“Twenty Years of EdTech” provided clarity around the rapidly evolving landscape of educational technology and I appreciated the approach of providing the reader with the positive aspects and the negative potentials of each of the educational tools.  It was also interesting to see each platform be contextualized in time and space.  It allowed me to recall my experiences with each: using wiki’s as a highschool student, watching through my young-adulthood as youtube evolved into potentially the world’s greatest and most up-to-date online resource, using social media as a tool to grow a business, integrating e-portfolio’s into my classroom five years ago with great excitement, and lastly, creating my own blog posts as a master’s student this past year.

One area of particular interest for me was the discussion around e portfolios and blogs.  The general statement was that blogs are more progressive and e-portfolio’s are less applicable for students now.  This quote is what sparked my curiosity and understanding:

“Although e-portfolio tools remain pertinent for many subjects, particularly vocational ones, for many students owning their own domain and blog remains a better route to establishing a lifelong digital identity. It is perhaps telling that although many practitioners in higher education maintain blogs, asking to see a colleague’s e-portfolio is likely to be met with a blank response.” (Miller, p. 14)

The question I’m left with is, does this blog preference apply more to post-secondary students, or is this about elementary or highschool students as well?   I would have concerns around privacy with this, and accessibility.  My preference up until now has been e-portfolio’s because they allow students to showcase their projects, whereas a blog post seems solely a tool of reflection and writing.  In contrast, an e-portfolio allows me to facilitate the creation of multi-modal approaches: edited videos, digital posters, written assignments, reflective pieces of writing, artwork, screen recordings of their minecraft builds, and more.  I am curious if my understanding of a blog is too narrow, if a blog can also serve as a “presentation” style of collections of work through the term.

Another area that sparked interest for me was about this paradox of social media.  I agree with this paradoxical perspective of social media.  I owned a business for a decade and I used social media as a tool to engage with our clientele, expand our reach, and for personal sponsorship in athletics and monetary gain.  Having witnessed the potential for an entrepreneur in social media, I believe our students deserve a better understanding of skill acquisition prior to graduation.  Particularly the later, senior years of school should have more digital media skills to transfer to our students.  I felt validated in reading that, “many students will go through their education without being required to produce a video as a form of assessment. We need to fully develop the critical structures for video in order for it to full its educational potential, as we have already done for text.” (Miller, p. 11) I felt validated because I teach my students how to make recordings, and how to use capcut or other tools to edit videos to capture attention and relay information to the viewer.  I’m always surprised at how many students have watched countless videos on tiktok or youtube, but really have no idea of how to start this journey into creating their own.

I do also recognize the negative aspects of social media.  If it’s not being used as a tool for creation, and solely as a tool of consumption, the user can fall into a pattern of mindless-scrolling.  We’ve also seen the rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide raising drastically since the increased use of social media, particularly in adolescent females.  There’s also the concern for screen time taking away from time spent elsewhere, including physical activity, sports teams, health and wellness, connection with the outdoors.  I’ve noticed my students do not possess the skills of tackling difficult conversations, face-to-face.  I also have concerns around young users of social media coming across material meant for an older audience.  The potential for inappropriate images, themes, or messaging, is high-risk for our young social media users.

Lastly, I’ve heard of digital badges, but haven’t put them into practice yet.  This article seems to speak highly of the potential there, and that peaks my interest in wanting to know more about them.

The Landscape of Merging Modalities gave me a context for understanding the dynamic approaches of online learning.  I am a visual learner, and I appreciated Table 1. Merging Modality Models that showed the type of online learning taking place, and the labeling of these styles of learning.  My personal experience with online learning is small.  My first real opportunity to learn online has been this Master’s program.  The insight of this quote resonated with me for a multitude of reasons, which I will discuss below:

“To address this, designs should consider not only mixing modalities but also reducing synchronous instructional hours to create time for asynchronous activities and dialogue. Regardless of institutional or instructor plans for learner communication—whether synchronous or asynchronous—many learners in a course will develop their own private backchannel spaces to support learner-only asynchronous peer-to-peer communication” (Twenty Years of Edtech, 46).

Firstly, I appreciate that we have professors who understand the value of peer-communication and encourage this time for dialogue.  In my teaching practice and school environment, I feel the one thing that is lacking is time for educators to share insights and ideas.  Some of the most valuable conversations come from face-to-face interactions with my colleagues.  For example, this week, I had an enriching conversation with a colleague about which teaching strategy to use in a vocabulary lesson with my grade 8 students.  I was able to apply her suggestion with great success.  It was clear at the time that her experience teaching ELL students was valuable to our conversation.  I, in return, have experience in other capacities that I enjoy sharing with my colleagues.  We each have rich, diverse backgrounds and tapping into those is not done enough because of time constraints and busy teacher schedules.

I can also relate to this question posed in this paper about learner-confusion with relation to expectations around online learning.  I appreciate when specific boundaries and expectations of the online learning environment are expressed.  For me, clarity in an online space looks like quick but valuable clarifications:

  • “You don’t need to have your camera on the entire time. / Or you do.”
  • “Share or ask questions the following way – ie. either in the messaging box / Or raise your hand.”
  • “This is where you will access your readings.”  

These types of clarifications go a long way, and are established early in a physical classroom as well.  Letting students know what will be expected of their behaviour and establishing routines are one of the fundamental ways to create a strong classroom environment with clarity of communication.  

Finally, another quote from the reading that resonated with me was this:

“In a time of significant shifts to online learning in a variety of configurations, we should try to utilize common terminology to describe our intended designs and practices.”

I appreciate the clarification of these types of online-learning environments.  This approach provides clarity, two-fold; the educator planning the class has a framework and can fit their goals into the practices they will put in place.  And the learner benefits from understanding what is expected of them, how the information will be accessed, and what the learning environment with their cohort looks like. 

Reference List:

The Landscape of Merging Modalities. (n.d.). EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved September 6, 2024, from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/10/the-landscape-of-merging-modalities

Twenty Years of Edtech. (n.d.). EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved September 6, 2024, from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/7/twenty-years-of-edtech