EDU 653
Higher Order Web-Mediated Learning - Week 5
Embedded Files
Week 5- Research Topic: The Impact of Digital Literacy on Workflow
Week 5- Research Topic: The Impact of Digital Literacy on Workflow
Task: Write a Lesson Plan Accessible for F2F, Online & Hybrid Learning
Task: Write a Lesson Plan Accessible for F2F, Online & Hybrid Learning
Pre-Reflection - How Have Workflows Changed, Post-Pandemic?
The first thing that comes to mind is how normal it has become to "jump on a call" when I need to chat with a colleague about something, especially if they're someone in my PLN, but living in another country. The pandemic has made this so much easier, more commonplace, and people are less afraid or apprehensive about doing this, in general.
Another thing that comes to mind is how students have changed as many teachers went into "survival mode" and likely taught the most basic concepts they needed to teach to reach their minimums, but didn't go much beyond that. I know in my school, there would be regular sessions with students on digital literacy, however, these couldn't take place during the pandemic. So I think this has had a detrimental effect on students and a lot of students are behind in a lot of these types of skills, in addition to development of a plethora of soft skills that they didn't get to practice during the pandemic.
In addition to this, it's becoming more common to have school-wide meetings through zoom, and not in person, specifically for social distancing. In my country, there are still strict guidelines about large social gatherings so "Zoom Assemblies" are a common occurrence as well.
Driving Questions
What has changed?
Why it has changed?
Research Sources Used
Relevant Notes:
Pandemic has increased digital access; allows for:
new abilities to form study groups and do homework together
new abilities to get involved in coding or digital art projects
"the pandemic has forced a pronounced shift towards more communication"
parents can meet with teachers more easily with zoom calls instead of finding time in their schedule to go into school
Relevant Notes:
originally a community for gamers; growing into larger platform for concerts, book clubs, conferences, homework help
more non-techy students starting to use sites like discord for:
help with homework
finding additional resources to support learning
social support when lonely
Relevant Notes:
how to improve online education:
giving students an opportunity to learn at their own pace
provide opportunities for re-reading/skipping/accelerating through concepts as needed
gamificatioan where possible to increase engagement
Post-Research Reflection/Thoughts
I found this topic rather difficult to research. Mostly because I wasn't finding relevant sources or sources that were slightly too old for me to consider beneficial to the topic itself. Since the main idea is about how we have changed post-pandemic, I found this difficult to find viable sources since everything is still quite fresh, and every country is in their own stage of dealing with the virus.
I think it's safe to say that across the board, all countries weren't prepared for moving their entire educational system online. And it's equally safe to say that a push for improving infrastructure and internet connection, or a push to make internet access more accessible in areas where families don't have access to internet at home, has been something that has been a topic of discussion around the world.
In terms of how I have been deciding to research and take notes, in contrast to previous weeks where I would try to make points on all information in an article, I have begun to narrow in on only relevant points and ignore information that is unrelated. I think this has been a helpful change
In terms of CRAAP testing, I'm still doing them informally as part of a habit while opening a new source (ie: looking for a date of publication immediately; looking at the source; judging its purpose of being written, etc.) and deeming whether or not it is a trustworthy or viable source of information for my research. This is helping me cancel out a number of sources, especially in this week's topic, since it is a very time sensitive topic. For the 3 sources above, each would pass due to their relevance and date of publication. There were a number of sources that I didn't include in my research notes that, after reading through the information, could not find any relevance to the topic.
My browser history covers way more than 90 minutes, mainly because I'm finding it very difficult to focus only on this due to distractions in the house, so my research often moves more slowly.
Lesson Plan
For this part of the activity I didn't do any additional research or create any new notes, my third source above was one that I specifically looked at that was relevant to this assignment.
For this lesson outline, I used ISTE Standards for Students to guide me and focused on a few big themes:
online ethics, while using other peoples content and creating new content (The Digital Citizen)
researching social justice and world issues (The Knowledge Constructor)
learning about free digital media creativity tools to highlight their chosen issue, (The Creative Communicator)
Post-Lesson Plan Reflection/New Learning
As I think about the more complicated parts of this lesson plan, a few things stand out. Being able to support students whom you do not have access to, finding ways students with impairments can access your lessons, checking for learning for online students, and ensuring you are creating content that is accessible to all.
Since the majority of what I teach is the creation of some form of digital media, (videos, posters, imagery, etc.), it wasn't too difficult to find a way to teach a lot of my content online. However, finding the tools that are accessible (free) to get the desired outcome may be the most difficult part. And when I want to go beyond those free online tools with special cameras or other tech toys, it becomes impossible. During the pandemic I had to quickly adapt and convert my entire Film class to a "bring your own device" class where students used their cell phones to create, and pretty much nothing else, with the exception of a video editing platform that the school provided.
In terms of using Assistive Technology, I am not the most experienced. This program has shared a bunch of great resources with me, specifically the “21 Things 4 Educators” website, which has a comprehensive list of AT tools to help, however, I haven't had much experience applying these tools, since I work in international private schools, which typically don't accept students with these needs.
In terms of checking for learning with students online, this is definitely something more difficult, however I've found when everything is digital and you have the ability to check-in on their progress, (for example, in a google doc that you have access to), this makes it much easier. And the use of 1-on-1 check-ins are imperative to support these student's learning.
One of the things I've been learning to do more and incorporating constantly with my research in preparation for our weekly activities has been a mental CRAAP test for all of my sources. I think I did this before a little, but nearly as much as I am doing now. Especially this week, as this was sort of a time sensitive topic, where I even considered some content from 2020 to be too old. This will definitely be a big takeaway from this course.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse