The end of our fourth semester has come and so has the end of our Digital Learning workshop. This course was something necessary for our development as teachers who are part of a digital generation. Since artificial intelligences are rising up more and more, we need to be up do date with them to understand them, to know them and use them. Making use of AI’s has to be responsibly and ethically. In this course we learned all of that and more. The concept I recall the most is “media literacy”. I had read that term before but I never looked into it. When we got to see that concept deeply, I started to think to myself the way I use technology and decided I would do better from now on. So far I have been more conscious about my practices.

How has your perception of technology in education evolved throughout this course?

• Like I mentioned, the concept of media literacy changed my mindset on technology and how I use it. Also, my perception of technology evolved to a more appreciative way. I respect it more now, I am more careful around it and I’m interested in new breakthroughs or discoveries that they may bring. Furthermore, as a teacher I would like to foster a responsible use of it for my students in the future, because I think technology will be even crazier in about 4 years. I wish and look forward to educate students on the use of AI’s features that can be helpful for them.

+ Reflect on the potential drawbacks or limitations of technology in education, and propose strategies to address them.

• This topic is very interesting to me because I am never relaxed, I think about potential drawbacks of EVERYTHING, so of course I have thought of this before.
• Limitations: Education is all about people, and people are all different. Technology only targets certain people sometimes. Thankfully, there are other apps, websites or AIs’ that target the forgotten ones. But I think, will there ever be an AI resource that targets and embraces ALL people? Considering every disability and condition that a person could present. I don’t think so, at least not yet. However, technology can be very inclusive to certain groups of people, which is great! So, one of the limitations that technology has, in my opinion, is that no site has it all, but I trust that someday there will be.
• Drawbacks: Some of them are the fact that not everyone can access to them like it was mentioned before. Also, we can highlight the fact that to this day, media literacy is not something essential being taught to every single person. So, there is a huge amount of people that are using technology in an irresponsible way, creating cases of violation of privacy, doxxing, cyber-bullying and overexposure of ourselves.
• Strategies to target drawbacks and limitations: I do think there isn’t a single solution to modern days issues with technology, it has gone too far. However, what I think I can do as a future teacher is foster a healthy relationship with technology. I would like to be a role model in this area, so I better step up my own use of technologies.

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGWCGIUGwo/K8GaGhdiePsUCbCFAq9tog/edit?utm_content=DAGWCGIUGwo&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Activity: Creating a digital mood board.

Suitable for ages 13+

Objective of the activity: elaborate a digital mood board that expresses your personality and also write a short story about your life.

Components used:

Content Knowledge (CK): Understanding of the chosen topic.

Pedagogical Knowledge (PK): Self-reflection, critical thinking, writing.

Technological Knowledge (TK): Use of digital tools for design and publication.

Steps:

1. Choose a Topic (CK):
   • First, students choose what they are going to write their short story about. It can be of their own story or about their family.
2. Research (CK & PK):
   • For the mood board, students must research for accurate pictures to form their creations.
3. Create the moodboard (PK):
   • Using Canva, students paste the pictures the found in research and arrange them to form some sort of collage.
4. Create Content (PK & CK):
   • Write your story and use the moodboard for representing your story.
5. Peer Review (PK):
   • Groups exchange stories and provide constructive feedback on each other’s work. This encourages critical thinking and collaboration.
6. Publish and Present (TK & PK):
   • Students must post their short story and mood board to Edublogs.
7. Reflection (PK):
   • Students go on each other’s pages to learn new things about their classmates and see what they have in common.

Original activity: write a stand up comedy monologue using subjunctives. (Use of English)

• Substitution: In the original assignment, students were meant to write the monologue in their notebooks, with a pen. With this model, we can substitute pen and paper with a computer and a writing on a number of apps, such as, Word and Google Docs. Then, they have to send them to their teacher through e-mail.

Digital tools used: Word, Google Docs, Gmail

• Augmentation: To improve this assignment we can assign students a different theme for their monologues so they are all different. Using a digital spinning wheel, themes will be chosen randomly.

Digital tool: Digital spinning wheel.

• Modification: Students will use an artificial intelligence of their choice to ask for a funny situation to develop their stand up comedy. Then they can start writing their monologue.

Digital tool: AI chatbot

• Redefinition: By using Canva, students will be able to transform their stand up monologue and present it through slides, while adding images. Students will also have to make slides to analyze the sentences that have subjunctives in it.

Digital tool: Canva, Genially, or PPT.

This past Monday, we had our second session of the AI workshop given by Jesse Gleason. In this opportunity we had the chance to do a fun activity. Following the SAMR model we had to spice up an old activity by implementing more AI tools in order to make it more interactive with new technologies. Group 9, which was the whole classroom of classmates, we shared a google document and everyone had to put their activity in. By the end of the activity a couple of our classmates shared what they had done, as well as other people participating in the zoom call from all over the country. This activity required us to follow the SAMR model and try to do an activity following one of the principles. This activity was fun to make because my classmates and I had to decide which activity to do and that lead to a fun discussion.

Personally, I learned a lot of new AI tools and the importance they have in education in these two sessions. Regardless being via Zoom, it wasn’t hard at all to keep up with it because Jesse was nice and had a soothing voice. I also learned about the SAMR model and I think I will be looking more into it. Lastly, I’m glad we had the chance to interact with a native speaker of the language, it was a rewarding experience overall!

In conclusion, I learned new tools, like Magic School to create lesson plans, slideshow presentations, and more. I also learned about Mizou, a special website to create unique chatbots. I also learned about the samr model and the importance of AI in education.