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Logan Petlak

~ Lifelong Learner.

Logan Petlak

Tag Archives: google

Closing the distance between distance education and myself.

12 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by loganpetlak in ECI 834

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

blended learning, distance education, distance learning, ECI 834, eci834, edtech, GAFE, google, Petlak, remind, socrative, technology, vr, zoom

Greetings fellow ECI 834 students. I look forward to learning with you over the course of the term!

who am i zoolander.gif

“Who am I?” via Giphy

Who am I?

I am Logan Petlak.

  • High school science educator (biology, health science, environmental science).
  • Football coach (and track coach).
  • Recreational hockey player.

    jesse.png

    Foster kitten: “Jesse” (now adopted: “Lou”)

  • Physical activity addict (weight training, assorted sports)
  • Frequent co-foster parent of stray cats and kittens (with my beautiful partner, Kristin).
  • NFL/NHL fan.
  • Moose Jaw product and resident.
  • Lifelong learner and critical thinker.
  • Proud Central Collegiate, Moose Jaw teacher.
  • Avid gamer and supporter of gamification of learning.
  • Open education supporter.
  • Student advocate.
  • #EdTech enthusiast and;
  • Fledgling distance educator.

This course revolves around the final point! It’s not necessarily a fresh topic for me, I’ve discussed it before. How exactly can I bring the Mr. Petlak experience worldwide? Not for personal gain, but to simply aid in the learning of others? Better question, how do I best deliver online education and learning to others? Therein lies my goals for this course:

  1. Gain resources and tools to create a distance learning classroom. Then utilize tools to best replicate what it’s like to be in a face-to-face classroom with students (and for students, with me).
  2. Connect with other professionals who can provide examples, suggestions and support as I develop distance learning opportunities.
  3. Critique and analyze the learning inherent within distance education and what learning may be lost outside of a face-to-face or in-school setting.
  4. BONUS: begin developing content for my Biology course as part of our module assignment!

 

In our school, some students are already taking distance education courses. Through informal polling, it has received generally positive reviews! Perhaps it was a shift in thinking but I don’t remember them being offered as much when I was in high school and, in my only distance experience in university, I had a hard time getting engaged without the face-to-face piece…

Fast forward.

When picking where to apply for my Master’s, distance education/universities came up, but I assumed they would hold less validity or reverence than other institutions so I decided against it. Whether it was engagement or validity of distance education, I guess I should’ve watched this video first!

Opportunities for distance education are available for most subjects, at many levels, worldwide. How will I fit into the distance education world and can I provide something that others don’t, and will I stick to my open education-centered morality?

If you were a distance educator, would you capitalize on the potential financial gain associated with private education?

How will your distance classroom work?

Am I foolish to hope that I can almost completely replicate the classroom experience, or is being consistently connected (via email) and using apps/tools like Zoom, Remind, virtual reality, google docs or GAFE to include all of the Google apps I guess (thanks Kyle), and socrative not enough to make it happen completely and becomes a blended learning environment (just shy of a completely online course)?

How will I account for students who don’t have as much access? We know they will be affected negatively, can we supply devices at a distance?

 

Regardless, I intend to close the distance between where I am now, and where I want to be with distance and blended education.

 

Thoughts and comments are welcome!
Logan Petlak

Just Google it? Just Google it right. Building from simple to complex.

26 Thursday May 2016

Posted by loganpetlak in ECI 830

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

complex question, connect, connections, dave cormier, digcit, digital citizenship, ECI 830, eci830, edtech, google, google it, memorization, psy, simple, simple question, teacher

Statement: Schools should not be teaching anything that can be googled.

logo_no_google

No2Google Logo via No2Google.com

 

Disagree.

The picture below isn’t necessarily related, but it was one of the pictures that came up when I searched, “Yes Google”, and I feel compelled to use it… it helps if you imagine Psy singing “Heeeeeyyyyyyy educators, Goo, Goo, Goo Goo. Google ain’t so bad”. This builds into my post, while illustrating both the problem and potential solution of simply “googling it”.

2012 iHeartRadio Music Festival - Day 1 - Show

LAS VEGAS, NV – SEPTEMBER 21: Rapper Psy performs onstage during the 2012 iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 21, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Isaac Brekken/Getty Images for Clear Channel retrieved via Business Insider)

Building from simple to complex googling.

Apart from the fact that so much can be Googled (and Googled and found mistakenly, as seen in picture above), the policing of instruction to avoid this next to impossible. However, like any potential problem-causer, it provides opportunity. How do we roll with this? How do we make a positive out of a negative? How do we build from simple to complex?

Terry Heick visited the thought that: “complex questions can’t be googled.” He went on to state that the answer Google provides can be a stopping point… and that it “… creates the illusion of accessibility,” or “obscures interdependence of information.” All valid. This can happen from simply using Google without education, but it reminded me of Dave Cormier’s details on using MOOCs appropriately through the cynefin framework and the rhizomatic learning… specifically that answering complex questions requires a particular approach to learning, that we as educators can seek to facilitate. Terry Heick then concludes with an awesome point that alludes to this need for educators and highlights the importance of teaching about proper use of Google and why Googlable (new word?) concepts should be taught in schools: “none of this (the above concerns) is Google’s fault.” Educators (and parents, for that matter) bear the responsibility to inform students of how to use technology like Google and Wikipedia to foster ideas and “cultivate curiousity”. So much can be Googled, so teach students to think critically, and recognize that every teacher can do this regardless of grade or specialization, as evidenced here, and through digital citizenship as Jeremy Black referenced.

Connecting critical thinking to maximizing Google.

“Before students can think critically, they need to have something to think about in their brains.” Ben Johnson made this comment, and used it to remind us of the importance of memorization and still keeping this as part of instruction. This speaks to the baseline knowledge that may come from using Google and other information sources. Finding the simple answers that “Googling it” may provide is the beginning to deeper parts of cognitive function in individuals, leading to fostering curiosity that I made reference to before. My phrase I tend to use in course outlines in senior science echoes the overlap between memory, critical thinking and curiosity: “in order to remember these terms, I will push you understand these terms.” This simply reflects my angle of looking at it, but there are many ways to aid in memory.

 

Final thoughts

Ultimately, the proper use of “Google” falls to educators to ensure students continue to ask complex questions and follow links to continue pursuing knowledge and continue to connect to new ideas with that new knowledge. Memory may play a dominant role in this process providing the fundamental information that sets a foundation to curiosity and challenging complex questions.

 

Agree? Disagree? Comment!

– Logan Petlak

Looking at the digital educator narrative, wearing Googles.

13 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by loganpetlak in ECI 831

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

digital citizenship, digital footprint, digital resume, eci831, edchat, facebook, google, hockey, social media, teacher

Identity and interests

Everything factors into what shapes us and it defines our interests. Our passions (and weaknesses) of these interests are an integral part of our identity and this can direct our learning accordingly. Raised in a house filled with hockey, with Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em Hockey on the television and free time spent on the ice or playing road hockey, I had an appreciation for the rink – my identity revolves around it… how I made sense of the world and utilized the learning within shaped me. Identity is interests, and interests drive learning. Dallas Thiessen is learning about how to build a natural playground, and it is evident his identity revolves around the interest/value of the natural environment its education when he expressed: “a playscape is not only a “place”for kids to play but it is also a place that is educational, innovative, and sustainable.” However, Dallas’ narrative is inferred through his blogs, and there’s a digital-trail and footprint to follow via social media. Where is/is there a digital footprint for my love of hockey? Or what does my digital-trail indicate about me? What messages or narrative do I send? Bonnie Stewart mentions humans are adaptable and vulnerable to the narratives in society and social media that we ingest and distribute, have I even composed a digital narrative? And when I do, how will my narrative adapt and change as I dig deeper into the digital ‘me’? As an educator, what do my students see? Alec Brownstein utilized the desire to view ourselves to get hired, hopefully I can observe and, if necessary, adapt mine to not get fired (I’m not actually worried, I’m clean).

 

My digital footprint: general
I googled ‘logan petlak’ and I found a bunch of my blog posts, pictures of me, my webpage, and some of my past successes! I even found a course outline for my environmental science 20 class which, after reading Amy Scuka’s article on Teachers Pay Teachers, I learned I could be making money off of rather than openly sharing.

logan petlak search page 1

Search: “Logan Petlak” via Google

My digital footprint: hockey
I googled ‘logan petlak hockey’ to check if that narrative snuck through… and it did! I made a video as a hockey interview that was a metaphor for my education learning when I was in my undergrad that came up (awesome/embarrassing). I also found my old recreational hockey statistics when I was playing for the “Beer Knights”… so there’s a possible negative narrative. It also highlights a specific game in which I took a “Delay of Game” penalty. Good for you past Logan, good for you.

kyle webb search screenshot

Search: ‘Kyle Webb’ via Google

Other educator’s digital footprints.
I tried to track down some of my colleagues such as Kyle Webb and Adam Scott Williams and I learned a very significant difference between them and I, their names have a lot more different narratives than mine. Kyle Webb apparently may have killed his father, and there are, no apparent pictures of him immediately found on Google images. Adam Scott Williams, I found nothing on until I edited my search to:’ “Adam Scott Williams” teacher’, I had to keep the quotations to keep him all together, or else I was finding a lot of information on the golfer, Adam Scott. Fortunately, when I googled another colleague, Amy Scuka, I found something more consistent with searching myself. The images were of her and many of the articles were of her – including grad dress shopping from back in the day! It’s nice to see information beyond the “educator narrative”!

adam scoott williams search

Search: ‘”Adam Scott Williams” Teacher’ via Google

So, why the difference between the search results? Logic denotes some names must be far more common, but one thing we all shared was either private or non-existent Facebook accounts. Do we have anything to hide? I doubt it, but it’s an interesting commentary on the desire to protect privacy on-line in a connected age. Have we all taken the steps to influence our digital footprint? We’ve changed privacy settings to manage our digital reputation, have we removed comments? Untagged photos? And have we moderated our digital footprints enough to even manipulate the search into a digital resume/portfolio in the pursuit of an education career? It broadcasts our images as educators, but is this a pseudo-identity that isn’t fully representative of who we are? Does it tell the narrative we’re proud of, but perhaps not the negative narratives worth learning? Students will search us, but will they believe what they find? Or desire to look deeper into our digital lives? I simply googled and tried to search on facebook individuals, what more could I have done?

Comments, thoughts, feedback? Drop it below, I’d love to hear it!

– Logan Petlak

 

Logan Petlak

Incredible day! Photo courtesy Julia and Lucas Photography

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