Learning Log 1.3......Becoming Unstuck

I'll be honest, I wrote the title partially in hopes that it would become true. I've found myself a bit stuck in terms of the big inquiry unit plan for this course and have focused my energy on the other aspects of the course instead - weekly readings, selecting resources, and have jump started our moderation discussion group. I'm not sure if it's because of the other areas of focus that I've become stuck in my big project....I suppose calling it a 'big' project is not helping matters either. In any case, I was really struggling to start this learning log because I will come face to face with my lack of progress. To progress with the hopes of getting 'unstuck' I am going to start with the weekly readings...

Module 7: Inquiry Learning by Design and/or Re-Design

I really appreciated this topic as the notion of simply designing everything inquiry is a bit overwhelming. I feel like inquiry is like most things teaching in that once you do it a few times it becomes a lot more manageable. I really appreciated Kristin Fontichiaro's Nudging Towards Inquiry series as it provides excellent stepping stones for those of us who are looking to incorporate more inquiry into our practice but are unsure of how to start. I really enjoyed reading her "Building Inquiry Understanding with Classroom Colleagues" article because I think using collaboration to drive the move towards inquiry could be very powerful. If teachers make the move together it can be a little more comfortable as we will be navigating uncharted waters together. I really like the idea of doing a staff in-service day where everyone makes the move towards inquiry together - and Fontichiaro provides some excellent resources for the inquiry such as coming up with an idea of what inquiry 'looks like' and 'doesn't look like' first. That being said, I get frustrated when I'm forced to do an in-service when I would rather focus my energy on another aspect so I would probably prefer this be a small-group in-service - or a 'those who choose to come' in-service.

There were other interesting parts of module 7 (I really appreciated the instructor notes honestly....I'll have to figure out a way to save those for later too...), but the 'nudging' series is probably my favourite.

Becoming un-stuck from the Muck....

So I had a bit of an aha moment. I've really struggled reporting on my project in the learning log lately because there hasn't been much....progress. Now it is our second to last learning log and progress must be made in some form or another so I decided to think hard about why I am stuck. I came to the realization that my next step (really, next step awhile ago) should be the assessment piece: begin with the end in mind after all! I understand the importance of envisioning what you want students to be able to do at the end of a unit so you work on logical steps to get there - that makes sense to me. However, I could not truly marry the idea of beginning with the end in mind with inquiry (even though our wonderful Professor told us to!). It just didn't make sense that I would know how things would end while still having the students experience true inquiry. Realizing this I thought that maybe I was looking at 'the end' the wrong way. I'm used to very specific tasks such as write a five paragraph essay, or write and perform a speech. With inquiry, though, I want students to have choice. So how could I know where they are going to go if they are truly choosing their path? That's when I remembered the focus of the inquiry: How does social media affect our lives? And I started to think...maybe, just maybe, what students will get out of the inquiry won't be so much a specific task such as essay writing as it is an understanding or an ability to synthesize ideas. It's early yet but looking at the curriculum these points really stood out to me:

• Access information for diverse purposes and from a variety of sources and evaluate its relevance, accuracy, and reliability

• Apply appropriate strategies in a variety of contexts to comprehend written, oral, visual, and multimodal texts, to guide inquiry, and to extend thinking 

There are certainly more curricular areas that would work with this project but these two points really stood out as great 'doing' skills. I think a good next step could be to think about what 'knowing' and 'understanding' I would like students to get out of this project - see if I can create one single-point rubric (love this!) that could work for multiple ways of demonstrating understanding....and go from there!

..more on this to come...but I think it is safe to say that my fire is lit again!

Module 8: Driving Inquiry with Questions

In the instructor notes on Module 8 the use of Socratic seminars was brought up through Casey Cuny's article "What is the value of life? and other socratic questions." This piqued my interest because I have used Socratic circles in my English classes before with minimal to moderate success; the students and I both tended to 'enjoy' these classes and I came back to this technique because it encouraged class discussion in a more student-driven format - but it still felt a bit forced. I dug into Cuny's article a bit further to see how she had used the socratic seminars in her class and to my delight she offered a simple four step approach to the seminars that I had been lacking. First, a list of prior questions should be created; that is, if the seminar is focused around one big essential question, what questions need to be answered to get there? Let's follow this with the social media unit:

Essential Question: "How does social media affect our lives"
Prior Questions: "What is social media? Do we use different kinds of social media differently? How do we use it? When do we use it? etc"

The second step is to give the students guidelines for the seminar. Here are Cuny's:

•  All students must answer each question in their notes. 
• Students raise their hand to be added to the speaking list. 
• Students must wait until their turn before speaking.  
• Students must take notes on their peers’ responses. 
• Everyone must be respectful and tolerant. 
• Everyone must use evidence from texts to support claims (Cuny 2014).

These guidelines are a great starting point but could be altered depending on the group; for example, if the discussion is flowing well I wouldn't want to force students to stop and take notes.....so it is important to be flexible I think. I usually add a soft ball to toss gently as the 'speaking ball' to make the seminar ever so slightly more dynamic so a guideline around ball tossing would have to be on the list as well. 

The third step Cuny suggests is to guide the discussion; Cuny gives some good tips on this such as reminding students to provide evidence for their claims. I think if this is done well the first few times then students can start to take over this role too. Which leads us to the final step: let go. This is the magic in the seminar - when students are invested in their own learning enough that they start to take ownership over their learning - which is what inquiry is after all, isn't it?

I connected with quite a few articles in this unit that I have stored for safekeeping such as Wilhelm's "Essential Questions" that focuses on what makes good questions and tips on how to alter questions so they are stronger and less about data retrieval, and Koechlin's one-page reference that gives students support on how to "Power up inquiry questions". However it was Cuny's article that I connected the most with as I have grappled with socratic seminars before and now I feel like I may actually have the tools to lead them properly! 

References

Cuny, Casey. (2014). What is the value of life? and other socratic questions. Educational Leadership. 72(3): 54-58.

Fontichiaro, K. (2015b). Nudging toward inquiry – Building inquiry understanding with colleagues. School Library Monthly 31(5): 49-51.

Koechlin, C. and Zwaan, S. (2007). Power up your inquiry questions. Q Tasks: How to empower students to ask questions and care about answers (p.73). Markham, ON: Pembroke.

Wilhelm, J. D. (2012). Essential questions. Scholastic Instructor 122(3): 24-27.

Selected Student Resources - The Next Stage of the Inquiry

For this next step, our task was to curate ten resources for student use during the inquiry assignment. I believe that I have selected a nice range of resources as I would hope to do in the classroom as well; I have included print books such as textbooks, novels for a literary take on the topic, blog posts, social media analysis sites, a peer-reviewed journal, and TED talks. At this point in the inquiry process I feel that these are the best resources to meet students' diverse learning needs as well as appeal to their interests. However, once I come closer to finalizing the inquiry unit, things may change. As with all things inquiry -- it is a work in progress.

1. 
   

Anderson, M.T. (2002). Feed. Somerville: Candlewick Press.

Feed is set in the near-future where the internet has been hardwired into the vast majority of the population’s brains. The protagonist, Titus, and his friends find themselves in the midst of a hack where their feeds have been compromised and are now unavailable while under repair. The novel chronicles the youths’ journey as they struggle with the desire to stay connected to their feed for every moment each day.

Feed has won multiple book awards and has garnered much popularity amongst youth and adults alike because it does what dystopian novels do so well - reflects and amplifies the quirks of our world. I chose this novel for possible study because it looks at what our world could be rather than what currently is. Students could study the effects of social media through a literary lens as Titus and friends become “unplugged” and find that they struggle to exist in their new world. Suggested for older teens, Feed comes in at just over three hundred pages making it a manageable read for students at grade level.

2.

Broadbent, Stephanie. (July 2009). “How the Internet Enables Intimacy.” [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/stefana_broadbent_how_the_internet_enables_intimacy on October 11, 2017.

The TED talk comes in at less than 9 minutes and Broadbent uses real-world examples to present her research. This talk provides a slightly different perspective to the connections that the internet has brought to our lives. Broadbent argues that the internet and social media tools such as Skype, have actually provided closer connections that were not possible previously. Many of the resources that students will use will cast social media and technology in a very negative light; however, it is important for students to also be provided with the alternate view so they have a broader perspective of the topic. While the talk may be considered slightly dated in the technology world, the information provided is still relevant and is presented in a very accessible manner.

3.  

Freitas, Donna. (2017). The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost. New York: Oxford University Press.

Freitas’ latest book has been constructed through surveys and interviews with college students. Its 350+ pages feature student interviews framed with assertions by Freitas. The book centers on how social media forces a sort-of perfect life syndrome whereby individuals only see the perfect life of others and feel that they can only share the positive aspects of their own lives. This leads to feelings of isolation and low self-worth as one’s real life can never compare with the perfection portrayed online.

The appeal of this book is that Freitas’ conclusions come through discussions with young people making it easy to digest and relate to. While the book is quite lengthy, Freitas narrows down a theme for each of the eleven chapters that students could focus on rather than reading the book in its entirety.

4.

Hall, M., Elliott, K., & Meng, J. (2017). “Using the PAD (Pleasure, Arousal, and Dominance) Model to Explain Facebook Attitudes and Use Intentions.” Journal Of Social Media In Society, 6(1), 144-167. Retrieved from http://thejsms.org/index.php/TSMRI/article/view/230/118

This article discusses the use of Facebook with the framework of the Pleasure, Arousal, and Dominance Model. A scientific study is conducted to determine various reasons for using Facebook. The article is twenty six pages in length, includes a hypothesis, results and areas for future study. As such it provides a much more concrete approach to the study of social media than some of the other sources. This resource would be particularly useful for those students who appreciate a more scientific approach.

It should be noted that this entire journal is freely available online, accessible for students, and is a peer reviewed source. Realistically, rather that one specific article, I would recommend the journal as a whole for students’ use demonstrating how to search within the journal by topic, or to browse through each issue. This journal allows students to dig deeper into their specific focus on social media using current research, which would provide a nice complement to some of the other sources.

5.

Homzie, Hillary. (2016). Queen of Likes. New York: Aladdin.

Queen of Likes is a fiction reader that demonstrates both the power in popularity on social media through the adolescent population, as well as how addicted we can become to our phone and the social media apps it holds. It follows the story of Karma Cooper who is very popular online. After misusing her phone Karma has her phone privileges revoked and she must learn to adapt to her life without her phone.

I had multiple fiction resources on my list but wanted to narrow it down to two - one lower level and one grade level. This one made the list because it covers not only how all encompassing social media can become in our lives -- driving our popularity and our behaviour -- but also how we find our world changed when we remove the presence of social media. I appreciated that this resource is accessible for lower level readers while engaging in the topic in an interesting manner.

6.

Kerpen, Dave. (2011). Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook (and other social networks). New York: McGraw Hill Companies.

A book geared toward those looking to use social media for marketing, Likeable Social Media also demonstrates how individuals use social media to garner success in both their personal and professional world. Kerpen provides eighteen strategies to get social media working for you. Each chapter focuses on one of the eighteen strategies in an engaging manner. While the book as a whole would be too much for students, the eighteen strategy chapter division would allow students to hone in on areas of Kerpen’s approach that appeal to their inquiry. The book is very strongly reviewed both by marketing executives and other authors in the social media field. Its readability and clear focus would make it a good resource for students hoping to focus on the business end of social media.

7.

Newberry, C., & Dawley, S. (2017). “How to Get More Instagram Followers: The Ultimate Guide.” Hootsuite Social Media Management. Retrieved 6 October 2017, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-get-more-instagram-followers-the-ultimate-guide/

This article provides a clear eleven point strategy to tailor your instagram account for maximum popularity. Through the use of subheadings, visual examples, and concise explanations, the article provides an uncomplicated guide for readers to follow and implement. The post stays as concise as possible using one line “do’s” and “don’ts”. Geared towards those in the marketing world, the tips provided would generally work for anyone trying to increase their online following.

The article is published by Hootsuite which is a social media management platform, that also offers free social media education in the form of webinars and blog posts. I would use this article to introduce students to Hootsuite itself - which they could then use to follow their inquiry in their desired direction. As a class we would discuss the inherent bias and purpose behind the Hootsuite articles so that students would view the content with a more critical lens. The blog and webisodes are very user-friendly full of neat visuals to accompany key points about their chosen topic. The content should be accessible to all levels in the classroom with those students who prefer to learn visually making use of the webinars.

8.

Probst, Caitlin. (2015) “10 Ways Social Media Affects Our Mental Health.” Degreed website. Retrieved October 11, 2017, from http://blog.degreed.com/10-ways-social-media-affects-our-mental-health/.

This blog post written by Probst narrows down the ten main ways that social media affects our mental health. It discusses both positive and negative aspects of social media on our mental health and cites scientific studies to back up its claims. While there are many blog posts written on this topic and the vast majority of them are very readable and nice to look at, this blog post stood out as it wasn’t heavily swayed towards one side or the other (both positive and negative aspects? This was a rare find!), and it cited reputable sources such as Medical News Today and Science Daily. It is nice to see a blog post actually supporting its claims with sources which allows students to investigate the sources even further.  

9.

Raatma, Lucia. (2013). Cyberbullying (True Books: Guides to Life). New York: Scholastic.

Cyberbullying is a nonfiction reader that focuses on the bullying aspect of social media. It discusses the various ways one can be a victim of cyberbullying, as well as giving tips on prevention and how to deal with cyberbullying if it does happen.

I chose this resource because it is a very accessible lower-level non-fiction source. It talks about some of the various negative aspects that social media can bring into our lives in a way that is easy for students to understand. This resource would be suitable for all students in the classroom but is mainly geared to those who struggle with comprehension skills.

10.

Turkle, Sherry. (February, 2012). “Connected, but alone?” [Video File] Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together on October 11, 2017.

A twenty-five minute TED Talk on the paradox of how technology provides us a new level of connectedness, while remaining more distant than before. While this talk doesn’t focus on social media specifically as it looks at technology as a whole, the conclusions drawn are certainly applicable to social media connectedness.  

Turkle provides examples of people texting while in the company of others at important events such as at board meetings, and even at funerals. She provides context for herself by stating that in 1995 she was on the cover of Wired Magazine for authoring a book about the exciting new world technology is bringing us into; she comes back to the present about the isolating world technology has actually created for us.

This resource would be appealing to all students as it is a quick, digestible talk in language that is accessible to a variety of levels. Turkle speaks at a nice pace, provides good examples to demonstrate her relatability, and summarizes her conclusions well. Students can use this resource as a reference for how our intended use of technology has changed over the years, and how we have changed as a result.

Right in the thick of it.....Learning Log 1.2

Module 5: Selecting Resources for Inquiry

"Does a school district have an obligation to provide more than the booklet? How should districts and/or teacher unions ensure that teachers are familiar with these new conditions for respecting copyright? What are the consequences of violating the terms, wittingly or otherwise?"

I really appreciated this prompt as it gave me some focus for this Module's Learning Log. In looking at the resources for this module including the ERAC, the Copyright Matters booklet, and other blog posts, I am quickly feeling overwhelmed. The next assignment in our project is creating the Annotated Bibliography - ie. resource selection for our inquiry unit. This now feels like a daunting task with all of these guidelines that I wasn't quite aware of before.

Image Retrieved from Cayman News

Like many teachers, I was aware of the basic copyright restrictions through the Copyright Matters Resource. The one that stuck in my head is the 10% rule: for educational purposes copies could be made of up to 10% of a work for classroom use (Noel & Snel, 2016). This resource is a very handy tool for understanding basic copyright guidelines when it comes to print resources, but does not begin to touch digital resources. As many in the discussion board have already posted - this is an area that we hadn't really considered before. For example, I was unaware that I could use my personal Netflix account in the classroom as it violated the Terms of Use agreement with Netflix which is for household use only (Netflix Terms of Use, 2017). Additionally, any music played in the classroom is to be for educational purposes only - ie. it is not allowed for a teacher to have music playing in the background while the students are working (Noel & SNel, 2016). I am learning these guidelines as a result of this course - not through any effort on the part of the district(s) I belong to.

As so many of us are unaware of all of the guidelines surrounding copyright, I think it prudent that district's provide more than just the booklet to inform educators. I believe this topic is worthy of an annual Pro-D (though one wouldn't necessarily need to attend annually), allowing educators to brush up on the topic. This would allow teachers to have designated time to brush up on any changes that may have occurred since they last familiarized themselves with copyright law. Though the Pro-D could be presented annually (for the benefit of any teachers who may be new to the system), teachers should only be required to attend every 5 years (or so - depending on when major changes come about).

Continuing On.....Beginning the Bibliography

So, assignment two is fast approaching and it is to complete an annotated bibliography. I truly appreciate how in this course the assignments build upon themselves and we end up leaving (hopefully) with a completed unit ready to use in the classroom. I knew that I wanted to come at the annotated bibliography intelligently, that is, use a bibliography that I could use within my inquiry unit. That means jumping into my inquiry unit earlier than I was hoping -- who doesn't love to procrastinate on that big project after all? As I am currently on maternity leave I was struggling with how to come up with a list of resources that I would make available to students; not being attached to a school library at the moment does pose a few challenges - but I am very grateful for this one - I learned a lesson!

I decided to come at the resource curation from the point of view of students outside the classroom. Yes, I agree with our instructor that teaching how to use search databases is a much more intelligent way of going about resource selection; however, I also feel that if I am teaching students how to learn, then why not teach them with the tools I know they have available to them? Namely, Google. So, simply with the use of Google and some out of the box searching, I have managed to select seven resources already that I think are pretty great. My first excellent find was a published journal exactly on the inquiry topic: The Journal of Social Media in Society. This journal is a scholarly publication that is freely available and fully accessible online! Aside from this excellent resource that far surpassed my expectations I have selected novels at varying reading levels, non-fiction resources on my topic, as well as blogs by experts! I am getting jazzed up about the possibility of putting this unit into place with these excellent tools for students! Who knew resource selection would help me feel that this project is possible?

Module 6: Curation - continued!

There were two articles in this module that I found particularly helpful, and I am noting here for the sole (well, almost) purpose that I can easily refer back to them at my convenience. I have noticed that during my TL Diploma I have come across so many excellent resources through course readings, the professor's specific recommendations, or other students - yet in the busyness of the course I have lost track of so many! I am hoping that this blog will help in that regard, yet I digress.

The first article that I have found to be exceptionally valuable is Abilock's "How can students know whether the information they find online is true -- or not?". The article points our four key aspects in judging online resources - importance, trustworthiness, accuracy, and info-graphics - and gives advice on how to judge each part. The article also points out the usefulness of Wikipedia and how to teach students to use it effectively; ie. how to judge which pages are more trustworthy. I enjoyed the overall readability of the article as well as the clear points to look out for when judging an article's usefulness.

The second article from this module that I am noting for safekeeping is Bromann-Bender's "You can't fool me: Website evaluation". This article provides a comprehensive approach to teaching website evaluation including how to effectively introduce the topic (with some example website), and some pre-search tips such as using boolean search phrases, and also includes an excellent handout for students to use during their evaluations. I appreciated that the authors acknowledge that teaching this lesson to students doesn't eliminate all poor website choices, but it does open a dialogue regarding website evaluation. The one negative aspect of this article is that it is slightly outdated. In the pre-search tips Bromann-Bender suggests using the Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org) for student searches as a way of narrowing the search to better resources. However, while the IPL is still available for use it is no longer maintained and no new articles are added. However, the remainder of the article was useful and and well worth keeping a copy of.



References Used

Abilock, D. (2012). How can students know whether the information they find online is true – or not? Educational Leadership 69(6): 70-74.

Bromann-Bender, J. (2013). “You Can’t fool me: Website evaluation.” Library Media Connection 31(5):42-45.

Hall, M., Elliott, K., & Meng, J. (2017). Using the PAD (Pleasure, Arousal, and Dominance) Model to Explain Facebook Attitudes and Use Intentions. Journal Of Social Media In Society, 6(1), 144-167. Retrieved from http://thejsms.org/index.php/TSMRI/article/view/230/118

Netflix Terms of Use (2017). Help.netflix.com. Retrieved 4 October 2017, from https://help.netflix.com/legal/termsofuse

Noel, W. & Snel, J. (2016). Copyright matters! (4rd edition). Ottawa, ON: Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC), Canadian School Boards Association (CSBA), and Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF). Rertrieved 4 October 2017, from http://cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/291/Copyright_Matters.pdf