Let’s Break the Code!

This weeks presentation reminding me of all of the possibilities teachers have to create learning opportunities that are engaging for our students. As I have started a new grade this year, I find that so much of my planning time is ensuring I am creating units and assessments that connect with our curriculum expectations. It has been easy to put these different forms of learning on the back burner. However, now as we enter March I always find that as the students are often in a solid routine and know expectations, the end of the school year is a great time to start bringing these different forms of learning and inquiry into the classroom. In this blogpost I will be diving into the world of coding and recognize what options and opportunities I have for my students. 

As mentioned in this weeks‘ article, “coding is the process of writing out steps for a computer to follow to achieve a goal or perform a task.” Knowing that the digital age we are living in, students are going to be seeing coding more and more as they get older and head into the workforce, this is a great place to start building these skills. As stated, coding allows students to creatively represent their learning, gain critical thinking skills, form a deeper understanding of technology, build resilience and problem solving skills, and to show that learning can happen in a variety of different ways. When thinking specifically around my middle school classroom I believe coding has the opportunity to engage my reluctant learners as most of us know the attitudes and eagerness changes in these grades, coding may be a space to motivate the students. A good point that was brought up in class and in the articles I have read around coding, is it is important to not think that coding is only for the students who want to pursue a career in technology, or the “tech” driven students, however, through the use of coding we can gain skills that support any student. The idea of perserverance and problem solving is a huge life skill that needs to be used no matter where the student goes in their life, through coding we allow for students to build these traits in a supportive environment. 

As we can see from a quick google search, there are many advantages and positives of teaching coding in the classroom. However, as with any technology and form of teaching there are some negatives. From my own experience the two that continually impact my classroom is time and resources. Learning to code takes a lot of time and students need support to limit the high levels of frustration and them just giving up. Unfortunately, our school systems currently do not always allow for this learning space with class sizes and limited classroom support evident. Another huge impact is the access to different tools to code. Yes, there are a lot of different coding options online, however, the tech divide amongst school divisions has become very apparent to me throughout this class and not all classrooms readily have access to enough devices to support the students. In this article the authors state a few barriers teachers may face when trying to teach coding in the classroom. These included: overemphasis on technology, frustration and burnout, and rapidly evolving technology. The last point around rapidly evolving technology is huge especially when trying to support the students in gaining these skills, what is taught from year to year or even month to month may not be relevant as technology is continuously changing and evolving. 

Another huge barrier that I hear often with colleagues that I work with is that they are nervous to try implementing these different forms of learning as they themselves do not feel competent in their skills. One thing I have learned throughout my few years of teaching is that I do not need to be the expert in everything and that I can lean into the resources I have to support my students learning. One amazing thing about coding is it is a lot of problem solving, that opens doors for students to be collaborating and discussing with each other to support the success of one another. That goes for all technology. For example, this year I have a student who knows a computer inside and out, he is our “IT Support” in the classroom and the students know to ask him if I am busy with another student as he is able to support them in anything Chromebook related, and sometimes they go to him first because he has been able to answer even some of my questions. The idea that we as teachers always need to know the most needs to diminish, I love the opportunities that I can ask the students questions when I am unsure as it not only supports my understanding, but also teaches the students that we are all experts in our own way and we can all work together to learn! Once a teacher can get over that barrier, they will have a lot easier time working with different learning opportunities such as coding! 

So where do I go from here? In the past I have used coding in the classroom, from bringing in Ozobots and the students work on ABAB patterns in math, or create storylines for their Ozobots to retell through movement and into Scratch where students use online coding to complete a task. My past experiences with coding are limited, however, with both of these projects I remember how excited and engaged the students were to use this in the classroom and it made the learning very meaningful! As I move into our term 3 of the school year, I have been looking in to using coding for at least one project the students will be completing, I look forward to hearing from all of your what kind of projects you have done in the past!   

The wonders of assistive technology!

This week’s class was very beneficial and enlightening of all the assistive technology, we have to support students with varying needs in our classroom. The term assistive technology is not something new to me, however, I am a little disappointed to say that I do not use as much as I want or should in the classroom. As stated in the article “Assitive Technology for Students with Learning Disabilities” assistive technology is defined as “the devices and services that are used to increase, maintain, or improve the capabilities of a student with a disability.” The article goes on to discuss that different ideas of assistive technology, not only being related to computerized devices, but also can be very low tech items including pencil grips, standing desks, diverse seating options, etc. With this definition in mind, I will start by going through some assistive technologies I use in my classroom. 

• Standing Desk 
• Wobble and Rocking Chairs 
• Thera Bands on desks 
• Text to Speech and Speech to Text using iPads 
• Word Predictions 
• Use of Calculators 
• FM system to project my voice 
• C-Pen (one student) 

Now from different conversations with my classmates a long with the presentation, I merely see these forms of assistive technology as just brushing the surface. These sources have been great as a starting point, but now in middle school the need for these assistive technologies seem to be more necessary with the bigger learning gaps I am seeing in the classroom. 

Benefits and Challenges I have noticed in the classroom using assistive technology: 

Benefits:	Challenges:
Provides students with the opportunity to be independent and find success.	Access to tech – when using programs such as speech to text or text to speech it is nice to have constant access that the students can lean on however, that is not always possible
Reaches students where they are at.	Time and teaching – with a new tool, the students need to be modelled and supported.
Equity vs Equality – allows students to understand that we all need different tools to support our individual selves.	Cost – one of my students has a C-Pen that the parents decided to purchase, however, that is not available for all students.
Opens doors for cooperation and peer to peer teaching when using these tools.	Misuse of technology – Need to ensure the students fully understand expectations prior to gaining access to this technology
Supports my EAL students in the classroom.	Depending on students abilities, sometimes programs do not support them.
Supports students with varying needs when an Educational Assistant or teacher is not available.	May need seperate quite spaces which is not always possible in a busy classroom.

It is evident that assistive technology is warranted in our classrooms today. With the vast technology students have available to them I am a firm believer that we as teachers have the oppurtunity to give them tools to support them into their future lives, I just wish some of the barriers were not in the way when trying to provide this support! 

Moving forward: 

From this week I was really inspired to start incorporating some more assitive technology in the classroom. As a goal to start investigating and finding different assistive technologies that support my students I want to try a new program moving into term 3 of the school year! 

• Google Read and Write: As we have access to Chromebooks and Google is my students’ main source of inquiry based learning I would like to introduce my students to Google Read and Write and have them explore this a little deeper to support their learning. Many of my grade 6 and 7 students have strong listening comprehension, however, have difficulties with the decoding of words, through using this tool, I am hoping to support my students as they move into their individual inquiry project that will be coming up! 

Dictionary, picture dictionary, and word predictions available at the click of the cursor!

I look forward to hearing what others use in their classroom and if you have a program that you think I should look into send it my way! I am open for options. 

A Kahoot may not always be the answer!

This week’s conversation around assessment technologies was very eye opening. When thinking about assessment technologies I often think lots of teachers resort to well, technology is the new age so this assessment tool must reflect that. However, as mentioned in this week’s presentation, that is further from the truth. When talking about the different assessment platforms teachers have access to, Alonzo, et al., states “most online assessment platforms are built for one-way interaction where students are presented with assessment tasks and respond to it accordingly” the article goes further in stating “these platforms do not allow for more meaningful assessment practices.” I found this to be a fundamental quote to understanding the use of assessment technologies in the classroom. When I first began teaching I would create Kahoots to support my math assessments or any other subject, however, all that the data was telling me was the students who were able to be successful with rote memorization instead of critically understanding the content. The same goes for different platforms such as Socrative and Quizlet to name a few. It is great that students can get that “real-time” feedback, however, through this model of assessment we continue just to reiterate the behaviorism learning theory. Through these different platforms and structures, I find my students more likely to shut down after getting two or three questions wrong, then to continue working through the questions. This form of assessment continues to reinstate the idea that the grade is all that matters and what do I have to do to get full marks. So where do we go from here? 

As we saw in this week’s presentation, there are numerous platforms online to support our assessment practices. The key question is how do we use these platforms to support higher levels

of thinking that allow our students to apply, analyze, evaluate and create, instead of simply remember as stated in Bloom’s Taxonomy. In the article A review of digital formative assessment tools: Features and future directions the authors dive into the most popular forms of assessment technologies in the field today. They stated that these different tools “offer valuable components that could facilitate formative assessment, enrich instruction, boost learner engagement and motivation, introduce gamification and make classeses more interactive” however keyed in on the piece how all of these platforms are very closed ended. Further on in the paper they continue to state that development is needed, specifically in the areas of “automatic grading of open-ended questions through artificial intelligence, the use of keywords to grade responses to open-ended questions, the use of quiz items or features that aim to help learners acquire higher-end cognitive skills.” I believe, that teachers are starting to transition to this form of assessment through the use of online platforms and social media. Alonzo, et al., states “using social media in learning and teaching has demonstrated several advantages including: 

• Social media allows for stronger relationships to be created between teacher and student 
• Allows for students to create and exchange ideas with both teachers and classmates 
• Social media use in classroom instruction can increase learning performance by engaging in learning activities that shift students from passive learners to participatory learners. 

So what might this look like? 

I think it can be daunting to involve social media into the classroom, especially as we know lots of the negative social media can have on our youth. However, through the right platforms and permissions, it can be a valuable and relevant source to support students. For example, setting up a class blog much like what we do in this class could be a great option to start connecting students. Through the blog, students are able to take the learning outcomes they are working on and apply key concepts in their writing. After that, the students are then able to learn from their peers through commenting, liking and sharing. Furthermore, the use of platforms like YouTube can connect the classrmates together through teaching and learning, but also connect with other students who have created content around the certain topic of study. These would be a few examples of how to incorporate the use of social media to support learning. When we branch off into the platforms of Facebook, Twitter and TikTok I am a little more cautious. I would be interested to hear from some classmates how they believe these platforms could warrant deeper level thinking and engagement!

Are we all under a spell?

As one of the presenters this week I had spent a lot of time investigating the different versions of the World Wide Web from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0. Jenni, Brianne, and myself have had some big conversations of the different versions and we did some extensive research on all three areas. My main focus was on Web 2.0 the “Social Web” and I never intended I would go into such a rabbit hole of information when I began. The answers were not clear, the definitions were not precise, and the opinions about this form of web was all over the map. That is why when I saw the option to watch The Social Dilemma to investigate more the influence Web 2.0 has on our lives I jumped at the opportunity. 

I write this prompt on a Saturday afternoon. I do most of my university work on Saturdays as it is time that I have to really sit down and focus on the tasks at hand. However, shamefully I also spent an hour and a half on tiktok and other social media platforms before I actually got into this assignment. I was quickly disappointed in my decisions when I went to begin watching the documentary to realize that it too was an hour and a half and I could have been done watching it and writing this blog a lot sooner if I did not get sucked into the social media platforms of endless scrolling. That is the social dilemma. 

As I began watching the documentary, I was hooked right off the bat with this quote “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse” (Sophocles). Meaning, nothing so grand and great can come without some kind of consequence. Through my research of Web 2.0 that quote seemed very accurate. As many of the interviewees mentioned, the changes that occurred to the web and these platforms at the beginning seemed like a good idea. For example the person who engineered the “like” button on Facebook initially wanted to spread joy and happiness, in no

way intended it to cause extreme anxiety and depression amongst users. Another example that was mentioned was the idea that these platforms were create to help connect people of like interests, rekindle family and friends who do not live close to one another. In my presentation this week we also went into the opportunity Web 2.0 gave for users to now be able to share content and knowledge instead of only a few experts sharing such knowledge that we saw in Web 1.0. All good intentions, however, it was forgotten how fast technology can evolve. 

Tristan Harris, then went further to begin discussing how the social web started to evolve into the atmosphere for “persuasive technology.” He stated that the main goal was to modify human behavior to inturn captivate their attention. This form of technology has three main goals as outlined in the documentary: 1. Engagement (catch and keep your attention), 2. Growth (keep users coming back), and 3. Advertising (make as much money as possible). This idea connected with our presentation this week around the idea that if you are not paying for the product, you are the product. Meaning, the users are the product as they are not paying for these “free” social media platforms, but instead the ones redistributing and taking in all of the different advertisements. The thing that I found the most horrifying is how these platforms and algorithms feed you exactly what you are looking for. Through users being watched, tracked, and their data collected these algorithms know exactly when we are feeling lonely and they can pick up on our interests, personality types and even our schedules. This form of advanced technology is moving at a pace much faster then humans. When they sense us being enactive, they send us a notification that a new post was made by someone, or a news article released that you may be interested in. The video compared us to voodoo dolls on a string and I think in the lens of social media that is exactly what we are. Going back to my morning on social media, I had no idea how much time had past because I was captivated in the 10 second videos playing, and I continued this because the platform is able to continue feeding exactly what interests me and what I want to see. If I, someone who has a background in how social platforms work and the idea about the algorithm can so easily get wrapped up in the mindless scrolling, what does that mean for our our students? 

As I went through the documentary, I couldn’t help but continually be thinking about the 11 and 12 year old students that I work with every single day. With this being my first year teaching in a middle school classroom, I did not know what to expect when it came to their access to technology and specifically social media. I too grew up having Facebook in high school so I knew that by now some of the middle school students would have different social media apps, but as I continue to move throughout the year I become more and more shocked with the realities of these students. Over 75% of my students have a mobile device of their own and of those students almost all of them have the common social media apps such as Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube accounts, BeReal, and more. I have a lot of conversations with my students about the important of internet safety and trying to teach them how once it is out there we have given away our rights to those pictures and posts and the students often go unfazed. Continuing through the year I also take notice of the differences I see with the students who have access to these apps and the students who do not and there is a couple key differences that I notice: 

• Tiredness: A lot of my students openly disclose how late they are staying up scrolling through these different apps, causing them to have limited energy in class.
• Attention: The students who do not have access to tasks have a lot easier of a time being able to focus in on an assignment, video, lesson then the students who do have access. One of my students even said to me one day that they would have a better chance at listening fully to my lesson if they could scroll Pinterest at the same time. Students are so
• used to be stimulated constantly through these platforms that lots of times they are uninterested in what provide in school. 
• Maturity: In middle school you see students at all different levels. However, the way students with these platforms talk and make conversation show that they are exposed to a lot more than they should ever be. 

The documentary supported these ideas and stated that there has been a significant increase in depression and anxiety in pre-teens and teenagers since 2011 and the statistics continue to rise. Students are relying on instant gratification and define their self-worth through the amount of likes they get on their tiktok then through the interactions they have with their friends. Through this the documentary went further to discuss that these students have become fragile, depressed, not interested in taking risks, and okay with isolating themselves. It worries me this path for my students because the actions I see in grade 6 and 7, I worry what they will turn to when they get to high school. What they will turn to when a selfie isn’t enough or when just texting a friend isn’t enough. As mentioned in the documentary, it is up to humans to change this course. They created this technology and they also have the power to change this technology to be less product and profit based and more humane. The different interviewees in the documentary were optimistic, however, from what I see in the classroom I am a little on the fence. However, for my future children and future students I hope to see a shift, because it fears me to know how middle schoolers will continue to change if social platforms continue to evolve to be more addicting. 

One quote that I took from this documentary is “how do you wake up from the matrix when you didn’t know you live in the matrix” (Tristan Harris). As  educators, how can we ensure our students know the realities of the online world, when they have known nothing outside of it? What can we do to support families in navigating these challenging terrains of social media and youth? I look forward to hearing some ideas!