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The reading this week revolved around the participatory culture of the documentary. In a much smaller scale we are documenting our journey together in the classroom this year as a new form of communication, community and collaboration. In the past the method of communication for myself and parents has been the telephone call. Parents and teachers alike often dread that phone call. There are times when this still happens, however, the majority of the communication is done on a public basis these days. As such, we look to highlight the major accomplishments, the fun learning and engagement and the process we have taken to get to where we are. We document the struggles, the victories and the life of being a student. This year I communicate via webpage, blog and Twitter. We used this process as a platform to learn about digital literacy. We educated ourselves on proper use and etiquette while creating a presence on the internet. Together I modelled the process with students and starting this week turn it over to them. As November begins the students will now become the curators of their own digital presence. The scaffolding process was an designed to lessen what Jenkins calls the "participatory gap" (in Ratto and Megan, 2014). Students watched and were encouraged to help before but weren't given the responsibility to participate. Now they will find they take turns curating the school Twitter account www.twitter.com/WIDWildcats and the class account www.twitter.com/kmackay_hdsb. They will also take over writing the weekly Blog update to parents. The one thing that I have noticed about the process has been better documentation of the process and successes. We have begun to explore different formats for these updates - both video, text and photo. Next step is to explore Snapchat, Instagram and whatever other new methods of social media that become popular with the students. Perhaps it is a weekly summary using Lego stop motion animation, podcast or regular old phone call. The choice will be theirs - allowing them to be writer, producer and star (if they so choose). References Ratto, M., & Megan, B. (2014). DIY citizenship: Critical making and social media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
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AuthorI am a teacher in Halton and have spent 12 years dedicated to learning about and working with students who have special learning needs. I have been teaching since 2005. I have 4 kids (2 + 2 step), I play bagpipes, ride a motorcycle and love being outdoors. Archives
August 2017
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