Module 1 – BMCC

• 

  Posted by Sara Vogel, PhD. (she/her) on May 9, 2023 at 1:13 pm

  Reply to this post with a response to the prompts below by the module due date.

  • Introduce yourself with your name, college, role(s)
  • Share the rationale cards you kept in your hand all the way to the end of the game. Why did you keep these to the end? Why did you discard particular cards?
  • What connections can you make between the values you reviewed and the examples from people’s digital lives?
  • How did you interact with the game? What worked / didn’t work about our game prototype? Did you follow the rules as written? Did you “tinker” with the algorithm (rules) of the game? If so, how?

• Jen Longley (she/her)

  Member

  May 26, 2023 at 10:52 am

  Hi, Jen Longley, faculty in the ECE program.

  As I was mesmerized by many of the initiatives in the white paper; the tampon project for example. I appreciated seeing projects that included trans people. It made me wonder, do projects exist for people with disabilities, beyond the focus on assistive technology?

  I appreciated the podcast from the author of the book. To me she was emphasizing process over product — the process of engaging with technology with others.

  My final cards are below. Using the values provided, my choices align with equity & social justice  and school reform & improvement.  School reform and improvement in the context of making change to practice/ what currently happens — teachers are typically handed a curriculum to implement/follow.  I want CT to support infant-toddler teachers to be playful, curious and responsive; collect, understand & use data; communicate with stakeholders; and advocate for children, families, and the field.

  I discarded many of the cards because they focused on K-12 settings, not ECE or infant-toddlers. I wish there were more cards on engaging/partnering with families and relationship-based practices. But am I trying to make CT fit my mold of infant-toddler education?

  I followed the rules, with 2 piles. At first I started to write on the cards, then went through then more times. I think I went through the cards 6 or 7 times (I did not keep track).

  Although I LOVED the knitting example from people’ digital lives Padlet, I am not sure I could make any other connections.  I want to post the knitting link on my online fiber arts community.

  16 —  because the process of tinkering and making can lead to wonder, discovery and enjoyment for students and teachers.
  <p style=”font-weight: 400;”>34 — it will help teachers to meet the needs of all learners, and build on learners’ diverse experiences, resources, abilities.
  <p style=”font-weight: 400;”>41 — data practices like collection, analysis, and visualization support teachers with learning about learners and communities, assessment, planning, and reflection.
  <p style=”font-weight: 400;”>45 — it will help teachers become fluent in the tools they’ll need to effectively communicate with families, colleagues, and the field.
  <p style=”font-weight: 400;”>46 — it will help teachers better advocate for their learners, for equity, and their own professional interests.
  <p style=”font-weight: 400;”>
  Jen Longley (she/her)

  Member

  May 26, 2023 at 10:57 am

  I forgot to add that it was reassuring to see that children only spend 49 minutes a day of screen time from the Common Sense Report in the Padlet examples.
  Ruth Guirguis (she/her/ella)

  Participant

  May 27, 2023 at 9:05 am

   

  1. Ruth, TED-BMCC
  2. Cards:

  • 5: we need to level the playing field and help close the “digital divide” for young people who attend lower-resourced schools.
  • 8: teachers and students can use new media and computing as a tool for voice, participation, activism and critique related to causes they care about.
  • 9: it can help change the status quo, where our technology is largely designed by economically, racially and socially privileged groups, and their biases and blind spots get embedded in our tech.
  • 18: teachers and their students should be able to use computing as a creative outlet and a tool for digital storytelling, expression, identity development, art.
  • 27: it is important for teachers to be able to vet tools given their students abilities, language practices, cultural backgrounds, representation, interests and needs.

  3. Based on my values chosen the some of the examples shared, there is a key connection between advocacy, communication, and creativity.

  4. I followed the rules.
  Yolanda Medina (She/her)

  Member

  May 28, 2023 at 1:33 pm

  Hi! Jolie Medina, professor and chair.

  I must say that I was surprised (then not really) of my choices because I shuffled the cards several times, I did! But when I looked at my choices I noticed that I wound up choosing cards 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 (below are what they say). I think I followed the rules, but I chose that interesting sequence of cards. Reading them and reflecting on the values from the white paper CS For What?, I realized that my card choices are all probably part of the first value for CS education: Equity and Social Justice.

  I really enjoyed reading about the Data for Black Lives, the school year CS pioneer calendar, and the modeling the impact of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

  My cards:

  4: It will help equip local communities to address their own problems through having technologically fluent community members.

  6: It’s a “program or be programmed” world out there. If teachers don’t support youth to have “critical computational literacy”, they won’t see the ways that tech governs their choices.

  7: teachers need to be able to interrogate educational technologies for their potentially harmful impacts or assumptions about specially marginalized students and communities.

  8: teachers and students can use ne media and computing as a tool for voice, participation, activism, and critique related to causes they care about.

  9: it can help change the status quo, where our technology is largely designed by economically, racially and socially privilege groups, and their biases and blind spots get embedded in out tech.
  Carol Barclay (she/her)

  Member

  May 29, 2023 at 3:21 pm

  Hi. I am Carol Barclay, Adjunct. I specialize in Infant/Toddler/Family development.

  I did not receive the mailed physical cards, so I improvised, by looking at the cards in the .pdf file. So, I did not really play the game as designed. Even so, I was able to work through them several times, and I think I had a comparable result. Here are my 5 choices:

  10. being a good citizen in the 21st century means being a responsible, ethical digital citizen.
  26. it is important for teachers and students to be able to be media literate, differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information and conduct effective online research.
  39. it can facilitate teachers’ tinkering and experimentation with new tools and approaches.
  45. it will help teachers become fluent in the tools they’ll need to effectively communicate with families, colleagues, and the field.
  46. it will help teachers better advocate for their learners, for equity, and their own professional interests.

  I chose items that deal primarily with teachers, since my students are infants and toddlers, for whom, I think, we have different priorities. I would like to understand more about the ways this population of the very youngest learners can benefit directly from CSEd, without our sacrificing the primacy of feelings and relationships which are central to our work with them.

   
  Kirsten Cole (she/her)

  Participant

  May 30, 2023 at 3:12 pm

  Hi all, Kirsten Cole (she/her) I teach in BMCC’s ECE program, in the ECP (preschool-second grade) specialization.

  I had a really hard time narrowing down to only five cards. I agreed strongly with many of the other values, so to help me narrow down my responses I tried to focus on the issues that I feel are most pertinent to my work in ECE.

  Below are the cards I chose.

  7 – … teachers need to be able to interrogate education technologies for their potentially harmful impacts or assumptions about especially marginalized students and communities.

  8- … teachers and students can use new media and computing as a tool for voice, participation, activism, and critique related to causes they care about.

  16- … because the process of tinkering and making can lead to wonder, discovery, and enjoyment for students and teachers.

  18 – … teachers and their students should use computing as a creative outlet and a tool for digital storytelling, expression, identity development, art.

  35- … computing and digital tools can help teachers build on and sustain the cultural, linguistic, and other practices of students and their communities.

  Re: playing around with the rules/algorithim. I shuffled the cards before I began, but I found that I took more time considering the cards I drew at random when I first started playing than I did when I was getting to the bottom of the deck. I wonder how to design an activity to reduce the likelihood of some amount of fatigue setting in. I think about this with my assignments. E.g. how often to students read the first article more thoroughly than the last.
  Mindi Reich-Shapiro (She/Her)

  Participant

  May 30, 2023 at 4:26 pm

  Hi All:

  I initially played the card game last week when the package arrived, before the orientation meeting, and before I did the reading and exploring in Module 1. When I initially played the card game, I didn’t choose just 5 cards (“Rebel, Rebel…”). Instead I discarded some cards right away and kept others as alternative choices in a second pile. Then I looked through my alternative choices and my five main cards and grouped them into themes, as many of the values seemed connected.

  When reading the white paper (Diverse Visions of CS Education in Practice) I discovered that my choices strongly aligned with the rationales for Social Justice & Equity, and Personal Agency, Joy and Fulfillment. While I also love the value of promoting civic engagement in early childhood education (the focus of my own research) I found that most of the CS civic engagement projects target middle and high school students. That would be an interesting focus for future research: how can we create CS curriculum in early childhood classrooms (PreK – Grade 2) to promote civic engagement.

  When I played the game on the Visions website, comparing two values and making choices, I discovered that the majority of my choices fell within the categories of Equity & Social Justice; Competencies & Literacies; and Personal Agency, Joy and Fulfillment In that online game, there was another value that focused on how learning to tinker with technology and create provides children with a sense of agency.

  Anyway, my choices (not necessarily in order of importance, since they all seem important) are:

  25. It is important for teachers and students to know how to build a learning community in digital environments.

  5. We need to level the playing field and help close the “digital divide” for young people who attend lower-resourced schools (and I would add to this, for GIRLS).

  4. It will help local communities to address their own problems through having technologically fluent community members.

  11. Youth shouldn’t just be consumers but also producers of technology (I would add to this, educators, too).

  16. Because the process of tinkering and making can lead to wonder, discovery and enjoyment for students and teachers.

  20. It will help teacher candidates promote systems thinking – the ability to understand the dynamics of and how to intervene in complex systems that are ubiquitous in our world. (this aligns with the LCE capacities for imaginative learning)

  18. Teachers and their students should be able to use computing as a creative outlet and a tool for digital storytelling, expression, identity development, art.

  39. It can facilitate teachers’ tinkering and experimentation with new tools and approaches.

  15. Because when teachers can “get under the hood” of tools and technologies, they can better use and adapt them to fit their needs and those of their learners.

   
  Mindi Reich-Shapiro (She/Her)

  Participant

  May 30, 2023 at 4:33 pm

  Hi Kirsten: I completely agree about the importance of many of these values. I also see connections among them (themes) that emerge. Values 7, 8, and 35 were also in my alternative pile and were grouped into themes with some of the values I ended up holding on to.

  Completely agree with fatigue factor. I went back after Module 1 to check my choices. I found that the top choices were still pretty much the same.

  • This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Mindi Reich-Shapiro (She/Her).
  • This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Mindi Reich-Shapiro (She/Her).
  Mindi Reich-Shapiro (She/Her)

  Participant

  May 30, 2023 at 4:40 pm

  I forgot to mention that I fell down quite a few “rabbit holes” when exploring the projects in the white paper. I ended up bookmarking a number of websites (e.g., Eyebeam, Exploring Computer Science). I loved the projects in the 2022 Emoticon Youth Digital Media and Tech Challenge. That is an amazing example of how young people can become producers, not just consumers, of technology.
  Jillian Crosby

  Participant

  May 31, 2023 at 9:50 pm

  Jillian Crosby, Teacher Education: Infants & Toddlers

  My choices reflect equity and social justice, personal agency, enjoyment, and fulfillment, and citizenship and civic engagement.

  #8, Promotes critical consciousness, voice to the voiceless, agency. A way for students and teachers to be active participants in change via technology instead of just consumers of tech (#11).

  #9, Promotes critical consciousness, voice to the voiceless, agency, interrupting traditional systems of power.

  #11, Substituting the term “youth” for young adults, our students are tech consumers.  Learning how to produce tech can prompt innovative teaching and learning strategies, the creation of data collection tools, or parent-to-teacher communication platforms; to name a few.  Voice to the voiceless, agency, interrupting traditional systems of power.

  #13, Tech is not only changing the nature of schooling, it is changing the nature of the world. Digital and computational literacy will benefit teacher candidates inside and outside of HE and ECE classrooms. With the rapid and troublesome changes in the ECE space, such as the adoption of the Teaching Strategies Creative Curriculum, teacher candidates should be equipped with the knowledge to navigate these systems as well as being critical of the harmful impact and assumptions forced on marginalized communities through such education technologies (#7).

  #18, Creativity, art, storytelling, and identity development are all facets of Early Childhood Education. There are endless possibilities for how these elements can be digitized and shared with others.

  I read through the cards a few times before playing the game to become familiar with the values and assess how they relate to the infant/toddler teachers and/or partnering with families.  I selected values that resonate with me, as a teacher educator, and (in my opinion) will provide the skills for teacher candidates to use in the ECE classroom and in other areas of their lives.  I asked myself, “How can these values enhance computational and digital literacies that will extend beyond the ECE classroom?”  I selected a top 5, then sifted through the cards creating a pile of top 5 potentials, and those that didn’t align with my student population or core values. Then I reviewed the pile of top 5 and top 5 potential values to solidify my choice.

  The world of technology can be very intimidating. Thinking about integrating it into teacher education and our classroom practices can turn intimidation into fear and anxiety.  Seeing the range of possibilities for meaningful learning through computing and digital literacies and its’ connection to the core values sparked wonder, joy, and fulfillment. The connections I made between the values reviewed and examples of people’s digital lives are student agency, organic systems of thinking, creativity, and a landscape of diverse work showing CSed from a strength-based lens.
  Jean-Yves Plaisir (He/him/and/his)

  Participant

  June 1, 2023 at 7:10 pm

  Hello! I’m Jean Plaisir, a faculty member in the Teacher Education Department at Borough of Manhattan Community College. I ended up keeping in my hand the following rationale cards:

  22: Teachers can better understand their learners and the contexts for their learning if they understand learners’ digital lives.

  27: It is important for teachers to be able to vet tools given their students’ abilities, language practices, cultural backgrounds, representation, interests and needs.

  29: Teachers should learn to select tools given the content they expect students to learn, and the practices they want to foster (e.g. tools that support algebra learning, exploring science concepts, etc.)

  31: Approaches from fields that integrate computing, like the digital humanities, can allow students new ways to analyze and make sense of texts.

  35: Computing and digital tools and literacies can help teachers build on and sustain the cultural, linguistic and other practices of students and their communities.

  It bears noting that I ended up keeping the above cards after a reiterative triage process that involved selecting, reflecting on, prioritizing, and finalizing the rationales that best represent my teaching philosophy, core values, and classroom practices. It was not easy for me to keep the final 5 cards because every rationale that I read about integrating computing and digital literacies into teacher education seemed right to me.

  For example, Card 22, states, “Teachers can better understand their learners and the contexts for their learning if they understand learners’ digital lives.” This statement reminds me of the tenets of milieu teaching (Hancock & Kaiser, 2007; Gilbert, 2008; among others), which stress the importance of supporting children’s interests by providing them with the preferred tools for learning in their natural environment. There is incontrovertible evidence that the lives and interests of Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha revolve around computing and digital literacies. I have come to grips with this reality, and I am inclined to learn how to use the up-to-date tools and timely methods that can help teachers build on and sustain the cultural, linguistic, and other practices of students and their communities (ref. Card 35). I am taking advantage of the CITE program to upgrade my skills and expand my knowledge to develop intentional teachers for taking on some of the education challenges of the 21st century.

  In closing, I am sharing a thought by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who once said, “The education of an era is the era reflected in education.” I endeavor to be a teacher both an educator and a lifelong learner who constantly looks for novel ways to make learning and teaching relevant in time and space. Currently, integrating computing and digital literacies into teacher education is the way forward. Though it took me some time to finalize my choices, it was quite fun to go through that reiterative and deeply reflective process. It was a method for testing my didactic beliefs, grounding my pedagogical practices, and framing my understanding of what it means to be a teacher educator.

  • This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Jean-Yves Plaisir (He/him/and/his).
  • This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Jean-Yves Plaisir (He/him/and/his).
  Kristin Scarola (she/her)

  Participant

  June 2, 2023 at 2:02 pm

  Kristin Scarola, Adjunct Teacher Education (Prek- 2nd)

  I explored the card deck through the game and saw that my selections mirrored my own values in my teaching practice: equity and social justice, personal agency and joy and fulfillment, competencies and literacies, and innovation. I selected:

  #30: “Students will need to be literate in new ways, and be able to communicate through multiple modalities, context and through many expressive forms.”

  #34 “It will help teachers to meet the needs of all learners, and build on learns’ diverse experiences, resources, abilities.”

  #37: “It can facilitate teachers’ and students’ communication, participation, and reflection in a range of day to day learning activities.”

  #43: “It will help teachers usher in more project and inquiry based learning approaches that can enhance school pedagogy and move away from sage on the stage approaches.”
  Vee Tapia (she/her/ella)

  Member

  June 2, 2023 at 4:30 pm

  Vee Tapia, teacher education program BMCC.

  1.Computational thinking and digital literacies will be key no matter what career teachers’ future students end up in.

  33.Data practices like collection, analysis, and visualization can help teachers and students understand phenomena, conduct inquiries, share findings.

  5.We need to level the playing field and help close the “digital divide” for young people who attend lower-resourced schools. 

  18.Teachers and their students should be able to use computing as a creative outlet and a tool for digital storytelling, expression, identity development, art.

  2.It will help diversify the tech industry pipeline. 

  I couldn’t decide which cards I wanted to keep as many of them resonated with me. In the end I chose the ones that stuck with me the most. Also the cards that apply to my elementary school students, college students and for myself. 

  As an educator I didn’t think we would be using so much technology as we presently are. With the integration of technology in schools such as smart boards, tablets, chromebooks etc. not only are we using the technology for our teaching practices but we also have to figure out what to do when technology doesn’t work (ex: troubleshooting). 
  Tania Francis (She/Her/Hers)

  Member

  June 4, 2023 at 11:27 pm

  Tania Francis, Teacher Education Department, BMCC

  I had a hard time choosing 5 so I added a 6th one because I shuffled the cards  and #9 kept appearing and it spoke to me and my experience as a NYC public school teacher.

  7- Teachers need to be able to interrogate education technologies for their potentially harmful impacts or assumptions about especially marginalized students and communities.

  8-Teachers and students can use new media and computing as a tool for voice participation activism and critique related to causes they care about.

  13- tech is changing the nature of schooling. Teachers need to have Knowledge and Skills to navigate digital and computational tools and literacies.

  30-Students will need to be literate in new ways, and be able to communicate in multiple modalities, contexts, and through many different expressive forms.

  28- it is important for teachers to learn to use the tools that will help them effectively meet the needs of students with disabilities (e.g. assistive technologies)

  9- it can help change the status quo where our technology is largely designed by economically, racially and socially privileged groups, and their biases and blind spots get embedded in our tech.

  If Covid 19 taught educators, anything the need to be  digitally literate  is the required to effectively integrate technology into the classroom.  The cards reflect the importance of this work and that Computational thinking can help teachers understand the fundamental concepts and principles behind technology, enabling them to navigate digital tools, software, and educational platforms. It also helps them adapt to emerging technologies and equips them to teach students the necessary digital skills and literacy for the future.

   
  Anthony Heyward

  Member

  June 13, 2023 at 5:04 pm

  Anthony Heyward- BMCC -Teacher Education

  I have mixed feelings about this module. I enjoyed the game because it allowed me to self access and contextualize my digital experiences in a new framework. I chose cards 1,8,13,14 and 18. Overall, I connect with ideas of empowerment through CS. When students and teachers both can become proficient using technology, school culture shifts because all the stakeholders are benefitting from the work.

  It also seemed that several of the values listed on the cards were subjective as was the white paper. Computer Science doesn’t need to be radicalized. Target populations should be able to learn how to create and navigate these technologies with reminders of social inequity. A CS space can be a safe space that supports creativity and social/emotional growth. However, although we should all be using technology to be better humans, technology isn’t human and it doesn’t transmit inequity spontaneously. So we have to be careful when we suggest our work be values driven because whatever the teacher believes, is how the CS literacy is taught.