Module 1 – LaGuardia

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  Posted by Sara Vogel, PhD. (she/her) on May 9, 2023 at 1:29 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?

• Maria Jerskey (she/her)

  Member

  May 31, 2023 at 1:42 pm

  • Maria Jerskey, LaGuardia CC, Professor of Education and Language Acquisition/Director Literacy Brokers Program/Co-PI: Linguistic Justice Project
  • I kept
    • #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.” This for me is the hands-on experience necessary to get to know the full application of a tool; how to make it serve your purposes/needs rather than vice versa
    • #16 “because the process of tinkering and making can lead to wonder, discovery and enjoyment for students and teachers.” This wonder/discovery that happens in a group/community that includes teachers and students is foundational to good learning and thereby good teaching. So much to say about this!
    • #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.” There were a few cards that addressed “habits of mind” and this was one of the most important. Phenomenal!
    • #27: “it is important for teachers to be able to vet tools given their students abilities, language practices, cultural backgrounds, representation, interests and needs.” there were a number of cards that addressed building on, cultivating, and sustaining diverse learners’ individual resources/identities. Huge for me
    • #41 “data practices like collection, analysis, and visualization support teachers with learning about learners and communities, assessment, planning, and reflection” let’s call this research-minded practices. Or data across the curriculum.
  • I actually piled cards into multiple categories, the five top categories are described above. I was less interested in the ones whose values/goals were to make students competitive economically (none of them said that per se), but they did have a kind of capitalism theme. I’m less concerned about preparing students to operate in a capitalist-based society.
  • What connections can you make between the values you reviewed and the examples from people’s digital lives? I saw a lot of wonder, hands-on design, attention cultivating/sustaining students’ diverse backgrounds, systems thinking, and data practices.
  • 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? I piled the cards into categories I generated and then re-piled as five (plus two more) categories emerged. It was just a more comprehensive way to take in all the cards and connect them to each other in “families” rather than discard them as individuals. I got more out of it that way. (Literally: nothing was rejected. While I didn’t agree with or “value” the ones  that were geared more toward economic competitiveness (though none said this explicitly), it was important for me to know/be reminded that this something that is of high values (often erroneously, I believe, that that’s another story) to others.)
  Maria Savva

  Participant

  June 4, 2023 at 7:19 pm

  Maria Savva LaGuardia CC, Associate Professor in the Education and Language Acquisition Department

  What a pleasant game. I actually remember seeing some of these statements in the form of a survey last year, so it was nice to see them on game cards. It is interesting to see the difference a game can make in level of engagement. Same material, but the different presentation changes the experience. There were a few that were very similar (and it could be argued that they are the same) but otherwise I really liked the creative twist.

  I think for me the big theme that emerged was that tech is here to stay so users (teachers, students etc) need to understand how to navigate this new terrain. It is no longer optional. Tech is no longer specific to ‘IT people’, it affects all of our lives. We need to know how it works. It is important. These are the cards I ended up holding:

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

  #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.

  # 11 Youth shouldn’t just be consumers but also producers of technology

  #13 Tech is changing the nature of schooling. Teachers need to have knowledge and skills to navigate digital and computational tools and literacies.

  #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.

   
  Thomas Cleary

  Member

  June 5, 2023 at 1:16 pm

  Thomas Cleary, LAGCC, Librarian

  I’ll start with how I interacted with the game. I followed the planned rules for the first few cards, but then made a “keep” and “discard” pile, where the keep cards were values I was interested in and wanted to revisit later.  I then went through the “keep” pile more slowly drawing 5 cards and swapping into my hand ones that I thought were most relevant to me.  At the end I had #10, 16, 23, 26, 27 in my hand

  When going through the cards I was mostly  looking for themes that involved digital literacy and digital citizenship, which are big issues in librarianship.  Like Maria says in her post, how people interact with “tech” on a daily level is less about the tools but the impact on social interactions and privacy or lack there of.  Programs that people use daily aren’t necessarily designed to benefit the user, but are used to extract information and or provide incentives to keep returning to the program.  The algorithms that do this are often secret too, so unless you have insider knowledge by making the program, people today need to be critical and be constantly analyzing digital tools and platforms that provide information.

  The main exception to this was #16 which is “because the process of tinkering and making can lead to wonder, discovery and enjoyment for students and teachers” since I’m personally a fan of tinkering and hands on learning.
  Eric Conte (He/Him)

  Participant

  June 11, 2023 at 2:19 pm

  Eric Conte, LaGuardia Community College, Lecturer of Education / Special Education

  Using the rationale cards was a creative way to get us to continue to consider some of the reasons we believe digital literacy is important.  I recall a similar activity in-person with our LAGCC team.

  While so many of the themes resonate with me, I certainly agree with Maria’s point that tech is here to stay.  It’s everchanging, so rather than focusing on specific programming language, we should help our students learn to create, not just consume.

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

  #20 – It will help teacher candidates promote systems thinking.

  In following the process of the game it was extremely difficult to remove cards, although so many seem to overlap.  I selected two to focus on as I believe they cover so much of what I’d like to continue to consider.
  Kenneth Yin (he/him)

  Member

  June 12, 2023 at 2:35 am

  Kenneth Yin, faculty member in the Education and Language Acquisition Department, LaGuardia CC

   

  I ended up keeping the following five cards at the end of the CITE Visions card game:

   

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

   

  10: Being a good citizen in the 21st century means being a responsible, ethical digital citizen.

   

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

   

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

   

  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.

   

  Although there was some overlap in the content coverage of the cards, I tended toward the cards that contained more general statements rather than specific ones. I found myself drawn to those aspects focused on bettering the classroom experience for both students and teachers, as well as responsible and informed digital citizenry.

   

  I tinkered with the rules of the card game a bit, simply going through each of the cards in numerical order while creating a “keep” pile (with five cards), an “overflow” pile (with five cards), and a “discard” pile.
  Laurie Gluck (she/her)

  Member

  June 12, 2023 at 12:33 pm

  I went through the cards a few weeks ago. My approach was quick with a few piles: yes, maybe, not interested, couldn’t help but notice many similar overlapping themes.

  I chose:

  #1. I am personally a little confounded by computational thinking, so it seems like something to tackle

  #3 Innovation and new knowledge can be enhanced by more knowledge in this field. Of course we want to be critical of the knowledge, innovations, their applications and goals.

  #4 Seems obvious. Local knowledge of information systems used by distant organizations is important.

  #8 Developing voices from students and educators that amplify activist critical voices is exciting to me.

  #33 Technology seems like a powerful tool in these data practices.
  Agnieszka Rakowicz (she/her)

  Member

  June 14, 2023 at 11:24 pm

  Agnieszka Rakowicz, Teaching Linguistics in Education and Language Acquisition Department at LaGuardia Community College

  Yes, I looked at them several weeks ago. I was surprised how much overlap there was. I liked the idea of inquiry-based learning approaches and inclusive, student-centered pedagogy, which computational and digital tools may help facilitate.

  • Computational thinking and digital literacies will be key no matter what career teachers’ future students end up in.
  • 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.
  • It can help teachers learn how to build on students’ tech lives interests, communities,
    and language practices to design and adapt curriculum.
  • Computing and digital tools and literacies can help teachers build on and sustain the cultural, linguistic, and other practices of students and their communities.
  Walter Sistrunk

  Participant

  June 16, 2023 at 5:47 am

  Walter Sistrunk – Professor Linguistics/ESL composition in Education and Language Acquisition Department LAGCC.
  After playing the Cite Values Card Game, I ended up choosing the following cards:
  21. It can Help Teacher candidates help their students learn to program computers rather than use them.” I think it is essential for teachers and students to see how computers can be outfitted for their particular needs and how we can be computing innovators and not just passive users by limiting the number of applications typically provided with the computer.
  7. “teachers need to be able to interrogate education technologies for their potentially harmful impacts or assumptions about especially marginalized students and communities.” I think this card’s message is crucial as we define how we will define ourselves in relation to automation and other new technologies.
  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.” I look at this message as simply a fact. We must recognize that students are using various forms of new media. Sometimes it is our job to bring attention to the digital activities they engage in outside of school that align with academic ones.
  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.” I think it is important for students to understand that different modalities have different audiences and requires them to use language appropriate for both the audience and modality.

  28. “it is important for teachers to learn to use tools that will help them effectively meet the needs of students with disabilities (e.g., assistive technologies)” I think that technology can help mitigate or help bridge the gap between individuals with a variety of disabilities and the limits to the training that we can pursue to address these needs.

  In all, we continually have to define how we relate to technology, and in turn, we have to ask how this redefines we as human beings relate to one another. Also, it requires us to ask how our relationship with technology redefines humanity.

   
  Rebekah Johnson (she/her)

  Participant

  June 28, 2023 at 8:16 am

  Rebekah Johnson, LAGCC, Associate Professor

  • Share the rationale cards you kept in your hand all the way to the end of the game.
    • #16 – process of tinkering can lead to wonder, discovery & enjoyment = we should use tech to promote engagement and enjoyment of learning (for both instructors and students!)
    • #35 – tools can help teachers build on cultural and linguistic practices of students = yes, we should always be building upon Ss’ cultures and language backgrounds
    • #4 – help communities address their own problems through tech = empowering people to make the changes they need is key to equity
    • #8 – Ts and Ss can use tools for voice and activism = activism is an important part of life and civic participation and the new way of participation is often involving digital platforms
    • #9 – help change the status quo (to less privileged groups) = we need to shift the power to less privileged groups in society, in general
  • How did you interact with the game?
    • I did not play the game as set up – but rather I looked through and set aside ones I was not interested in, ones I was somewhatly interested in, and ones I was extremely interested in, then narrowed that last group down