This week’s class brought up several moral, legal and ethical issues teachers face. To recap this week, we discussed online platforms that are aimed at aiding students in completing assignments or textbook questions (namely Course Hero and Chegg), we also discussed Open Education Resources (online textbooks that are free to access) where Patricia shared that she currently uses an online book for one of her courses and lastly, we also discussed what it means to own your own resources and created content (ie: division right to ownership for those working as learning consultants and selling your personal content on sites like Teachers Pay Teachers). 

Teachers in Saskatchewan must follow the Code of Professional Ethics set by the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation (STF). Teachers make ethical decisions in their classrooms everyday and there is not always an easy or straightforward answer. As such, I believe teachers need to consider how the decisions they make impact the functioning of the school, the well-being of their students, and how does the decision support student learning. I’m going to explore one such ethical dilemma in this post.

Chegg and Course Hero

The ethical dilemma I want to discuss surrounds the online platforms Course Hero and Chegg. As an early elementary teacher, this is not an issue that I foresee coming up with my students, but one that I wanted to talk about as it relates to my teaching philosophy. These platforms are certainly more of an issue in middle years, high school and post-secondary education. What piqued my interest on this topic was being reminded of my early university days, where students could search up old midterms and final exams in the U of R Students Union (URSU) online database. Students could get an idea of what a Biology 100 final might look like – what sorts of questions have been asked in the past? The tests could give them insight into how they could study and prepare.  So, now, I ask myself this, is it cheating to look at previous course exams provided in this manner?  The scanned copies were openly accessible to students online. Surely the professors and university knew these were being shared, so they must have rewritten and changed their exams accordingly.

Cheating versus Learning

As I searched up Chegg to learn more, the main page says “24/7 Homework Help – from test prep to expert explanations, to writing help.” Students can pay a minimum of $18.95/month to get access to this help. The claim on the site says 94% of students say they got better grades with the help of Chegg. Alec mentioned in class that students can ask a question and an expert will answer the question in real time. So the ethical question is – is using Course Hero or Chegg cheating?

The quick and short answer is yes. If you are using a platform like this to take answers (plagiarize) and present them as your own for a class or course, you are cheating and breaking academic integrity. If a student submits a question to this platform that they were assigned for homework, and gets and answer back and is graded on that answer, then yes, that is cheating. In the article titled, “Ethical Issues with Using Technology in the Classroom” posted by Shristy this week, the prevalence of plagiarism today is discussed. With the wide use of search engines and overall widespread availability of knowledge, plagiarism is a serious ethical concern. Thus, it is important that students learn how to validate information and sources and properly cite the intellectual property of others. On the flipside, I do think a platform like Chegg or Course Hero could be beneficial to student learning if used appropriately and acknowledged as a study aid.

The Goal of Student Learning

One of the main goals of educators is student learning. We want to raise confident, respectful and kind humans as well, but we are in the business of learning. So, when thinking about study platforms that could support student learning, we need to look a bit closer. If educators need to design their assessments in such a way that students learn the material, check their answers, can ask questions from a different source and learn an alternative way to solve problems, then that should be acceptable. If a student is willing to go to this length to use a service like this, or even hire a tutor, then the student should be assessed on what they have learned in the end. If the student winds up learning more or solidifying their learning by using a service like this, I consider that a win. I want my students to learn. 

I want to be clear, I am not condoning cheating or plagiarism, but if this platform was used by students as a study aid to facilitate, compliment and enhance their learning, I would be ok with it. It would be pretty obvious if a student was crushing all of their homework and assignment questions and then failed when taking a test or summative assessment. I would also be able to gather additional learning evidence from in-class formative assessments to determine a students learning on the topic. Online courses would prove to be another challenge with platforms like Chegg and Course Hero, as students could potentially login and have questions answered in real time during a test, or for a “take-home” type of assignment.

Another example to support my thoughts is using a platform like this is comparable to providing students with exemplars and rubrics designed to guide them in their learning. If you design an assessment and provide students with an exemplar, or show a previous student’s work, the students are able to use those examples to guide their learning. Obviously, again, if they copied the work, it would be cheating. But, in many cases, providing exemplars enhances student work and output because students can see what it takes to do great work, and many will use it to create something even better!

Redo, Resubmit, Be a Lifelong Learner

Lastly, I want to acknowledge that there will no doubt be challenges in students having access to platforms like Chegg and Course Hero. Educators will be tasked with assessing student learning in a manner that compliments these types of platforms, if they are to be used. Think of higher level Bloom’s taxonomy learning objectives like creating, evaluating, and analyzing material. Finally, in my undergraduate program, I took an inclusive education class where the professor allowed students to resubmit any and all work. If you had an assignment that you wanted to redo and resubmit for grading, you could. And yes, you could raise your grade in the process. The idea was, if you want to enhance your learning by correcting your mistakes, or further exploring a topic then great! That is what ongoing and lifelong learning is all about. This is what we want our students to do as well.

Please, share your thoughts…

1. What do you think of students having access to platforms like Chegg and Course Hero? Do you think they could be beneficial in supporting student learning?

2. If you are a middle years or high school teacher, have platforms like these been a challenge for you?

Well, I must admit a typical day of reading and making sense of news, information and media looks a lot different for me than it used to, now that I am a full-time teacher and mom. And also now that smartphones have come into our lives. I used to be a news junkie (heck, I still am) reading a printed newspaper each morning (yes, I am that old), and even reading obituaries (a bit weird, right?), and perusing through flyers that came with the paper. Today, living in a rural community, we don’t get printed newspapers anymore, so my news comes from the Apple News+ app (from a variety of sources – CBC News, CTV news, Global news, Reuters to name a few). 

My Morning Scroll

Typically, in the morning I will check my emails and scroll through the news app to see what is happening in the world. This course and its weekly topics has me thinking more about how I process this information – what viewpoint is the News+ app algorithm presenting me with today?  I am starting to piece together a lot of the course material, from thinking about the media bias chart from a few weeks ago, to thinking about how I critically evaluate the content I consume. I have also started to consider the news of the world at large – when I see information on the war on Ukraine, I am certainly checking the sources first as there is undoubtedly much misinformation and disinformation stemming from the events taking place. It’s not like I am sharing this information publicly, but I don’t want to be reading about mistruths only to find out the truth in due time. The news is really coming at us so quickly.

Information Coming from Mariupol

One article that I connected with was this one: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-war-mariupol-first-person-1.6391816

It chronicled the dangerous and daring work of Associated Press journalists in Mariupol, a city in ruins in Ukraine and their escape from Russians who were trying to stop them from photographing, filming and sharing images from the city. The images that they captured recently in the shelled city have been shared around the world. One that caught my attention was that of a pregnant woman being carried out of a maternity hospital on a stretcher. The journalists later learned that she and her baby died. Opposing information sources claimed that she was an actor and that the images were fake. It is concerning to think of the misinformation and disinformation that people are seeing around the world surrounding the war in Ukraine. If these journalists had not been in Mariupol to document the events taking place, the people being hurt, valuable information would not be reaching the world just yet. We would be left to look at the satellite images coming out of that city right now to prove what is happening. It really is a crazy and dark time to be analyzing such news information.

The article recommended by Cymone this week, Defining “Fake News”, highlights the fact that social media platforms as news sources add an element of popularity which can propagate unverified information quickly to the masses. For example, with each like, share, comment, scroll and article read, the apps push that information out to more people. Thus, non-critical viewers and unwary users, including some students, will be susceptible to information that is unverified and potentially harmful. We are all susceptible to this information and as such we must analyze and validate it to the best of our ability. I’m sure at times we all can be easily persuaded to believe something if we aren’t careful.  I have noticed the news articles reporting on the war in Ukraine are using statements like “not yet verified” or “could not confirm,” which highlights the nature of how information is being gathered and shared in times like these.

What do you think?

How do you validate information from news sources, especially surrounding tough topics like the war in Ukraine?

Multiple Literacies

Last week’s topic of literacy is a big one. To me, literacy is more than just being able to read and write to communicate. Today, there are multiple types of literacies including digital/media literacy, physical literacy, financial literacy, mathematical literacy, and even spatial literacy. I connected with Bart, Leah T, Patricia and Christine B’s video presentation and readings this week. They touched on the importance of media literacy and the imperative we have as educators in teaching students the skills to be media literate like critical thinking, navigating fake news and even emotional literacy as it relates to creating content. 

Physical Literacy

A couple of years ago I participated in a University of Regina study titled Preparing for Physical Literacy: Exploring Post-Internship Students’ Understanding of Physical Literacy and its Role in the Saskatchewan Physical Education Curriculum. Prior to participating in this study, I truly hadn’t thought about literacy as it related to physical education. The study wanted to know if recent teachers who had just finished internship felt confident in teaching physical literacy through the Saskatchewan Physical Education Curriculum. At the time, I didn’t recognize physical literacy as being separate from physical education. According to Physical and Health Education Canada, physical literacy is a journey upon which children and youth, and everyone, develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to enable them to participate in  a wide variety of activities.  This is a life skill that can have immensely positive effects on students and people around them. Source: https://phecanada.ca/activate/physical-literacy. Thus, being physically literate, one is able to move and participate in a wide variety of physical ways and settings to enhance their overall well-being. 

Just like simply being physically active does not make one physically literate, I recognize that conventional reading and writing does not make one literate and being active with or on digital platforms, does not make one digitally literate. Today, literacy extends in many directions and languages to address the diversity of our population. Students need to be literate in multiple spheres like I mentioned above in order to adapt to life’s changes and be prepared for a life of learning, gaining knowledge and skills and to essentially keep up with the demands of our world. 

Why does literacy matter?

Bart’s article “What is media literacy and why does it matter?” states that media’s accessibility and popularity has American’s spending an average of 473 minutes each day consuming media including streaming content. And the daily social media usage worldwide is 145 minutes per day. I would be interested to know how this metric changes in each category including elementary students, middle years students and high school students? This reiterates the importance of needing to teach our students to critically evaluate the content they are consuming.

Algorithmic Literacy

I also found the information on algorithmic literacy an important one worth mentioning. Algorithmic literacy is a new concept stemming from the algorithms that websites and apps use to provide you with media that is specific to you and based on your previous activities and habits. I was thinking about this recently, as my journey with social media has continued over this course. I have been consuming content on Instagram and one day noticed a rather disturbing video of snakes being dropped on a stove in a commercial kitchen. It creeped me out and I wondered why on earth is Instagram showing me this!? I never watch creepy videos –  all of the content being shown to me is educational content and parenting content. I wondered… How can I remove this video? I don’t want to see more of these types of videos. I Googled it. Google told me that I can’t remove it from the content feed, but that I need to skip over the undesired content and eventually more content that you do want will fill its place. 

As educators, we need to acknowledge algorithmic literacy and teach students to critically evaluate the content being presented to them as these algorithms get smarter and target us with more and more content. Source: https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/what-is-media-literacy.

Let me know what you think about this topic:

1. Have you ever been caught off guard by algorithmic content targeting you?
2. Do you talk to your students about algorithmic content as it pertains to specific applications?

Kinds of Citizens

This week, after Durston, Gerry, Kelly and Gunpreesh’s articles, video and Alec’s presentation, I was left thinking about what type of digital citizen I am, and the one I should be as an educator in my community based on the article What kind of citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne. In it, Westheimer and Kahne outline three types of citizens needed to support an effective democratic society. They are the personally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen, and the justice oriented citizen. 

The personally responsible citizen acts responsibly in the community and engages in activities like recycling, donating blood, and obeying the law. These citizens have good character, are honest and responsible members of the community (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004).

The participatory citizen is an active member in community events such as efforts to care for people in need, promote economic development and cleaning up the environment. Citizens here need to not only actively participate, butlead the community in organizing such events (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004).

The justice oriented citizen analyzes and understands the connection of social, economic, and political forces to see beyond the surface. This citizen actively seeks out areas of injustice and knows how to effect social change. Justice oriented citizens will improve society by questioning and changing the established structures and systemic issues facing citizens (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004).

When I look at this table and reflect as both an educator and average citizen, I would place myself mostly in the middle as a participatory citizen, with a healthy dose of justice oriented citizenship sprinkled in. I help to organize community events, sometimes I spearhead initiatives in my school and community, and I actively participate in the activities and events of my school and communities. However, when it comes to my online presence, I am not an active participant, nor am I a social activist looking to publicly promote or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform.

A Perfect World

In a perfect world, I would love to be a social media activist, one who has the confidence and prowess to take on the world – the haters, commenters and trolls hiding behind their screens. But, my life as an elementary educator, momma, wife and friend keeps me more than busy enough. Maybe one day as I continue to educate myself through courses like ECI832 and others, I will have the time and opportunity to branch out and take on a more justice oriented role within my community. I recognize that the justice oriented role is one that educators strive to be and hope to instill in their students, however personally responsible and participatory citizens are likely more common. Lastly, I realize that I do not need to take on the WORLD. Even taking a bite out of my community and trying to effect change on a smaller, more personal scale is perfectly acceptable and a good starting point, especially as a person who is cautious and new to actively participating in social media. I think this message is a good one for teachers – start small and start now. Teach your students about digital citizenship. Some amazing resources have been noted in this course already including Common Sense and CIVIX.

In moving forward, I really connected with Durston’s article 3 Ways to Foster Digital Citizenship in Schools and his presentation on badge training for students. I think the idea of using and creating badges for my younger students will be a useful tool to introduce the topic of digital citizenship, but also provide an outline for their learning and behaviour. This would also be a great visual motivator for them – what kid doesn’t love stickers and badges!? This is something I plan to implement in my classroom and fits well with my Major Project. My initial idea is to create a passport of sorts, where students can keep their badge stickers. I am looking forward to seeing my students take ownership of their learning and am looking forward to adding in a little gamification into my teaching. If you are interested in pursuing something similar, check out this article and accompanying video – 5 steps to get started with digital badging. I will keep you posted on how it goes. 

I want to hear what you think on these two topics.

1. And what do you think are some barriers to educators being justice oriented citizens?
2. Would you use badging in your classroom? 

In light of the events currently taking place in our world, the significance of digital identity and digital citizenship has become more apparent and significant to me. Here in Canada, the protests taking place over public health measures have divided people. Meanwhile, the threats and acts of war taking place right now in Eastern Europe are beyond terrifying to me. There is so much information being shared online about these events – people are posting, sharing, liking, clicking and consuming the information. I can’t help but wonder how these acts are shaping each of our identities online and how that may impact our futures. Will people be held accountable for the information they share, post and even consume? Will their families be impacted by their online decisions? 

I have never been the type to post much of anything online. In fact, this blog is about as far as I have gone in actually posting and sharing information online. I simply do not want to share any of my political views publically, nor do I want any other posts or messages to be viewed politically by anyone online (friends, family, colleagues and those in my community). I have always been very content with not sharing online.  

In addition, my introverted nature has made me disinterested in being on social media. I do not want, need or crave attention from others online. It simply does not fill my needs bucket. I do like to read and watch content online, but I do not pour my time and energy into posting or spending copious amounts of time scrolling online, looking at what other people are doing. I much prefer reading and spending time with my family and friends.

During this course, I have really been struggling to post and engage on Twitter and Instagram. I think it is because I struggle with the idea of having my views and opinions “out-there.” I think of the impact that I am having on my students and their families by not being present online. Does it matter to them? What example am I setting by being offline?

Furthermore, in general, access to media has provided children with so much information and content from an early age. My toddler has just clued in to the notion that my phone holds the power to connect with Grandma and Grandpa. He knows that phones play music and videos. He sees people pull out their phones to take pictures and videos and enjoys watching the recordings of himself. He is learning through new skills through technology, but he is also learning about technology. In the Digital Citizenship Education in Saskatchewan Schools document, Sir Ken Robinson is quoted saying that “children are living in the most stimulating period in the history of the earth” (p.3). Digital learning experiences are taking place in many places and by many people at any given time, although not all people have access to technology and there is a digital divide.

Building digital citizenship teaching into my practice is important because our children (and my own) need to become critical users of technology. I feel a responsibility to teach them the skills to be safe and responsible online, because I know not all of my students are not being taught these skills at home. Digital access and digital identity  is “real life” for many people today, and we need to be teaching this from an early age. 

Teachers are looking for ways to meaningfully teach digital citizenship and media literacy as the world is increasingly becoming inundated with technology. Teachers and parents know that students from Pre-K to grade 12 and beyond are influenced by technology. This rapid evolution of available technology is having both positive and negative impacts. And I must add that this is not the case for all students, as not all students have access to devices or the internet. Despite this, there is a certain push and need for education to adapt and change to this new reality of life driven by technology. 

This week I have thought about the changes that will impact this generation, Gen Z, and future generations. I think about what life will be like for my toddler son and my second child. What will education look like for them? I imagine that it will be much the same as it is today when my son enters Kindergarten in a few short years, however, I imagine it may look very different by the time he graduates in 2038. How will his teachers be using technology in the classroom? What will learning look like for him?

The new skills as listed in “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” are important in helping students become active, informed, and confident participants in our society. They build the foundation not only of traditional literacy, but also research and technical skills, and critical thinking skills. 

The new skills include: 

Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving

Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery 

Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes

Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content 

Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal 

Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources

Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities

Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information 

Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

Jenkins White Paper – MacArthur Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2022, from https://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/jenkins_white_paper.pdf

Problem Solving and Instant Gratification

Out of these skills, one of the most important is “Play” as it relates to the capacity to problem solve. Teaching students how to solve problems on their own is crucial. I feel many students need to work at this skill. Our world is filled with instant gratification (shopping, watching content, downloading video games etc.) and this certainly has an impact on students. In my experience, some students have trouble with delayed gratification and even transitioning from one task to the next. They want to finish the entire activity or assignment in one swoop.

Furthermore, students speak about how quickly (or slowly) their parcels arrive when they order them online or how they have already watched the latest movie on Disney+. I have had students (and parents) tell me how late they have stayed up playing a game or watching content because they simply can’t put their devices down. 

I think that an abundance of instant gratification impacts the ability for students to problem solve and persevere. They are rarely left alone to play, or to become purposefully bored. I look back at my own childhood and the summer days spent at my grandparents farm bored out of my mind. With that boredom came many adventures, engineering feats and fun. Some memorable experiences include gardening, baking, quadding, helping my Uncle’s in the shop, swinging for hours on the playset, engineering small ramps and traps, and even making my own “hot tub” out of a giant Rubbermaid container. These experiences were influential to fostering my interest in engineering and science and my love of nature.

I am certain many kids are having these same experiences today, but I would guess that far too many are spending more time consuming content rather than playing or building. I hear of students who just “watch” others play video games on YouTube, rather than actually playing it themselves. Are they actually gaining any skills by watching? I feel if they were actually playing the game, they would be using problem solving skills. So, what do you think? How would you assess the problem solving skills of your students or maybe your children? If you have been teaching for a while, have you seen a noticeable difference throughout the years?

After going through the options for this classes Major Project, I was struck by the second option, to take a “Personal Journey Into Media.” This past summer, while enrolled in EC&I 833, I aired some dirty laundry and confessed to being a social media virgin. Up until this past summer, I was “pretty much” a social media virgin. You wouldn’t find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram. My one and only account was a Pinterest account I set up ages ago to enhance my creative side and pin some DIY home decorating ideas. To this day, I do not have Facebook or LinkedIn, but I do now have Twitter and Instagram. For EC&I 833, I created a Twitter account where I began following classmates and fellow educators. I have enjoyed reading tweets and posts from those that I follow and Twitters suggestions, but I have yet to do any tweeting of my own so far. Until now…

This has led me to diving in even further this semester by not only joining Twitter, and Instagram, but actually being engaged on these platforms and making regular posts. As an elementary teacher, my students are beginning to find themselves connecting on digital apps like these and it is important for me to have a solid understanding of what the apps are all about.

In addition to using Twitter and Instagram, I plan to research and test Messenger Kids and Edmodo. I have heard some of my students mention that they are on Messenger Kids, but I know it is only a portion of my students. Based on some early research I would like to look into introducing my class to Edmodo as it appears to be a social learning platform designed to connect in an educational setting. Perhaps this app will be a way for me to integrate curricular objectives and student learning while teaching my students to how to interact on social media!? It’s no surprise to any of us that our students lives are highly influenced by digital media from a very young age. Students as young as my second graders are staying up until 3 am gaming, watching videos and connecting with others online. Teaching media literacy and digital citizenship is certainly an important part of education today.

So here is a question for elementary teachers and parents, do you have any experience with Messenger Kids or Edmodo? Let me know what you think of them. I’m really looking forward to this digital learning journey.

Here we go! Another semester has begun and I’m looking forward to learning alongside Alec and my classmates in this course. This is my third course in the curriculum and instruction course-based masters program and my second edtech course!

I am in my fourth year of teaching and currently teach the sweetest group of grade 2/3’s at Westmount School in Moose Jaw. Prior to teaching, I had an enjoyable career working as an Environmental Engineering Technologist. My past experiences have allowed me to infuse real-world and unique perspectives into my personal pedagogy. Every decision in my classroom is fueled by my knowledge and education and also by my desire to be the best educator I can be. This has led me here…  pursuing my Masters in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Regina.

Aside from teaching and learning, I spend my time with my husband Mitch and our toddler son, Leif. We have built an amazing life in the small community of Rouleau where we enjoy life’s adventures together, big and small. And… we are excited to welcome our second little nugget this April!

You can check out my twitter account here @rsingleton212! I am new to blogging and tweeting, but am looking forward to connecting with you this semester.