Blog post 5- Digital Platforms

 Case Study: Digital Platforms in K-12 Education

Platform 1: Google Classroom

Overview: Google Classroom is an application created by Google to help students and tutors share files. It can enhance classroom productivity by effectively synchronizing with Google Docs, Slides, Drive, and many other tools of Google Workspace. Some of the features of this tool are assigning work, giving feedback, and supporting communication within the class. 

 User Engagement: Google Classroom boosts all learning processes because students can submit homework, contribute to discussions, and receive feedback immediately. Teachers can announce messages, share the documents with or without assignments, and view students’ activities through the Control panel. Parents can get summaries of the class activities and assignments their child has been attending and handling. It serves to pursue a coherent educational process to create a solid triadic interaction and improve communication between all the participants (Cheung, 2021). 

 Influence on Communication: Communication is transformed in that it is no longer a live, direct encounter but a mediated and asynchronous one. Teachers and students can interact by commenting on assignments and posts. Besides the classroom, Google Classroom also enables continued discussion and is a place to store information that students can come back to when they need it. These benefits cater to learning styles and student timetables (Tarteer et al., 2023). 

 Information Consumption: Google Classroom affects information consumption because resources are located at the center and can easily be accessed. Course content, assignment submission, and feedback can all be found under one app. Unlike traditional systems, where learning is interrupted, this system fosters learning and enables students to get whatever resources they need. It also enables teachers to upload differentiated resources to deliver to students, therefore helping to facilitate differentiated teaching. 

 Impact on Learning: As this paper seeks to present the benefits associated with the use of Google Classroom, the following are the potential impacts that the implementation of the said tool has on students’ learning and participation: Due to this feature, it enhances organization and time management as students can track their assignments and due dates. Another advantage of the proposed model is that real-time feedback helps correct learners’ mistakes and reinforces learning. However, its potential drawbacks are overemphasizing the use of technology and social isolation, which hinders direct communication and affects interpersonal skills (Oriji & Nnadieze, 2023). 

 Privacy and Safety: Google Classroom protects students’ privacy since it only allows accounts created by school specialists and complies with FERPA. It comprises elements such as limited access to course content and specific communication options to help preserve people’s safety on the Internet. Nonetheless, educators and parents must prevent possible risks, including exposing students' identities and inappropriately using their personally identifiable information, while ensuring the students are well informed of the safety concerns of using social media. 

 Required Literacies: Google Classroom is based entirely on the online environment, and thus, students should have basic computer literacy, which includes an understanding of how to use primary sections of Google tools, work with files, and use online communication. These literacies are essential for the student to contribute appropriately to the online learning community, for the teacher to teach a class effectively, and for the parent to assist the child in school (Hussaini et al., 2020). 

 Implications for K-12 Education: Google Classroom facilitates the set goals of education by promoting collaboration and organization. The platform will enable educators to tailor the learning procedures and give feedback to the learners with the utmost immediacy, thus leading to better results acquisition. Finally, the figure of the parents is regarded as overseers of their child’s learning and ascendants of the platform’s use.

Platform 2: Seesaw

 Overview: Seesaw is an app that enables students to record their learning activities and share them with teachers or parents. This pedagogy enables students to produce and hand in multimedia-tailored tasks as a way of learning. Seesaw serves several purposes, including helping the parents communicate with the teachers frequently, helping the students evaluate themselves, and playing a vital role in the learning process. The input styles of Seesaw include photos, videos, drawings, and captions to help students record their work and get feedback that offers a comprehensive learning environment. This approach also helps increase student engagement and offers a base for constant assessment and improvement. Besides, Seesaw enables parents to follow through with the learner’s learning process. Thus, parents can communicate with the teachers. This holistic communication model is instrumental in developing the learning community, determining the need for merging the home-school partnership, and determining that students continue to receive encouragement through a like-minded community where it is valued.

 User Engagement: Seesaw helps students to engage more by giving them the option of sharing their work progress through photos, videos, drawings, and or/with their caption. Teachers here can set up activities, give feedback, and assess their students' progress. It contributes to the parents as they are given a chance to assess their child’s work and also communicate with the teachers. This model engages model encourages students’ participation and constant feedback. 

 Influence on Communication: Seesaw changes the interaction because it allows various forms of media and sets up a means of dialog with students, teachers, and parents. The students' work can be posted in the classroom, and others can comment on the work produced through the application. Therefore, outside the classroom, Seesaw promotes continuous communication with parents and gives them insight into what is happening in the classroom, improving interaction and participation (Anderson & Kyzar, 2022). 

 Information Consumption: Seesaw regulates information consumption by letting students engage with education differently. This allows students to produce and retrieve materials that suit all learning preferences and be more innovative. This independent use of multiple modes of representation helps students pay more attention to the content and simultaneously results in better learning. 

 Impact on Learning: See-Saw enhances students' engagement and self-regulation, enhancing learning outcomes. The given platform implies students’ autonomy to some extent and lets them demonstrate their achievements. However, adverse outcomes can occur, such as excessive use of multimedia tools causing distractions and ensuring that every student in a class gets to use a particular technological tool. 

 Privacy and Safety: The privacy and safety concerns have been accurately met by Seesaw through having control measures to access and the firm’s regulations of COPPA and FERPA. They have measures that protect student details and only allow specific people to access the information. Thus, teachers and families have to teach and reinforce the concept of digital citizenship and safe online practices (Mattson, 2024)). 

 Required Literacies: Seesaw enables users to create, post, and share digital work and items, communicate digitally, and explore the media to find and use lessons/teaching ideas and resources. These literacies are fundamental to students as they learn, and when documenting learning, teachers and how they can organize, sort, or assess the student’s work, and parents as they engage with their child’s learning process (Rou & Yunus, 2020). 

 Implications for K-12 Education: Therefore, Seesaw aligns with the learning goals by promoting engagement, imagination, and parent participation. The platform can enhance feedback from educators, which could trigger reflections among the learners. This is particularly the case because parents are instrumental in motivating and facilitating their child’s use of the application and providing reinforcement and guidance regarding learning.

                                                               References

Anderson, S. E., & Kyzar, K. B. (2022). Between school and home: TPACK-in-practice in elementary particular education contexts. Computers in the Schools, 39(4), 323-341.

Cheung, A. (2021). Is synchronous online teaching a blessing or a curse? Insights from EFL primary students’ interaction during online English lessons. System, 100, 102566.

Hussaini, I., Ibrahim, S., Wali, B., Libata, I., & Musa, U. (2020). Effectiveness of Google classroom as a digital tool in teaching and learning: Students’ perceptions. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), 4(4), 51-54.

Mattson, K. (2024). Digital citizenship in action: empowering students to engage in online communities. International Society for Technology in Education.

Oriji, A., & Nnadieze, G. C. (2023). E-Learning: Shifting from Theory to Practice & Learning across Curriculum. Glob Acad J Humanit Soc Sci, 5.

Rou, L. Y., & Yunus, M. M. (2020). The Use of Seesaw in Increasing Pupils’ Reading Interest. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 8(6), 2391-2396.

Tarteer, S., Badah, A., & Khlaif, Z. N. (2023). We are employing Google Classroom to teach female students during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Technology’s Challenges and Solutions in K-16 Education during a Worldwide Pandemic (pp. 52-73). Routledge.