Change Project

 Narrative:

When I enrolled at Rhode Island College, I went in with my mind set on becoming a radiology technician. Little did I know that after a full year of college that was going to change. I never thought about the idea of becoming a teacher. Why? Maybe because I always thought that I wasn’t a good of enough student. Both my older sisters had been accepted to Classical and it was a big deal so when I did not pass the entrance exam, I felt like I had let my entire family down. I saw myself as the black sheep and it became worse when my younger sister also passed the entrance exam and attended Classical High School. I had attended Hope High School or how others refer to this school “hope-less”. During my time at Hope I had the most amazing teachers who changed the way I viewed myself. 

My parents migrated to the US from Guatemala in hopes of a better future for themselves. My father lost both his parents at a very young age and my mother never had a good relationship with her parents. All they had was each other. My parents worked sunrise to sunset before having children. In 1991 they had my oldest sister. In 1993 they had my second oldest sister and in 1994 they had me. They went from working sunrise to sunset to now balancing life with three daughters. After having three children back-to-back my mother knew that daycare would be too expensive for them, so they had to make the tough decision of only having one source of income and her becoming a stay-at-home mother. With this came lots of sacrifices for them. My mother returned to work when all of us were in school already, but this meant that now both my parents would go back to working sunrise to sunset. Because of this my parents hardly ever attended any events at our school. Their priority was to provide the necessities which were a home, food, and clothing. It was not at all that they did not care about our education because they did. They asked us every single night how our day was, what did we learn, and always encouraged us to do our best to be someone in life. When I began high school, I recall having one specific teacher who tried her best to have two-way communication with my parents. I tried explaining why it was difficult for them. Not only the language barrier part but also that they worked until late daily. I would go home and tell my parents that my teacher wanted to talk to them and for my parents that meant that it had to be something bad. My teacher was finally able to schedule an appointment with them and talked about the importance of having that communication with the classroom teacher. This was a huge eye opener for my parents. They began to understand the importance of it and the importance behind two-way communication with teachers. After this a lot changed for me. With my parents more involved and with more communication with my teachers I began to change that mentality that school was not for me. Like Pierson said, every child needs a champion. I had my champion at school but now I had also gained a champion at home. 

My Tech Identity:

            According to Scott Noon there are four tier models of teacher training in technology. The first stage is preliterate. In this stage one does not yet make use of technology for personal or instructional means. The second stage is technocrat. In this second stage one experiments with technology but is unsure of its overall dependability and usefulness. The third stage is techno-traditionalist and in this stage, one uses technology proficiently to accomplish traditional classroom tasks. The last stage is techno-constructivist. In this stage one uses technology to completely change approaches to teaching and learning in the classroom. Scott Noon believed that teachers move through a linear progression in their technology skills from preliterate to techno-constructivist. I would identify as techno-traditionalist. I know how to do the basics but there is definitely a lot more I can learn and incorporate in my teaching and learning in the classroom. I believe that technology is a tool and not a learning outcome. I want kids to be able to use technology to raise awareness, find answers to their questions, make a difference, take action, and drive change. 

Prensky believed that there are two groups: digital natives and digital immigrants. He believes that kids’ brains are different from their parents because of their relationship to digital technologies. Boyd on the other hand, believed that students should not be called digital natives. She believes that people born in the age of tech are not automatically masters of technology. She believes that we need to teach students how to interact with tech and media. Boyd believes that the youth deserve to be taught about the internet, critical thinking, that gaps and inequalities need to be addressed in media, and that media is connected to all other realms. I very much resonate with Boyd when I identify myself as techno-traditionalist. I was born in the 90’s and there was already so much modern technology but just because I was raised in that era did not mean that I had the exposure to certain technology. I remember attending Hope High School and we had a computer class where we learned how to use a computer and certain programs. I remember being amazed at how much I did not know, and I am grateful because I believe that’s what set me up for success when I went to college. I could navigate the internet and use Microsoft word. As my college year went by, I learned how to use other programs thanks to peers or professors. Just like Boyd believed that people deserve to be taught. As my sisters and I began to learn more and more we began to teach our parents. My parents would most definitely identify as digital immigrants but its because no one had taught them. I would identify them as technocrats. They now experiment with technology, but they are still unsure of its overall dependability and usefulness. We taught them how to navigate a smart phone and a bit of social media and they learned. They learned how to make voice calls versus video calls, they learned how to share things on social media, they learned how to look for familiar people, and they also learned to send messages and use emojis. 

My Why:

            As an emergent bilingual student communication was always a barrier between my teachers and my parents. My parents spoke only Spanish, and all of my teachers were English speaking individuals. When I became a teacher, I made a promise to myself. That promise was that I would give back to the community that I grew up in. Right now, I teach 1^stgrade at the elementary school that I attended as a student. When I took this position, I knew that I had to give more to my students, my students families, and anyone else involved to help bridge the gap between home and school. I knew that I had to pick myself up like baby George and think of the significance of growth in my school to home connection just like Welsch taught us. But in order for me to do this, I first had to think back as to how my teachers kept my parents up to date with behavior, academics, and announcements. How was my growth and achievements communicated to my parents? In my elementary school days, I remember just taking flyers home with announcements regarding events or parent teacher conferences. I remember one of my teachers saying, “if you don’t do your work, I will have to call your parents”. This made me understand that they would only call my parents if I wasn’t complying with my schoolwork but I was always a quiet and independent students so I knew that my parents would never be contacted. This made me believe as an educator that phone calls home should not only be for negative reasons. Parents should be notified of student’s successes and achievements big or small. I believe that parent communication does not have to be all negative reports. I believe that students should not be told “I am going to call your parents” in order for them to complete a task. I believe that effective communication is essential for building school-family partnerships. It constitutes the foundation for all other forms of family involvement in education. Family involvement is the next change project that I want to target alongside parent teacher communication. I believe that students learn when they are encouraged by both their teachers and their parents to become successful. 

Action Plan:

            There are many forms of parent teacher communication that I have used and will continue to use. They are:

• -       Class Dojo
• -       Newsletters
• -       Parent Square
• -       Growth & Glow Cards

One app I would like to begin to use is Bloomz. Bloomz is a free app, and it allows teachers to post updates, upload documents, track students behavior and share feedback with parents, it allows you to schedule events, volunteers, and parent-teacher conferences, and it allows you to have two-way communication with parents. 

            In order to put to action my plan I want to begin by having parents fill out a google form during orientation to find out what times work best for parents. This will allow me to put my families into categories as to when I can message these parents and expect a response. I want to respect my students’ families time and I do not want them to feel like I am going to bombard them with so many notifications. 

            In order to make this successful, I would like to host nights where it will allow me to teach my students families how to use and navigate these apps. I believe that everyone is capable of learning if someone is devoted to teaching them how. We tend to assume that our families already know how to navigate everything given to them and when we do not get the response we expected we tend to make assumptions about the families we work with. With time, I would love to create a website for my classroom and use that as our primary source of communication. But I look forward to putting my plan into action and hosting parents to teach them how to navigate these apps and the importance of parent teacher communication. 

 

My Year with Nike

 

    This was a story of corporate sponsorship, branding, and ethics in public schools. A Title I school, where most kids are learning English and live in low-income homes, in Beaverton, Oregon were made an offer from Nike that they felt they could not refuse. Nike selected their school to participate in a new elementary health and fitness program. They offered many things like four paid field trips, including the buses and helping them meet their physical fitness standards. Their school would also receive money for each hour spent at the Nike Campus, to be used for new P.E equipment. 

Who Can Relate?

    How many of us would also not think twice about an opportunity like this? I think that many of us who work in Providence public schools would jump at this offer. We know the costs for field trips and on top of that, the costs of bussing. This year my students were not able to take any field trips and it was devastating because we should be able to provide our students with unforgettable experiences. Fundraising is never easy and if there was a way to avoid it I think it would be a huge weight off teachers shoulders.

Partnership or Marketing. . .

    Nike had proposed this opportunity as a "partnership". They were aggressive with daily emails and phone calls. Rachel shares her irony that haunted her with the Nike partnership. How Nike operates exploitive sweatshops that keep communities poor and voiceless in some of the very countries from which her students' families had migrated. How these companies perpetuate injustice in developing countries by paying workers a minimum wage that is not a living wage. In addition to all that workers could also be exposed to dangerous conditions, independent unions were outlawed or attacked, and environmental regulations, when they did exist, they were not enforced. 

    On the first field trip, Nike's "request" was that all students wear the Nike shirts that were donated to them. On this first day, students were handed each a can of soda and spent an hour watching not yet released commercials. When program directors were asked why the students were watching commercials, they responded, it would help "rev them up" for their upcoming soccer game. Rachel felt powerless at this point to question anything. Soda and commercials were not appropriate for a health and fitness program. The next day students were given juice and trail mix as a snack.

 Branding the Children

    Rachel admits that not all of it was negative. She was appreciative of the experiences her students were given with trying new things like swimming, hip-hop dancing, rock climbing, yoga, and tennis. It was very clear that branding the children was a not-so-hidden agenda of Nike's partnership. After every field trip, Nike sent students home with a plastic bag full of trinkets and gifts. 

Proposal

    Rachel does not believe that it's all bad. She believes that we do not have to five in to a corporations every demand. She also believes that schools or school districts should develop guidelines for relationships with corporations so that when they are approached by a business they are prepared and more likely to get their needs met. Above all, there must be plenty of opportunities for honest discussion and careful decision making, always asking: What is really in the best interest of students. If there is any genuine interest from a corporation in supporting communities, they could undoubtedly afford to donate money with no commercial strings attached. They could encourage their employees to volunteer. As teachers, we love volunteers and visitors. Come read to our children!

Book Creator Tutorial

     Book Creator is used in classrooms around the world to demonstrate learning and express creativity. I began to use Book Creator in my first year of teaching first grade. Students were required to do research on wild and endangered animals then, put together a final project with their findings. My students are always so dedicated to their research and always work very hard in completing all research questions in our unit so I thought, how can I show off all of their hard work and dedication... I began to search for online platforms that would make it simple for my 6-7 year olds to navigate. As an educator, I believe students should be allowed to explore technology and online platforms but also taught how to navigate platforms they are given. So during my search I came across Book Creator and began to explore it for myself a bit. The more I explored it, the more I realized that after being taught, my students were definitely going to be able to navigate this platform. After my first year using Book Creator I learned simpler ways to teach how to use it. I also learned different techniques that would best help my students and I also learned that I loved it and every year I have gotten better at teaching my students how to use it. 

Step 1: search www.bookcreator.com

This is the window that will pop up. 

You then want to click on Create a FREE account

Step 2: Once you click on create free account this window will pop up.

You can either use your personal email or if your school uses Clever that might be easier to use.

Once you add it to your library on Clever, your students will have easy access to it.

Step 3: You will need to create your student logins.

Once you have imported all your students names, you can have students login on their Chromebooks and share the invite code with them so they can access your library.

Step 4: Students are able to access your library and begin to explore.

Step 1 for Students: Click on New Book. Here students are able to choose the type of book they want to create.

Step 2: Once they have chosen what type of book, it will bring them to this page where they can explore the different options available to them. If they click on the + sign they can add photos, open the camera, add text, or even record themselves.

If they click on the I , It gives them options on different page colors depending on the type of book they're creating.

What I love about Book Creator is that it allows students to work on their computer typing skills as young as first grade but it can also be differentiated for those who are not there yet by allowing them to record themselves to create their book. 

Another great tool here is that if someone else if accessing your book and cannot read it, there is an option so that you can have the book read to you. It also allows students to leave feedback on each other's books. 

Lastly, here is a video that I found very resourceful as to why Book Creator has worked for many teachers in the classroom!

There is so much more to explore! I learned new things while creating this and I look forward to implementing them this upcoming school year!

To Do List

 

1. Begin my narrative: Where did this change project come from and why it is important to me.
2. My tech identity
3. My Why: What do I believe as an educator
4. Explain my action steps toward my change project
5. Add hyperlinks
6. Condense story in 20 second speaking parts
7. Design slides and choose images that match that part of my project
8. Practice presenting and/or do recording
   
   
   

Change Project

 

    It was really tough to narrow down my change for this project. There are so many things that came to mind and I primarily wanted to focus on my multilingual learners but then rethought that idea and came to the conclusion, why not focus on one thing that will benefit all of my students. I believe that students learn best when they are encouraged by both their teachers and their parents and this can only happen if there is a working two way communication system between teacher and parents. So for this change project I want to create/develop a better system for having two way communication with families. In the past I have used Kinvo, newsletters, post cards home, and glow and grow notes but I have not had the turn around from parents that I have wanted. This tells me that I need to create something else that will get me the results that I want. 

    The reason why I wanted to focus primarily on my multilingual learners is because I would love to connect this to a previous project I have worked on and build off of it to create something that will be successful but I am not sure if that would change my project. In a previous assignment I focused on increasing parent engagement of my multilingual learners. So I am not sure if these can go hand and hand or if they could and should be two different change projects. I believe that back and forth communication between teacher and parents increases parent involvement so if I can target parent communication maybe in my second phase I can begin targeting parent involvement as well. I believe that positive communication between parents and teachers are essential to ensuring a positive impact on students' academic potential. Like Pierson said, every kid needs a champion and I believe that every kid needs a champion at school and at home. 

Challenging the Influence of Media on Children's Culture

 My Relationship

    I do not recall ever having a strong relationship to Barbies growing up. I had two older sisters but even then I do not recall them ever having an obsession or attachment to Barbies. I can recall beginning to see more of Barbie's when I began school and saw other girls with Barbie backpacks but it never really seemed to call my attention; hence why I have yet to see the Barbie movie. What I do recall is watching lots of Disney movies. Some of my favorites were The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White, Peter Pan, Pocahontas, and The Lion King. Now that I have time to reflect and after reading Linda Christensen's chapter unlearning the myths that bind us I notice that these stereotypes have always been present but it never really crossed my mind to question it. I would always look beyond them because I thought it was a good movie but boy was I wrong. I remember my sister having the biggest obsession with Pocahontas and now that I think about it, could it have been because who she related most to? Lots of questions now begin to arise. I can recall sitting in my freshman year of writing class at RIC and we were getting to know each other and our professor began by telling us a little about himself and his family and one of the things that mostly stuck out to me was when he shared that he would never allow his kids to watch  Mickey Mouse. Again, no one questioned why. I simply thought, oh I wonder why but never asked but if we were to use this technique that Christensen talks about we can pull apart Mickie Mouse and find the underlying assumptions. Children's books and movies instructs young people to accept the world as it is portrayed in these social blueprints. and often that world depicts the domination of one sex, one race, one class, or one country over a weaker counterpart (Christensen, 2016, p. 175). 

Christensen's "Secret Education"

    Christensen begins by pointing out how society's culture industry colonizes students minds and teaches them how to act, live, and dream. This brings me back to Barbie. Barbie portrays an image that girls should be skinny, tall, lean, and have perfect skin. Is this the reality for all girls? Not at all but there are girls who go to a certain extent to want to portray that image. Christensen wants her students to question this accepted knowledge and the secret education delivered by cartoons as well as by the canon. Her students did not want to believe that they had been manipulated by children's media or advertising but the more they questioned the more they began to discover the manipulation. Christensen also brings up an important point that even if the race of a character is changing, injustices may still remain. Disney has come out with different versions of movies changing the characters but if we question and critique I know that we will still find injustices. Taking action was also very important to Christensen. She wants students to develop their critical consciousness, but also hopes to move them to action (Christensen, 2016, p. 183). Although this has changed the way we view movies, cartoons, advertisements, magazines, etc, I believe that it is a very important skill to teach our students. Questioning is not bad at all and turning off the cartoons does not stop sexism and racism. "They were fueled by the opportunity to convince some parents of the long-lasting effects cartoons impose on their children, or to enlighten their peers about the roots of some of their insecurities" (Christensen, 2016, p. 185). As a parent, I have always been very careful of what I allow my son to watch and the influences it will have on him and this just made me question the very minimal shows and movies that I do allow him to watch. :) 

Digital Native

           

            When I think of the term “digital native” the first thing that comes to mind is assumption. Assumption that because teens grew/grow up in a world in which the internet has always existed, many adults assume that youth automatically understand new technologies (Boyd, 2014, p. 176). How can we assume that this is the case for all teens. We cannot. Just because teens may make their own media or share content online, does not mean that they inherently have the knowledge or perspective to critically examine what they consume. I resonate with Boyd’s argument that, the notion of the digital native, whether constructed positively or negatively, has serious unintended consequences. Not only is it fraught, but it obscures the uneven distribution of technological skills and media literacy across the youth population, presenting an inaccurate portrait of young people as uniformly prepared for the digital era and ignoring the assumed level of privilege required to be “native” (Boyd, 2014, p. 179-180). Teens will not become critical contributors to this ecosystem simply because they were born in an age when these technologies were pervasive (Boyd, 2014, p.177). We live in a technologically mediated world and being comfortable using technology is increasingly important for everyday activities.  Boyd also talks about youth becoming media literate. Whether they engage with media as consumer or producers, they need to have the skills to ask questions about the construction and dissemination of particular media artifacts (Boyd, 2014, p.181). What biases are embedded in the artifact? How did the creator intend for an audience to interpret that artifact, and what are the consequences of that interpretation? (Boyd, 2014, p. 181). Boyd also goes into some detail regarding helping our youth develop broad digital competency. How educators and the public end up reproducing digital inequality because more privileged youth often have more opportunities to develop these skills outside the classroom (Boyd, 2014, p.180). This leads me back to Prensky’s assumption that because teens grew/grow up in a world in which the internet has always existed, we assume that youth automatically understand new technologies. Empowering youth requires much more than calling them native participants (Boyd, 2014, p.183). 

Jenkins explains a bit the challenges brought forth by media literacy stem from and reinforce the broader issue of digital inequality, which is often elided by the frame of digital natives. Talking of digital natives may mask the different degrees of access to and comfort with emerging technologies experienced by different youth. (Boyd, 2014, p. 192). When we talk of digital natives it makes it harder for us to pay attention the digital divide in terms of who has access to different technical platforms and the participation gap in terms of who has access to certain skills and competencies or for that matter, certain cultural experiences, and social identities (Boyd, 2014, p. 192). Hargittai found that teens technological skills are strongly correlated with the quality of their access (Boyd, 2014, p. 165). 

 

Resources:

Boyd, Danah, (2014).  It’s Complicated: The social lives of networked teens.Yale University Press, New Haven and London