Technology Takeover in Classrooms
Our Internet for Educators class had special guest, Kirsten Thompson, in our classroom to present to us "Why I Replaced Myself with a Machine". Kirsten is the ICT coordinator in Mountain View School Division in Manitoba. She spoke of the importance of WHY we incorporate technology in the classroom, and one of my big takeaways from her presentation was that technology is there to make our lives easier, and increase student/teacher face-to-face instruction.
A hierarchy mindset is the perspective that technology, robots, and AI are at the top of their hierarchy, and are the best, or ideal situation. An ecosystem mindset is that there are biotic and abiotic elements in the classroom and these elements function together within the ecosystem. Technology being the abiotic elements, and educators being the biotic ones.
During my placement in the spring of 2019, I was teaching K-6 general music in Winnipeg. In my spare time, I would go into the library and spend time learning about what the teacher librarian did. I learned about the Manitoba Young Reader Choice Awards and went to the award ceremony at the divisional office, along with 20 students from grades 4-6. I saw how excited they were about these books, and knew I had to bring it into my music classroom. So, I prepared four excerpts from the nominated books for them to add non-pitched percussion instruments too. We did this as a large group, and then working collaboratively in small groups to perform their re-imaginings of the book excerpts.
From this experience, I drew that my niche was fostering creativity. Not just in this activity, but throughout my teaching experiences in the music classroom. It is one of my favourite concepts to work on. Nurturing creativity through music is exciting and makes things interesting and 'new' for the students. Every class and activity can sound different. What kind of instruments could they add to the piece? What kind of movement could they add to their song? What kind of things could they add to their pieces to make it different, such as tempo and dynamics? There are so many opportunities to incorporate creativity in the music room. I think that technology would struggle fostering creativity, therefore in this moment I've decided that creativity is my niche that cannot be replaced.
We talked about putting "morning meeting" materials up on the SmartBoard or projector, so teachers could be spending that time greeting students at the door instead. This had reminded me of a podcast I follow, called Music Teacher Coffee Talk, shared an idea similar to this. One of the show hosts started to play a video of herself leading the students through an activity song, so when students came to class they would immediately be engaged in the activity, and the teacher (or the host, in this case) could be greeting students at the door and having conversations with them. I thought this was a neat idea to implement, and I think I could record a few videos and rotate them through the year. That way, their entrance to class isn't redundant and students stay engaged.
I had also thought about concerts. Often, teachers will play the songs for students on the piano, and students will sing along with the accompaniment. With technology, it opens up more possibilities that will allow the teacher more time with students. Some winter concerts come with accompaniment tracks on a CD (I'm sure they can be available for digital download also), so teachers can press play on a recording and be able to conduct their students through the concert. Similarly, teachers can record themselves playing piano accompaniment for the same reasons, if the concerts they are putting on do not provide accompaniment tracks.
YouTube has also been frequently used in my music classroom as well. It can function as an accompaniment track, but it also hosts a lot of music activities that can be done with students. A crowd favourite with my Grade 3-6 students has been Musication, a channel filled with boomwhacker play-along videos. They work well to supplement learning about composers and classical pieces (such as Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, 'Trepak'), and makes the orchestration accessible to young musicians.
Hierarchy vs. Ecosystem
We discussed if robots would replace teachers in the future. Distance learning is becoming more common, and sometimes content in courses is self-led and independent work. What would education look like if we had robots instead of teachers? Kirsten discussed the concept of a Hierarchy Mindset versus a Ecosystem Mindset when it comes to technologies role in the classroom.A hierarchy mindset is the perspective that technology, robots, and AI are at the top of their hierarchy, and are the best, or ideal situation. An ecosystem mindset is that there are biotic and abiotic elements in the classroom and these elements function together within the ecosystem. Technology being the abiotic elements, and educators being the biotic ones.
Our Niche
To survive in our ecosystem mindset, Kirsten asked us to come up with our own unique "niche". In the ecosystem, we want to see programs or apps fill a certain role or niche, but what niche do educators have that technology cannot replace? This niche is subject to change as the years go on, and is a fluid idea.During my placement in the spring of 2019, I was teaching K-6 general music in Winnipeg. In my spare time, I would go into the library and spend time learning about what the teacher librarian did. I learned about the Manitoba Young Reader Choice Awards and went to the award ceremony at the divisional office, along with 20 students from grades 4-6. I saw how excited they were about these books, and knew I had to bring it into my music classroom. So, I prepared four excerpts from the nominated books for them to add non-pitched percussion instruments too. We did this as a large group, and then working collaboratively in small groups to perform their re-imaginings of the book excerpts.
From this experience, I drew that my niche was fostering creativity. Not just in this activity, but throughout my teaching experiences in the music classroom. It is one of my favourite concepts to work on. Nurturing creativity through music is exciting and makes things interesting and 'new' for the students. Every class and activity can sound different. What kind of instruments could they add to the piece? What kind of movement could they add to their song? What kind of things could they add to their pieces to make it different, such as tempo and dynamics? There are so many opportunities to incorporate creativity in the music room. I think that technology would struggle fostering creativity, therefore in this moment I've decided that creativity is my niche that cannot be replaced.
Are we replaceable?
After identifying areas that educators are not replaceable, we looked at some areas that could be replaced with technology. Again, this is to make our lives easier and to provide students and educators more time to interact.We talked about putting "morning meeting" materials up on the SmartBoard or projector, so teachers could be spending that time greeting students at the door instead. This had reminded me of a podcast I follow, called Music Teacher Coffee Talk, shared an idea similar to this. One of the show hosts started to play a video of herself leading the students through an activity song, so when students came to class they would immediately be engaged in the activity, and the teacher (or the host, in this case) could be greeting students at the door and having conversations with them. I thought this was a neat idea to implement, and I think I could record a few videos and rotate them through the year. That way, their entrance to class isn't redundant and students stay engaged.
I had also thought about concerts. Often, teachers will play the songs for students on the piano, and students will sing along with the accompaniment. With technology, it opens up more possibilities that will allow the teacher more time with students. Some winter concerts come with accompaniment tracks on a CD (I'm sure they can be available for digital download also), so teachers can press play on a recording and be able to conduct their students through the concert. Similarly, teachers can record themselves playing piano accompaniment for the same reasons, if the concerts they are putting on do not provide accompaniment tracks.
YouTube has also been frequently used in my music classroom as well. It can function as an accompaniment track, but it also hosts a lot of music activities that can be done with students. A crowd favourite with my Grade 3-6 students has been Musication, a channel filled with boomwhacker play-along videos. They work well to supplement learning about composers and classical pieces (such as Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, 'Trepak'), and makes the orchestration accessible to young musicians.
Conclusion
Technology has it's place in our classroom ecosystem, just like educators do. It is important that educators look for the things that they do that cannot be replaced by technology, their niche. I found this presentation important for making me think about my special qualities and what I can really bring into a classroom that not everyone (or everything) can. Kirsten also mentioned in her presentation that the educators who are worried about being replaced by robots, probably shouldn't be educators. The role of technology is to make a teachers life easier, also more efficient, but ultimately technology is there to give educators more student interaction time. If educators are wanting to spend more time working with their students and helping them succeed, they will have nothing to worry about in terms of technology takeover in classrooms.
This is a great in depth summary of Kirsten's talk about replacing yourself with technology so you can have more time with your students. I really enjoyed how you connected her talk back to your own classroom experiences and how you were able to find your niche.
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