Ted Talk Reaction

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.

Norman Ralph Augustine

Q: Why did you choose this talk?

A: I chose this talk  because I found it very relatable. In later parts of middle school and early parts of high school, I found it very hard to stay motivated to work hard for school. I just didn’t enjoy my school courses. While I wasn’t failing by any means, I definitely wasn’t doing the best I could have been. I think sometime between Grade 10 and Grade 11 I built more “grit”, but I did it subconsciously. Watching this talk helped me gain a better understanding of how I personally changed over time.

Q: What did you agree with in this talk?  Why?

A: I definitely agree that people with more grit are more likely to succeed, even when compared to those who are naturally talented. In general, I also agree that grit needs to be reinforced more in schools and that in order to ‘teach’ kids grit, the teachers themselves have to be gritty. I agree with these points because I’ve experienced it in the past. In Grade 8, I had one of my favourite teachers. He was very easy to talk to and chill but also smart and loved teaching. He made lessons interesting, and this in turn made me want to learn from him. In Grade 9, I enjoyed some of my teachers, I didn’t enjoy others, and since I wasn’t motivated to do work, my performance suffered.

Q:  What did you disagree with in this talk? Why?

A: While I agree grit is applicable to school, I don’t think it applies to every scenario. A lot of the time, students can’t focus or feel unmotivated in courses that they don’t enjoy or they feel isn’t relevant to them. For example, I never felt art was relevant for me because I wanted to go into the sciences and I think that some art students felt the same way about science and math. If grit really is “passion and perseverance for very long term goals”, I don’t think it’s possible to teach grit in a context that the student doesn’t enjoy. Passion in general is something I don’t believe can be taught, only inspired. Instead, I would replace the word passion with motivation to make a more fitting definition.

Q: Did the talk make you reflect on your future/consider new choices or new decisions? Why or why not?

A: I don’t think the talk made me reflect on the future that much because as I said before, I’ve already sort of gone through the stage of “developing grit”. Instead, I think it helped me reinforce the decisions I’ve made in the past and confirmed my beliefs about working hard.

Q: Would you recommend this talk to a friend? Why or why not?
I would definitely recommend this talk to a friend because I think high school students in general would find it relatable and it’s a good way to kickstart your path to developing grit. It’s also a very short and to the point talk with a comfortable, confident presenter, making it more enjoyable to watch.

PED Project Wrap-Up

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

Q: What were your contributions to your PEDs project? Please be as specific as possible.

A: I made several contributions throughout the course of our PED project.  In the beginning of the project, I was responsible for helping create teacher survey to assess how the teacher felt about PEDs and what steps involving PEDs they had already taken. In preparation for our lesson, each group member created 2 PollEverywhere questions. When we presented the surveys and did our lesson to the class, I was responsible for ensuring all the students were able to use PollEverywhere and I troubleshooted any problems that arose. Throughout the course of the project, I assisted other parts of the team with their work by giving suggestions, proof-reading etc. For example, when Preet created the proposal letter, I suggested what information we should include and I also proof-read.

Q:In your opinion, was your PEDs project a success? Why or why not?

A:I believe the PED project was a success because it helped increase student engagement. While our initial goal was to measure both student achievement and engagement, we realized that it would be difficult to gauge the improvements due to one Poll Everywhere session. Instead, we decided to focus on engagement. We noticed through both observations during our lesson as well as in our feedback survey that students experienced higher levels of engagement with the use of PollEverywhere compared to their typical class activities. While students may have lied on the survey to give us the answers we ‘wanted’ to see, through our observations we saw that students were actively contributing answers and were paying attention to the content presented to them.

Q:If you could go back in time and change something about your PEDs project, what would it be?

A: One thing I would change is potentially try and reach out to more classes so that we could run more activities and gather more data. While I think the project was successful, we had a lot of dead time during the project because the class we were working with was busy and wasn’t able to accommodate more than 2 sessions, which is normal. If we tried and expanded to 2-3 classes I think the project would’ve been more interesting for us and would also give us a much richer data pool to work with to analyze the effectiveness of PED’s. Another factor I would change, although it’s pretty minor, was our execution of the PollEverywhere questions. Unfortunately, we neglected to make the settings so that the participants had to lock in their answer and as a result many people just answered whatever the rest of the class was putting.

Q: Give suggestions for improving this project for next year’s IDC class.
A: A suggestion I have is that instead of a project that goes over a couple of months, it would be interesting for each group to try a new PED project every month. I think that this would keep the project more engaging and would allow us to personally try a wider variety of PED tools. Another potential improvement is require a work summary of some sort at the end of each week or every two weeks. I think this would help students stay on track and effectively use their time.

Online Harassment

“Trauma is as subjective as desire, and the meanings we attribute to experiences, as well as the context in which they occur, determine their ultimate effect on our lives.” ~Jeanne Safer

During middle school, I played various online video games such as Minecraft and Team Fortress 2.  Minecraft is a sandbox game while Team Fortress 2 is a first-person shooter game. In my time playing both of these games, I experienced very little, if any, verbal harassment. I think this primarily due to the lack of a competitive gamemode integrated directly into the game. Sure, in Minecraft you can join servers to play in “Player v.s Player” games, but even these were generally for the fun of it and was never overwhelmingly competitive. Similarly, the default TF2 gameplay was very chill. At one point, I gathered up some friends to play in a competitive league, but we never experienced verbal harassment because we were all friends so we typically didn’t verbally abuse each other. Furthermore, in both of these games there are little to no consequences for players leaving in the middle of the game. In Minecraft there are no consequences, and in TF2, the game automatically balances the teams so both teams have even players.

While I had a pleasant experience in middle school, things drastically changed when I moved onto a different game in high school: League of Legends. League of Legends is a 5v5 game where the objective is to destroy a structure in the enemy team’s base called a Nexus. In League of Legends, I suddenly found that people were far more aggressive and I experienced far more verbal abuse directed at both myself and my teammates when compared to the previous games I played. Often times when anybody on the team makes a mistake or plays poorly, you’ll find that there’ll be at least one person who decides to call them out on it. Sometimes the insults can get excessively…”creative”. I believe that a large part of this toxicity comes from the integrated ranked system in league. While it’s not mandatory to play in the ranked system, it’s a very large part of the game and the first thing you ask somebody when you learn they play League is what rank they are. This system can be very frustrating to improve your ranking on and that underlying frustration is probably what fuels most of the hate. Further, in League, if a player leaves in the middle of a game, you are forced to play the game in a 4v5 situation. Yes, the player who left does get punished after the fact, but the other 4 on his/her team are also indirectly punished because they are essentially doomed to lose because of something outside of their control. I think this is another contributing factor to high levels of anger and frustration that can often be seen in game.

Personally, I don’t take these things to heart and they don’t bother me on a personal or emotional level, however, if somebody is flaming me in chat, there is a high chance I will play worse because I’ll be put on tilt. It’s not that what they’re saying is hurting me, it’s more that it’s annoying and thinking about it while trying to play has detrimental effects.  In order to deal with this I typically just mute the individual(s) who are annoying me and that tends to work. Unfortunately, sometimes you get players who decide to “intentionally feed” or give the other team kills so it’s easier for the enemy to win. In these cases I try to convince the “feeder”  to keep playing normally because otherwise there is very little chance for my team to win, and honestly it usually works if you talk with them in a calm, non-aggressive way.

I definitely wouldn’t accept this kind of behavior in real life, although even if it did happen I don’t think it would affect me too much. I’d just brush it off and let it go. In sports games, there are direct repercussions for verbal abuse. For example, when I’m playing soccer, if somebody were to swear at me, they’d get a yellow card or even a red if they were a repeat offender. Also, it’s a lot less likely for these kinds of interactions to happen in real life because of the lack of anonymity. When you are behind a computer screen, it’s much easier to talk trash than when you are face to face with somebody.

I don’t think schools should feel obligated to address this issue because it’s a part of life that everyone will have to come to terms with eventually. However, I think it would be beneficial if the school provided support systems for those who are mentally ill and can’t cope with this harassment themselves but still want to enjoy playing the game. I think that it’s a very difficult issue for schools to address because the abuser could be half way across the world and because of this, schools have little to no control over the situation. If anything, the game companies should feel obligated to minimize and punish verbal abuse for the benefit of their players. 

 

PED Presentations

~The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential~

Steve Ballmer

Q: Choose two of the technologies that you believe would be the most helpful for you as a student and describe how you would use them.

A: I think two of the most helpful technologies identified in the PED presentations are Google Keep and Block and Focus. Google Keep is one of the best “To-Do” list style applications because it’s synced with your Google account and has a very easy to use interface. I personally use it to keep track of everything I have to do. I think that students would be able to use Google Keep as a time-management and organization tool to make sure they are on track to finishing their work.

Block and Focus is also a really helpful application for students. From my own experience, I’d say 99% of my distractions come from social media and Youtube. The fact that these sites can be accessed by a simple click makes it too easy for me to get distracted. Through the use of Block and Focus, I’d be creating obstacles towards getting access to these sites. While it may not make it impossible for me to get distracted, it definitely decreases the chances of it. Through this simple extension, students would be able to not only develop better self control, but also improve their productivity and avoid procrastination.

Q: Think of one class you are taking this semester and explain how one of the technologies could be integrated into the class to help students learn.

A: Currently, I’m taking Engineering 11 and one of the components of this course is the Cisco tests. Cisco tests are based on an online course that’s set up by the company, Cisco, and contains very large volumes of information, making it very difficult and time consuming to study effectively. I think if Quizlet were implemented in this class, it would relieve a lot of the stress of studying. By summarizing the Cisco chapters into flash cards, it makes the information significantly easier to consume. Furthermore, the information in Cisco isn’t always the most exciting to study with topics ranging from “Workplace Safety” to “Computer Networking”. The use of Quizlet’s game features can make it more desirable to study the content.

Q: Imagine you are a teacher.  Of the technologies presented in class, which one do you think would be the most helpful for your teaching practice?  Why?  Be specific and detailed in your reasoning.

A: From the perspective of a teacher, I think Remind would be one of the most useful tools. Currently, the main way for teachers to communicate with students is either email or website, but students of today don’t constantly check these for updates. They do,however, always have their phone on them and are aware of when they get texts. Remind gives teachers the option to text students which is a much more effective mode of communication. For example, if a teacher has a last minute room change for class, they’d be able to let all the students know quickly and effectively. Similarly, you can send out reminders for homework and assignments, general announcements etc. The only better way to communicate between teachers and students would be Facebook, but since that has some “professionality” issues among other things, I’d say Remind is the way to go.

Procrastination

~I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done~

Susan Orlean

Q: Are you satisfied with your project? Is this your best possible work?

A:  Overall, I’m quite satisfied with the outcome of my project. I’m not particularly gifted at graphic design so going into this I wasn’t expecting to create something amazing; I just wanted to explore and try something new. For my level of skill and the nature of the assignment, I think that the work I produced was of a satisfying level.  Furthermore, the time I spent messing around on Piktochart are skills that I may be able to apply for other projects in the future. That being said, if I spent some of my class time more effectively, I may have been able to make refinements or try some other designs but otherwise I have no regrets.

Q: Do you think you procrastinated on this project?

A: While I don’t think I procrastinated on this project, I definitely wasn’t the most efficient I could have been. I ended up doing the vast majority of the assignment on the weekend due to a combination of having more pressing things to attend to (SAC, Math) and being distracted in class. Despite putting off the project, I made sure to give myself a reasonable amount of time to finish so that I did not sacrifice quality or excessive amounts of sleep. Approximating how much time I need to do an assignment is something I’m usually good at, however, there have been times where I underestimated the time I would need (ICS 12 ISP) and in these cases my results significantly suffered. Unlike the ICS 12 ISP however, this assignment was not as demanding and was manageable in a short period of time.

Q: Are you worried about any future projects based on how this project went?

A: Personally, I’m not very worried about future projects, in fact I’m quite excited. I enjoy the fact that we get a lot of freedom to do what we want because it lets me do the project the way I want to. Often times I procrastinate or don’t put in full effort because I don’t enjoy the work, especially if it’s long and tedious, but I don’t think that will be the case for this course. For example, I don’t find History particularly interesting because it’s a lot of blatant memorizing. Even looking back to my previous post, I talked about how I found the creation of the surveys tedious and therefore boring.

Overall class environment is very chill (no tests, everybody is personable, Ms.Cuttle is flexible etc.) which I like very much. It’s a very different course than any others I’ve taken in the past and  I look forward to seeing what happens with this course in the future.

Q: Can I change anything to help you succeed?

A: So far I like the course and I’ll let you know if I want to change anything 🙂

 

 

PED Assignment Reaction

~Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important~

– Bill Gates

Q: What do you like about the project so far? What do you not like? Explain.

A: I am a strong advocate of technology in the classroom and make an effort to use technology whenever possible so I really like the premise of this project. It really frustrates me when some teachers don’t see the value of technology or aren’t using it to its fullest potential. Unfortunately, I don’t really enjoy making the surveys and such because I find it boring and tedious. However, I recognise it’s a necessary components of the project that I have to grind through until I reach the parts of the project I enjoy such as researching new PED tools and implementing them in the classroom. 

To be honest, I didn’t really like the initial stages where we were planning using chart paper. I didn’t think it was effective; not because the strategy itself was ineffective, but the way we were applying it wasn’t great. We got hung up on making the chart paper look “organized” that it took away from ability to brainstorm and plan properly. However, now that we’ve been through it once I think we’d be a lot more efficient if asked to use the same method for a different project.

Q: What is your role in the group (what tasks are you working on, what have you contributed to the group)?

A: We as a group are working on creating a basic proposal and surveys to distribute so that we can collect baseline data in regards to current achievement and engagement among students in the target class. My partner, Michael, and I are working on the survey for the teachers which is progressing well. In terms of group hierarchy, we haven’t exactly created one due to the generic nature of the work. So far, we’ve made an effort to distribute work as evenly as possible in order to minimise conflict. However, I imagine that as the project progresses we’ll need certain people working on portions of the project that they are skilled at, and at this point we would develop more clear roles.

Q: What are your concerns going forward?

A: My biggest concern with this entire project is how responsible the students will be in their use of PEDs. While our research and implementation of PEDs may theoretically be able to improve the quality of education in the classroom, much of the improvement relies solely on the students not getting distracted by “noneducational” uses of their PEDs. By making PEDs more accepted by teachers and providing easier access, we may inadvertently lower engagement and achievement in the classroom.  

Q: What do you expect the outcome of your project to be?

A: I think this project will definitely yield improvements for the classroom by implementing effective PEDs and will help remove the stigma around PEDs for certain teachers. It will also encourage these teachers to take the initiative to implement PEDs into their lesson plans on a daily or weekly basis. I hope our efforts will snowball across numerous teachers and departments and will help us work towards a more technologically integrated school.