But I Can't See Anything!

  - more than a talking head reading an essay  - this is the 1950’s meets Web 2.0.  I think of the fireside radio chats and the family sitting by the ultra big radio listening to newscasts, comedy shows, and radio series shows.    Now, audio is portable and it's so much more than music.  

The "Good Old Days"

 I’ve never tried a podcast in class before, but I have done PhotoStory with my students.  This is a audio narrating still pictures, or in my case, the pictures were there to support the audio.    What I really liked about using it from a language arts teacher’s point of view is that students really worked on intonation, inflection and fluency to create their project.  The visuals were an added plus and the best affordance for the objective ( I’ve done this mostly with informational content and visuals were key in understanding).  However, I see that podcasts would lend themselves to persuasive speech,  readers’ theater, reenacting of  an historic event, and interviews of fictional and historical characters as well as real news makers of our school or community.   Moreover, students may really appreciate not being on camera as they are with video.   

As difficult as it was for me to create a 1 ½ minute Pod cast in class the other night, I’m hesitant to jump into pod casts.  Like with any genre, before having students create them I would immerse them in the genre:  lots of podcast examples incorporated into grammar lessons  , vocabulary practice and book reviews and ideas 

An industrious CLT idea is to create some site based podcasts – a series on vocabulary, grammar or books of our own, that we could divide and conquer to create and share.  This would help make us comfortable with the media as well model for our students. A history department could make a series of "Who Am I?" podcasts where historical figures or locations could be interviewed.  Used as part of a unit, they could a great introduction and  eventually students would create their own.  Together, the teacher and student podcasts would be efficient and effective content reviews throughout the year.  

Even though they can't see anything ( and visual literacy is very important) honing in on our students' listening skills is important, too.  

What's Up with Wikis??

About  seven years ago I had my first experience with a Wiki.  Over the summer a colleague I worked with an online writing class that she developed for former students who wanted to write over the summer.  Some activities were synchronistic and some were asynchronistic.    A wiki was part of this “class” and students were writing a story together.  A first line was given and then they added to the story.  Like most communal writings, it took twists and turns that were funny,  frustrating and unexpected, but the experience was thought-provoking.  The same activity, done the old fashion way by students passing around a paper and adding to another’s story was energy and laughter filled.  Students were sharing and almost trying to “out do” one another.  It was a great writing assignment to help with writing fluency and creativity. 

 

Please note the "pleasant frustration" of the boy on the left :) 

That same feeling was not what I experienced with the online Wiki.  Sure, there were some comments back and forth, but no collaboration.  That is what worries me about a wiki – the fact that everyone is trying to just do what is expected of them and there is no real collaboration.  Norton-Sprague says that “Communication is the heart of human behavior” and, in this case face to face communication has a real advantage.  I’ve thought of future projects I could do modeled after the Wikis we are doing in class.  I could create categories and students would work cooperatively to fill in all the blanks. However, I wonder if this is the best affordance?  The same assignment, done synchronisticly face to face, would cause less, “ I’ll do this and you do that” (jigsaw) and more discussion and teamwork even if the work were divided.  

However, I can see a place I really could have used a wiki.  My CLT of 8 is a new grouping and anxious to share lessons, ideas, etc.  We started emailing, but many correspondences were lost in the Outlook jungle.  So I placed folders on the Staff drive and we have been putting them there.  However, if I would have created a wiki, designed after the ones we are doing in class, instead of a jumble of folders, we would have a well design curriculum with input from everyone.   

Richardson has many ideas of how to incorporate Wikis and he states that it is truly the 21^st century collaborative environment.  Maybe that is true, but I still feel that students need to master the face to face transactions and interactions even while navigating the life of a Net genner.  As the designer, I always need to determine the best affordance for the task.

Blogs: Public Words

   Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes – each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.  Deep within me, words pile up in huge drifts.  Mountains of phrases and sentences and connected ideas.  Clever expressions.  Jokes.  Love songs.   From the time I was really little – maybe just a few months old – words were like sweet, liquid gifts, and I drank them like lemonade.  I could almost taste them.  They made my jumbled thoughts and feelings have substance.  ~ Out of My Mind – Sharon Draper  p. 1. 

Blogs give a voice to words that want to go public but aren’t sure if they are worthy.  Some blogs, however, are words that are way too overconfident.  EM Forrester once wrote, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" Blogs are a public way of figuring this out.  

Two of my children have been/are bloggers.  My son had a travel blog when he was overseas in Bangladesh.  Hearing his real-time experiences, untainted with time, was priceless.  Just the act of writing for an audience ( yes, more than his mother read it) caused his writing to be more introspective than diary-like.  My daughter, a photographer, blogs as part of her job.  It has been revealing to watch her blog evolve from  “all about me and what I'm feeling” to focusing on her art and its process.  

As a student in LCPS’s Literacy Journeys class last year, I was required to blog and post pictures of my class, lessons I created and reflections of these lessons as well as thoughts on the reading/writing workshop philosophy and, in turn, respond to other participants in the class.  This experience as a student is integral as I progress into integration for my students.  I found the posting part helpful, but responses were required and manufactured and often just warm and fuzzy comments, not fodder for conversation.  This would be the most difficult part of required blogging   - required comments from students who may or may not really be interested in the topic. 

Blogs are best if they are authentic and not forced, but that is not the reality of education, is it? 

There are many great uses of blogs in the classroom.  Using blogs as an online portfolio would not only be a safe house for written work that could follow the student throughout their educational history, it would be a natural place to reflect on one’s own writing and the writing of others. As in a paper portfolio, students would choose their best pieces and then reflect on the choices they made.  For me, incorporating this  will not happen this year, but it is definitely on the horizon in LCPS.   By posting on blogs, students gain an authentic audience.  Even though school blogs, for certain, would be closed to anyone outside of  class or the school, students can access others’ blogs  outside of the smaller group and  respond.  

When we normally write, the only response considered is what the teacher will say or what others will think.  Anticipating written responses of others or ways writing will inform or impact them, make the writing fluid instead of inert.

To respond or not to respond....THAT is the question!

I had an experience with social media recently that was a rant, not a post, but it brings to mind the responsibility we have as teachers to respond or not to respond....    On a closed Facebook site for the Stone Bridge area, a mom posted that her daughter was reading a book that was totally inappropriate, took a picture of a page she felt inappropriate and posted it.  She said her daughter was a student at MMS, in 6^th grade, and was required to read this book by her English teacher ( yes, me)    A lynch mob joined in with outrage.  Some responders were reasonable, giving the advice to have a conversation with the teacher and speaking of taking text out of context and the noting other popular young adult literature themes and topics.  Others were outraged and were deeply concerned for the well fair of their own child.  Who is this teacher?  What was she thinking? Within  24 hours, almost fifty responses were given to her initial post.  

By the time I reached school, teachers and admin were abuzz…   Yes, the student was mine, the project was mine (part of my GM unit) and no, the book was not assigned, but a choice. And yes, the book is in our school library.   I had spoken with this very mom several times that week and, the day prior, she said she was reading with her daughter and was hooked on the book.  I volunteered my personal copy so she didn’t have to go to the library to check out her own.  I guess as she continued reading, she changed her mind (?). Anyway, I was in the clear as far as covering my professional bases, but could not help but feel I had done something wrong and publicly marred the name of our good school. 

And then…. the principal decided to be “proactive.”  By 10 am the dean called the mom and said she heard she had a problem with the book that her daughter was reading and would she like to come in and talk about it?    That’s when things got really dicey.  This phone call enraged the mom.  Through an email conversation with me, she emailed that she never intended on having a conversation with me about the book even though she had questions and reservations, and, yes, it was OK that her daughter read the book and she would oversee the reading.  The dean had no right to call and “stick the hornet’s nest” and be over dramatic. She never retracted or changed any of her postings.  Eventually, the moms of Stone Bridge moved on.

According to reputationhawk ,”… personal opinion on any topic can be posted on blogs, websites, and other sources..."  This mom did not use my name, but I had no recourse even if she did.  However, did we have a right to interfere with a rant of a mom?  If she had been ranting at soccer practice, would the dean have interrupted her and said, “Would you like to talk about this?”  At what point to educators need to interject, police, and defend our own feelings and opinions?  What freedom do parents and students have to voice their own personal thoughts about us, our teaching, our school? 

ITS Just Me...

   Born and raised in the hills of WV, I moved to VA as an adult with my husband and three young children.  After completing my certification, I began to teach in middle school and, 16 years later, I have never left.  The middle years are tough.  Most people fear them, but I find these students’ honesty, sense of humor, and their budding ability to know what they know and what they don’t know challenging and refreshing.

   I encourage my students to become devoted and talented readers and writers, to learn without limits, and to accomplish any dreams and aspirations.  Student choice is key to student engagement, and I model the strategies good readers and writers use to guide them to independently incorporate these approaches. It is vital to create authentic purposes as often as possible within the classroom walls so that those very walls don’t become barriers to their learning, but windows to the real world.   My students are then motivated to create and publish their best work for their authentic audience using tools that have the best affordance for the task, and they receive limitless feedback to foster deeper thinking. 
 
  I care deeply that students see purpose in what we do each day and that that purpose carries over into their real lives.