Sunday, April 27, 2014

Using Google Sites/Google Docs to organize I-search research portfolios

Check out the class google site I created and read more about my project in my folder.




I am on the last academic unit of the school year with my students, “I-search,” which inspired my last technology project.  My Cooperating teacher said her dream would be to move the paper-based “I-search” (students research a topic of their choosing) to wikispaces when she implements it next time, and I decided to imagine this movement to Google Sites/Google Docs. 


I created a Google Site with research resources, timeline of homework assignments, a tab for students to upload their Google Doc Portfolio link.  In this student tab, I also included a model example of a portfolio, in terms of how I want students to organize its contents.  In terms of permissions for editing pages, I gave my roommate, Janani Sridharan, permission to edit only the Student Links Google page, and only viewing permissions for the other pages as a test (which worked).  Then, I created a google group and gave this group the same sets of permissions as Janani.  I made a fake gmail account (using my friend's name Vanessa Lai).  "Vanessa" asked to join the google group, and after I used my own email address to grant her request, she was also able to edit just the "Student Links Google" page.  Through trial and error, I realized that students could join a class google group, much like our tech one, and varying access could be granted based on the group's permissions, as opposed to individualizing each student.  

My intention was to see if the front-load of setting this site up would be worth it for the affordances of a paper-less transaction between myself and students.  For the most part, I think that it is worth it because the teacher and the student could have simultaneous access to the portfolio at any point.  The teacher can monitor the work on an ongoing basis to see if students are being accountable for each journal and draft (as they are due).  Last but not least, peers can easily share portfolios with each other for feedback, and future students could easily reference to this work.  

My only concern is that it's hard to imagine what this implementation would look like with over a hundred students, as opposed to the few imaginary students on this site.  

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Review of “It Makes it More Real”: Teaching New Literacies in a Secondary English Classroom Nancy Bailey

Nancy Bailey writes about Carol’s 9th grade English class, and how Carol reconfigured curriculum to get students excited about interpreting literature through a multimodal lens.  Now that we’ve digested a series of articles that pertain to various teachers and how they incorporate multimodal, technology-based curriculum into the classroom, I wanted to reference to a few statements and how I’d like to reflect on them in a synthetic fashion. 

Bailey states that theorists of the New Literacy Studies argued: “If teachers do not use new technologies, the authors say, they ‘attach them in unengaging ways to the anachronistic curriculum’ (p.127).”  To say that educators who aren’t buying into New Literacy theories are practicing “anachronistic curriculum” sets this dichotomous-two-schools-of-thought frame in which educators are presumed to occupy either stance, and I don’t think that is the case.  As I was wary about from the start of this class, many schools (particularly urban, low-income based schools) are not well-equipped enough for teachers to facilitate learning that utilizes heavy technology.  Although we do not get insight as to how Carol utilizes equipment and resources from her school to implement her projects, we do know that her class of 28 students are from a suburban, middle-class background in the Northeast (she asked them to watch “Friends” to analyze literary elements, so that might look different in an urban, West Coast school). 

Also, as I have reiterated before, another issue other than resources is teacher training.  I appreciate that preservice teachers are to take a technology course during credential training, but I think that realistically, schools should have ongoing professional development and workshops catered to technological pedagogy.  I know that that might be an idealistic and extreme suggestion that is obviously beyond the scope of me, but I think that teachers need some sort of “homework” or accountability piece for technology integration, since they are so busy with the rest of their daily demands.

Moving on, Bailey states that: “getting freshmen to become engaged, interested and excited about something, especially reading and writing, is an extremely difficult task.  However, by incorporating technology, I have found a way to ‘hook’ them and keep them ‘on the line’ for the rest of the year’ from Graduate Course Position Statement (p. 215).”  I really like this analogy of technology being the sugar on the spoon that feeds the “medicine” for kids, and I don’t see what’s so problematic about that (I have 9th graders now and I relate, that it is so hard to get 14-year-olds excited about literature). 

--BUT, I might just be saying this because I haven’t been able to discern how to integrate technology in English curriculum in a seamless way and not as a “staple-on” or afterthought.  To digress a bit, I’ve used “traditional quizzes” this semester (mostly to follow my CT’s structure) to monitor student’s reading of the text, and I’m not sure what “authentic assessment tools” might look like – maybe an oral element??  But that still wouldn’t be using technology.  Maybe next year, in a CT-less world, I’d have more liberty to integrate tech.  Maybe I can implement the Audacity project (Project #1) I envisioned for students to discuss the text’s essential question in an auditory, multimodal way, as opposed to writing a “traditional” essay.  Maybe I can ask students to submit their I-search paper (or any essay that is extensive and contains lots of drafts and notes) as a Google Folder URL link to me (my Project #3) and we can begin to move to a paper-less world.   

I appreciated how this course expanded my thinking and I will try to be less skeptical of technology integration (and the internet cutting out on me when I want to play a video).

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Synthesis of "Writing in the Wild: Writer’s Motivation in Fan-based Affinity Spaces"

“Fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couch-bound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.”
Lev Grossman, TIME, July 07, 2011






             This week, Curwood, Magnifico & Lammers discussed how adolescents use online, fan-based affinity spaces to produce multimodal transformative works, such as websites, avatars, blogs, videos, maps and podcasts.  The focal examples were based on the virtual worlds of The Hunger games (dystopian novels), Neopets (web-based game tending for virtual pets), and The Sims (a life simulation and computer video game).  The authors wonder: “How can research on adolescent writing in online affinity spaces shape teachers’ writing pedagogy? (p. 683).”  

CRITIQUE:


Tygue’s fear:
"As much as I think students could learn from interpreting literature [from a fan-based affinity space], I still can't help but fear fan fiction for all reasons apparent HERE:"



 
             Tygue’s push-back was also expressed in the idea of participation being self-directed, multifaceted and dynamic.  Though this sounds wonderful, the self-directed part threw him off when he began thinking practically, “how are educators to develop an EFFICIENT system for evaluated truly self-directed student work?”

Evan’s concerns:
"My chief concern while reading this article was doubt that many (or any) of my students engage in such spaces… they suggest that teachers "attune the practices" affinity spaces, but if students aren't experienced with fan culture in online communities then you would still practically be starting from scratch in establishing such a collaborative, transformative culture in your classroom. I'm just not sure the extent to which this would be building on my students' socio-linguistic reservoirs, whereas in a more socioeconomically advantaged school it most certainly would be." 
             I agreed with both Tygue and Evan, as I struggle to define and envision what “self-directed student work” and “transformative work” looks like in my classroom.  I particularly appreciated Evan’s mention of how the article does not account for diversity in socioeconomic classes, which would inevitably influence student likelihood of engaging in these fan-based spaces.  

PRAISE/POSSIBLE APPLICATION TO TEACHING:

            Tygue was interested in how the audience for these fan-based affinity spaces could complement student writing.  He thought that this article called for educators to create “self-directed and internet-based opportunities” to help students share work with an “authentic audience (p. 678).”  Students’ beliefs about their academic and particularly, writing abilities, are heavily influenced by their topic, genre, and feedback from readers.  Affinity spaces provide a passionate, public audience for content, and this level of thorough and invested feedback could provide student writers greater opportunity and motivation for development and revision. 

             Evan thought the article exemplified many benefits of this fan-based affinity space framework.  One example is Eve (focal student for the Sims affinity space), as Tygue thought she was perhaps able to display her strengths in a space less punitive toward mistakes in writing.  Evan also thought educators should value these kinds of “out-of-school writing in online spaces” so that we can understand how these experiences could contribute to academic writing.
             Tygue focused on how the framework could enhance writing engagement: “the contemporary tools and spaces for writing that are available to youth are essential for their achievement and engagement (p. 677).”  This engagement, however, would not be possible without establishing a classroom community, which is essential to “all the tips” but what I see to be essential to everything implemented in a class. 







Sunday, April 13, 2014

Review of “Online Personal Learning Environments” by Helen Barrett and Nathan Garrett

Barrett and Garrett’s emphasis on the institution, or university, controlling digital archives made me think of how we sort of have online portfolios but they are scattered across different social networks and drives.  The idea of “what happens when a student moves to another university” made me think of how at some point this school year, I decided to primarily use my gmail account for school correspondence as opposed to my Berkeley email account because I knew the data would be out of my reach in the next year or two.  This article made me think of how future technologies could enable educators and students to consolidate information, presentations and related archive for easy access and sharing.   

On a broader note, I appreciate Barrett and Garrett’s idea of reconceptualizing the tools so they’re not just for students and not just contained within the institution.  The article gave an example of how families should have a digital repository, and how senior citizens might find it useful to have post-retirement “legacy” stories.  It is true that portfolios are more relevant in certain professions and fields, thus, might have more a personal than professional incentive for some folks.  I wonder what a digital archive might look like for a teacher?

I found the diagrams in this article somewhat useful to my understanding of processes implied in a digital archive, but without a techie/programmer/designer’s eye, I’m not sure what a digital archive looks like?  To what extent could a digital archive contain information?  What variety of information are digital archives capable of storing and sharing?  The authors mentioned RSS (Really Simple Syndication) as an example of a software solution.  RSS reminds me of the archaic Google Reader, which allowed me to subscribe to various news sites and read newly published articles from these sites.  Thinking of other examples provided by the authors, such as LiveJournal, various webhosting websites for pictures and files gives me the impression that this digital archive notion is still largely decentralized.  I’m still unsure if their vision is a “lifetime personal website” or a mixture of a public website with private storage settings.

As a future teacher, I am interested in an online system or digital archive that could store grades, parent correspondence, assignments and assignment copies, and correspondence updates about changes in the class or the school, and maybe even model examples of student work.  Obviously, information such as grades and parent correspondence would need access restriction (student should be able to view their grades but not the parent correspondence).  I can see grades and parent information being stored on a system like ABI (OUSD) or school loop (SFUSD), and information about assignments, examples of student work on a personal/school website, but it would be superb if all this information could be consolidated onto one vessel to facilitate learning and communication for parents and teachers.


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Review of Henry Jenkins’ “Multiculturalism, Appropriation, and the New Media Literacies: Remixing Moby Dick


Henry Jenkins mentions a cartoon that “…captures some of the contradictions surrounding the relations between Media Studies and the ways that Literature is most often taught in American high schools (p. 104).” This piece reviews ideas that we have already touched in this course, such as incorporating multimedia to advanced learning and this notion of “remixing.”  Jenkins frames remixing as a form of mash-up, using Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick as the prime example.  When he described students’ process of “…remixing those elements, retooling that language, and retelling those stories, they created something that felt fresh and original to their readers,” I wondered if students were taking a step beyond analyzing literature to produce creative writing?  If so, I wondered how this unit was imagined, whether digital tools were integrated, and how this mash-up analogy of blending and infusing genres panned out for student writing.  This piece expanded our prior discussion of “remix” as a buy-in for students, but was more theoretical and less guided for practical or practiced examples.

Jenkins’ piece that I found more theoretical was less informative on how to integrate multimedia and digital practices in English curriculum and more insightful about definitions of creative expression, and how we might teach our students literary concepts like “allusion” in unconventional manners that might be more engaging to their daily engagements with technology (by comparing it to a remix).  As Jenkin states: “seeing remix as another way into thinking about allusion suggests an answer to a question we often receive from teachers: How can you tell if a remix is good?  How can you tell if an allusion is good? (p. 109).”  Teaching literary concepts via media, particularly music is of interest to me because I have been examining relationships between rhetorical devices in poetry and how they are analogous to hip-hop music, which is widely consumed by our students in urban school settings. 

A grand idea that Jenkins’ highlights is how the digital era has expanded and complicated notions of authorship:
“So, we are making two seemingly contradictory claims here: first, that the digital era has refocused our attention on the expressive potential of borrowing and remixing, expanding who gets to be an author and what counts as authorship, but second, that this new model of authorship is not that radical when read against a larger backdrop of human history… we need to help them to understand the growing centrality of remix practices to our contemporary conception of creative expression, and we need to help them to understand how modern remix relates to much older models of authorship (p. 109).”

Though I am still trying to unpack the complexity of these dual claims, I think it is helpful to help students in urban settings see connections between canonical texts and some of the media that they consume, whether it is hip-hop, contemporary television shows, etc.  Rhetorical devices is one approach (literature/poetry and hip-hop), but looking at themes and human struggles could be another (literature/prose and television).  For students to assume some sense of authorship (without plagiarizing), they have to assume some authority on the content, and what more convenient way to leverage this than to bring in media that we know speaks to them?    

I’ve never implemented any sort of remixing-kind of unit this school year, but I conducted independent research that compared and contrasted the late Bay Area-based emcee Mac Dre and the Shakepearian Fool, Yorick, as he appeared in Hamlet.  Mac Dre was at the height of his popularity for the hip-hop subgenre “hyphy music” when I was a high school senior, and if a teacher compared his clownish mannerisms and lyricism to Shakespeare’s “Fool” character trope that is prevalent in a number of his most famous plays, I would have definitely been more engaged in trying to understand and interpret Shakesperian work. 

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Project #2: Evaluation of Collaborative Writing


My Project #2  evaluated Collaborative Writing (CW) as an educational tool.  The purpose of the project was to research two focal digital tools, and early on, I knew I wanted one tool to be Google Docs.  My project consists of theoretical background literature on CW and its definitions.  As a result of refining CW’s definition and perusing existing CW tools, I chose “Draft” as the second digital tool because like Google Docs, its emphasis is on heavy writing on a document interface (as opposed to examining a tool like Twitter which isn’t text-heavy).  Draft cannot enable multiple users to edit in real time but unlike Google Docs, Draft does enable version control, or in other words, “a master document.”  Users can accept or reject partial changes created by other collaborators. 

Because I am still confounded by the lack of technological access in urban school settings (where students do not necessarily have access to their own laptop or computer), I was more interested in CW as a means for teachers or more learned peers to provide feedback on student writing, than CW as a means for students to write simultaneously, or to take turns to contribute to achieve a collaborative, high-quality writing product.  In this sense, features of Draft make it more suitable for the former purpose and Google Docs is more designed for the latter purpose. 

In conclusion, I’ve rarely seen high school students use Google Docs (or any CW digital tool) for CW purposes.  Google Docs, however, is very efficient for undergraduate and graduate settings, and I would imagine businesses.  My project highlighted a teacher using Google Docs effectively in a high school classroom, but I think it was because those particular students had access to individual Mac laptops.  As a process of proposing design alterations to Google Docs for my project, I realized that adapting CW digital tools to smart phone apps might be more suitable for secondary educational settings.  Students have both more access and facility with smart phones.  I definitely think CW is useful for secondary schools, particularly in English classes, but it only seems plausible to implement such type of assignments on structured lab days, and not so much mini-lessons on a day-to-day basis.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Review of Suzanne Miller’s “English Teacher Learning For New Times”


Suzanne Miller’s “English Teacher Learning For New Times” describes how urban preservice teachers and practicing teachers implemented a digital video design unit for grades 5-12.  Throughout her description of this design’s effectiveness to enhance multimodal skills and inquiry, Miller argues that “traditional schooling and literacy are not adequate for the 21st century public, civic, and workplace spheres.  Significant changes will be needed in schooling, in teachers, and, especially, in educational beliefs about the status/design of non-print and print-mixed modes as ways of knowing and communicating (p. 63).”  She contends that teachers (and in this context, English teachers specifically) need various professional development opportunities to learn how to use technology such as digital video design before we may be able to teach our students the same process. 

Digital video composing allows orchestration of visual, kinetic and verbal modes of learning.  We’ve been discussing multimodal learning extensively in this course, thus, I appreciated how Miller framed this idea to Lankshear and Knobel’s (2003) notion of performance knowledge.  Giving students more facility with technological tools enhances performance knowledge: knowing how to find, gather, use, communicate and create new ways of envisioning assemblages of knowledge.  Along with this, design is how people make use of resources available to “realize their interests as makers of a message/text (p. 64).”  When our Urban Education class last semester delved more deeply into technology, we used the word “design” to characterize our practices, and Miller’s article gave me context to better understand why we used “design” as opposed to any other word. 

The digital video composing unit undeniably allowed multiple modes to orchestrate together for productive learning, and engagement for students like Justin who were “floundering.”  As reiterated in an earlier class discussion, incorporating different modes of learning beyond the traditional-linguistic form acknowledges our LD and alternative learners.  Since I myself took a Film class in high school that taught me how to use Final Cut Pro (video editing software), I wondered if this kind of unit would be better suited as an integration with another design or film class.  The English teacher and Film teacher could align curriculum such that students can learn recording and editing techniques in film, and the project for that class can be a prompt that relates to English class.  Off hand, I’m thinking of a film project that asks students to respond to literature. 

The DV class group that responded to Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll” and addressed the negative impact ads have on female body image seemed extremely powerful to engage students in the content, but how do we facilitate this?  One of my concerns, which teachers in Miller’s piece echoed is the lack of equipment at school and difficulty with adjusting instructional time for the digital video design piece.  I highly agree that educators need to use multimodal literacy practices to become change agents in spaces beyond the classroom, however, I think that school’s infrastructure don’t have professional development opportunities (not any mandatory ones, at least) that are technology-oriented.  Without a basic foundation of film, for example, figuring out how to implement this kind of unit design can be overwhelming for a teacher who has to negotiate his or her regular responsibilities.  If teachers have this responsibility, they themselves need as much scaffolding and support as possible!

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Review of “Weblogs and Literary response” by Kathleen West


“Weblogs and Literary Response” by Kathleen West examined three focal students (11th grade AP students) and their blog responses to different pieces of literature.  Although West’s research question inquired the nature of literary response via blog, it seemed that towards the end, she was evaluating the productivity of these types of blogs, and how they held weight in standard English and acceptability to most teachers and parents.  This piece reminded me of a group discussion that Tygue, Becky and I had about whether we’d allow “internet language” on online chat boards for students.  With this said, I wonder what others think of the affordances that abbreviation and acronyms have for freedom of expression, and whether this “relaxed stance” disrespects standard English grammar, usage and mechanics.

Because West’s focal students were identified as white, middle-class students who are already in their junior year and elected an AP course, I’d like to believe that they know how to code-switch between their blog language and writing that occurs in more academic scenarios (typing a paper, writing in-class assessments, AP exam, etc).  Thus, I then wonder, if teachers should only allow this “relaxed stance” via internet writing venues if they are confident that their students already have a strong command of standard English grammar?

I appreciated West’s examples of the three blogs, but I don’t think her method of data collection/display and analyses was a good demonstration of how the blog form inspired students to respond to literature in a way that would have been radically different from traditional pencil and paper.  She discussed how Lucy commented frequently (one primary affordance of blogs), but she didn’t share any examples of students commenting on each other’s blogs.  Also, what might have been helpful was to compare these blog responses to “traditional” in-class, written responses.  If allowing students to have a more “relaxed stance” frees their thinking and enhances their engagement with the literature, then I’m all for the blog form.  With this said, I don’t feel that she has answered her own question: does blogging change the nature of student’s responses to literature?

I was, however, intrigued with her notion of a socially situated identity; the example that a student can be apathetic in class but transform into a social butterfly in the halls.  This brings me back again to our discussion about chat boards and whether shy students would step up to the plate.  I can see how responding to literature on a blog does lower the emotional stakes of failing in some sense, thus, I wonder if blogging would indeed encourage academic participation.  

This MUSE tech group is my first experience with a class blog.  If I tried to replicate this in a secondary class setting (to ask students to respond to literature), I’d have to think through protocols like frequency, how/when to respond to peers, etc.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Review of “Classroom Remix”


“Classroom Remix” discusses how two high school teachers, Ms. Smith and Mr. Crane implemented a Powerpoint Poetry Interpetation unit into two sections of a 9th and 10th grade “Writing for Publication” class.  The goal was to blend visual, linguistic and auditory composition elements to reconfigure what was to be learned and how it was to be learned.  This article, dated in October 2011, acknowledges that Powerpoint may not remain the best tool to interpret poetry, and I am sure since then, VoiceThread and a myriad of other comparable digital tools have emerged that can fulfill the same purpose.  Thus, I will not focus too much on the digital tool of Powerpoint and its affordances but rather the thoughts that I conjured about my future practice as a result of reading this study.

I enjoyed how Callahan and King mentioned all the push-back that was in response to their implementation of the Powerpoint Poetry unit.  Overall, it seems that there’s a dichotomy between their vision of remixing learning and the traditional notions of writing-based instruction that is primarily linguistic.  It was interesting to me that they mentioned how an AP class, for example, might not want to spend 4 weeks on this kind of a unit because of all the test stimulation instruction students would expect.  “Traditional learning” is such a vague term, and I wonder how our conception of it will change as technology and other facets of society evolve (or cease to). 

One of the largest benefits of implementing technology-based units that incorporates many elements of learning (visual, linguistic and auditory composition) is that it could decrease the participation gap between students who have high access to digital tools and those who do not.  A salient example that the authors mention is that this type of unit encourages students with learning disabilities to participate, as they might not feel that their “traditional” linguistic abilities are that strong.  Conversely, students who know how to “do” school and are complacent with the written and linguistic-oriented assignments will be pushed outside of their comfort zone.

I think this piece really allowed me to realize how using digital tools could help me reach out to a wider variety of learners, and how I could be afforded opportunities to collaborate with educators from other departments like music and visual arts.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Project 1: Audacity - audio, literature and narrative



Our project’s start stemmed from our interest in integrating Audacity (a free digital audio and recording program) in the English classroom.  We knew that we would have to create an audio file on Audacity ourselves before we could structure the assignment for imagined students.  We decided to use one of our current units as a starting point for the project, since it was helpful to have a concrete literary text in mind.  We knew that we wanted the audio project to contain oration of original writing (about The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and the essential question regarding the role of education in human freedom) layered over, or juxtaposed with natural sounds.  We decided to encourage other musical sounds such as drum samples from the internet but to put the emphasis on environmental sounds from a school environment.  We also decided that the assignment would be most beneficial as a collaborative group effort.
 
We recorded sounds at our school sites, such as class discussion about Frederick Douglass, lunch murmur, noise in the hallway during passing period, students rustling paper in class, etc.  In terms of narratives, we recorded our take on the essential question, and that of two other classmates (Bianca and Arianna).  In summary, we started the audio with the sound of hall murmur and music, Eric and Bianca’s narratives, then our introduction to students at the San Francisco Academy, and then we concluded with more commentary from Eric, Arianna and Thoai before concluding with the same hall murmur and music from the beginning.
 
In terms of technological usage of Audacity, we used our smart phones to record all clips and then we inserted them as individual “tracks” into Audacity.  We mainly used the copying/pasting features, time-selector tool (to move tracks into earlier or later intervals of the larger project), and the “fade in” and “fade out” effects to transition clips.  As a result, we mainly emphasized/encouraged students to use the same basic skills and effects for the assignment prompt.

After we exported the file as .mp3 and uploaded it into soundcloud for digital sharing, we created the assignment prompt; in the introduction to the assignment, we stated that the audio project should be done in groups of 3-4 and that the culminating clip should be 2-3 minutes (even though our actual sample was close to five minutes).  We explained some of the affordances of the technology, shared a few resources for the aforementioned basic functions, listed the overarching “to-do list” for students, and gave them a heads up on the four dimensions of grading: oration of writing, content of writing, basic command of Audacity, and Text/Audio Integration.

Here is our example model.

Here is the link to my project folder, which has the assignment prompt, the write-ups and rubric.


We are hoping that if actually implemented in a future classroom, students would be able to learn a digital tool, and in the process, enhance their associative logic skills.  Since this assignment prompt was inspired by an actual essay prompt we recently created (and distributed in a class), we hope that this type of multimedia assignment could engage students while still achieving the academic aims of a literary essay.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Review of “…MySpace as a Contemporary Framework for Literary Analysis”


              Elizabeth Lewis’ MySpace study examines how two experienced teachers, Caitlin and Barb, asked their English students to create a multimodal literary analysis of a character via a print-based MySpace page (back in 2007!).  Of course, MySpace isn’t trending like it used to be, and its analog – Facebook – might cease to trend in the near future.  What this study brought to light is not so much the importance of MySpace as the placeholder-digital tool but the pedagogical risks that English teachers take when they engaged in transformed practice (transfer and recreation of Designs of meaning from one context to another).

             What immediately struck me with this design is that because the school district blocked MySpace as a website, Caitlin and Barb asked students to create a print-based version of a MySpace page.  To their surprise, students retained an “academic voice,” which they presumed had to do with the pen and paper association of school, and digital devices with their personal lives.  At first, I thought it was clever that the instructors used the digital practice as a springboard to adapt the assignment.  That way, they could still contain project work in the class, and didn’t have to move students to a computer lab, if available.  This study is a good example of what gets “lost” with transformed practice, especially when the redesign is not a digital-to-digital transformation. 
    
             Back to the topic of trends, I think we have to be careful that we’re not implementing assignments just for novelty’s sake.  For this reason, it might have been difficult to dissect whether students were more engaged because they got to employ a “new” literacy, or if it was because they had a reprieve from more traditional assignments.  Of the pedagogical tensions that stemmed from this study, I thought it was intriguing that the instructors did not learn to navigate MySpace themselves, as they assumed all students had facility with MySpace.  Whether an instructional practice is digital or paper-based, it’s critical that English teachers become versed in the format before asking students to use the form.  

             With this said, I appreciate how Lewis characterized MySpace as a “digital diary/self-portrait/communicative “device.”  Adolescents are going through a developmental phase where they think everyone is concerned about them, so they are especially interested in the “profile.”  In this way, social media platforms (whichever one is most trendy at the time) might be useful for character analysis assignments.  I’m not sure though that I would ask any of my students to use something as personal as their actual Facebook account to complete an assignment.  This article did open my perspective to adapting digital tools for work that does not require computers.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Review of “Weaving the Literacy Web: Changes in Reading from Page to Screen”


Wendy Sutherland-Smith’s piece discusses how teachers should reconcile their teaching strategies to acknowledge when students shift from reading print texts to digital texts.  Voices from her middle school study in Australia generally revealed that digital texts had a quick, “snatch-and-grab philosophy,” which aligns with how the internet age has impacted our attention span, at least the kind we bring to perusing information from the interwebs.  The internet has indeed transformed the notion of research from the traditional book-search that seemed more slow-paced.

Sutherland-Smith brought other considerations to mind, such that through the process of web literacy, students are also taught how to be skeptical about information.   Knowing how to conduct internet research efficiently helps students achieve not only in school but the work force.  I highly agree with Leu (1997)’s assertion that “individuals unable to keep up with the information strategies generated by new information technologies will quickly be left behind.”  With the popularity of smartphones and iPads, however, I don’t worry that our students won’t be up to speed with certain digital survival skills.  This discussion, however, reminded me of how my CT last semester modeled conducting “research” on celebrity gossip to show students how to Google search in an efficient and quick manner (strategies such as using quotations to search for conjoined words, etc). 

Thus, it’s not so much a matter of “whether technology serves a purpose in aiding student learning,” but how we can leverage students’ interest-driven networks to enhance existing teaching strategies.  If we want them to learn how to Google search, we can have them use that medium to look up a topic they are interested in.  With this said, what other specific “web literacy” skills are we concerned with honing?  Typing?  Searching?  Associative logic to explain why an image was chosen to pair text bullet points in a presentation?

To paraphrase Sutherland-Smith, web-based reading is not linear – it is interactive, multimedia, and helps students examine relationships.  While this is hard to debate, teaching reading strategies for print-based texts has its unique set of vital affordances – more attention to lengthier texts, the ability to physically search for books in a library and to cite books (as opposed to URL links).  I would imagine that the preference of one form of text over another would completely be contingent on factors such as book availability of a school’s textbook room and library, the curriculum or topic, the scope of the assignment, etc.  Print literacy can also enhance skill sets that Sutherland-Smith attributes to digital literacy (such as accessing and analyzing information), but print literacy’s shortcomings might be that it is not as interactive and multimedia-involved.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Review of “What Immigrant Students Can Teach Us About New Media Literacy”


             One of my students this semester just immigrated from China last year and though her grammatical writing does not always adhere to English conventions, she diligently translates words from Chinese to English on her iPad everyday.  I find it endearing that she is catching up so quickly to her English-fluent peers, and I’m also becoming more accustomed to her usage of the iPad in class (which I have never seen her use for any other purpose).  For her, technology has been an enormous asset in this catching-up process.  With this said, I think that “transnational digital practices” and the ways in which we can integrate them into culturally responsive pedagogy is largely contingent upon the kind of immigrants we have in our classroom.  Depending on their originating country, duration that they have lived in the U.S., and the skill level of their native English-speaking peers – our educational practices would be tailored differently.  As echoed by some of my peers, the scope of Lam’s piece did not acknowledge much of this heterogeneity. 
             Lam’s transnational framing of curriculum topics (such as global economies and immigration) and the way that her students facilitated a media production of immigration policy sounds like an ideal integration of technology and pedagogy intended to “enhance language and literacy development.”  I believe that with careful curricular scaffolding and available computers, this seems feasible, however, when I envision immigrant students, I think of the one in my current class and her struggle with writing English.  I am more interested in how we can leverage technology to help immigrant students and other ELL learners with basic writing and reading fluency, not to say that there isn’t value in leveraging their multi-cultural and linguistic knowledge’s for larger-scale multimedia projects.
             For example, when I discussed lesson plans with my CT and how I’d implement the students’ literary analysis essay (creating a thesis statement, developing essay structure, etc), she advised that I give more explicit instruction and models to better aid the aforementioned student, and a few other students in my class who have IEP’s.  I wonder if there are any existing transnational digital tools that these students could refer to, that could supplement the instruction that I give the rest of the class.
             I know that the focus of our discussion this week will concern diversity and ELLs overall, but since Lam’s focal student(s) were speaking to the Chinese experience, I wanted to point us to Lisa Lowe’s chapter on “Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian-American Differences.”  Lowe's theory doesn’t connect to technology directly but can help us think about some of the differences and nuances that I mentioned earlier.


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Possible Project - Evaluating Tech Tool

I'm interested in evaluating social media platforms as possible tools to enhance the writing skills of students.  Specifically, I'm really interested in Tumblr and I'm sort of interested in Twitter.  Facebook and Instagram came to my mind but I think that students likely will want to keep their Facebook account academically separate, and Instagram doesn't lend itself to create that much text.  Maybe Tumblr (which I see as a "hip" blog form) and Twitter might not be that great as possible "writing" tools, so I wonder if I should even sustain the route of social media platforms.  The appeal to this is that students are constantly on social media networks.  I guess we are too.

I was also interested in crimemapping.com as a possible teaching/learning tool.

Over the weekend, I read an interesting article on Powerpoint Poetry & Interpretation but I think Powerpoint will be outdated (that sort of inspired my desire to do a workshop on VoiceThread).  I also saw another article on using audio responses to comment on student work.

Or maybe Audacity.

I'm scattered!

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Joy Bowers-Campbell’s piece “Taking it Out of Class: Exploring Virtual Literature Circles”


Joy Bowers-Campbell’s text argues that virtual literature circles are productive and engaging, based on a study she conducted of three groups of graduate students/preservice teachers; Bowers-Campbell shows examples of their discussion transcript and ways in which the content fell into coding categories such as Group Harmony (GH), Text-to-Text (TT), Text-to-Self (TS), etc.  Although she acknowledges drawbacks to this type of format (lack of face-to-face time, members might not respond, commitments might not be equal, etc), she states: “discussion from all groups were neither stilted nor sterile, as can sometimes be the case with face-to-face literature circles (as cited in Wolsey, 2004).”  This was a huge claim that I don’t think can be substantiated, at least not with the scope of this study.  Also, the subjects were preservice English teachers, much like our cohort.  Needless to say, this text would have been more useful for our curriculum thinking had the subjects been in high school or middle school. 

In Bowers-Campbell’s defense, however, I experienced an attempt at a qualitative study on discussion for my Linguistics course last semester, which similarly wasn’t fulfilling enough for my “practical” aims and pedagogical inquiries.  One of the largest benefits of online literature circles, as Bowers-Campbell and others have reiterated, is the idea that online literature circle provide written record; I had to painstakingly transcribe discussion audio for my study whereas Bowers-Campbell’s format likely afforded her to copy and paste.  We know that written records can be beneficial for future lessons, but what would be the purpose of a written record, unless we were actually going to look back and read it at a later time?  In this sense, I think virtual literature circles are way more convenient for the educational researcher.  For teachers, I don’t think there is another way to compare the formats besides for a trial-and-error comparison.  Ultimately though, as Bowers-Campbell mentioned, the teacher’s prompt is what will influence the complexity of thinking on discussion boards. 

 (An example of a coding system -- Purves, A.C., & Rippere, V. (1968).  Elements of writing about a literary work: A study of responses to literature (Research Report No. 9).  Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.)

Online virtual circles are not necessarily less vulnerable than face-to-face literature circles to the aforementioned “stilted” and “sterile” vibe.  It seems that with both formats, teacher involvement and direction (or lack of) will be what drives the conversation.  What’s important for us to figure out is what specific strategies for both formats will lead to a more effective, productive and engaging experience for our students. 

In my 9th grade class, the literature circles comprise of four different roles: discussion director, word wizard, passage picker and illustrator.  Students are to rotate assuming each role during their month-long duration of reading the same independent reading book.  I had a chance to observe their first group meet the past week, and even though the distribution of roles does control  the conversation to a degree, I think students that age need scaffold and structure.  Similar to what I said in my last blog, I wouldn’t implement virtual literature circles until I felt that students got the drill of the face-to-face literature circle down first.  Then, maybe I would implement some type of hybrid format, starting with a face-to-face meet and ending with one. 


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

School Inventory


My school, Academy of Arts and Sciences in SF, or what we sometimes call Academy, shares its campus with the School of the Arts (SOTA).  Academy has a school library that contains 16 PC computers and an additional computer lab with approximately 28 Mac computers.  SOTA has its own computer lab of approximately 28 Mac computers (on the shared campus) that Academy can use per special arrangement.

My CT has one PC and one Mac computer in her classroom and a printer.  Her Mac, like the Macs in our computer lab, is not extremely new but dated sometime within the past decade.  Thus far, I have observed my CT use technology to project documents; she allows her students to print work during class.  Sometimes, she’ll allow up to two students to use her computers to type an in-class assignment that other students are writing.   She said that she hasn’t used technology with students that much this semester, but last semester she brought students to the computer lab for college and career workshops.  Students conducted internet research and created Powerpoints/Prezis about career topics.  

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Integrating Technology with Small Group Discussions of Literature 2/5/14


Genya Coffey examines the role that technology can play to enhance small group discussions of literature and reminds us that cultivating print-based and digital skills in the classroom does not have to be a divorced process, but rather an integrated one.  Coffey grounds her research with Vgotsky’s notion of social development (learning is interactive in nature) and Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of literacy.  Looking at student-directed discussion of literature specifically, Coffey discusses benefits and challenges of asynchronous (chat boards) and synchronous (real-time online chats) formats.

The biggest pro that stood out was how these online formats could encourage shy students to voice their opinions, and the biggest con was how the lack of “Facetime” strips some organic elements that an in-person discussion might otherwise bring.  I don’t think I would use chat boards in place of class discussion of literature – I might as a supplement; I feel like I have yet mastered the art of facilitating conventional discussion. 

I recall that for summer session, our professor cancelled a class and had us write and respond to comments on an online web board in lieu of class.  I resisted the idea that that activity was to “replace” class, and I had much trouble staying focused on the 45-minute video we were to watch prior to “discussion.”  To empathize/associate with what might be our students’ viewpoint, I think it would be challenging to ask them to find access to a computer to write/respond to web boards, and the lack of in-person contact might make it difficult for certain students to remain focused. 

I can envision myself trying to integrate technology into specific instructional practices, but probably not for group discussion of literature – although, I will try to be more open to the idea that teaching print-based and digital literacies do not have to be separate processes.