Adventures in EdTech

If you have read some of my prior posts, I have spent plenty of time establishing the fact that I am not a major social media user, that I have cut back my time spent on various apps, and that I am, in general, much more of a taker than a giver when it comes to social media. With so much of the focus on negative aspects of social media, I think sometimes it is important to be reminded that there are a lot of positive uses when it comes to social media as well. Plus, I think almost all teachers are familiar with the concept of how we frame things to students, and why this is so important. I can remember a professional development session I had in which I was first introduced to the negativity bias , which in essence states that we as humans have a much stronger reaction and clearer memory when it comes to things we experience as negatives over positives. We will dwell on past mistakes or rude comments far more than we will a piece of praise or a great accomplishment. Similarly, how we f...

In an earlier post, I wrote about a personal data mine that I conducted in thinking about my digital tattoo-the imprint that I have left on the digital world, and how much information about me was truly and readily available on the internet. As the concept of digital tattoos denote, what we post and interact with online can be very difficult to erase, and almost always will leave traces (as with a tattoo, fully removing one’s past actions online can be challenging and time-consuming). I wanted to do a little bit more digging, and was turned onto this Digital Tattoo project website from the University of British Columbia. The site contains a variety of different resources, from quizzes about which aspects of one’s digital tattoo they seek to address or learn more about, to videos and articles and even teaching resources related to that creation and maintenance of a digital tattoo. Albeit a beginner’s reflection, here is what I found: Digital Tattoo Basics Overall, the articles and tuto...

Algorithms . A term that many of us were not familiar with even just a handful of years ago, and now something that can dominate our day-to-day lives, or at minimum our engagement in media platforms. I have had some awareness and familiarity about the basic workings and influences of algorithms, but before this week I did not fully understand just how far the reach of algorithms extended. Honestly, the first thing that usually popped into my head when thinking about algorithms is this scene from Ron Swanson in the show Parks & Rec: Video Source Video courtesy of Peacock, retrieved from YouTube Numbers Dive I wanted to do a little digging, just to get a feel for how often an algorithm might impact someone on social media. This article reports internet users being on social media around 2 hours and 23 minutes per day on average, the same figure reported by this report from Statista. This is roughly the same level that has been seen since 2018, and with estimates above 2 hours per d...

Twitter/X Profile Personal Photo Instagram Profile Personal Photo Facebook Profile Personal photo LinkedIn Profile Personal Photo Snapchat Profile Personal Photo For those finding this blog for the very first time, hi! I'm Adam Blazek, and I'm currently a 7th-grade language arts and social studies teacher, getting ready to wrap up year number 10 in the classroom. But other than my bios on X and LinkedIn, it might be hard to find much about me on the social media accounts pictured above, other than my photos. Not a single one of them is less than four years old...and yet, there have been A LOT of photographable moments in the last four years of my life, pandemic or no pandemic. I have... Gotten married (to be fair, my now-wife is in multiple profile pictures, although none of them were taken even after our engagement, let alone our wedding) Gone on a honeymoon Gotten a dog, who my wife and I are absolutely obsessed with Moved into a new house Finished a Master's degree (and ...

Social media has to rank up there as one of the most divisive topics, not only in education, but in our society overall. Most people can likely rattle off the usual arguments on both sides-it increases connectivity, brings the world closer together, makes the sharing/finding of information easier than ever before; it can lead to body image issues, cyberbullying, misinformation, and becomes an addiction. I will say that my own attitude toward social media seems more shaded toward the negative side-I was a much bigger user when I was younger, but have seen the value I place on social media dropping over time. Part of me feels like this is partially due to the fact that more and more seems to be coming out about the dangers of social media, and the negative trends it has inspired among students (devious licks, slap a teacher, mess up school signs). This is all on top of the fact that social media has been a factor or cause of more conflicts amongst my students than I can count. However, I...

The expansion of technology and the internet, and the impact they can have on our personal and professional lives is ever-growing. The fact that we now lead digital lives holds a ton of weight, to the point where our digital life can become inseparable from our real life. We all have different ways in which we have ‘led’ our digital life, with varying degrees of sharing and cohesion with our ‘real’ lives. I can say personally that I am one who has never been a big ‘sharer’ on social media, usually much more of a viewer than using social media to create any sort of following for myself. With that, I would also say that my online ‘persona’ has not exactly gelled with who I am as a person. I would say this started when I was younger, out of a hope to only put the best of myself online for others to see, which I now realize did not come off as very authentic, because obviously this type of presence does not mirror a real life (or mine, at least-no judgments passed on anyone else!). Then, a...

One great resource for teachers is the development of a Professional Learning Network (or PLN, because we all know education loves itself a good acronym). This is essentially a set of connections teachers make related to their practice-it is a tool for both sharing and acquiring ideas, tools, and resources. One’s PLN may be composed of colleagues who they work with directly, conferences, presentations, or other PD experiences, or online resources like educational websites or social media spaces. A PLN is a way for a teacher to connect with other educators or educational stakeholders to learn, share, and collaborate. One major benefit of the explosion of technology is that limitations on who/what can be part of a PLN have really been eliminated; thanks to the internet and social media, teachers can connect with others across the country, or even the world, in an instant, so that ideas and resources can quite literally span the globe.  Image Source One social media app that has been ...