WEEK 7: TRANSLATOR.

Good afternoon readers!

I am so happy to be here again with those of you who are reading this post, this week we
have been commenting the potentialities of technology, to carry out this task, our facilitator
divided all the tasks in a videoconference to represent our ideas in a cave art comic, maybe
you are wondering "What?!, cave art comic??!" That was the same feeling that I had...
Below you have my real face at that moment...
(Lorena, please don't make jokes about the lady and my age, thanks, not thanks XD).

Luckily, I reached to this definition...

- Cave art comic: it is a type of comic based on the inspiration of cave art paintings, where

the technique consisted of representing drawings on the walls or ceilings from a cave made with

the available material on that prehistoric period. 

However, I started reading the article written by Lemke (2010), and several terms were incorporated to my capital knowledge :

- Multimodality: it makes reference to the interaction between different representational modes,

in this case, the use of text or sound and visuals together and it can highly increase students’ achievement. Moreover, the use of interactive multimodal designs, such as simulations, modeling, and real-world experiences increases the level of performance in students.

- Visualization: it is one of technology’s potentialities, it improves learning by having a visual
representation of the content with the use of technology. This content should include preferably a

combination of text and visuals, physically integrated and synchronized in time also. Some
examples are interactive graphics and posters, online games or Youtube videos.Visualization can be more powerful if we, as teachers, carry out methods such as:

- Developing students as informed consumers of information, for example by teaching

students how to analyse advertisers’ manipulation of images.

- Engaging students in thinking critically and creatively using visuals. A strategy for

this could be allowing them to make their own authentic investigations about different topics.

- Participatory learning: another of the potentialities found in technology could be that

previously, schools had always been focused (and still do) on the individual acquisition of knowledge.

Participatory learning requires people that can work in team and collaborate with others, sharing their

tenets and principles or any other kind of knowledge, something which is needed in our society more

than never. This translates into a need to restructure learning, teaching, and assessment to increasingly emphasize and value the participation in groups and the group’s knowledge creation, apart from the individual’s acquisition of knowledge.

- Democratization of knowledge: Internet and all the sources related with it have provided us

with a variety of opportunities to create, communicate, share and learn. Despite the rapid growth of

technology, there are communities that survive without any type of technology. Schools play an

important part in this issue, because they can take an active role and provide the students with the

technology that is not available in their houses. Democratization of knowledge refers to the process by which access to knowledge thanks to technology rapidly continues to become more accessible to more people. New technologies and improved user experiences have empowered those outside of the technical industry to access and use technological products and services.

All of these terms have been essential in the development of our weekly task, but indeed these potentialities

or innovations gifted by the introducement of technology in our lives are nowadays more visible than ever

before due to the fact that with this crisis, we are noticing the greater benefits that technology is bringing up

to our lives. 

In fact, technology is resulting to be one of the indispensable tools to keep our students up to date with the

theoretical classes in the shape of handouts via email due to the uncertainty of the duration of this situation

or videoconferences. 

However, me, as teacher in an academy, I am also realising about the limits of this tool, sometimes is not as

interactive as a face to face class and we can’t have everything under control since there are always

connection problems and your students and parents don’t own the technological knowledge to resolve

some kind of technological issues. 

Nevertheless, I am getting used to it and this is a new opportunity to experiment new ideas that enrich

our students’ knowledge and make them learn having fun, which is for me the best way to acquire new

contents, learning without noticing!.

Furthermore, one of the points that I consider which is rather vital on these days is the one which was

mentioned in the point of “visualization”, we must educate students to be critical and make them able

to detect fake news or hoaxes, something that is extremely important to avoid chaos or hysteria along

these days and make things even worse. 

Summing up, these concepts which have been presented to us throughout this week are quite

appropriate to this time that we’re living, but we can’t forget that technology is just a tool, and this is

something that on these times we are also noticing, the real light is inside all of us. 

See you in the next post,

By: Verónica 💖