Weekly Reflection – Privacy, Padlet, and a Changing Approach to Education in a Technologically Advancing World

Week of January 16th

Wow! That’s a long title. But you get the gist of it, right? In this weeks reflection, I’ll briefly touch on privacy laws, discuss the online tool Padlet, and then delve deep into my thoughts on the 2015 documentary titled “Most Likely to Succeed,” which documents students at an inquiry based school as they break norms found in our current Western education systems.

Privacy laws

This week, I learned the importance of privacy, and the responsibility of keeping children safe online through FIPPA (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act). I found that the FIPPA document itself is difficult to navigate, and quite overwhelming to read, but this collection of videos (https://vimeo.com/showcase/11545415), created by Focused Education Resources with support from the BC Ministry of Education provides an accessible way to understand privacy responsibilities.

This website is interesting: https://fipa.bc.ca/research-resources/for-teachers/, and it has resources and lesson plans to assist teachers educating about privacy, data collection, and internet safety. This is a very approachable resource, and I appreciate that it is laid out by grade level. There is also recommended videos, books, and additional resources on top of the lesson plans.

Padlet

Padlet is a wonderful tool that was introduced to us, and it can be used in many different ways to be effective in the classroom. This week, we used Padlet as a discussion tool, posting a comment to be displayed for everyone to see. While this tool might not work for the primary years, it could be greatly used in the intermediate/middle years as a way for students to discuss either anonymously or not. I look forward to exploring this tool more!

“Most Likely to Succeed” – My thoughts and opinions

For the rest of this post, I will be discussing “Most Likely to Succeed”, a documentary that I found extremely interesting, especially given the current conditions of our fast changing world of technology. At this inquiry driven school, High Tech High, students learn in a deconstructed model of education that is quite different from the typical public school system that we are used to. Instead, students are given independence and autonomy over their learning, allowing them to choose areas that they are passionate about while working through classes that could be seen as non-structured through the lens of the public school system.

The concept of this school is inspiring, and while students may lack the facts and figures many of us were forced to commit to memory during our school experience, High Tech High helps students develop skills and knowledge that can be applied in the real-world. Looking at the grand scheme of things, many middle class jobs have been demolished and replaced by machines, forcing the education system to change from educating students with the hopes they will become industrious, good workers, and instead focusing on developing soft skills such as critical thinking, leadership, social-emotional capabilities, and problem-solving skills which can help facilitate professional success in the future.

This democratic model of education is something that our public school systems could learn a lot from, and as a quote that stood out from the documentary says, “How can you ask kids to make decisions if you never ask them to make decisions?” In other words, students are set up to fail when they are tasked with memorization, and when they reach the real-world, might lack many of the required “soft” skills needed to succeed professionally. Thus, the importance of inquiry and student-driven education is demonstrated, with a focus on skills that are particularly relevant to have success in our current world. I am curious how the public school system could further adapt some of the qualities of High Tech High, but is this too much to ask in a system that is quite rigid and slow-changing? I’m not sure, but I am inspired to initiate change for myself and my future students.

Xo, Ceadra