#Netnarr I Bid You Adieu
I cannot believe that our self-assessment narrative is here already and that I just submitted my final project for our fieldguide! I feel like it was yesterday that we were in that tiny room with barely any windows and no natural light talking about our thoughts of the internet! I remember thinking "It's just like Alice in Wonderland!" and attempting my best illustration of her falling down the rabbit hole, hence the name of my blog, and all that would be swirling around her as she fell. Everything from social media to online shopping blogs to streaming sites-she fell for them all!
And now here we are...weeks later, with a better understanding of just how vast the internet is and just how ominous it can be if we don't talk about it. I still feel like the internet is a rabbit hole, and I still think we all fall down it; however, now maybe we can do it a little more purposefully!
I'm thankful for this class. I thought this class would be incredibly interesting, but I didn't think it would end up being valuable or applicable to my job as a teacher. Boy was I wrong! I don't know if I have one big take-away from this class, but the fact that I used what I learned in my classroom, was definitely a big one. I would share, from time to time, what we were learning with my students and they were floored! I feel that a big part of navigating this digital age is talking about it, especially with adolescents, as evident in my final field guide project on F-Instas.
I had a group of students decide to pursue digital surveillance as their topic for their argumentative essay, and I also was able to use the Four Moves and a Habit approach to teach my students about how to assess, not only website credibility, but the information itself! I was proud to see them engaged in critically questioning the information I feel they normally so readily accept.
That was what I enjoyed the most! Being able to use what we were talking about and bring it into my classroom. Because wasn't that the point of the class? To raise awareness for these issues and hopefully raise a generation that will be more empowered and hopefully better equipped to deal with it and bring about change? When you look at all the work I've done over the course of this semester, most of it is focused on helping adolescents navigate this word, or looking at how they currently are navigating it, to better understand them and help them.
My second biggest "take-away" would probably be that this class really asked me to step out of my comfort zone. I'm not technologically savy and something as simple as creating a digital alchemist and switching between twitter accounts, to trying to figure out Wordpress (I clearly didn't since I'm using Blogger), and having my bot or digital alchemist send out tweets on like a timer, were all really challenging for me. I do not think I "mastered" any of them, but I think that's okay. I don't think that was the point. I think the point was to ask us to step outside of what we are used to and to have us get a taste of each. I feel proud of myself for having accomplished this! And who knows, maybe Luna P. and I will meet again?!
On a different note-I really enjoyed learning how to create memes and gifs! I definitely feel more confident creating memes and really am loving it! My husband creates them all the time so now I can also!
Overall, I enjoyed this class a lot! It forced me to look at the internet in a different way. I had to take a less blasé stance and think more in terms of "What can I do? What is my role in this?". I've learned that the internet can be a bleak, yet wonderful vessel for knowledge and creativity. It can foster connection and foster fear. It's the epitome of ying and yang. Both the positive and the negative working side by side, and what will matter, is how the public chooses to respond.
And now here we are...weeks later, with a better understanding of just how vast the internet is and just how ominous it can be if we don't talk about it. I still feel like the internet is a rabbit hole, and I still think we all fall down it; however, now maybe we can do it a little more purposefully!
I'm thankful for this class. I thought this class would be incredibly interesting, but I didn't think it would end up being valuable or applicable to my job as a teacher. Boy was I wrong! I don't know if I have one big take-away from this class, but the fact that I used what I learned in my classroom, was definitely a big one. I would share, from time to time, what we were learning with my students and they were floored! I feel that a big part of navigating this digital age is talking about it, especially with adolescents, as evident in my final field guide project on F-Instas.
I had a group of students decide to pursue digital surveillance as their topic for their argumentative essay, and I also was able to use the Four Moves and a Habit approach to teach my students about how to assess, not only website credibility, but the information itself! I was proud to see them engaged in critically questioning the information I feel they normally so readily accept.
That was what I enjoyed the most! Being able to use what we were talking about and bring it into my classroom. Because wasn't that the point of the class? To raise awareness for these issues and hopefully raise a generation that will be more empowered and hopefully better equipped to deal with it and bring about change? When you look at all the work I've done over the course of this semester, most of it is focused on helping adolescents navigate this word, or looking at how they currently are navigating it, to better understand them and help them.
My second biggest "take-away" would probably be that this class really asked me to step out of my comfort zone. I'm not technologically savy and something as simple as creating a digital alchemist and switching between twitter accounts, to trying to figure out Wordpress (I clearly didn't since I'm using Blogger), and having my bot or digital alchemist send out tweets on like a timer, were all really challenging for me. I do not think I "mastered" any of them, but I think that's okay. I don't think that was the point. I think the point was to ask us to step outside of what we are used to and to have us get a taste of each. I feel proud of myself for having accomplished this! And who knows, maybe Luna P. and I will meet again?!
On a different note-I really enjoyed learning how to create memes and gifs! I definitely feel more confident creating memes and really am loving it! My husband creates them all the time so now I can also!
Overall, I enjoyed this class a lot! It forced me to look at the internet in a different way. I had to take a less blasé stance and think more in terms of "What can I do? What is my role in this?". I've learned that the internet can be a bleak, yet wonderful vessel for knowledge and creativity. It can foster connection and foster fear. It's the epitome of ying and yang. Both the positive and the negative working side by side, and what will matter, is how the public chooses to respond.
Thanks for being an integral player in our class experience this semester; it was always very encouraging to see how your interests in youth and and what your students might use was apparent in all you did. And what great news to see how you used the Four Moves approach with them. I hope it worked out well.
ReplyDeleteHave a great summer and beyond, keep making and using your digital alchemy skills.