Narrative

To fully understand the problem I am facing and there in the project I have created some background is needed on myself, my family, and my relationship with technology. The members of my family that are important to know about are my mother, my father, my sister, and my fiance. My parents are only 6 months apart. My sister and I are only 17 months apart and my fiance and I are only 6 months apart. Even though there is this closeness in ages, we all view technology in such different ways. And this view can be seen in how each of us functions in everyday life.

My mother has a very good relationship with technology. I remember at a very early age my mother bringing home this giant computer and stationing it right in the living room. My sister and I would get about 30 minutes of computer time a day which was usually spent looking at pictures of animals and maybe playing solitaire. Most of the time my mom would spend hours at a time on this computer. She would blog, play games, surf the web, and to this day she is writing websites where she would create a character and interact with people all over the world to create stories. From the very moment technology started to pick up and become more popular my mother fully embraced it and is still amazing at navigating technology to this day.

My father is a different story. My father is not a technology guy. He would be identified as a techno-traditionalist. He still types on his phone with one finger. He held onto his flip phone until it died and it was next to impossible to get a flip phone from the phone store and that was when he reluctantly got his first smartphone. He got the IPhone SE because it was “the cheaper one and does more than I even need it to”. All my father can do at this point is send a text, make a call and scroll on Tik Tok, which is his favorite form of simple entertainment. My father even refused to embrace the technology at his job. Later in his career my father became an ID lieutenant which involved a lot of paperwork. But even when the online system came out to make this job easier, my father preferred the pen and paper until he was forced by his boss to move to the online system.

Then there is my sister. My sister, in my eyes at least, is a tech genius. She has always been a really great problem solver and technology was no different for her. She helped me throughout all of my life with technology. Even when it was my time in front of the computer as a kid she was right there with me so she could help when I inevitably needed her. My sister works in the medical field helping patients in recovery. And her skills with technology are so great that she got promoted in her job for assisting her site in using a new digital platform to help their patients.

Next up is my fiance. He is my savior when it comes to technology. He is the whole reason I made it out alive from Zoom school. He doesn't have a lot of patience when it comes to technology. He is most definitely a TECHNO. He is also a teacher and is always finding new ways to add technology into the classroom to make his life easier and his students' lives more exciting. He is the person you go to when you have a major tech problem. He was that student that was helping his teachers even as early as elementary school, with their smartboard or technology. When I think of the word and the idea behind digital native, I think of him. Somehow he just gets technology and it's truly amazing to see.

And then there is me. My relationship with technology is not great to say the least. Although I would be considered a digital native, that couldn't feel further from the truth. My very first phone was the LG slide phone. It had a full keyboard and even an emoji button. With that being said all I could do on this phone was send a text, pick the best emoji for said text, and make a call. Around the same time I got this phone; going into 6th grade, social media was also starting to pick up. The first form of social media I remember having was Facebook. I remember sitting with my mother and my sister and comparing my profile to theirs. They had made these beautiful profiles and they moved through the platform with such ease and all I could do was post a status and scroll. But at least I was better than my father who refused to even get social media.

My aversion to technology followed me all throughout school. In high school I avoided it as much as I could, which wasn’t too hard at the time. Once I got to college I could no longer avoid it. There were many times where I would have to ask for help even just to use the blackboard and access my classes. This feeling of frustration and defeat followed me around all through college whenever I needed help with technology. Then the worst thing that could have happened, happened. Covid hit and all of a sudden my whole life was online. The last year and a half of my college career was spent at Zoom University and that feeling of helplessness and defeat was right there with me the whole time. But even through this experience I never really learned how to help myself. When I would ask for help, instead of helping me through the problem and helping me troubleshoot, my phone or computer would just be taken and this task would be done for me. This also followed me into my first year teaching. I was constantly feeling hopeless because I could not help myself nevermind my 7 year old students. I was also leaning on my co teacher for help and that did not feel good. So here's the problem that I faced. 

Picture this, you have been teaching for two hours. You still have 6 hours in front of you. There has just been a big transition; students from all three first grade classes just mixed between the classes based on their reading level. You finally get everyone settled in and you and our co-teacher pull your small groups. You have about 7 students in front of you, your co-teacher has the same. Then, all of a sudden, 3 hands pop up of students who can't figure out why their computers aren't working. One student needed help with their Clever Badge and the other two just needed their computers restarted. You sit back down to start reading with your kids and four more hands go up. And this continues to happen through the hour and a half guided reading block. This is a daily occurrence in the first grade. To give some context, I just finished my first year after taking a non traditional teaching path. I also have a sensory processing disorder that can make me over-stimulated very easily. And to put the cherry on top, I am horrible with technology. I would have to call in my co teacher to help. Unfortunately, her technology skills were only slightly better than my own. So often we would have to send kids out of class and to the front of the school to see Ms. Bell who would be able to help them. This led to frustration in myself and time lost learning for the student. It was this exact issue that brought me to my final project. For the project itself I decided to make a visual anchor that would be stationed in the front and the back of the classroom.

I believe that students learn from each other, I believe that students, even at 7, can be independent problem solvers. And I believe that students are capable of more than they think they are. With these beliefs it is my hope that this checklist I have created will help students to become independent problem solvers and learn how to help those around them without taking over the task. So going into my second year of teaching my plan is to use the checklist and teach students how to succeed in troubleshooting independently. The skills I hope to teach my students will follow them throughout their lives.

I share therefore I am

 

While watching Turkle's TED Talk and reading her article in Time magazine, one quote really stood out to me. "I share therefore I am". I think this quote speaks volumes to how we view ourselves and our conception of self in this technological world. The quote is obviously a reference to the philosopher René Descartes's famous quote: "I think therefore I am". Descartes's quote can be simplified to the idea that the very action of thinking and contemplating one's own existence is proof of the fact that we do in fact exist. This is still a very complex idea but essentially, thinking in this case is what is unique to humanity. Our concept of self comes from the process of thought. 

Turkle's quote is meant to mirror Descartes and discuss what it means to "be" in this modern world. Sharing or posting on social media is equated to proof that we are real people. I think about times I have met someone and followed them on social media and seen posts they've made. It would be strange to not have any sort of online presence in our modern world. If someone messaged you online but had no other posts or profile picture, you would probably question whether this person was real or not. Engaging with technology and social media has become crucial to one's existence in our current society. 

For me, I think the pandemic has furthered this idea. In a time where we couldn't see other people in person, our online presence became even more important and vital to our existence in this world. Without sharing or posting, no one had any idea how you were doing in the pandemic. Texting became a method of communication that was vital to staying in touch. Online classes became the medium through which I finished my undergrad degree. For all intents and purposes, technology became one of the most important aspects of our world in the pandemic. In many ways, it was a solution to our inability to be physically together. In my opinion, I don't think things will ever fully go back to the way they were before the pandemic because we gained so much useful technology that we relied on and that technology shows no signs of going away. This article in Forbes magazine discusses the long-term effects of technology on our society in a post-pandemic world in greater detail. 

Plickers

 The educational technology tool I am going to explain is called Plickers. Plickers is a free platform that allows you to survey your students or give interactive assessments in class in an engaging way. Plickers uses scannable QR code cards that are used to collect answers from students and give educators live, real time data. I am going to walk you through how to use Plickers in the classroom, step by step. 

Before You Get Started

Creating A Free Account

There are a few steps you are going to want to take before you start using Plickers in the classroom. The first step is to go to Plickers.com by searching Plickers or going to this link. From there, you will be brought to a screen that looks like this to create your account. 

You can sign up using Google or another email. Once you have created an account, you will be brought to this screen. This website is great because there is a guided "getting started" tutorial that will take you through these first steps. For those of us that don't like website tutorials, you can keep following along with my instructions below. 

Once you are on the screen shown above, click on the dropdown menu that the arrow is pointing at. This will give you a few options related to different issues or questions you may have about this platform. For now, we're going to focus on two key things to get Plickers up and running in your classroom. 

Getting Plickers Cards 

First, click on the option that says "Get Plickers Cards". The cards are essential to using Plickers in the classroom. You have two options to get these cards. 

Option A (the cheaper and quicker option) is to download the cards on the screen below and print them out for use. You can even laminate them if you access to a laminator to make them more durable. 

Option B is a little more time consuming and costly but requires less work on your part as the teacher. If you go to this link, you can purchase laminated Plickers cards from Amazon for about $30. If you're trying to avoid spending any money on this platform, I would stick to Option A. 

Getting the Plickers App 

Next, you need to download the Plickers app on your phone. The app is available on IOS or Android devices for free. The app is essential because it is used to scan the cards and provide the real time data. I personally have an Iphone, so this is how the app appeared to me in the app store. Simply go to your app store and search Plickers and you should see this app. Once you have downloaded the app, log in with the same information you used to create your account. 

Creating a New Class

Now that you have created an account, downloaded the app, and purchased or printed the Plickers cards, you're ready to start using Plickers in the classroom. You need to start by creating a class on the website. Start by clicking on "New Class" on the main screen. 

First, you'll need to name your new class. There are a few ways to add students to your new class. You can do it manually by naming the class and then adding in student names on the next screen. Alternatively, if you use Google Classroom, you can import from Google Classroom to quickly add students. Once you have a class created, you can work on adding a set of questions. 

Creating a Set

Next, you'll need to create a set of questions. This can be on anything you are working on that you would like to quiz your students on or survey them. When you click on the New Set button that the arrow is pointing toward, you'll be brought to a screen where you can customize the questions. Here you have a lot of freedom to make the questions. You can add pictures, videos, and GIFs.

Once you are satisfied with the amount of questions, you can add it to the queue by clicking on this button. Select the class you'd like to do the question set with. 

Using Plickers With Your Class

Click on the Blue Icon in the image above to start playing a Set with your class. Once you begin, you should open your app and you will see the set in the Now Playing section on the app. You'll be able to use the app to control the questions and scan the cards of your class. 

When using Plickers, each student should be assigned a card according to the order you put the students into the class or alphabetical order if they are alphabetical in the class list. Each of the sides of the square on the card has a letter and the orientation of the card determines how it will scan in. Students should hold up the card so that the top of the card has the letter of the answer they'd like to choose. This may take some practice to ensure students are using the cards correctly. After you finish a set, you can see the data of which student answered each question correctly and use that to inform your instruction. The Plickers platform is a way to do an engaging activity with your class and gather data. If you get stuck or have questions about a specific part of Plickers, you can click this link to explore the Plickers help page. 

Why We Banned Legos

 

The chapter I chose to teach about from Rethinking Popular Culture and Media is titled "Why We Banned Legos: exploring power, ownership, and equity in the classroom". This chapter stood out to me when I was looking through the table of contents because of the seemingly bizarre premise. Why would a teacher ban legos in a classroom? After reading the chapter, I was struck by the connection between a children's toy and seemingly innocent game and the very real issues of the balance of power, equity, and private ownership. 

The chapter centers around a school-age childcare program in Seattle. There are about 25 children in this program that are ages 6-9. The whole issue arose with the children building "Legotown", a collaborative lego world the children built with the large supply of legos in the classroom. The children built their own houses and buildings and the issues of sharing and fairness slowly started to take shape. About 8 children were involved in building Legotown and as other kids saw what they were building, they started to exclude other kids from playing. A power dynamic began to take shape, where some kids were in charge of Legotown and could choose to let others play and control which legos they were allowed to build with. When Legotown was accidentally destroyed by other children that were in the space outside of the childcare programs hours, the teachers decided to facilitate a conversation about the power dynamic that was forming and the issues of equity and ownership. What stood out to me was the different ideologies that started to take shape in the children. Some raised issues about why some houses were allowed to be bigger than others and how this was unfair. Some children felt as if they had a right to be in charge and "give" other children legos to build with, as if they had ownership over extra pieces. This prompted the teachers to have a conversation with the kids about what power is and why some of them had it and others didn't in this imaginative community. 

The teachers used this issue of Legotown as a way to teach the children about structures of power and fairness. They did another experiment where they asked all the children to pick ten legos and then said that different pieces had point values based on the colors and told them to trade legos to gain points. Some of the kids had more points simply out of sheer luck because they picked legos before knowing the rest of the rules of the game. Then, the teachers asked the winners to establish new rules for the next round of the game. What struck me about this was the fairness of the rules the kids came up with. One kid said that you had to trade at least one piece so you couldn't win just by sticking with what you started with. Another kid said that if you had more than one green piece (highest point value), you had to trade one of them. The natural tendency of the children in these scenarios was to attempt to create fair rules. The teachers then led a conversation about new rules for legotown to promote fairness and sharing. The whole chapter and experiment by these teachers centers round this idea that children can be taught about complex social issues, like equity and power dynamics, through play. The original article from Rethinking Schools can be found here.

Schools As We Know Them Are Obsolete

 "Schools as we know them are obsolete". This is the quote that stuck out to me the most while watching Sugata Mitra's TED Talk, Build a School in the Cloud. At first glance, this quote seems alarming and impossible. Schools are incredibly necessary and vital to our world. However, after viewing the TED Talk, the statement becomes crystal clear. In our current world, full of technology, schools are obsolete. They need to change and evolve with our current society in order to stay relevant and useful for the next generation. 

Sugata Mitra performed experiments where he left computers in impoverished areas around the globe and saw if local children could figure out complex questions and concepts simply by leaving them alone with the technology. Even when the computer and information were all in English and not their native language, these children were still able to grow and learn, discovering and understanding information about complex questions. This is an extreme example of a discovery based learning approach, in which students are posed with a question and left to discover the answer for themselves. This is a trend in education that has been growing in recent years. Sugata Mitra's research reveals that the traditional model of educating students by lectures and very structured assignments is becoming obsolete. With technology at their fingertips, students can discover the same information by simply using their resources. As educators, our role in schools has shifted due to technology. We are no longer lecturers, we are facilitators. If we give students the tools to discover information themselves and structure our lessons using this inquiry based approach, we can still teach students a great deal but give them more autonomy in their learning. 

Sugata Mitra mentions a learning model names SOLE, which stands for Self-Organized Learning Environment. This model of learning is what his research led to, a model in which the students are very much the center of the learning environment and the teacher is merely facilitating and encouraging. You can learn more about how to incorporate SOLE into the classroom here. Overall, I think Sugata Mitra's TED Talk and the quote at the beginning reveal that our role in education has shifted and schools need to recognize this and rely more on children's innate ability to discover information for themselves.