Student Learning Narrative

Hello! My name is Riley. I am a mainstream student in a digital school with some difficulty in digital literacy and reading/writing fluency. I am a visual learner and prefer to colour code and draw to remember ideas. My class is expected to have an iPad that is onboarded to the school network with the appropriate school apps downloaded. We must also be connected to the classroom app so Miss Forsaith can monitor our iPad use. This is my experience in English with Miss Forsaith using digital technology and ICT throughout the Shakespeare unit and assessment - a multimodal article to go into the classroom magazine (Book Creator) and a learning journal (Book Creator or Blogger).

In our first week, Miss F set our class up on Showbie, talked us through the new unit, the assessment and explicitly taught key features of text analysis. I made sure to set up a folder in Notability labelled weeks 1-10 so I could note down key information and import and complete practice activites. When I couldn't keep up with writing, I used my speech-to-text function to auto-type my notes in. Miss F used YouTube to let us listen to and visualise Shakespearean rhythm, syllables and patterns. As a class, we discussed Shakespeare's impact - I chose to draw small icons in Notability that reflected key ideas for my own reflection and reference.

We were then told to set up a Blogger account using our school email or a new book in Book Creator for a learning journal. I decided to use Book Creator because I could be more creative and practice using the program for my assessment! People who chose Blogger preferred more of a writing style learning journal but that wasn't for me. I am glad we had a choice! Once we had set these up, Miss F wanted access to them to track our learning so she said if you're using Blogger you have to share the link in the Showbie folder she set up or invite the teacher to your Book Creator project.

Miss F organised us into small groups based on our tables and airdropped a Book Creator file full of different Shakespeare texts, audio readings, videos and articles. Each group had to choose one of these to discuss as a practice task for analysing and choose a way to represent their learning as a group using the eBook in Notability. My group chose an audio reading and Miss F gave us some prompts to listen for - social perspectives & behaviours, the context and the characters. As a group, we discussed our points of view and we created a mind-map on Notability that had hand-drawn pictures in a different colour for each person.

At the end of Week 1, once we finished our practice activities in our small groups, we uploaded these onto Showbie and got to see what other groups had come up with! We each gave feedback to each of the other groups on Showbie. Miss F gave us prompts to think about when giving others feedback using a sandwich model - something positive, something to improve and something positive again. She encouraged us to second-guess others opinions and give another perspective, this was hard for me but I tried to look at it as the opposite opinion and work from there! I was also able to do this as an audio comment which was better for me because I could express my feedback better verbally than written.

Week 2 is all about practising anlaysis and exploring Shakespearean texts through different ways. Miss F setting up the interactive smartboard with a Shakespeare sonnet. As a class, we identified the social issues in the text and she asked us how are these still relevant today? I thought about my life and where these could fit in, I then went up to the board and annotated the social issue we highlighted with my own personal perspective. Once we finished this, Miss F airdropped this to our iPads ad we saved it into our eBooks. She then transitioned us into independent practice tasks using the range of texts in the Book Creator file and the eBook in Notability.

We got to choose what task to start off within the eBook but we all had the same task requirements - find the objective and subjective language and explain their purpose in the text. I saw there was a link to Stormboard with graphic instructions on how to use this website - I didn't know how to use this site so this was super helpful for me to independently play around with the mind-mapping features (and be creative)! Again we had a choice in what text we broke down and analysed, so I chose a poem - I used the highlighting and audio comment function to identify the language used and then used the 'Five Whys' template in StormBoard to link this language to it's purpose as a graphic mind-map.

Week 3 we focused on reviewing our learning from the week before (language use and influence) and choosing our texts for our assessment task. Miss F will usually explicitly teach us new concepts at the beginning of the week and discuss these as a class, then she'll let us practice in groups before letting us work independently. We did another text analysis as a class using the smartboard again. I really enjoy being able to physically answer using the smartpen! From here, Miss F set up a quick Kahoot to revise the analytical concepts we have learnt so far using an online classroom quiz game, which was really fun!

The next lesson in Week 3 was a checkpoint to ensure we were all using the apps for the right purposes, saving and storing our work on our iPads and on Showbie for tracking as well as a catch-up lesson. I have my work all caught up so I now needed to choose my assessment Shakespeare text. Before I did this, I mapped out my project in Book Creator based on the task sheet so I knew exactly how to approach it! I played around with different layouts, created my title page and researched Shakespeare texts that I could relate to my own experiences. I made sure to write a short reflection on this in my learning journal also! At the end of the lesson I got this checked and approved by Miss F.

The next lesson was pretty interesting as we got to use social media as a research tool that links as an example of the key social issue in the text we've chosen. Miss F made it clear we are not to create an account but use Google to search these as just a site visitor. However, she did say that out of school hours we are allowed to use our personal accounts for research at home and simply screenshot these (we must not show our account names or information). I got stuck in this lesson as I wasn't sure how to find these. I chose to ask the Showbie discussion board if anyone could give me tips on researching through social media - a lot of my peers said to search through hashtags using keywords, find Twitter threads around the issue or Facebook groups addressing this issue today. This really helped! I was able to screenshot and grab links from different accounts and posts that demonstrated how my social issue from Shakespeare is still relevant today. Again, I kept up with my reflections at the end of the lesson about the hurdles I overcame and how I did that.

From my research, I had to complete an activity where I had to ask questions that challenged the beliefs stated in my chosen text. These inquiry questions will help me to research further next week to develop my article arguments. Another activity asked me to identify, define and explore symbolism and life matters in the text compared to past and present and intercultural perspectives. I did this by reading my poem several times and using my learning journal in Book Creator to audio record my findings after each reading and accompany them with imagery.

Week 4 and 5 are big weeks - we had to research and analyse our texts, come up with 3 key argument topics for our magazine articles. Miss F started off by teaching us how to effectively analyse a text and she used coloured icons to signify each analytical technique - I appreciated this as it provided a visual cue I could use to follow her and use myself. She showed us a high standard example of an annotated text that needs to be in our learning journal and referenced in our articles. Miss F put up on the TV a collection of research resources and links for us to access and support our analysis. She reminded us to acknowledge all sources and directed us to a document in Showbie that outlines how to reference accurately and avoid plagiarism.

In week 4, before starting my research, I went over my notes and learning journal in Book Creator to identify 3 key topics I want to discuss in my article. I set up 3 headings for each topic so when I found links or information I could collate it all there! I also drew what I thought the main character would look like in my poem and annotated them as a person - their behaviour, beliefs and motives. This let me visualise the character, connect and empathise as if they were a real person. I wrote questions around them - how would they feel in today's society?

As I began researching and developing my argument, I stayed connected to Miss F and my peers through the Showbie discussion board and email. I would often share my thoughts or ideas and get clarification, advice or redirection about my argument or research path. I knew a lot of people were doing a similar social issue to me so I would also share great links I found and have email threads with a group of students in my class to support writing our arguments.

Week 5 we were expected to finalise our research and start building a draft argument. Miss F wanted us to get creative with presenting our research so she set up interactive activities for us to include in our learning journals! As usual, Miss F provided the instructions and log in details (class accounts) for both on Showbie. Some students chose to use SeeSaw which creates graphic and digital expressions on their social issue with our 3 topics. I wanted to do the Tik Tok activity! I had to choose an appropriate but trending audio on Tik Tok and create a video that gave a mini insight into our text and topics. I chose to act as the main character in my poem and create a movement for each topic, it was a lot of fun! I then had to save the video and upload on Showbie and into my learning journal on Book Creator.

Upon finishing these activities, as a class, Miss F asked us to reflect on them and we discussed our experiences. On the smartboard, we did a Y chart about the social, moral and ethical positions we have all identified in our research and texts with a focus on empowerment and disempowerment. This class activity was airdropped to each of us to include in our learning journals. Miss F also went over the assessment task checkpoints and followed up with students who were struggling, behind or needed review of the direction of their assessments. I have made sure to email or ask in Miss F in the discussion board throughout my tasks whether I have a question or to check if I am on the right track, I have added her feedback into my learning journal and applied it.

As week 6 rolls around we were expanding our article investigation and generating deeper learning journal entries. Miss F wants us to experiment with our chosen literature in Book Creator in the form of a journal or video entry as the main character. We had to focus on the social value of our traditional text in society today and share our journal or video projects via Showbie to give and receive student/teacher feedback.

For the rest of week 6, we were to start generating layouts of our magazine article using StormBoard again. This time I chose to use the 'SIRS - Stop, Improve, Redesign and Start' template to express my original layout idea, then ideate across adding or taking away features and organising my multimodal features. I really had to think about how my layout would help express my social issue and engage readers in my article!

As we enter week 7, my assessment is coming together. This week we focus on writing up a draft for our article! Miss F provides us with extra resources and links in Showbie such as Prezi with guided instructions for safe, ethical and legal use, graphic organisers and a how-to guide writing an analytical article. Some students chose to form a cohesive argument using graphic organisers to express argument points and do this by adding the template from Showbie, into PowerPoint, saving it as a PDF or JPG and including it into their learning journals. I chose to use Prezi to organise all of my visuals and piece together my written arguments from these using the 'Puzzle Presentation' template. From here, I had the flow of my article that I could then start collating into a written draft on Word or Notability.

By the end of week 7, I had a written draft ready to submit into the draft folder on Showbie for feedback. Once I had completed this, I was able to go back and ensure my learning journal on Book Creator was up to date and begin designing my article layout in Book Creator. At the end of this week, Miss F checked in with all of us to track where we are up to and provide support to keep us moving through the unit. She plans on giving us feedback over the weekend through audio and written comments in Showbie.

Week 8 is upon us and I am eager to get my feedback back and apply this to my draft! I believe some students had technical issues over the weekend and lost the document that had their draft on it, oh no! Luckily Miss F makes us save everything on Showbie to ensure we don't lose anything on our devices as well as saving her own copy on her laptop in the class submission folder. This week, after editing our drafts, we are expected to comment and interact with experts and others about our articles to get another perspective. Miss F said we can do this through YouTube comments, Twitter comments, Instagram DM's or an interview with family or friends on Zoom meetings - we then add these to our learning journals as usual! (I have to remember that this is from a school account for educational purposes so what I say and do onlline, comes back to me and my school!).

After our week 8 active collaborations, week 9 is where we blend our analytical images and graphics from our learning journals to complement the written article. I carefully chose images, graphics, videos and audio that I can add or link into my multimodal article that expresses me as a student and my perspective on Shakespeare's poem. Once I had completed this, it was time for me to create a presentation that shows my learning journey. We need to talk through our learning journals and our magazine article in 5-7 minutes. Some students are pre-recording theirs through Zoom and uploading it to the private classroom YouTube, but I am choosing to do mine live and have it recorded in the classroom then uploaded. I used Prezi as I found it was the best way for me to be creative and show the flow of idea's and learning I went through. Once all of our presentations were uploaded onto the class YouTube, everyone needed to share their personal links into the Showbie folder for final submission!

Week 10 is the final stretch for our Shakespearean projects! Miss F goes over how to evaluate our own work before she commences marking them herself. We need to complete a self-reflection using the assessment criteria Miss F puts into the Showbie and annotate our articles by editing our own work. Once we have completed these evaluations, we discuss our reflections as a class. This allowed me to see others work and add to my own reflections and evaluations in Notability.

At the end of the week, all of our articles are added to the classroom magazine in Book Creator and Miss F printed this off for it be in the classroom and shared it into Showbie for all of us to read, I loved seeing our work as a class! Miss F submitted our magazine to be added into the school newsletter to share with our parents and the community and she also organised for it to be part of the library display of students work for the term. The best part was that the Book Creator program holds a competition for schools and our modern class magazine on Shakespeare is being submitted - I feel so accomplished!