storytelling

The speaker reflects on their journey from being a child playing with toys to a student and then a teacher. They emphasize that play is an integral part of learning and that it never truly leaves us, but rather evolves. They discuss the importance of incorporating technology into education and how it requires adding more "building blocks" to the learning process. These include substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition. They also highlight the need to focus on engagement, enhancement, and extending students' knowledge, as well as developing skills such as creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. Digital media literacy is mentioned as a crucial aspect, ensuring students can distinguish between real and fake information. The speaker emphasizes the importance of universal design in lessons and acknowledges the digital divide, where some students have access to technology while others do not. They conclude by emphasizing the enduring significance of Once I was a child playing with toys, then a student who was engaged, and then a teacher teaching history. We learned that play never left learning, we just redefined it. But when we start play, we start the building blocks of our learning. We feel as though we have lost that play and imagination, but really, we have built upon it like we used to build a tower. We as educators start with content and knowledge, and then pedagogical, then cap it off with technological knowledge. With adding technology, we must now add more blocks to the tower. Starting from substitution, augmentation, modification, and finally, redefinition. And then we need to remember to add blocks for engagement, enhancement, and extending students' knowledge. Once we have all of those, we must also add blocks that help students be creative, communicate, collaborate, and critically think. We add to our students' knowledge with digital media literacy, making sure they know real from fake. We add to our classrooms by universally designing our lessons. We need to remember not all students have the opportunity, and there is a gap, or the digital divide, of those who have access and those who don't. And after all of this, we need to remember imagination is still important. We can keep building the tower taller and taller, but just one thing can knock it down. But we can always rebuild and keep building the tower higher and higher.