This question feels like it should have an easy answer. I should be able to tell you how learned I am and how the readings I’ve been immersed in have changed me as a professional. At least, that’s what I want to do. This journey through a Mater’s program was always about proving something to myself. I self-identify as a life long learner and this program was a way for me to earn some academic validation from an authority higher than myself as I used the great minds of other, more accomplished learners to support the directions I wanted to take in my practice. But that’s not exactly what’s happened this term.

Last summer we took a course that tested the limits of my understanding of what education was. I didn’t like the course assignments at all in the thick of it. I didn’t see the connections we were making to our own pedagogy until the end of the course, and the readings were not what I expected. As an English teacher, you would have thought I’d have seen the metaphor sooner but the lesson repeats itself until the lesson has been learned. The concept of “live(d) experience” was examined closely and while I understood the importance of it at a very basic level, the meaning has become more clear to me as I’ve progressed through the last two terms. How very Aoki of me.

This past couple of years have been a struggle for me. My personal and professional life have taken such hits that I do not know how to separate them from the learning I am doing here. Instead of smoothly showing my aptitude, I’ve been forced by circumstance to muddle through and ask for help. Instead of exhibiting competence, I’ve had to learn to be human and messy and that has been hard for me. It’s these in-between spaces that are shaping me right now.

I love digital learning and digital tools and platforms to support my pedagogy. But I’m also aware of the privacy issues for my students, the access issues that may be present, and even the vulnerability I feel putting my own work product out there for students and their families to see. I am coming to different understandings of networking and open learning but at a time when I am shying away from putting myself out there for safety, they are large and scary concepts. Truthfully, my Gen X status pulls me between wanting open access education for everyone as a social justice issue, and then feeling for the creators of said education who deserve to be compensated and recognized for their expertise. Listening to David Wiley did help shape some of my understanding but he prompted so many more questions that truthfully, I’m still mulling this one over. Sharing knowledge should be the goal and I think that together we are better but does this system always work in a capitalist society? Should thoughts of the capitalist society even be part of this conversation? Have a been programmed to think so? I know I believe that an educated and well read society is a benefit for everyone and that knowledge should never be help by the privileged few. Can I say I like the concept of open access and leave it at that?

And this thinking in or of dichotomies was a theme throughout my participation in the course this term. I became fascinated by the concept of inquiry when I listened to Jeff Hopkins describe his school, the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. I was so impressed with the learning he helps facilitate by taking away the barriers that traditional brick and mortar schools. The individual approach to education has always been something I’ve aligned with but have felt it difficult to manage in an elementary classroom. However, his enthusiasm was contagious so even after listening to him declare that this type of learning was difficult to replicate in a regular classroom, a colleague and I decided to try it anyway. He was right, it was difficult to facilitate in our classrooms. Even with scaffolding, students struggled with the independent nature of inquiry. But some of them really flourished with aspects of inquiry. The research and learning some of them did was wonderful to watch, even if they struggled to find a way to share their learning.

When we watched a conversation with Bonnie Stewart, I was once again reminded of the duality of technology. She shared her thinking on the landscape in which technology and education reside and shared her own experiences watching a platform that she was very attached to become part of the shifting political landscape and how it was used in the consolidation of power. That phrase caught me off-guard. It’s not that I hadn’t been feeling the same thing, or seen the same suggestions on Tik Tok, but her commentary left me feeling uncomfortable with my own relationship with technology and how I’m advocating for a platform I support. I can’t see the downside of it right now but time could change that. As I ask students to participate in their learning through apps like SpacesEDU, Canva, Mathletics, and others, am I exposing them to datafication that is changing how they will experience the world?

The interview with Bonnie Stewart led me to her website where I found more content that poked at my understanding of how I use technology.( Bonnie Stewart ) In the first blog I read, she was discussing how shifting to online learning during the pandemic was not the same chaos others had to make because of her use of digital and multi-access technologies. This reflected my own experiences. I had already created a digital space with my class community where we shared and assessed learning so moving to an online model during 2020 wasn’t the same experience for me as it was for other teachers who were building that from scratch while navigating a global pandemic. This was a feelgood moment. I was once again able to place my own role within the digital landscape back on solid ground. So I kept reading, which was probably not the way to find answers, but ask more questions.

I found myself reading through the blog posts and finding a post about digital citizenship. “This is our contemporary contradiction: identity as a construct in contemporary social media spaces makes for pretty rotten social spaces.” (Bonnie Stewart) Suddenly, I was back to dichotomy. Creating and maintaining a digital identity often takes us away from the collaboration and cooperation we want to see in digital citizenship. There are the aspects of community and recognition that make us feel good, but there are also negative aspects like manipulated algorithms, and constant observation and monitoring. We are asked to speak and perform instead of listen and connect. How do we balance the belief that everyone is entitled to an opinion but that not all opinions can be weighted the same after factoring in expertise? How do we explain these concepts to children as they become part of the digital world?

Finally, I’ve been doing some thinking about AI. Most of the conversations we have in class about AI are either practical or philosophical. The practical aspects acknowledge how we can use AI to support our learners. I’ve started using AI to help me write my report cards. I provide the information and chatGPT makes it sound professional and strength-based. I’ve used AI to help change the reading level of information I want to use in my class in order to differentiate for my students. I’ve also used AI to make suggestions on my writing in order to keep my writing focused. This has helped me manage both my tone and my intent. Sometimes I even use AI to explain concepts to me that I’m struggling to understand. Funnily enough, even chatGPT warned me to check my bias when asking about political issues. The philosophical discussions about AI are more complex. Should students be able to use chatGPT or other generative AI in class? How do we ensure their understanding knowing they may use AI? What skills will they need to use AI effectively? What roles will teachers have in an AI world? How do I, as a teacher, show students how to harness the power of these technologies when I don’t fully understand them, or their implications, myself?

So where am I now? Probably more confused than ever! I’m starting to take on more of a role as a teacher-researcher. I’m examining the choices I make regarding technology in the classroom with a more critical lens. I see the tensions- privacy, digital literacy, assessment, and district expectations- as areas to explore rather than barriers. I am becoming more excited about using digital portfolios and having multi-access features in my pedagogy. I am asking how the system can change for students instead of asking students to fit into the education system we have. I don’t know what that looks like for me yet but I’m okay with getting messy and figuring it out. I have already spent 25 years in this professions, there’s far fewer left for me. The question of what kind of teacher I want to be in a world that is always shifting has some immediacy for me, backed by the quiet confidence of someone who is grounded in who they are and knows that everything is figureoutable.