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Week 6 - Computational Thinking

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     This week's readings and presentations reminded me of how Jo Boler discusses as mathematical reasoning in Mathematical Mindsets (2016). Boler's work is linked closely to Carol Dweck's (2017) research on Growth Mindset, where errors are seen as opportunities to learn. Typical math lessons emphasize a "right" answer, and of course, accuracy is an important component of mathematics. However,the overemphasis on accuracy in the traditional math class limits the reasoning and thinking. Instead, students are overly reliant on rules and algorithms, losing trust in their understanding of number sense, ability to make connections and be flexible with numbers and operations. Programming, coding and computational thinking, on the other hand, encourages the student "to study the bug, rather than forget the error [and] errors when programming can help both students and teachers appreciate that failure is expected and seen as necessary for learning." (Comp...
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Week 5 - Literacy in a Digital World

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While the reading was a lot to unpack, this week’s topic is relevant to teachers across all content areas and disciplines. Digital literacy is more than knowing vocabulary and the parts of a computer as it may have previously been defined. Digital literacy is critically thinking about everything you see and hear within a digital space. Digital media is so embedded and intertwined in the fabric of our society that it’s hard to know where print ends and media begins. Manitoba’s new English Language Arts curriculum tells  us to consider language as communication, messages given and received, taking the emphasis away from only printed text, and instead thinking of the word “text” as any message we interpret. (Manitoba Education and Training, 2019) The practice of Language as Power and Agency is critical to the digital world we live in. In this practice, students: “Recognize and analyze inequities, viewpoints, and bias in texts and ideas. Investigate complex moral ...
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Week 4: Connected or Disconnected?

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As I reflect and consider where I may land in the infinite world wide web, I think I would be considered a permanent resident, with several platforms that show my friends, family and the world pieces of who I am. Someone with a window into all of the ways I use social media would have a pretty good idea about who I am and what is important to me. But ... would they really know me? The people who know me best are my husband and daughter, who see me every day, face to face, at my best and my worst. It is the people who we live our lives with and who we live and breath with that we are fully present with. White and Le Cornu (2011) propose that "place is primarily a sense of being present with others." If this is to be true, then I do not feel present with others when on-line. In fact,I feel disconnected,I am there, but not really WITH others and I do not share true myself with anyone in a meaningful way on-line. So, if this is how I feel, then am I more of a visitor?  ...
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