The Benefits and Challenges of Being Connected: Living, Learning, and Teaching in Virtual Spaces

Richard Beach, University of Minnesota, rbeach@umn.edu handout on Google Docs

https://goo.gl/IfQt4x

“Internet addiction”? “relief valve” (boyd, 2015)

◦Adolescents: extensive homework, test preparation, and scheduled activities

◦“They aren’t addicted to the computer; they’re addicted to interaction, and being around their friends.”

Shift to digital literacies

Being connected

Digital tools: Affordances

Affordances not “in” tooltool Activity

Affordances created by teachers

Activity tool

Types of tools/apps: Learning Replicant” apps

◦reify ways of learning made possible by other tools such as flash-cards or calculator

“Extender” apps ◦ “extend the learning experience in

ways not otherwise possible except through app technology ((McLain, 2014, p. 196)

Multimodality

Multimodality: digital images/videoPortraying problems/issues

through images and videoEvoking emotions leading to

“how-come” questions about the status-quo

Targeting groups to engage in civic engagement challenging the status-quo

ShowMe’s: dominant vs. recessive traitshttp://www.showme.com/sh/?h=RNKspgu

●Mother and father birds and baby bird

Critical Engagement: Interaction: target audiences

Out the Window Project◦Youth create videos that 7 million LA bus riders view

◦Pose questions related to civic issues within their neighborhoods

MindMeister: Concept Mapping in the Science Curriculum

1) Free-Form Tool allows for connecting ideas across complex concepts.

2) Using images and shapes provides enhanced opportunities for demonstrating knowledge to teachers and peers through multimodal production- in this case concept maps.

Assignment: Create a concept Map to compare

climate and weather

Interactivity/Collaboration

What caused the downfall of the Mayan civilization?

Collaboration: Alternative perspectives

Shifts in Abby and Starfish’s Individual and Collaborative Stances

Aesthetic Summarizer

Thoughtful Gather

Purposeful Summarizer

Reflective Analyzer

Diigo Annotations: Collaborative Argumentative Writing

Adding Diigo sticky-note annotations

Affordances of Diigo: Collaborative Annotation

Results77% of codes were

categorized “response to peer”

20% of codes were categorized

“response to text”

3% of codes were categorized

“response to side conversation”

Results: Diigo Annotations

34% questioning, 22%

integrating/connecting,

13% evaluating, 10% determining

important ideas, 9% inferring, 8% reacting to

other’s comments, 4% monitoring

Affordances: Collaboration, Visual: Student Voices

When you’re doing it on paper and pencil you’re just learning from our own thoughts, on Diigo it is more faster and better.

Easier. If it is on paper, you are not allowed to collaborate. It’s online.

You can communicate with other people Sometimes the people who you know they

don’t know the answer but if you post it online a lot of people will be online then they will probably answer for you.

Benefits: Annotations More active, critical

reading

Alternative perspectives

Alternative response practices

Connectivist theoryKnowledge resides in the networkNetworking literacies

◦Defining identities and relationships◦Using multimodal presentations◦Linking between texts◦Interacting with others

Intertextuality/recontextualizationConnectivism (Stephen Downes):Knowledge is a network phenomenon, to

“know” something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To “learn” is to acquire certain patterns. This is as true for a community as it is for an individual.

Readers’ connections

Reviewers’ connections on Amazon: Infinite Jest

Reviewers: Morrison connections

Wiki annotations to a Munro short story (Dobsen, 2006)

VoiceThread: Science Inquiry

VoiceThread: Multiple audiences

share responses to images

VoiceThread affordances practices

• Collaborative shared reading

• Audiences: annotations

• Mediated by focus on same image

• Learn from other’s perspectives

• Multimodal production

Dinosaur extinction: Volcanos

http://voicethread.com/share/2454743/

● http://voicethread.com/share/2454743/

Dinosaur extinction: Supernovas

http://voicethread.com/share/2544219/

● http://voicethread.com/share/2544219/

Analysis: VoiceThread Annotations

• 77%: inferencesabout causal relationships between phenomena

• 23%: description of phenomena in images

Recontextualizing (Blommaert, 2005)

❖ Decontextualizing: removed from context❖ Recontextualizing:❖ place in new context❖ Entextualizing:❖ analyze as new text

Using Google Docs

Survey: Comparison of Use of Docs versus Paper or Word Processing

Writing letters on Google Docs

● Letters to Obama to argue for or against the Keystone Pipeline

● Students shared drafts and provided feedback using comments

● Students revised letters

● Students and teacher interviewed

Students’ Revisions of Drafts Across Time

M.’s drafts (from 564 to 574 to 590 to 605 words) with feedback from A.

A: talk about the goal to lower CO2 levels to 350 ppm and how this will affect that

This pipeline could also affect our goal of 350 ppm of Co2 in the atmosphere drastically! A lot of people fighting to lower Co2 would get really angry.

I feel strongly that you should not approve the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline Project. First of all,ly, getting the oil out of the sands will produce the tar sands will produce toxic waste and that toxic waste and could destroy habitats.

A.: agreed to put in safety measures, like what?Also, TransCanada got a permit to waive away some rules and use thinner steel

While it is true TransCanada agreed to put in safety measures, such as a shutoff valve and a remote controlled pipe plus, TransCanada got a permit to use thinner pipes to save money making it more dangerous! Wwhat if one of those safety measures were to fail and there were to be a huge oil spill?

Organizing assignments with Google Classrooms

• Using Google Classroom • Using Goobric to create

online rubrics

“Instructional Chain” Mapping: contrasting concepts

Diigo: analyzing formulated arguments

VoiceThread: building arguments

using images based on carbon chains

Google Docs: drawing on all of

what they have learned

Personalizing learning• iChooseProject: Students

• Select purpose and strategies

• Select relevant appshttp://ichoosetech.weebly.com

Barrow Elementary School

Digital feedback tools

Stimulated recall (Abrams)• Pairs: screencasting• Math: “chalk talk”• ShowMe learning div

ision

Audio/video response Audio response to Google Docs:

Google Kaizena Video response to writing: Jing (5

minutes) Using Jing to give feedback Screencast-O-Matic (15 minutes) Explain Everything (link to Docs) Snag-It

Use of Google Forms for Feedback

Annotation feedback to images/video

VoiceThread: teacher/peer feedback

YouTube annotations or “Cards” (only your own videos)

VideoNot.es Google Drive app VideoAnt My VideoAnt annotations: Bench

mark students video production

iOS/Android Coaches Eye

Sports, oral presentations, drama, music performance, science experiments, etc.

Slow motion/freeze frame Student records self-

reflections iOS 50% educators

discount for 20

e-portfolios Process-based or storage e-

portfolios Product-based or showcase Use blogs, wikis, or websites

(Google Sites) iOS: Three Ring, Easy Portfolio Android: Three Ring,

Easy Portfolio

Future research??Challenge: technological

boosterism: use of tools simply to engage students.

Need more focus on how affordances foster critical inquiry even about the role of technology itself in society

Handout on Google Docs https://goo.gl/IfQt

4x