Sarah's Teaching Stuff

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The role of teachers and emergent technology in digital learning

As technology becomes more embedded within educational systems, traditional classroom materials need to be updated to match trending educational technology around the world. A learner’s relationship with technology must also bend and change if they are to grow alongside the shift in technology. 1. What are the emerging trends in educational technology? How do they reshape the culture of learning and teaching? Mobile VR and AR, as well as the gamification of mobile learning apps, are most definitely emerging trends in educational technology. Through mobile VR and AR, students are able to experience difference environments digitally and create more tangible associations. These VR and AR apps are being fed different forms of AI and act as assistants to predict user movements and needs. Through an educational perspective, this may mean that students can be lead or guided by AI as they proceed within an educational app. Ass...

Participatory Culture and New Media Literacy

Within my own classroom, I would hope to incorporate and use student media literacy skills. It is likely that my students will be more in-tune with trendy tech (apps, platforms etc) so I would want them to be able to utilize their knowledge, share with or teach each other and incorporate their own participatory interests into the classroom. Using informal learning would not only keep students engaged, but it would (most likely) lead them to greater academic and personal successes as they would have a safe space in which to take risks with their skills.

Immersive Learning: Creating "an" experience.

It can be difficult to go against the status quo when pitching a new perspective on learning. In the article, “Learning science: a Deweyan perspective,” Wong, Pugh and the Dewey Ideas Group at Michigan State University, attempt to summarize the difference between an ordinary experience and Dewey’s perspective of “an” experience. Per the authors, an ordinary experience is defined as something involving a shallow interaction which lacks deeper meaning or any form of further development. Dewey’s “an” experience is something that is significantly more emotional and impactful which also carries more meaning to the person who is having the experience. Dewey’s “an” experience also encourages excitement, and while it may have a physical endpoint (time wise within an environment) Dewey’s experience continues to develop over time. It gains momentum and meaning. Wong et al. (2001) also paint a point to define vari...

Wise Integration of Technology

Below are two integration of technology frameworks: SAMR and Triple E. Presented as infographics, each framework is broken down into components that must be considered by individuals and educators as they integrate new technologies into their curricula and teaching. While looking at the main components of both SAMR and Triple E, both of which I feel would most help me integrate different technologies into my educational environment, it is easy to notice that the focus of these frameworks involves thinking outside of the piece of technology itself. For example, the SAMR framework encourages educators to think about what traditional classroom materials the new technology will replace and how it affects the student experience. Broken down into two categories, educators can incorporate both options in each framework, just one option, or use all four as they step away from traditional classroom materials. The Triple...

Kozma vs. Clark - Does Media Influence Learning?

Arguments: While summarizing the Kozma v. Clark debate via blocks of text is the traditional method for displaying their main objects and arguments, the infographic below offers a much more succinct and visually appealing way of doing this. Position: Upon reviewing both the arguments and counter-arguments of Kozma and Clark, it is evident that Kozma offers a much more friendly and realistic argument regarding learning with media. As a learner and user of many forms of media over the course of the years (VHS tapes, televisions, cassette tapes, CD players, smartphones, laptops, etc) it is evident, from my own experiences, that media allows users to consume more forms of learning and that the two have a reciprocal relationship within the twenty-first century. While Clark does well in defending his position through urging the separation of media and method attributes (with regards to causes of learning) as well as the ...