Category: Uncategorised

What is a Digital Footprint?

A digital footprint, as defined on www.dictionary.com, is “one’s overall impact, impression, or effect as manifested on the internet; online presence or visibility, as of a person or company”. To me, this can be best explained as a sort of bread crumb trail that begins from the moment a social media account is opened and lengthens with each additional post, comment, share, or even like. With every new ‘friend’ or ‘follow’, our digital footprint extends and encroaches into their life, as well as potentially the lives around them. The rate at which a digital footprint can grow is astounding, especially for those who post frequently on their social media accounts which means it is imperative that we, as educators, fully understand the pros and cons of our digital footprints so that we can teach the same to our students to ensure that from a young age they are being safe, smart, and responsible with their growing online image.

Pros and Cons of Having a Digital Footprint

A pro regarding the manifestation of a digital footprint is that it allows for all people with internet access to publicize a positive and engaging image of themselves for potential schools, employers, friends, and family. And while there are many cons that can come along with a digital footprint (as I will get to later), it has come to my attention through recent research that a possible con that I hadn’t thought of yet is that having no digital footprint at all could be nearly as negative as having a questionable (yet accessible) footprint. William M. Ferriter discusses in his article Digitally Speaking / Positive Digital Footprints about how educators need to stop using scare tactics to terrify children out of creating a digital footprint at all, but instead, to use a smart and respectful tiered method to enable them to create and mold something good and genuine to put out into the world. It is no secret that the internet is integrated into nearly every aspect of our every day lives, so it only makes sense that our students will benefit from having a strong and impressive digital footprint for anybody to see.

A positive digital footprint can be impressive, but what I think is most impressive is the ability to create a positive digital footprint whilst avoiding the dangers and risks that often accompanies digital footprints if we (or our students) are not careful. Some dangers/risks that can come along with a growing digital footprint are:

• a publicized home address can lead to a burglary or theft (or worse)
• personal information made public online (such as birthdays, full names, and social insurance numbers) can lead to identify theft (which is not a joke, Jim)
• if inappropriate posts are added to a public social media page (could either be by you, or a friend posting to their own public page something that portrays you in a negative light) then the posts will be visible to future potential employers, school administrators or professors, and family.

Good news though! While we were all younger once and new to the internet and its wily ways of collecting and publicizing our personal routines, information, and social lives, there are resources to help us clean up our own digital footprints as well as guide us in the future to make us think: should I post this? what could this post result in?

FOSI, the Family Online Safety Institute has dedicated its website to ensuring that parents are better able to monitor their children’s digital footprints as they mature. The resources found here seem to also be great resources for educators: FOSI | Digital Reputation

And here is a checklist they have developed for us and our students to reference when active online:

FOSI Digital Footprint Checklist

My Digital Footprint. What is it? Why does it matter?

After doing MUCH looking around, I found what I was looking for! A safe website that will check my own digital footprint. And turns out… I like what I see! Or I guess, I like what everyone else can see…

The website is: Social Profile Checker by SALT.agency and you simply input some (very) basic information, click Next, and see what it can find about you online.

I’m happy to say that the only results of mine that show up are related to my post-secondary education accomplishments as well as the content that I have purposefully put out there for my current program (this blog being one of the first links, as an example!). My twitter account is also one of the first results, so ultimately I feel impressed with myself that potential future employers will be given full access to my own learning journey and my efforts to becoming a teacher.

My own personal guidelines for how I manage my social media and digital footprint are something that I have just naturally done and I can admit that I have actually not put much thought into. I ask myself a series of questions before posting anything online:

• Is this something I want to share with the world? or is this something just for me? 
• Instead of posting this on social media, should I just send it to a handful of people privately instead so that I can share directly with them, leaving everyone else out of it?
• Does this post shed a positive light on me?
• How will this post make others feel?

Often, as you could see on my social media, such potential posts do not pass my question check and end up staying offline, which has apparently worked to my advantage! What a relief to search myself and only see positive reflections of myself and my efforts!

References

Digital footprint. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/digital-footprint.

Digital Reputation. FOSI. https://www.fosi.org/topics/what-parents-need-to-know-about-digital-reputation.

Ferriter, W. M. Digitally Speaking / Positive Digital Footprints. Positive Digital Footprints – Educational Leadership. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr11/vol68/num07/Positive-Digital-Footprints.aspx.

Social Profile Checking Tool. Social Profile Checker by SALT.agency. https://salt.agency/tools/social-profile-checker/#.

I have always been a good student, even when I went through my ‘rebellious’ years in high school. A’s and B’s were never out of reach for me, until I began university. I will never forget my first C and how my efforts to correct the grade into something I was more familiar with ended up resulting in a D… the opposite of what I was working so hard for. I remember feeling completely alone with my shame and embarrassment because not only had receiving a low grade completely blindsided me, but I also had not idea what to do about it. I did not ever reach out to my professor (and looking back, he did not reach out to me either), I did not speak with friends or family about it, instead I went into the final exam with 55% overall for the course and prayed to whatever higher power is out there to just give me what I needed on this final to allow me to pass the course. And, while I did end up passing (with a mere 51%) I still to this day wish I had been able to better correct grade level trajectory. Now, looking back at my experience through an educator lens I realize that this almost fail of mine was a result of many factors, not just because I didn’t have a knack for Anthropology. I was so ingrained throughout high school that A’s and B’s were my standard, and that simply showing up and handing in the assignments was enough for me to maintain said standard. I also wish that my professor had noticed my low grade and approached me, especially because it was a first-year course, and the room was filled with 18-year-old students straight out of high school. I had no idea what I was doing wrong or how to fix it and it left me with an overall sense of failure throughout the course of my university career. Now, learning about assessment has me wondering many things: How can I best prepare my elementary-aged students for high school? For university? How can I ensure that they do not feel the effects of ‘failure’ in the same way I did? How can I teach my struggling students to self-correct with confidence and ease, ultimately teaching them necessary life skills for potential future less-forgiving teachers or professors? So far, although we are not even two weeks into the semester, through reading Regie Routman’s Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners for EDUC 397 and Katie White’s Softening the Edges, we can build our students’ confidence by helping them learn and grow as opposed to constantly providing summative assessment and a “you get what you get” mindset. The methods proposed in both above listed texts are astounding to me because they are so opposite to what my own experiences reflect, and they are everything I wish to have had. I have decided this year to set intentions founded in confidence, honesty, and strength and I hope to be able to carry that motivation with me into my future practicums, especially when it comes to assessment. By softening the edges of assessment (thank you, Katie White!!) I hope to not only encourage my students to be strong, confident, and honest with themselves, but I am also hoping for the strength to be honest with the students. Honesty is one aspect of assessment that I am anxious about because I am concerned about making my future students feel the way I did in my first year of university: alone, confused, worthless. However, I understand that the only way that a student can improve is to know exactly what to work on and how; all that being said, the fact that I already feel much more confident in my abilities to assess and I have not even begun to scratch the surface eases my fears, and my 2021 intentions will give me the strength to continue to learn, so that I can teach, so that I can learn.

My #OneWord2021 is *drumroll please* STRENGTH!

I have chosen this word both as a reflection of my first block within the program as well as a sort of resolution or promise to  myself for the entirety of 2021.

I learned a lot throughout the course of my first block, but during the holiday break I took a lot of time to reflect on my experience beyond the material that I learned and the assignments I completed. While the program itself kept me quite busy, I also found my mind inundated with stressors and insecurity around me, ultimately causing me to worry about my own performance and ability to excel in the program. However, during my time of reflection I made a simple discover: I enjoy learning how to teach and guess what? I am good at it! The knowledge comes easy to me, I am passionate about all subject materials, and I have no reason to doubt if I am in the right place or if this is the right time. I have learned, through my recuperated strength, that this is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed of.

So, for 2021, I am choosing strength. Strength to get me to the end of the program in the same positive mindset that I am in now whilst maintaining my sense of confidence and capability. I hope for strength to help extinguish my anxieties about such that I have not yet learned, strength to keep me motivated after difficult practicum days, and strength to maintain my self-love in times where my environment might cause me to lose sight of my power as a learner.

To me, the word ‘strength’ is symbolized by an eternal flame located in the center of my soul. It is what will get me out of bed every morning and will keep me motivated during the long nights of tweaking lesson plans. Strength means enduring the negatives while sustaining the positives. Most of all, strength to me is defined as looking at this program as 1/5 blocks done as opposed to a daunting 4/5 blocks to go.

My resolution for 2021 is to maintain this strength so that I can flourish during my practicum experiences. I not only aim to succeed in the work that I do, but I also wish to network, create connections, and develop a better sense of security to help me stay positive on days that I may doubt my ability to teach my students (during or after the program ends).

I have been told countless times that teaching is an exhausting profession. I have heard way too many times “Oh, you’re going to be a teacher? You must really like kids to be able to do that much work and not make any money.”. But then I read the work of Regie Routman, or watch Tim Cavey’s Teachers on Fire videos and I see so many educators going above and beyond the daily tasks of educating children. Then, I ask myself, how do they do it? It is clear that they are strong and confident in their abilities, just like I strive to be. These teachers are superheroes and advocates for students all around the world creating change in future generations to ensure a positive growth mindset amongst future citizens. Citizens who will be autonomously interacting and creating countless ripple effects spanning throughout the entire world.

I want superhero strength.

 

Wow! End of Block 1 already…

My final project for EDUC 394 takes the form of a 10 minute YouTube video where I bribed my dearest friend, Marlee, to be my co-host and interview me.

I am extremely grateful for everything I have experienced and learned throughout the course of this block! I have already developed such an amazing sense of community amongst my professors and cohorts and I am excited to watch us all learn and grow together.

I have always known that I wanted to be an educator for reasons that I cover in my video, but the thought that my dream is rapidly becoming a reality is astounding. I will first-hand be able to experience the magic that students bring whilst simultaneously having the opportunity to impact their lives.

I would be lying if I said that this block did not offer its’ own unique challenges: from learning online to delving into subjects that were so incredibly vast that at times I felt that I could not keep my head above water. However, each time the knowledge sank in and made itself at home in my mind I felt like I was piece-by-piece becoming who I want to be.

My guiding intention that I will be bringing along with me for the duration of the program is: I would like to make sure that all of my future students feel valued and supported in the classroom in a way that is going to enable them to feel comfortable learning.

So! The link to my final project video is below, enjoy!

EDUC 394 Final Project – YouTube

So far throughout the first block I have added many knowledge tools to the tool belt that is my brain. One of the more recent additions to my belt-brain is that of differentiated learning and UDLs (universal designs for learning) and wow! I knew that learning to be an educator would be exciting and chalk full of information but I have to be honest.. I did not know I would be learning so much so soon. This all hit me when I was reading about differentiated learning and UDLs because while they seem so obviously necessary as I am learning it, I had not known that such methods and resources existed prior to my accessing the information.

Differentiated learning happens when a student (or students) in a classroom require additional support or alternative lesson plans/activities due to a lack of understanding of the learning at hand. These alternative assignments for the student to do are usually designed after the student has undergone some sort of formative assessment and it has been determined by the teacher that the student will benefit from work in class more suitable to their current level of learning.

I like the idea of differentiated learning, and it is without a doubt a vital element to being a teacher. If a teacher does not comply with differentiated learning then they are likely structuring their lesson plans to educate the ‘average’ or ‘majority’ of the class rather than aiming to teach all students. Ways to differentiate learning in the classroom involve quite a lot of reading and writing activities, as I have seen throughout the readings for EDUC 394. Reading and writing activities allow room for all students to be developing their reading and critical thinking skills whilst being able to work at their own speed and a level in which they are comfortable. I really like the idea of encouraging my students to think creatively and read at their own level versus rushing them to read or write at particular grade level because that way such activities can still be enjoyable for the student. And if it is enjoyable, they will make an effort to do them more, and practice makes perfect! I think it is important to remember that differentiated learning is an ongoing process which follows formative assessments and therefore as students learn and grow the teacher must alter their learning path to suit the students’ needs.

UDLs, on the other hand, are a variety of teaching methods meant to educate the teacher and provide them resources on how to include all learners within a class without having the students struggle through classwork until formative assessment takes place. I think that UDLs are a magical thing because as teachers, nothing pleases me more than to have students feel competent and willing to learn right off the bat. The main point about UDLs that I have learned so far is that it is imperative that we offer our students a wide variety of materials to learn with as well as ways to represent their learning.

A way that I would like to use these teaching methods in my future classrooms could be through some sort of a story-telling production (whether it be a play or short film does not matter). My lesson plan would consist of having my students choose roles to play for this assignment, the roles would go all the way from writer to director to actor and everything in between. Then, the students would work in their production groups to create and manage their portion of the assignment, and ultimately as a collective class we would eventually have a full-blown play or short film! This may seem like a larger task, and it is one that I will likely not tackle for my first few years of teaching, however I see many elements of UDL in this idea and I am excited to construct it. A UDL benefit that I see would be that my students will be able to choose the role in the assignment that speaks to them, therefore making it an exciting and interesting task. Then, working in small groups will enable the students who may be at a lower grade level to be able to work with students who have a better understanding of the goal, thus making all students feel included and giving the students who need extra help in the classroom another resource to better their learning. Working collectively as a group would allow for all students to see the work that each other group did so that everyone can begin to see the final product take place.

Overall, this learning has given me a lot to think about as well as many more ideas as to how I can better help my future students learn. I’m in shock that this is only Block 1 of 5 but am incredibly excited to see just how full my belt can get.

Digital citizenship is the ability to use the internet and communicate with others via the internet in a safe and responsible way. It is different than digital literacy in the sense that digital literacy refers to how we use the internet while digital citizenship refers to how we communicate and portray ourselves whilst online. Examples of digital citizenship include how we communicate with co-workers or teachers online as well as what we are posting on our social media accounts. There is a scale for digital citizenship that goes from bad to good depending on how people use it and how they behave online, much like regular citizenship reflects on how we behave while out in public. An example of bad digital citizenship would be something like cyberbullying, while good digital citizenship would be developing the ability to empathize with people online and to grow relationships with people that they potentially have never met in person, or rarely see.

Digital citizenship is becoming more and more important due to COVID-19  and the fact that almost everybody is being forced to use the internet more frequently for work and school. However, in Canada especially it is important to remember that not all people throughout the country have access to the same internet connection and stability and could therefore make them feel that their own digital citizenship at risk. This could happen because if a student lives in a rural area with limited internet connection and perhaps other family members who also need to be online, the slow response time and potential dropping of programs will both hinder their ability to learn as well as connect with their fellow classmates and teachers. This is important to take into consideration when assessing digital citizenship amongst our students because as educators we need to understand that this is something beyond our student’s control and that because they are dropping from the online classroom it may not be because they are bad digital citizens.

Digital citizenship can be modelled in schools through lessons on internet safety and the protection of the privacy of themselves (the students) as well as others. A lesson plan could be constructed so that students can see examples of good and bad digital citizenship and then can put their knowledge of what a good digital citizen looks like into practice through use of project based learning.  It is imperative for our students understand that being behind a computer screen and keyboard does not provide a sense of security or safety and that they need to be taking their online communications as seriously as they would a face-to-face communication. To better demonstrate to our future students on what good digital citizenship looks like we should also be ensuring that we are role-models for digital citizenship. This means always remaining professional with any online communication with students and their parents as well as with colleagues, whether this be through emails or teacher blogs/websites.

References

Applied Educational Systems. Business&ITCenter21 Catalog – Digital Citizenship: Applied Educational Systems. Business&ITCenter21 Catalog – Digital Citizenship | Applied Educational Systems. https://www.aeseducation.com/curriculum/business-education/digital-citizenship.

Stewart, B. (2020, September 28). How COVID-19 worsens Canada’s digital divide | CBC News. CBCnews. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid-19-highlights-urban-rural-digital-divide-1.5734167.

Zook, C. (2019, December 10). What Is Digital Citizenship & How Do You Teach It? Digital Curriculum for CTE & Elective Teachers. https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-is-digital-citizenship.

Today I had the privilege of being part of #edcampuvic 2020 which is social program dedicated to teachers and teacher candidates which allows them to connect with others to expand their own learning through collaboration and discussion. Compared to Professional Development days I found todays event to be flexible and interactive and I was therefore better able to connect with individuals to gather insights from many other points of view.

Overall I attended four different sessions, all of which I took away something different ranging from inspirational quotes all the way to a full-on lesson plan that I can use in my future classroom. There was one session in particular that resonated with me most and that I believe will follow me into my future learning and experiences as a teacher.

This session that I attended was “Diversification in the Classroom to Reach All Learners”. In this session I had a truly eye-opening conversation with two educators in the province regarding diverse learners and different ways to connect with them as teachers. Something that they taught me was that diversity in a classroom does not always come with the students with disabilities or diagnosed disorders, but that diversity can also come with students who have experienced trauma in their own lives as well. The people in my group educated me on the fact that successful integration within a classroom occurs only once everyone in the class feels safe, this is including the students as well as the teacher and everyone in between.

I gathered two main pieces of advice during this session. The first being to ensure that once I have a classroom of my own I make an effort to set aside space and time for my students to self-regulate their behavior. This is important because if a student is not in the right emotional state whilst in class it will greatly hinder their ability to learn the material being taught, therefore by offering the student a chance to self-regulate they can gather their thoughts and emotions and rejoin the learning when they are better able to do so. The second piece of advice that resonated with me was to be aware that for some of our students the simple act of getting to school and making it through those doors is considered a success. For those students it is imperative that we celebrate such successes so that the act of coming to school does not become yet another hindrance in their lives that they need to fight against and can instead become a place of safety and security for those students who need it most.

I ended the program by jumping around to the other sessions for a few minutes at a time to gather bits and pieces of other conversations and I was hit by a quote by our very own Christine. She said that “we are aiming to design a curriculum where students can see themselves in their learning instead of students changing themselves to fit the curriculum.”. I feel that as a future educator this is advice that I will try to carry with me as a reminder to be aware that each of my students are different, and that there is no such thing as a class average. Each child is unique through their personality and experiences and deserve an education that reflects that.

Learning progressions are the building blocks of education. Yes, a teacher can work solely on the grade specific curriculum with their students each year, but by developing a deeper understanding of the knowledge acquired by the students leading up to the teachers’ own lesson plan can help both the teacher and their students by creating a deeper learning and more advanced understanding of the material. For example, if a curriculum requirement is to be able to make predictions in their reading a teacher can either:

a) explain to the students what a prediction is and teach them how to find it, setting them off on a while goose chase

b) relate predictions with something that the students would have likely already learned, like finding plot and setting clues throughout what they have already read and then prompting the students to make their predictions based off that information

In the latter scenario the students will likely already be familiar with identifying plot and setting details in stories, and then by using that as a building block the teacher can teach the students how to use that information to make predictions in their reading. This takes a concept that they already understand and maneuvering it in such a way that they are simply using the information differently than they had before.

It is important that a teacher understand the benefits of learning progressions because if they see each their curriculum as a closed beginning and end to learning they will be leaving students with the sense that each chunk of learning is independent from one another. Therefore students may see addition and subtraction as two completely separate entities of math which may make doing more intense math later in their education career much  more difficult because they were not given the opportunity to make connections between the two.

It is also important for a teacher to acknowledge learning progressions because if a student is struggling with understanding a certain concept or learning intention it might not be because of the goal at hand. The student may be struggling because they were not able to fully grasp one of the imperative learning progression blocks that were necessary to build the grade specific skill. So, if the teacher is able to go back through the learning progressions and find the skill that the student had not yet entirely mastered and work on that until it has been entirely understood, then the student will be able to do the assignment in class with a full understanding of what is expected as well as how to do it.

From the learning activity on October 30th, the main facet that I learned is that in order to understand the learning progressions of a certain topic it is important to understand the topic itself inside and out. My group had decided to lay out the learning progressions of rhythm for instruments and band and while the concept seemed easy enough, we could not have done it without our group member that had already studied music for many years prior. The learning activity taught me that a teacher can go about learning progressions in two ways: one being a very broad overview with only the main elements laid out in order of what needs to be learned, and two being the understanding of each nitty gritty detail. It is like there are building blocks within the learning progressions themselves. The concept itself appears to be daunting because how can one expect themselves to know every single step of learning prior to and after their grade level curriculum that they are teaching? Through the readings and class activity it seems that there is no single answer to this question, however, perhaps it is one that comes with its’ own learning progressions for us, as teachers.

We cannot expect ourselves to have a full understanding of everything all the time, just like we cannot expect the same of our students. So, as we would with our students, when we run into a hiccup in finding learning progressions for our students we may have to be kind to ourselves and look for the building blocks of our own knowledge that we may be missing in order to properly convey the knowledge to our students.

As the banner of my blog states, I am learning to teach and I am teaching to learn. Education is cyclical and dynamic and provides a lifelong journey of learning.

The study of curriculum and assessment is an interesting one because while the act of studying and implementing it is new to teacher candidates, we have been surrounded by it throughout the entirety of our educations. It is like studying the air we breathe or the earth we stand on, it is something we take for granted because it is simply always there but we do not take the time to appreciate how it got there. Like the environment around us curriculum and assessment are always evolving, moving in such ways to shape the educational experience and to better support our students and their learning. So, now here we are as teacher candidates, standing on the other side of the fence, a side that we always knew was there but weren’t able to appreciate just how green the grass could be.

Curriculum to me (prior to becoming a teacher candidate) was simply a structure that dictated what and how students learned. I truly believed that my teachers were using textbooks and worksheets 20 years old to teach the same content with the same methods year after year. Which, to a certain extent, they were (with BC’s previous curriculum). However, it is really important now that I alter the framework of my thinking to allow the evolution of curriculum and assessment into my own teaching practices. This evolution, as is made evident in BC’s newest version of curriculum, allows for educators to be creative with their teaching and encourages them to also be searching for opportunities to expand their own learning. When I think back to my learning in my K-12 years I can honestly say that nothing particular stands out. Now, this has me asking myself why I was not more influenced, and since learning more about BC’s old version of the curriculum I wonder if it is because it was all already laid out for the teachers without room for them to show their creativity. My previous teachers were not able to express their teaching in such a way that it became passionate for them and therefore my retention of the information was slim.

In my learning about curriculum and assessment I have also found that the rules and expectations around assessment were much different during the time of the older curriculum as well. While the act of teaching and learning disallowed for creativity so did the role of assessment. Therefore we experienced more of the graded assessments where students were valued on how many A’s or 4’s they got on their report cards versus how they felt about their learning and what was actually retained. Because while I feel that my retention throughout K-12 was low, my grades reflected otherwise and placed me in a headspace where anything less than Honour Roll was devastating to my own confidence and self-worth. I truly based my understanding of my own learning in the grades that I got at the end of each assignment or chapter as opposed to thinking about what I actually learned.

Assessment itself is a strong tool that can greatly affect a students own confidence and feelings of self worth. Daniel Pink covers the effects on motivation that can greatly relate to assessment in his TedTalk “The Puzzle of Motivation” by explaining that if somebody is doing something just for the sake of doing it, whether they enjoy it or not, they will almost always perform better than somebody who is doing it for a profit (or grades in the sense of education). We ultimately want our students to excel at their school work, and with excellence with eventually come positive grades during a summative assessment that will encourage and prove to students that they are on the right path, however, the path does not need to have 30 pit stops along the way to grade them on their progress. If we are all taking the same hiking trail, for example, it may take us all different amounts of time or alternative routes to get to points A, B, and C, but really if the only goal is to make it to the lookout (analogy for learning intention) then why are we judging students on how they did it? If we tell a hiker that they took the wrong route to point A and give them a poor assessment, how motivated will they be to make it to the lookout? And once they do access the lookout, how will they think back on their experience of getting there?

Ultimately, if we change the way we are assessing our students it can directly correlate with how we will be able to teach the curriculum. If educators no longer have checklists and 1000 learning goals pinpointing one specific way to teach their students something, then we should  no longer be grading them on those 1000 learning goals either and should instead be using the opportunity to allow students to grow into the Big Idea at their own pace and with their own route.

We can all meet at the lookout and share the view from the top together.