Students prepare for teaching careers by building digital self-portraits
December 2013 - Article for Huronia Business Times
What is your digital self-portrait, and why is it important?
This is what some of Lakehead’s Education students are learning in a unique course called Digital Teaching and Learning. The course was originally created to provide Concurrent Education students with awareness of educational technology in elementary school environments. The course design now includes a focus on digital citizenship and online safety, and also encourages students to think about who they are in digital environments – as a student, and as an aspiring teacher.
I recently spoke to the course instructor, Helen DeWaard, to learn more about this interesting program.
What is a digital self-portrait and why is it part of your course?
In this course, the self-portrait is the culmination of everything the students have done in class and their final assignment. The result is an online resource in the form of a blog that includes links, images, audios, video and other Web 2.0 activities.
At the end of the course, the students will be able to walk away with something that will take them into a work environment. This is something that many others – students, teachers, entrepreneurs, small business owners and large corporations – are learning how to do in digital spaces.
What the students end up with is a showcase of their skills and interests in an authentic, collaborative and networked community. It describes who they are as a learner and who they will become as a teacher; it’s a way for the students to represent their skills, interests and passions.
What do the students learn from the course?
Students come into the course with a variety of experiences gained from using digital technologies in their personal life – such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest – and at school with online resources and basic software programs. By the end of the course, the door to Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 resources is pushed wide open and the potential found in the digital world is exposed. Each week the students explore new web-based tools for collaboration, creation, curation, and communication.
Students learn that technology doesn’t limit or create learning. They learn that teaching comes from learning and trying things, making mistakes and fixing things. They learn that this happens in collaborative, collective spaces – face-to-face, or online. Asking big questions, finding their way around web technologies, constructing and creating messages for unknown audiences and being comfortable with uncertainty, are all elements that students learn in this course.
Why is this course important for Education students?
Teaching is about telling stories and making those stories memorable. Teachers need to tell their own story – just like a small business that needs to tell its story and make it compelling so others will become engaged and become customers. Teachers are sharing their enthusiasm for learning by becoming visible champions of their products – be it math, literacy, history, or physical education. Where better to do this than in digital spaces where others can be motivated by their message – anytime, anywhere.
Every teacher needs to be involved with, and understand, digital spaces because their students, the students’ parents, and others, are actively participating in these environments. In order to become aware and comfortable in a digital ‘skin’, students who aspire to become teachers need to practice their digital skills in a safe space and be able to make mistakes that won’t have a negative impact on their professional online presence.
What is the response from students to the course?
At the end of the course, students are asked to reflect on the process of creating their digital self-portrait. Many of the students entered the course feeling somewhat intimidated by new technologies, but it didn’t take them long to feel comfortable and have fun exploring. One student commented that it was a lot more fun to create your own blog than write another essay.
What students take from this course are not just the digital skills they have explored, but the ‘soft skills’ that any business looks for in a potential employee – communication, collaboration and initiative. Students have said they especially enjoyed the collaboration aspects of the course, both in the classroom and online. They are all looking forward to using their new digital skills in their future careers, whether in the classroom, or elsewhere.
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Helen DeWaard, instructor of Digital Teaching and Learning, a unique, new course offered to Education students at Lakehead University’s Orillia campus.