Dear Reviewer,
I am not sure if my digital portfolio is formatted correctly and I think it’s missing information. I would appreciate your feedback on my branding and if my grade level is clear. I would like to ask you to let me know how your navigation experience is on my site and if I should add anything. Thank you!
Review from Maribel Cruz
I really enjoyed looking at your website, it is very eye-catching and I love your theme. Everything is well organized and easy to access.
Getting started was my biggest hurdle. For myself, I had to find the difference between a normal lesson and a learning experience. Of course, we want all our lessons to be learning experiences, but sometimes they can’t. I had to ask an actual 4th grader for help on how to make the Gold Rush interesting. The goal of this project was to help 4th graders learn about the Gold Rush in California and the daily lives of the miners that lived through it. This posed a challenge because math is my comfort subject, but math is hard to have a learning experience digitally. Math is more of a hands-on activity. As part of the UDL Guidelines, I wanted to make this activity accessible to all students at any time and doable from home, without any extra materials. In social studies, sourcing the materials is one of the hardest parts. You want to make sure the information the students are consuming is correct but age-appropriate in terms of vocabulary and context. The main skill I learned through this project was the attachment of audio. I used audio on every slide to read the instructions as an extra layer of auditory support. I tried different recording apps and extensions, but Mote was the easiest to use. Ease of use for new tools, such as Mote makes you want to use them again and again. I still think I could have furthered my design skills by using something other than Google slides. Following the UDL Guidelines, I was able to provide multiple means of engagement, because each stop had different challenges of varying levels and students were able to progress at their own pace. Throughout this process using technology has increasingly become easier and I am more likely to use the techniques and skills I have acquired in my own classroom.
What have you learned about the ethical and social issues related to technology, including issues of access and equity from this project?
Through this project, I have teetered on the edge of if technology, as it relates to social media, is a positive or negative reflection of the ethical and social issues that plight education today. With practice, I have decided that access is technology is a privilege and should be used responsibly. By doing so you must also not assume that others are also being as conscious and advocate for your own understanding to ensure the information you are consuming is true. As educators in the world of technology, it is also our responsibility to pass this conscious media consumption to our students. However, this new responsibility needs to be met with proper exposure and training. Teachers can not be thrown to the tech sharks and expected to swim. In the articles we read to share with our Twitter followers, I also realized the overstimulated impact technology had on teachers, students, and parents alike this past year and a half. The new “use tech or fail” model of education is not equitably sustainable. Though I think technology has an integral role in the classroom it should be a tool and reflect the access the students in that classroom may be exposed to in their home life.
Please reflect on your growth and progress over the course of the five weeks with respect to your goal informed work to be an Equity and Citizenship advocate. What aspects of your contributions are you most proud of? What set of skills do you think you really excelled at? What are some areas of growth?
Over the last 5 weeks, we have used Twitter to connect and share with other educators through a digital campaign with the goal of being an equitable and digital citizenship advocate. As a new user of Twitter, this especially posed a challenge, because most of my previous connections to educator spaces were through other platforms. In my own posting, I felt limited in what I could say therefore limiting my potential impact. However, in consuming media through relevant hashtags and retweeting others, presented more depth to the content I could consume. The engagement through Twitter with others was a lot easier. Access to the content didn’t feel as curated as other, more visual platforms. Some of my peers were even able to reach the authors of the articles we were sharing. I still think I need to work on creating engaging content for others to consume more so than only being a passive consumer.
What are some ways that you can use technology to increase equity, inclusion, and uphold digital citizenship practices?
The increased use of technology in the classroom can make it more equitable by allowing students and their families access to content at home. This also includes the adults at home in the student’s learning. By sharing digital citizenship practices and expectations with the parents you also can give them examples of what to look out for and how to navigate technology with their student. Using technology as a whole class can expand the tools, resources and information available to the teacher. This can facilitate real-world examples of lessons. Also has the ability to connect with cultures and places outside of their community. In promoting one-to-one student access to technology, make data collection and differentiation easier to deliver and receive on the part of the teacher.
Ahmad, I. (2014, July 18). 8 types of tweet that drive engagement on Twitter – #infographic. Digital Information World. Retrieved November 9, 2021, from https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/07/8-tweet-structures-generate-engagement-infographic.html#.
Bushweller, K., & Klein, A. (2021, October 6). Combating the problems with Facebook and Instagram: 8 tips for teachers. Education Week. Retrieved October 27, 2021, from https://www.edweek.org/combating-the-problems-with-facebook-and-instagram-eight-tips-for-teachers/2021/10.
Dillard, E. (2021, November 2). Dillard & Hoover: During the pandemic, teachers became much more engaged with education technology. how to keep that momentum going. Dillard & Hoover: During the Pandemic, Teachers Became Much More Engaged with Education Technology. How to Keep that Momentum Going. Retrieved November 9, 2021, from https://www.the74million.org/article/dillard-hoover-during-the-pandemic-teachers-became-much-more-engaged-with-education-technology-how-to-keep-that-momentum-going/#:~:text=Dillard%20%26%20Hoover%3A%20During%20the%20Pandemic,More%20Engaged%20with%20Education%20Technology.
Kamenetz, A. (2021, October 6). Facebook’s own data is not as conclusive as you think about teens and mental health. NPR. Retrieved October 25, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-instagram-teens-mental-health.
Spencer, J. (2021, July 5). 16 ways to own your professional learning. John Spencer. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://spencerauthor.com/16-ways-pd/.
Terada, Y. (2021, August 27). Defending a teacher’s right to Disconnect. Edutopia. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/defending-teachers-right-disconnect.
Fake news is often created from an opinion. Though it’s okay to have opinions, it is not okay to misrepresent those opinions as facts. To find credible sources you must seek out the facts.
When we are learning about a new topic or researching to gain new information we might not be able to determine if a statement is fact or opinion. However, we can determine if where or who we are getting this information from is reliable.
Great job! You are one step closer to being an expert at detecting opinions vs. facts. Now you can teach your family and friends about how to find credible sources and not spreading fake news. Below is a checklist for you to use the next time you are seeking out new information. Make a copy of the checklist HERE. Happy exploring!
CBC Kids News. (2021, June 10). Can you trust the news? How to tell the difference between real and fake news | CBC Kids News [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnFTsI-6–U&feature=youtu.be
Men Walk On Moon. (1969). [Image]. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/science/space/14mission.html
Giant Dogs Attack. (2018). [Image]. https://www.santhawalters.com/blog/fake-news-using-schoology-to-deploy-a-semi-autonomous-fake-news-unit
T.W. [Teaching Without Frills]. (2018, October 25). Writing Videos for Kids: How to Evaluate Sources for Reliability [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1k8rcYUmbQ&feature=youtu.be
UDL: The UDL Guidelines. (2021, April 9). CAST. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
For the DC Product Option I chose to post on Instagram about Well Being and Social Media Balance. In reflection I don’t think was the best way or platform to reach an audience of 4th graders. I also encountered a challenge of attempting to adhere more to my branding and Instagram tone than being appealing to 4th graders. When I showed it to my 4th graders, they said it was pretty, but didn’t really seem to get the message of all the posts. They engaged most with the balanced plate visual. I think that’s because they have seen something similar in a different context. Following UDL Principles, I tried to provide multiple means of engagement by recruiting interest and customing perception.
For our Curation and Mash-up Assingment, my partner and I focused the topic of misinformation and fake news. I feel like we equally contributed and this shows with the variety of content. I actually think we may have over done the content and instead of doing a few things really well, we had a lot of just good things. I think we did better at making the content more 4th grade friendly than I did with my DC Product Option. I would choose to work with my partner again in the future.
I chose to make my screencast content on the topic of Cyberbullying for 4th graders based on the Common Sense lesson Is it Cyberbulling?. After this past year of student being fully online, students are on the internet more than ever. It is important to remind them cyberbullying is not okay and what to look out for if they are being cyberbullied. It is just as if not more important to talk about cyberbullying, because it often is the not as visual as bullying in person. In this screencast students learn that being a bystander is just as bad and to have empathy for others even when you can’t see who is behind the screen. Following UDL Principles, I was able to provide multiple means of action and expressions for students to forward think of about being an upstander.
The process of screencasting live in a Zoom call is something I use almost daily, but this process of curating content for a set of students to use at any time was much more challenging. Especially when making content for elementary schoolers, visuals, length and clarity are important to keep engagement. The clarity part posed as a challenge when recording versus being live. I found myself needing to write down my thoughts and felt like I talked faster than I needed.
I learned that I don’t like being on camera. However, I also was able to see the versatility and usefulness this may be for my future students and was able to able it immediately in a classroom setting. I was giving instructions on how to do a wood-burning craft that I could not demonstrate under the document camera and wanted to provide my students with clear instructions and examples. I prerecorded a video of me doing it, shared a video of someone else’s examples, and ended with the step-by-step instructions that were left up for the entire craft. This all was accomplished through screencasting.
Elementarysaurus 