Reflections on myself as a learner in digital culture-Taking the next step in participatory culture

What has been intriguing between last week and this week, is that I realize I continue to make steady progress towards participating comfortably in the social media world. Through the process of being more intentional about who I follow on Twitter, I branched out to find things related to Health education. I stumbled upon the topic of mental wellness. There are many resources and people out there who provide excellent information on mental wellness, which I will be using to support what I teach in the classroom. This directly relates to the story of a woman in “Networked” by Raine and Wellman (p.258), who discussed the process of “grabbing all the people and things that would help her, each step of the way.” My Twitter news feed is now being flooded with new ideas, concepts, tweets, and general information that are specific to Health and physical education. Related to my increased level of comfort with participating in social media, a challenge for me is when I am rebuked by people on social media when I post information that is “wrong” or “incorrect.” For example, I retweeted a scheduled chat along with saying “looking forward to this chat” and not even five minutes later someone commented that it would not be the same as a regular chat. My shifting understanding of teaching and learning is that I must continue to participate in social media in order to grow, regardless of whether I am uncomfortable. The idea that it is alright to participate and be wrong every now and then. That is how we learn and grow! I still yet have to figure out how I can move participatory culture into the classroom that I work in, as cell phones are banned. I am not comfortable with the idea of using tech such as blogging to supplement my teaching either. What other ways could I create a participatory culture in my classroom, besides blogging?

Weekly Play-Reflection

This week, I opted to participate in an DS106 challenge. It was relatively simple, upload a picture in order to create a pop art piece. The learning that took place this week goes beyond simply creating something from a pop art generator, since this particular weekly play caused me to feel excited to share my creation with the world. The reason this is significant is because from the beginning of the semester up until that point, I was feeling apprehensive towards sharing my posts publicly. The image that I chose was a logo of the Seattle Seahawks, a NFL team that I root for. I liked the recreated image so much, that I made it my desktop background on my work computer. My students noticed when I mirrored my computer with the overhead projector as well! They asked where I found the piece so they could download it too. They were surprised to learn that I had created the image, so I showed them the link to the pop art generator. It was a great feeling to be able to directly teach my students a technique that I learned in this class. In addition to sharing this technique with my students, I shared my creation with the DS106 page as well.

 

Here is the link, ANYONE can create their own piece of pop art!

http://convertimage.net/online-photo-effects/make-an-online-andy-warhol-pop-art-effect.asp

HQ Fail #2/Weekly Play Reflection

This week’s weekly play was a challenging one for me! I had a difficult time attempting to figure out how to create the story for Snapchat. Once I figured out how to string them all together, I couldn’t figure out how to share my story with the class on a blog post. What happened was I figured out that I could export my story, but did not realize I could export the story as a whole. I ended up exporting each snap individually, one at a time to my email. From my email, I attempted to copy and paste the image directly onto a blog post. The hope was I could post all of the snaps together under one another, stringing together a snapchat story. The only problem was the pictures would not transfer from the email to the weekly blog! After reviewing the snapchat options, I realized I could share the entire story at once! Therefore I decided to use my twitter to share this week’s weekly play, using the #beduc476 hashtag. Not a perfect solution, but it’s not a perfect world. The motivation behind my story, was to give my followers a look into what the life of an educator is like while going to graduate school!

Weekly Play-Snap Chat Story

Please see my twitter post, as I found this to be the easiest way to post my weekly play!

**Please note this is evidence of my HQ fail, with regards to me attempting to upload my weekly play/Snapchat story into a blog post. I learned that I could upload the story directly into a blog post, after spending more time looking into it.

 

Week 6 Reflection-Myself as a digital learner

The most intriguing thing that I have done this week is the act of unfollowing people on twitter. This requirement caused me reconsider my idea of how twitter is intended to be used. I was following 41 people, almost to the required 50 for class. I felt this was a solid list, until I realized I could be even more intentional with how I use twitter. I went through the process of unfollowing a total of 8 people/organizations. The reasoning for unfollowing was based on my intention to begin using twitter for education related tweets. I am hoping to use my newfound networking skills as an opportunity to connect, and learn from other Health and Fitness educators. I began to look for things that were relevant to me, such as the school district that I work in, local news, and several more Health and Fitness instructors that have been nationally recognized. I began to follow people such as the superintendent of the district that I work at, even though she had made her twitter account available last year. I now realize this is the quickest way to find out if we have a snow day! Following 40 people once again, I feel confident that I will begin to receive even more relevant information that I wish to engage with. I realize the act of unfollowing has helped me to decide how twitter can be used as tool to help me grow as an educator.

Currently, the most challenging task for me is trying to figure out this week’s weekly play. I intend to do the weekly play of creating ten snap chats for a story about something that I am passionate about. The theme will be education related items, such as paperwork that needs to be graded, my lesson planner, academic planner, laptop, lunch bag and so on. I am struggling to figure out how I should share this assignment with my professor and class. I am going to try and somehow link my chat story to the blog page, use the blog page to direct people to my weekly play, or share the link through twitter. If there is a share story option on snapchat, I may use it to share directly onto the blog. Stay tuned!

I realize that using interactive technology to teach is highly beneficial for students. Agendas, and learning objectives are usually put up on the whiteboard at the beginning of each each of my lessons. Knowing that students respond to pictures rather than words, I have begun to put objectives onto google slide presentations. Even though I still use more words than I would like, I am hoping to get used to adding more pictures. A current challenge that I am seeing with regards to moving participatory culture into schools is the fact that students are usually banned from having cell phones out in class. The use of technology is usually one-sided, with the teacher being the one using it. My question for the week is how can a participatory culture be created in the classroom, when cell phone use is limited?

Course Readings-Connections

“Participatory Culture” as defined in the book Net Smart by Howard Rheingold (2012), requires one to to create and share messages in addition to consuming them. The more people who feel that their voice matters, the more likely people will engage in conversations. In chapter 8 of Networked, by Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman (2012), the power of social media is discussed with regards to it’s effects on social movements. For example, people used social media to promote change within an government or organization. This was illustrated in the story about terrible train conditions. People used social media to communicate to one another, highlight their grievances, and bring to attention issues regarding the train station. This resulted in the train station making changes to improve conditions. Collective collaboration comes to mind when change results from many people working together through social media. This is an excellent way to bring about change within an organization or come up with better ideas. Collective collaboration is defined by Rainie and Wellman (2012) as the most purposeful means of collective action (p.154). A diverse population of social media users is required if collective collaboration is to work. This fits into the participatory culture concept, since all people are encouraged to participate regardless of their background.

Weekly Reflection-The Daily Create

It took me a while to figure out what the purpose of the daily create was. By looking at other people’s examples and responses, I realized this was simply a way to get conversations started using social media. The most difficult task for me, was figuring out how to share this weekly play with my readers on this blog page. The daily create that I chose to respond to was what I thought life would look like 100 years from now. I decided to combine images of the twitter logo, a flying car and an image of the Jetsons in a flying car for a little humor. The twitter logo represented social media still being around in 100 years, the flying car being our means of transportation and the real Jetsons family actually being around. I realized that I could just combine all the images using the edit/enhance feature in my gallery app in my phone. Once I created/saved my final image, I uploaded it to twitter and made the appropriate tags. In order to get this image onto this blog page, I took a screenshot of the twitter post then emailed it to myself. Once it was on my computer, I posted it onto my blog page by dragging the image into a new blog page. Is there an easier way to go about this? I worry about not knowing how to share future weekly plays on my blog page. For example, videos. I may need to use my phone to create a video for instagram, or put together stories using snapchat.