Final Narrative

Being the age of twenty-nine years old may not seem like I have a lot of ‘real world’ knowledge or how the world should work. However, I have been working since the day I turned sixteen in a variety of different jobs from retail, waitressing, banking and now teaching. While each of these industries is incredibly different, my enjoyment of each job has varied greatly. I have come to realize that it doesn’t matter how easy or difficult the job is, what matters is the team you are working with. I have been teaching for three short years at the same school in Providence. My first year I was lucky enough to form two strong friendships that will last a lifetime and it has been these friendships, that made me love coming to work because I knew I had a support system if and when I needed it. Fast forward to this school year and looking ahead to the next school year, both of my best friends are moving on to bigger and better things and I am incredibly supportive and happy for them. However, knowing that I will be ‘alone’ in my school has been weighing heavily on me. So I have become determined to bring on a change within my school so that we can become more of a community so that no one feels alone or unsupported.


Giving some background information, my school is one of the largest middle schools in Rhode Island with approximately 900 students and 80 classroom teachers. The building is made up of three floors, each floor being a ‘separate’ academy (PEAK, STEM & STEAM) with each academy being made up of 6th, 7th and 8th graders. Given that our building is as big as it is, it is often quite difficult to see, interact and plan with teachers that are not on the same floor, resulting in a poor climate and culture within the building. Additionally, our school is not teamed, making it difficult to plan and provide support to one another. Our “common planning time” is held every Friday after school but unfortunately, that time is used as whole school training or analyzing data within our separate departments. Since the common planning times are pre-arranged, we rarely ever have time to work collaboratively with our fellow teachers or to even provide support to new and veteran teachers. As a result, teachers are often left feeling as though they are on their own and often don’t know where to turn to for support within our building. It’s like Turkle says, we have all this technology, but those closest to us are suddenly so far away. I believe that students learn when teachers have the opportunity to work collaboratively, connect with each other and support each other.


This belief that I have is from my first-hand experience of my current place of work. Since I started working there three years ago, climate and culture between teachers and administration have been on the rapid decline. When I first started in my building I was wrapped up in being a first-year teacher and just trying to make sure I could survive on a day to day basis and I also had made some strong friendships within this time. Now at year three going into four, I have become more confident in my teaching which has allowed me to feel the black hole of despair that is currently taking over our school. This despair, distrust, and separation truly impact our students more than we realize. Teachers are starting their mornings cranky and ending their days even crankier. How can we expect our students to learn in our classrooms if we ourselves do not want to even be in this environment?


A quote from Robinson’s Ted Talk really stuck with me about the people within my building, “those who are immovable, people who don't get it, or don't want to do anything about it.” This resonated with me because I constantly feel as though the administration and our teachers are stuck in this fixed mindset which is not only hindering our students learning but also our impact as teachers. With all of this in mind, I have decided to be the person that Robinson talks about, the person that moves, who makes things happen. If I can get enough people to move, I can start a movement and if strong enough, start a revolution, according to Robinson. In my eyes, that is what Del Sesto needs, a revolution in order to take us from Te-Ka and turn into the beautiful Te-Fiti. For this to happen, we just need our heart back.


My first push towards this movement is to address the lack of collaboration that is prevalent within the school. According to Wesch in his Learning from Baby George Ted Talk, “collaboration is key” in order to be successful which is why I am working towards creating and collecting data through a Google form on why we need to have teams within our school. This Google form will be sent to all the teachers within my building and will ask them to provide their reasons as to why they think teaming will allow for a stronger learning environment not only for students but for teachers as well. After collecting, analyzing and sorting the data from the Google form as well as collecting my own research, I will bring forth a proposal to my administration in hopes to bring teaming within our school.


My next shove for this movement would be to create multiple Groupme chats within the building. Knowing how large my building is, it is probably unreasonable to have 80 or so teachers on one Groupme chat so I have decided to start small and start a Groupme by department (math, science, english, social studies, special ed, electives). By having this department group chat, it will allow teachers to share something they’ve done that’s worked, hasn’t worked, questions they have or just any piece of information they’d like to share with their team. By allowing a venue for these conversations we are able to start connecting and collaborating with each other. My hope here is to start by department then eventually have integrated departments, this will especially be helpful with my teaming proposal.


The next thrust in this movement will be creating a weekly electronic newsletter that spotlights a different teacher every week. The newsletter will feature a picture of the teacher as well as a mini “interview” that the teachers will be required to fill out via Google form. The newsletter will allow for teachers to be introduced and get to know each other, with the goal of creating a warmer school climate and creating connections between staff. By creating these connections, teachers will feel less separated from each other and start feeling more like a community.


My last and final push of this movement will be to create and offer a support system for teachers. Being a teacher, we are constantly learning new techniques and adapting to a new curriculum. However, we are rarely ever given constructive feedback on what we can do to improve our instruction. Through a Google form, I will offer all teachers to have a visit to their classroom to provide this critical feedback. This Google form would be completed by the teacher that visited the classroom and would be shared only with the teacher being observed. I am hoping that this support would allow for teachers to not only improve instruction and learn new techniques but to also create a culture where we can learn to trust and support each other as professionals.


Having all these movements in place, I hope to create a revolution. A revolution that will remove the darkness that has taken over my school, and instead bring back the joy and happiness that once was. I believe students learn best from teachers that can connect, support and can collaborate within their classroom. In order for this to happen, we need teachers that can first collaborate, support and connect with each other. Thanks to this class, I have learned how I can best take these techno constructivist steps to create a strong community and hopefully, I can be the Moana we need, to turn our Te-ka into the beautiful Te-fiti I know we can be.

References

Robinson, K. (2013, April). Retrieved July 03, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley

Turkle, S. (2012, April 21). The Flight From Conversation. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html? pagewanted=all

Wesch, M. (2016, April 15). Retrieved July 05, 2018,
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP7dbl0rJS0



My grading

Pecha Kucha

My Pecha Kucha Slideshow

Wesch vs. Turkle

Reading Wesch and Turkle, they both have very important and contrasting ideas.  While I don't think I would use the word 'allies' or even 'opponents' to describe their relationship, I do think they are both talking about a change in how we interact with technology.  

Turkle talks about the very evident change is social interaction since the domination of smartphones, laptops, ipads etc.  She also explains how "we’ve become accustomed to a new way of being 'alone together.'"  By this, she is saying how we can be with a group of people but using technology(checking facebook, snapchat etc) thus separating us from social situations and isolating us, in a sense.  She also goes on to say that we need to make time to have actual conversations with friends, colleagues, family and any other human being we can talk to.  We as a society, have become so integrated and dependent on technology that when we are upset or incredibly happy, the first thing we look to is our phones to console us or to show our happiness.  



Comparatively, Wesch is talking about how she has used technology as a learning outlet to make her students engaged in the learning process.  Wesch started with her research showing that "131 students reported reading less than half of the assigned readings, and further perceived only 26 percent of the readings to be relevant to their lives. Others noted that they often buy hundred dollar textbooks that they never open and pay for classes that they never attend."  While these numbers and facts seem incredible, they are very, very real in the college world.  As a result of these findings and her personal beliefs, she decided it was time to change the way we look at teaching so that students are the leaders and teachers are there for support.  She wanted to find a way to bring her 500 students together, not just having them in rows and as another grade in the grade book.  She was able to do this by integrating technology and found a way to use it in a way that each student became an expert in their assigned content and ultimately they put all their content together to make one large video.  Doing this allowed students to view learning differently and ask the questions needed in order for this learning to happen, not just have the teacher lecture and provide all the answers.


Wrapping up, while Wesch and Turkle have contrasting views on technology use, I think they're both getting at the same idea.  That idea being that technology is not going anywhere, but we need to know how to harness its power in order to create strong learners.  We also need to identify when technology should be used and when it needs to put to the side. Technology is a strong learning tool, we just have to understand how to use its power.

A Kahoot Tutorial!

What is Kahoot?

It is an interactive online quiz, survey learning tool that you can use in a variety of different ways:


1. Review, Revise & Reinforce: Revise topics, reinforce knowledge, recap learning, pre-assess and practice before exams.

2. Ice Breaker: Create a kahoot to break the ice or even to just to provide a brain break for students

3. Formative Assessment: Test personal knowledge, evaluate understanding or create a kahoot to assist formative assessment.

4. Gather Opinions: Survey class opinions, insights or even to facilitate discussion or debates

5. Collaboration: Have students work in teams to work on communication skills and teamwork using team mode

6. Turn students into creators: Have students create a kahoot on a content that you can use in classes

7. Professional Development: Use a Kahoot with other teachers or professionals to introduce concepts or share knowledge

8. Homework: With the Kahoot app, you can assign Kahoot as homework for students to practice

Creating a Kahoot

Step 1:
Log in to create.kahoot.it and click Quiz, Jumble, Discussion, or Survey to create a fun learning game in minutes, made from a series of multiple choice questions. For this particular session, we will look at the “Quiz” Kahoot.



Step 2:
Tags are used for other people to find your Kahoot based on their content search. For example, if your Kahoot involves Adding Fractions, a tag could be “adding fractions” **Tags are not required**

A cover image helps the Kahoot stand out and attract more players. A cover image may or may not relate to the content of the Kahoot you’re making. For example, I have used meme’s in the past to make it more fun for my students.




Step 3:
Create the Kahoot by adding questions, answers, and imagery.

You can also customize the kahoot using different timers and points settings or setting multiple correct answers for each question. When finished, you can always go back and edit anything you have done.

You can add as many or as little questions as you want.

When you're done adding all your questions just click Finish!

**Okay, so now you’ve made the Kahoot and want to have your students take it! Now what?**

Step 1: 

Open the game you want students to play and click the “Play” button. The next page brings you to a purple page similar to the one shown below. As you can see you can further customize the game options like randomizing the order of the questions or the answers etc.


You can also click “Classic” or “Team Mode”

Classic mode is for individual players and team mode is for collaborative teams.

Step 2:
Once you click the mode you want, you will be taken to a screen similar to one below. **It also plays some fun music that people really enjoy :) **



Once on this screen, the participants of the Kahoot will enter the Game Pin displayed by first going to the kahoot.it website. Participants will then enter their name(appropriate of course) and then their names will display on this coloured screen.

Step 3:

When all participants are in, press the start button and let the games begin!

Using Kahoot results to guide instruction:

This is an example, of what the end of each question looks like. Below, the results are showing the breakdown of how people answered the question being asked. As a teacher, if we see a majority of students getting the question wrong, or a lot of scattered responses we can use this information to review the question being asked.




When you have finished the Kahoot quiz you can also export the scores and results of each question, and you can save it in your drive and it will look like below



This is a great tool to use to track and analyze student data and provide data to use to guide further instruction.

Tip: Don’t want to create a new Kahoot?! That’s fine! Kahoot has a huge database of Kahoots created by other people that you can use as is or even duplicate so that you can edit them as you would like!

Learning From Experience: Want to create buy-in or hold students more accountable? I require students to show their work (math) and have them hand it in at the end to get credit. 

Mulan's Mixed Messages

The chapter I read about was “Mulan’s Mixed Messages” by Chyng-Feng Sun.  In the chapter, Sun compares and contrasts the Disney version of Mulan to the traditional Chinese legend it was based on.  Sun’s major claim is to point out how Disney has taken a traditional Chinese story and turned it into an oppressive Chinese society with no liberation for women.

The first comparison that was made by Sun was the beginning of each story is dramatically different, wherein Disney Mulan is pressured to marry and goes to see the matchmaker so that she can bring ‘honor to her family tree.’ After the interview, Mulan is shamed for her behaviour and criticized for “being too skinny and speaking her mind too much,” (Sun 107).  In the traditional Chinese legend, Mulan is portrayed as a “productive woman who has her own place and job within her home and society,” (Sun 106). The Disney depiction is sending the message that a “woman’s only value is to get married and bear sons, as well as all Chinese women and men, seem to embrace this value system,” (Sun 107). These depictions from Disney do not align or accurately portray Chinese culture or the original story.  

Another portrayal of China’s oppressiveness in the movie is when Mulan is the one that saves Captain Shang’s life as well as saving her troop from the Hun’s with her quick thinking, but when it is discovered in the next scene that she is a woman, her life is threatened per Chinese ‘law’.  Basically, Disney is saying that one second Mulan is a hero, the next she is worthless because of her gender. This depiction of the value of women in Chinese culture and the traditional legend of Mulan completely contradicts what is supposed to be.

The biggest “Oh wow!” moment for me while reading this article was when Sun talks about how Disney knows how to make a ‘happy ending’ that meets the characters’ wishes, but in Mulan this does not happen for her.  Mulan initially starts with “defying a sexist society but ends up settling down with it,” (Sun 109). This really opened my eyes because Mulan never went out to look for a husband, she just wanted to fight for her father because she knew he could not survive the war in his condition.  While she does fight this battle and brings honour to her family through her trials, her mother and grandmother are still more excited by the handsome man that ends up showing up from her going to war. Where Disney is blatantly saying that “If going to war brings a man, it must be worthwhile joining,” (Sun 109).  As I have said multiple times, I am a huge Disney fan have thought as Mulan as one of my favourite movies because I found it funny. However, I don’t know if I will watch it through the same eyes after reading this article and knowing how much Disney had altered it from the original story.

Disney

Let me just begin this post with the fact that I love everything Disney and I won't lie my wedding was loosely based on Beauty & the Beast.  I grew up watching all of the Disney movies and my mom would dress me up as a different princess(even Esmeralda) almost every Halloween.  Even as I was older my younger sister followed in my footsteps and again watched almost every Disney movie (mostly Finding Nemo & Lilo and Stitch).  My parents also brought us to Disney World multiple times growing up, and then when I met my now husband, he loved Disney almost as much as I did. 

Watching Disney movies would always take me to a place that would make me happy, and it still does.  In fact, I still watch Disney movies whenever they're on television and my mom and friends will even text me when a Disney movie is on.  I enjoy that it is an easy and relaxing movie for me to watch and brings me back to a time where I didn't have the worries that I do now. 

Examining Frozen, it does have some aspects that challenge the traditional princess movies that are Disney.  One way it does this is by having two strong female leads, Ana and Elsa.  While most Disney movies have a damsel in distress, these two choose their own paths and will fight for what they believe to be right.  Also contradicting to traditional fairytales, Elsa's "knight in shining armour" also turns out to be her sister Elsa in multiple ways by not only saving her life but also advocating for her sister. 


Looking at Christensen, I do agree with what she is saying and how she is having her students challenge what is being put in front of them without them even realizing it.  Looking back on the Disney movies I know and (still) love, I can see how it, in fact, does show gender inequality and how it represents different races and so on.  I also appreciate the fact that Christensen is having students open their eyes to the world around them because as Christensen states, it is not only happening in these cartoons it's literally happening everywhere.  The statement that resonated with me most was that she "provided them the opportunity to make a difference," (Christensen 200).  She was able to have students take their learning and anger and put it towards a meaningful practice and implementation to promote learning and change.  Again, while I will still continue to watch and enjoy Disney films, I agree that change needs to happen, not only in these movies but in the world we live in.

Boyd vs. Prensky

Reading Boyd, he clearly identifies the misuse of the term "digital natives" coined from Prensky.  While I do agree with Prensky in the fact that there is a divide between generations in technology.  I don't think the line is as black and white as Prensky talks about.  When comparing digital immigrants to digital natives Prensky argues that, "the importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain,

to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past," (Prensky 2).  As I can understand where Prensky is coming from with this statement, I think back to my parents who were both born in Europe and spoke another language growing up.  However, talking to them both today they do not have any type of accent showing that they were born in Europe.  What I am saying by this is that while it's true there may be an accent for a while, the accent will eventually fade and no one would know what this person was like in the past.  

Boyd also asserts that "a focus on today’s youth as digital natives presumes that all we as a society need to do is be patient and wait for a generation of these digital wunderkinds to grow up," (Boyd 197).  What he is essentially saying here is that if we continue to make it seem like this technologically savvy generation has all the answers, then we don't, as teachers need to do anything to help them.  However, "we cannot abandon them to learn these lessons on their own," (Boyd pg.182).   With my students spending most of the school day on computers, I feel it is up to me to make sure that they are using the tool of technology in the most effective and efficient way. But how do we get the adults out of this mindset? 

One of the first steps to change this mindset it to get rid of the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrant."  Even though they are only words, they create labels and these labels often have a way of impacts peoples perceptions of other people and even themselves.  What I mean by this is that if someone considers themselves a "digital immigrant" because of their age, then they can be ignorant to the fact that this can change and that they have the equal opportunity to be on the same level as a teen that grew up with the technology. We need to share our experiences with these students to help them continue to grow and learn with technology.  For example, most of my students don't know how to use Google to gather research, but that is something that most adults will know how to do and show students how to do it as well.  We need to combine our forces and only then can we work to become a cohesive digital savvy nation.