logics Academy, and I was instantly hooked. Bonus points to Minecraft for making me look “cool” in the eyes of my nephews (apparently gaming with them and bribing them with Nintendo Switch gift cards wasn’t cutting it anymore). Logics Academy has hundreds of lessons connected to Saskatchewan curriculum, model worlds, and offers technical support. The following information is going to come across like a promo, I promise it isn’t, but they should sponsor me- I loved it that much! Seriously, go check it out.

I created a Structures and Materials assessment using Minecraft for my EC&I 834 course. Check out my exemplar below and the accompanying lessons here.

Due to the block style of Minecraft I wasn’t able to include accessibility in the structures I was creating and instead had to address accessibility features using chalkboards and explanations. As you can see in the screen image above, I also didn’t master adding water. I’ll have to do more problem solving if I want to create an underwater world in the future. I also spent over 50 hours creating these lessons on Minecraft, so I put in a lot of time upfront. I do not think every teacher needs to do this. I think there is value in learning together with students, and the created lessons have walkthrough videos which means you don’t need to know how to use the program as an educator.

On the technical side of Minecraft I do see some potential issues that may arise. Most schools in our division have students using Chromebooks, and Minecraft worlds need to be hosted either from a saved PC file, or by having a student save the collaborative world on a flash drive. I also contacted our IT support and asked them what some potential barriers to using Minecraft might be with our network. This was their response:

Minecraft Education Edition is available for all Windows computers in PSS via the Microsoft Store – Start, Microsoft Store. For Chromebooks there is more involved:

Minecraft Education for Chromebooks (CB) in a Google Play Store (GPS) app, which we do allow however, access to Play Store is a user permission. Given GPS will install on any CB a user signs into, we do not have this turned on unless a school has requested for a grade/school.

Once the user can use the Play Store, it automatically installs the next time they sign into a CB and approved apps can be installed by the user.

For many teachers I am sure that this would be an inconvenience that would stop them from implementing Minecraft. There is a learning curve to Minecraft, but being a gamer meant I already had most of the skills needed. If I were a teacher I would want to ensure I wasn’t using Minecraft for a stand alone lesson to justify the time spent upfront learning how to navigate Minecraft. This would require some long range planning, but the lessons that Logics Academy provides are clear and easy to follow and include assessments, which saves time throughout the school year. The next lesson I want to test out is CyberSafe- Home Sweet Hmm. If you are in Prairie South School Division and you’d like me to come introduce some Minecraft activities please contact me.

I loved Minecraft so much that I even used it for my EC&I 834 Summary of Learning!

I’ll admit I was less excited about this using it for this format. I had grand plans of adding in custom images using maps, but this feature is not compatible with Minecraft Education Edition. I originally created a structure using boards to house my EC&I 834 and completed a walk through video that was subpar. The next day I decided to restart my project to create something more engaging for the user. I used a world template (Museum) and added in my displays throughout. This ended up being a much more visually appealing and engaging walkthrough.

In the future I’d continue using world templates instead of creating from scratch so that I could focus on the content, not building the world. Thankfully there are many to import directly from the Minecraft app and from Logics Academy! I look forward to using this in the future, but I am still reluctant since the game is now 11 years old there may soon be an interest/engagement drop off for students.

Thank you everyone for the wonderful semester full of learning!

Happy Teaching,

Leah

EC&I 832 “For Dummies”

For my summary of learning I created 2 separate TikTok videos and edited them together (TikTok only allows 5 minutes). I used Steve Boot’s method of recording each sentence independently. This worked really well, and I was able to fit in a lot of information in the 5 minutes. I felt like I was in an episode of Gilmore Girls with the fast talking supported by coffee. I did struggle with my placement for each start, and you will see my head moving around the screen each time I pressed record. I won’t make this post TL;DR, so go ahead and watch my summary. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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

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

The Good, The Bad, The Old Me

My Media Journey

The greatest reminder of my uncensored teenage digital identity is the dreaded Facebook Memories. I almost always see the “on this day” memories and immediately delete them or change the privacy settings. I don’t think that 13 year old me was considering my future at all, never mind a future as an educator. Many of these posts are photos/comments/status updates that I am tagged in, and I cannot control who views this. While not impossible to find, these posts are now 16+ years old. As Alec Curous and Katia Hildebrandt write in (Digital) Identity in a World that No Longer Forgets, “digital identity has, in effect become about gaming search results by flooding the Internet with the desired, palatable “self” so that this performance of identity overtakes all of the others”.

I am sure I am not alone in cringing at my old posts. Throughout my post secondary career I have always been encouraged to have a positive social media presence as a living resume. I never really bought into it, instead opting for little, and very controlled, digital footprint. Partly because I taught on Hutterite colonies for 3 years where digital anything is unnecessary, and partly because I was afraid of criticism.

I actively engaged in creating my digital identity in 2020. I found that I had more time to create aesthetically pleasing materials and felt confident enough to put them online. I finally felt confident in my teaching abilities and the development of a stronger sense of my own identity.

Just as everyone had been telling me, it did help me create a living resume! The next year I advocated for virtual learning options for our elementary students and promoted the Prairie South Virtual School. This led to me teaching at the virtual school for one year, and then moving into a learning consultant position the next. Reframing my mindset from “I’m promoting myself” to “I’m promoting educational change” helped in this process for me. I am well aware of the mental health impact of teachers comparing ourselves to others in online communities, and don’t want to promote an unrealistic or inauthentic version of myself. Through these courses, I’ve come to learn about “Digital Dualism” and how my online and offline identities are not seperate, but one:

our reality is both technological and organic, both digital and physical, all at once. We are not crossing in and out of separate digital and physical realities, ala The Matrix, but instead live in one reality, one that is augmented by atoms and bits. And our selves are not separated across these two spheres as some dualistic “first” and “second” self, but is instead an augmented self. […] Our Facebook profiles reflect who we know and what we do offline, and our offline lives are impacted by what happens on Facebook (e.g., how we might change our behaviors in order to create a more ideal documentation).

Nathan Jurgenson- Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality

I truly believe that creating my digital identity has allowed me to be successful in my school division. In the next 5 years my plan is to remodel my Teachers Pay Teachers store for Saskatchewan teachers, continue using #TeacherTok, use this blog to promote coding and STEM in elementary, and create my own teacher merchandise (think mugs, sweaters, t-shirts, planners, keychains). The way to do this is by promoting myself digitally and increasing my presence. The big problem is time. I will be completing my MEd in December 2022. I plan to take a year to revamp and brand my TPT products in 2023 while continuing my blog.

Students

Our school division has a guiding Media Policy where guardians can identify media comfort levels with the school and division posting images of their students. In the past I have also sent out information about our class webpage, accessing their students Google classroom, their comfort level with technology, and their preferred method of communications.

Questions from my beginning of the year survey for parents

We’ve practiced digital etiquette in controlled, closed settings, I have never given them the opportunity to try these skills in a real life setting such as blogging, social media, or open comments. Mrs. Cassidy’s class has an excellent example of how this can be done with six-year-olds! I feel more comfortable creating a space for students to do this now, but still fear parent permissions for posting. I would feel more comfortable if I did a parent’s night about digital literacy prior to introducing this to my students. I definitely want to challenge myself to this! It would be a great way for students to control their learning portfolios, and be able to share them at Student Led Conferences (SLCs). I’m excited to try.

Happy teaching,

Leah

Time for TikTok – Update (Part 2)

In this post I am applying Dr. Mike Ribble’s 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship to my personal application of TikTok and Flipgrid in the classroom. To keep things organized for my final project I’m going to investigate the themes I feel most relatable to each platform separately. Even though they are both video based platforms, I think there are different applications, audiences, and considerations that are unique to each platform which will affect my final project for EC&I 832.

Image from Let’s Talk Science

TikTok

Element 3: Digital Etiquette

When copying someone’s content, it is expected that you tag the original creator when replicating. There is a history of Black creator content being replicated by white creators without crediting the original poster. While scrolling TikTok there are many fantastic lesson ideas and resources that teachers have created videos for. While I am still finding my own style, I will need to be cognizant of where I am getting my inspiration from and making sure I credit those creators using appropriate “netiquette”.

Educating Self and Others

Element 4: Digital Literacy

Something I feel can be overlooked in education is the purpose of the technology. We need to be explicit about what platform we are creating and sharing content on. For TikTok, I think it is a great format to share resources, strategies, and teaching comedy. It would be important to communicate the importance of voiceovers, selecting appropriate sounds, and captions as each communicating meaning and intent. The way I’ve been approaching sound selection is by finding a sound and exploring TikToks that use that sound to make sure I am using it appropriately. This has been working, although I haven’t mastered the video and sound synch yet. I can see the potential to teaching students the importance of author’s craft in multimedia literacies.

Element 5: Communication

Author’s craft definitely applies to Dr. Ribble’s fifth element, Communication, which is using the right technology to communicate, for what purpose and to whom. I think this is the real importance of teaching students how to use authors craft to boost engagement on a platform (hey, influencing is a real profession!). This applies to many Saskatchewan Curriculum outcomes such as CR3.2, CC3.3 CR5.2, and so many more! Teachers need to realize that to assess these outcomes it doesn’t have to be a written text, there are professions where sound and art are their primary focus in graphic design, advertising, video game production, T.V., the list goes on. I have dabbled in creating content for entertainment, resources, and a unit introduction, but I still haven’t decided on a “brand identity” for my account.

My first attempt at a content TikTok

Element 9: Health and Wellness

This is probably the biggest concern I had for myself when downloading TikTok, just how much time was I going to spend on TikTok mindlessly scrolling? TBH, it has increased my phone time, although that is part of this project so I really want to look at how it may affect my mental health. It is easy for teachers to compare these “learning snapshots” that TikTok offers, the cute classroom décor, the engaging lesson plans and feel like a complete failure. It is important to remind yourself and others that this is a highlight reel, since we control what we post we are going to put ourselves in the best light we can. I appreciate that in TikTok’s settings there is a “Digital Wellbeing” category where you can set time management and restricted content.

I haven’t engaged with the platform enough to understand my own boundaries with TikTok, so these settings are currently off for my profile. I have noticed that because I haven’t given much personal information to TikTok yet, the algorithm for my “For You” page is not yet tailored to my interests and can often frustrate me with TikTok’s initial algorithm. I’m interested to see how this changes as I engage further with the platform with likes and follows.

Flipgrid

Element 1: Law

The first thing I will need to do in my division for Flipgrid is look at students’ Media Release forms. While this form doesn’t apply to limited access platforms such as Flipgrid, it is still important to model respect for privacy and offer choices such as audio recordings or filters to build a community of trust within your school families. In this I believe it is important to be transparent with parents about the access to student work, moderation of comments, and their right to deny use. While I don’t want to disadvantage students by omitting technology or being afraid of it, there is a different comfort level among families that needs to be respected. Teachers and families are a team, not opponents.

Element 3: Digital Etiqutte

The next step to implementing Flipgrid in the classroom will be to determine digital etiquette when interacting with other’s posts. This includes likes, reactions, and comments. It will be important to teach students that what we write is stored, and has serious effects. In the day of screenshots, it is also important to have a conversation of respecting other’s privacy by not distributing or editing images of other people without their consent. This also ties to the next element I’d like to address.

Element 8: Rights and Responsibilities

This element includes modelling our responsibility to report other’s misuse of a platform and maintaining digital equipment (including school provided resources). I’d like to have students create their responsibility list as a class and agree to these conditions, as well as the consequences of not following these conditions. This puts ownership to them in creating a safe digital community. I’d like to scaffold and practice this by first having students upload their videos with a moderated topic, then progressing towards unmoderated topics. This will allow me to have one-on-one conversations with students who are not complying with these responsibilities.

I’m looking forward to testing and comparing these two video platforms. Now, I’m off to make more embarrassing TikToks!

Happy teaching,

Leah