Category: Blog

As a past (and now present) TikTok-viewer, audience engagement is huge. When only given 15-60 seconds to persuade someone/make them laugh/tell a story the creator must provide the viewer with visuals, audio, and information that encourages them to keep watching. Part of this audience engagement happens in the first 5 seconds of the video (the hook), this is the time the viewer will decide to either continue viewing or scroll to the next video. What makes a professional TikTok different from a “just for fun” one, is how you choose to present and share your information/visual/self in your video. You must know the audience you’re hoping to reach and display your content in a way that will be responded to positively. Finally, a professional TikTok should be multimodal and contain various modes to ​​convey meaning, demonstrate, explain or represent the given information.

Created by Leona Ngan and Kirby Jarvis

Link to the original lesson plan “Our Digital Citizenship Pledge” from Common Sense Media: Original Lesson Plan

To view our adapted lesson plan, please click here

Handouts and Resources

• Lesson slides
• Online community norms (Student version)
• Online community norms (Teacher version)
• Unmet community norm scenarios 
• RADAR poster (Student version) 
• RADAR poster (Teacher version)
• Group pledge graphic organizer

Written Explanation Highlighting Changes

For this assignment, we chose to adapt the lesson “Our Digital Citizenship Pledge” from the online educational resource Common Sense Media. We were inspired by this lesson’s focus and intersection between community and digital citizenship. Additionally, we recognized the potential to integrate the concepts of empathy and being an active participant through the creation of community norms as well as answer the inquiry question “What do powerful digital bystanders do? Say?”

While beginning the revising process, our goal was to adapt the lesson to increase student engagement, student interaction with peers, and connection with the BC curriculum in a way that aligns with constructivist teaching philosophy. To begin, we analyzed the structure of the lesson and adapted the existing sequence of activities. Originally, the introduction to the lesson, Community Circle, was teacher-directed. We adapted this means of instruction to a community circle format to facilitate a more open exchange and sharing of ideas rather than a traditional question and answer session. 

Following the community circle activity, we adapted the community norms portion of the lesson by revamping the lesson template. As the original template included digital applications that appeared dated, we changed “video sites” to “social media” and exchanged “Vimeo” for “Tiktok” to increase the relativity of the materials for students. We also chose to adjust the language worded in the template to be positive and promote wanted behaviour versus unwanted and inappropriate actions. 

To address the topic of being a powerful bystander, we created a model representing strategies for responding to unmet community norms. We did this through the addition of the RADAR activity into the lesson plan and slides. The acronym RADAR, which stands for Re-think, Adult, Document, Assess, Reflect, helps students think critically about their own and others online behaviours in a way that is both empathetic and contextually relevant. In the RADAR activity, students are shown scenarios of unmet community norms and in the reflection period students share and learn about empathetic responses they can make as powerful bystanders. To make this portion of the lesson more concrete and practical we created a student handout as an accompanying visual of the learning.

For the digital citizenship poster portion of the lesson, we chose to move it from the closure to the body of our lesson as it flowed better with our newly rearranged plan. We decided to adapt the format of the poster to be digital so we could share the document beyond the classroom as well as have the capability to edit, demonstrating how norms can change and be updated as we learn and go through new experiences and contexts. 

As a whole-class cumulative activity to end the lesson, we decided to add a class video pledge. This video’s purpose is to act as a visual binding contract that has the potential to be shared and distributed.  

We opted to adapt the lesson components in order to include relevant teaching strategies. To create a lesson that was more meaningful for a teacher to implement and relevant to the current BC curriculum, we chose to incorporate the core competencies, revise the lesson learning objectives and goals, and include additional key questions and notes to support the inquiry question “What do powerful digital bystander do? Say?” and guide instruction. For example, in the group poster section of the lesson, we connected the objectives of this activity to the core competencies “critical reflective thinking” and “personal and social awareness and responsibility” by highlighting the ever-changing digital landscape and realities of being a member of a digital world.

References

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2016). Applied design, skills, and technology. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/adst/3/core 

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2016). English language arts. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/english-language-arts/3/core 

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2016). Core competencies. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies 

Common Sense Media. (n.d.). Our digital citizenship pledge.https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/lesson/our-digital-citizenship-pledge

TikTok… where to even begin? I became a member of the social networking app during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic back in January of 2019 (wow that seems crazy to say). Two years ago I too found myself as Langwitches states “in a stage of lurking, observing, curating and finding my way around” the app, these actions led to me deleting the platform from my smartphone due to over-exhaustion of the content. I find myself now three months “sober” of TikTok, re-downloading the app to meet the needs of assignments, and already feeling the craving of what the app offers for mental stimulation. To be very honest, once this class comes to an end I will probably have to once again delete the app from my phone to maintain a somewhat appropriate level of daily screen time, however for now I am enjoying the app’s comfort once again.

I have noticed that now using the app as an educational tool has changed my habits in the sense that I don’t feel the need to scroll aimlessly anymore. After reading through the various blogs and informational sites about TikTok it has broadened my views of what the app is and how it impacts our world. So what is it? Obviously it is a social media platform, truth be told I am still beyond confused about the whole Musical.ly app and the cross over it went to become the now TikTok but that is not the most important mystery to currently solve. LangWitches gave me a few ideas for how to truly define what the app is. In a sense like the blog TikTok states, its content reminds me a little bit of the TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos. Although my reasoning is slightly different from the blog’s it follows their vision of what the app is. The TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos is a series of videos shared from a diversity of backgrounds that exhibit day to day life of people all over the world simply living. TikTok “is like a documentation of our world” (LangWitches). It shows us the lives of people we have never met, whom we have no conception of other than the short 15-60 video of them we are watching. We get to view creators who have lived and are living completely different (or maybe the same) lives than we will ever know. We are exposed to and are given a glimpse of a world that is not our own yet we are now a part of. TikTok is not just a social media app and anyone who says to a kid, adult, ANYONE the older than time saying “stop wasting your time and start living” while they are using the app needs to understand that this is the reality of life and they are living in it.

Skipping ahead, how can TikTok be used as a professional? I am going to take this question and assume that it is referring to my profession of being an early elementary educator. Beginning from evidence taken from the readings, TikTok is an app that promotes creativity, collaboration, sharing of ideas, and connecting with other members of the platform. Notice how all four of those things all relate to key goals of student learning and classroom goals? Using TikTok as a digital tool in the classroom is just another method of showing our students how to utilize technology to learn more about their interests and the world around them. Being a teacher in the 21st century requires us to stay up-to-date in the technology that our students are interested in and using (as Misskirbyjarvis stated). This is because in order to teach meaningfully we need to stay “relevant to their lives and appeal to their intelligence and experience” nicely worded by The White Hatter. As an educator, simply scrolling through the dance challenges, gags, and story times may not be the most educational use of our time and resources, however, the beauty of the app is that we can adjust our search engine and what we choose to watch in order to fuel our teaching.

To conclude, you are on TikTok observing, creating, living, etc., how do you find the community that you belong to? How do you use an app to build your PLN? How do you find the people that intrigue you? Excite you? Share commonalities to you that you thought couldn’t possibly exist in the world you are in? You scroll. You comment. You like. You follow. And you don’t be ashamed of who you are, what you’re passionate about, and what you enjoy learning. It is so easy to find like-minded people and groups on TikTok, the app itself is set to even show you content that it believes you will enjoy based on its algorithm set up. For any professional, by observing or creating you’re able to reach and connect with individuals working in the same line as you. From there you can further connect through commenting, duetting, or liking their video and then further find their other online platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Blogs) where you can further create professional and personal relationships.

I apologize to all who have read and lived through this slightly emotional and disorganized thought chain. However, I also take back that apology because no one should ever have to apologize for shamelessly sharing their wonders in the hopes to enlighten others.