Blog Journal #4

Using social media for my Personal Learning Network:

    I created both a Pinterest and X account to expand my PLN on social media. I used Pinterest to create a board with what my dream classroom would look like: minimalist, with beige toned walls, and a few plants to give it a more personal twist. I would like to have a lot of natural light in my classroom, as I believe it would give it a more "natural" essence to it. For me, staying connected with the outdoors is essential for wellbeing, and I would like to reflect that in my future classroom environment. I have interacted with several educators on X by following them and liking their content. They are insightful and inspiring to me. In the future, I will most likely reach out to them for advice to improve my practice.

The digital divide: 

    I attended an Apple Certified High School, which provided both students and teachers their own personal devices to use. They prioritized the use of technology in the classroom by promoting "paperless" instruction, and highly valued the dexterity of both students and teachers in using diverse platforms.  This definitely prepared me for college: everything is online. Canvas is the only platform that I was unfamiliar with; my school used Showbie and Google Classroom instead. Thankfully, I was able to adapt quickly to Canvas, as I was already comfortable with using digital platforms for assignment submission since high school. However, I had no experience in integrating much technology in the classroom before high school, which definitely was a huge learning curve for me. Maybe, I could've been taught how to use the platforms more clearly instead of learning through trial and error, which was my experience at the beginning. Because of my experience, I see how first-year college students with no prior experience with educational technology could be experiencing the same feelings I felt my Freshman year of high school. It is important to teach how to use these platforms to students in order to be productive in the classroom, and bridge the digital divide.

Collaborative and Social Annotation online platforms: 

    Our class was introduced to Ruttl--an interactive social annotation tool I found to work great for class discussions. On Ruttl, the instructor uploads a PDF or website, creates a link, and has their students add comments on specific parts of the text and reply to their classmates. As a future English/Humanities teacher, class discussions about texts will be both important but also complex at times, so Ruttl allows me to have all of my students' annotations in one place, see exactly what points of the text they found most relevant or need more help with, and teach them how to annotate effectively. For this last point, Ruttl comes really handy: the instructor can also annotate and engage with the text. I would provide a clear example of how a student's annotation should look like, so that they know how to engage with the text in a way that actually promotes their learning. Modeling is essential for effective instruction, and this platform allows to do just that for something that is--sadly--not usually modeled to students! Who would've though that a collaborative, student-centered educational platform would allow for direct instruction to take place?