Weekly Reading #10

The main points that I got from the webcast was that technology is not being used to its potential in this country.  Current education is limited; the focus is “looking good” through test scores.  We are focusing on the wrong things.  Just because a country’s education looks good on paper with high test scores, that does not mean there are entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs.  Even though Asian Americans are achieving academically,  doesn’t mean they are achieving in the workplace.  America’s education isn’t getting worse; it’s never gotten better.  Even Albert Einstein said, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

I thought that Zhao made some very good points and agreed with his arguments.   I actually explored Zhao’s website; he had a list of conclusions, one of them that worded my conclusion of the argument made was this one, “To cultivate creative and entrepreneurial talents is much more than adding an entrepreneurship course or program to the curriculum. It requires a paradigm shift—from employee-oriented education to entrepreneur-oriented education, from prescribing children’s education to supporting their learning, and from reducing human diversity to a few employable skills to enhancing individual talents.”  

When I think to previous readings this semester, several chime in with Zhao’s argument.  “Children (and adults) learn best when engaged in complex, socially constructed, personally relevant, creative composition and interpretation of texts that incorporate a variety of meaningful communicative modes or symbol systems (Sanders).”  This came from Weekly Reading Three.  Personally relevant learning is most important.  Beating a country’s test score is not a personally relevant goal.

It is important that teachers don’t just “use it to say they used it.”  Effective, powerful, and meaningful writing is the ultimate goal. “Knobel and Lankshear(2006, p. 91) suggest that for effective powerful writing to take place using blogs, the focus should be on ‘genuine affinity spaces’ that will interest and challenge students into writing effective pieces for significant purposes (Adlington 2008).”

Digital texts are not as linear as printed texts. They open up the creative mind.  "...the reading path of printed texts is well established, and although you can certainly move around a text, the trajectory is linear. With digital texts, however, the reading path is “to-be-constructed” by the reader (or by the image or nature of the multimodal text; Kress, 2003). When reading online, you do not know where you will end up at the end of the reading event (Roswell 2009)."

Zhao mentions that we need to be supporters not prescribers of our learners.  Students need authentic education.  "As our relationship with the technical world evolves, it is our responsibility as educators to find authentic ways to shape learning that encompasses this form of digital literacy because reading and writing is at the center of this practice (Carey).”

We need to teach according to the child’s culture, not the world’s culture.  "This analysis has shown how children introduce themselves through their writing, how they signal identity in their online communication and how they act as bricoleurs, borrowing discursive fragments from popular culture (GUY)."

If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will go on its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Reference:

Adlington, R., & Hansford, D. (2008, July 6). Digital spaces and young people’s online authoring: Challenges for teachers. Retrieved June 10, 2013, from National Conference for Teachers of English and Literacy: http://www.englishliteracyconference.com.au/files/documents/AdlingtonHansford-Digital%20spaces.pdf

Carey, J. (n.d.). Instant Messaging: A Literacy Event. Retrieved June 30, 2013, from Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6DFAmexYq7vYWdXV2RacF9EVXc/edit

GUY MERCHANT (2004) Imagine All that Stuff Really Happening: narrative and identity in children's on-screen writing, E-Learning and Digital Media, 1(3), 341-356. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/elea.2004.1.3.2

Rowsell, J., & Burke, A. (2009, October). Reading by Design: Two Case Studies of Digital Reading Practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(2), pp. 106-118. doi:10.1598/JAAL.53.2.2

Sanders, Jennifer and Albers, Peggy. Multimodal Literacies: An Introduction. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ZnRBedCgj_IJ:https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/Sample/32142Intro_x.pdf+are+literacies+and+Discourses+used+interchanably&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjE9pBd2JmN_g_xuDVosAj01ImYkr6u-oyjriG0tREXG8fzwbyeuhcmDw0rrbTA1rug-bgizHwuiUlocJcQwdvcCiPOxZYWVExNgQ8BmulksyeRUcUX4LJmfxLlw7e8UTdG2TuT&sig=AHIEtbSZ7RHTNL_Rfe2bglUQRg9zzCD2JA

Week 10, Rubric for Learning Adventure

Link to Rubric

Weekly Reading #9

Quote:
"In one classroom, students evaluate samples of writing, ranking them and providing criteria for each ranking. The discussion is synthesized on a handout given to students. In another classroom, students create wall charts of features of good writing, revising them throughout the year as their ideas about writing evolve. And finally, students and teachers generate lists of statements about what makes good writing, and this list is used by students selecting pieces for their portfolios. In each of these scenarios, students learn to write by learning to assess. (Huot 171)"

Why this Quote?:
I made the font large in the part that I want to discuss.  Learning how to assess will help students learn to write.  This is a tool that I like to use in my math classroom.  If I am ever beginning a project I like to show students a "good example."  I also like to show students "non-examples;"  I show students non-examples sometimes and ask questions like, "Why isn't this a good response?" or "What is wrong with the title?" or "What is wrong with the answer?"  It is also nice to show students mediocre examples and question, "Could we add anything to this to make it better?"  When students know how to find error and know the difference between correct and incorrect examples, students "know how" to do what is asked of them.  This is very true in writing.  I know that even in this class(6809) we are often given "samples" of a correct, completed assignment.  We are given rubrics.  Sometimes reviewing correct examples and reading the rubrics help me realize how my work will be assessed and in turn helps me successfully complete the assignment.

Additional Resource:
Article on Benefits of Student-Generated Rubrics

Explanation of Additional Resource:
I thought this was a neat example of how students inputs towards their assessments can be very beneficial. Obviously, we don't want every assessment in the classroom to be student-generated.  However, it is something to think of.  As the article author states, "Developing a rubric is a reflective process that extends the experience and the knowledge gained beyond simply turning in a project for a teacher-initiated grade."

Questions:

1. What should the assessments of multimodal text provide for students?
• It should teach the students composition.  They should be productive, not just a score with no explanation gets thrown away.  It needs to be instructive evaluation or instructive assessment. Both terms denote that help students learn to assess texts rhetorically—their own texts and the texts of others, as they compose and after they do so.  In this way, assessments of student work become part of instruction. 
2. What are the benefits to using formative assessment when asking students to compose multimodal texts?
• Formative assessments provide feedback to students while they are still working on assignments or project. This kind of approach helps to focus students’ attention on a rhetorical understanding of a text as they are in the process of composing it. 
3. How do you feel about collaboratively constructing rubrics or assessment criteria with students?
• I agreed with the author's statement, "Collaboratively composed rubrics can also serve a summative function—providing teachers and students a strategy for evaluating the rhetorical effectiveness of a final composition product. Because such an approach to instructive assessment offers an effective way to make sure that students understand the role of rhetoric in a conventional composition classroom, it is probably an even more important strategy to use in a course that includes multimodal texts."
• I like the idea of students creating the rubric.  It just adds to the authenticity of the project.  Plus, there will be less "arguing" over the final assessment; i.e. "I don't like the way you are grading this."  This is a collaborative assessment so the student had a say in how something was being assessed.
4. Find a rubric or modify this Digital Composing Rubric to assess the multimodal product students will creating as a result of their Multimodal Learning Adventure and link to it from your Blog. You can use RubiStar to find, create, or modify your rubric.
• weather newscast rubric

Reference:

Borton, S. C., & Huot, B. (n.d.). Chapter 8: Responding and Assessing. Retrieved July 16, 2013, from Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6DFAmexYq7veC02bzZxTGVZT1k/edit

Multimodal Learning Adventure - Sample NewsCast

The following CSOs would be addressed with this portion of the Multimodal Learning Adventure:

RLA.O.8.2.8 
conduct research by gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing data from a variety of sources:

Internet
databases for periodicals/newspapers
interviews
reference books
card catalogue
miscellaneous resource materials

• Students will have to research valid weather forecasts from reliable sources.

RLA.O.8.3.1 
model effective oral communication skills (e.g., tone, volume, rate, audience, etiquette, standard English) through the presentation of
compositions
reports
scripts with documented sources, using multiple computer-generated graphic aids.

• One student will be selected to orally report this broadcast.  There could be "NewsCaster" auditions so everyone gets a chance to at least practice reporting.

RLA.O.8.3.7
plan, create, organize, and present an age-appropriate media product that demonstrates format, purpose, and audience.

• This obviously contains all of these elements.  Students have to stick to the purpose: appropriately present local weather.  They have to understand their audience (student body).  

LEARNING MULTIMODAL LITERACY

This was created with PhotoStory.  Students would be collaborating, using new technologies, and creating an authentic project.  Students would need to learn how to format the videos, work the cameras (for other video segments), edit the clips, broadcast the news across the school, have effective sound, report efficiently, research ethically, etc.  Students would develop new and authentic literacies. 

Weekly Reading 8

Quote:
"It seems that adults are in a conundrum when we examine our assumptions about our own positions related to adolescents’ interests in popular culture: we run the risk of appearing to know too much or seeming to know too little.(Alvermann, Hagood, & Williams, 2001)."

Why this Quote?:
Although this article doesn't necessarily summarize or highlight the beneficial points of pop culture in the article, this was a quote that really stuck with me because I've had that "knowing too much" or "too little" feeling.  As an 8th grade teacher, there is a fine line between the "knowing too much" or "too little" when it comes to popular culture.  I have had students' jaws drop when they find I have not read or watched a single Twilight book/movie.  I have hadn't that same gaping reaction when they find out that I have tickets to a Kenny Chesney concert and so do they.  The article does make me realize that this conundrum that I find myself is okay: "Though it might appear to be a no-win situation, we think that attending to these assumptions can in fact aid in developing more in-depth understandings about meaning making when both adults and adolescents are involved in literacy activities that invite popular culture into the discussion. Certainly in our engagement of texts with Ned and with other young adolescents like him, we struggled with our assumptions about meaning making in texts we knew and didn’t know; and, to be sure, we continue to think about it. Based upon the tenuous positions we took up related to Ned’s and to other adolescents’ interests in popular culture, we did, however, locate two points helpful in designing spaces for the inclusion of popular culture that recognized the legitimacy of the meaning-making and literacy strategies adolescents use:In-depth observations of their uses of popular culture texts as part of their literacy repertoires, Discussions about the multiple positions they created while using such texts.  In many ways, these activities also served to help us grapple with being both teacher and learner."

Related Source:
Using Pop Culture in Elem School
I am currently teaching summer school in an elementary setting and loved these ideas! It is definitely worth a look and try.

Questions:

1. What is your stance on using popular culture texts in school?
• I think it is important to identify with students and incorporate their personal interests.  However, it needs to be appropriate, not some movie or song lyric that is full of negative sex, drug use, and foul language.  Just because you have a student that watches South Park, doesn't mean you must incorporate it; you can find something that is appropriate and popular among students.
2. What are your concerns about using popular culture texts in school?
• As mentioned above, I don't want to do something that will "get me in trouble."  I don't want to read/watch/listen to anything that glorifies sex, drugs, violence, etc.  
3. How can popular cultural texts support school-based writing?
• Ned and Kevin conversed via email.  In these written emails, Ned shared his interpretations and ideas about a rapper that he admired. “Youth can know more or less what they like about such texts; they frequently know and can articulate why they like what they like" (Alvermann, Hagood, & Williams, 2001).  It is easier for students to express themselves through something that they know and like.
4. Find and link to a  web-based popular culture text you might use to support writing in your teaching context.
• http://www.metrolyrics.com/maths-song-lyrics-one-direction.html
• These are One Direction Lyrics to "Maths Song."
• I would have my students listen to the song, read the lyrics, and determine, "What kind of math, if any is done?"  "What is the purpose of this song?"

Article Reference:

D.E. Alvermann, M.C. Hagood, & K.B. Williams (2001, June). Image, language, and sound: Making meaning with popular culture texts. Reading Online, 4(11). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=/newliteracies/action/alvermann/index.html

Week 8, Activity 2

I am excited for this final Multimodal Learning Adventure Project as last week, I found a great video (I actually found it in EDUC 6816): 

I liked the idea of having a News Cast in our school so much that I wanted to mention having a "NEWS" elective to my principal.  While looking for a learning adventure, I found this: Broadcast Media: Enhancing Literacy Through Student Production.  I am excited about developing an assessment and meeting standards to get the administrators at my school "on board" with this idea.

About this Project:

Students will work together to create a NewsCast that the whole students body will  watch.   I like the idea of having specific roles: camera operators, news directors, news anchors, writers, and researches.  I may have to modify this project because we may not have access to a teleprompter.  I might vary the length, but aim to keep it at five minutes.  I would like the students to rotate roles; this  will give students a chance to experience other position and help "teach each other."

Learning Outcomes:

I teach math and although we could occasionally try and incorporate some sort of math outcome, this project would be part of an elective class. We have an extra period during the day where I help small groups of students with math or students are provided, but I believe that our schedule could be adapted so that those students would get extra help from other math teachers if needed.  What I am trying to say, the outcome wouldn't necessarily be a math outcome, as this would take place in an elective setting. Students could even rotate into this elective class on a 9-week basis.

Several Language Arts WV CSOs could be targeted:

RLA.O.8.2.8
conduct research by gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing data from a variety of sources:

• Internet
• databases for periodicals/newspapers
• interviews
• reference books
• card catalogue
• miscellaneous resource materials

RLA.O.8.2.9

select and use a variety of resource materials to plan, develop, and deliver a research project 

RLA.O.8.3.1

model effective oral communication skills (e.g., tone, volume, rate, audience, etiquette, standard English) through the presentation of

• compositions
• reports
• scripts with documented sources, using multiple computer-generated graphic aids.

RLA.O.8.3.7

plan, create, organize, and present an age-appropriate media product that demonstrates format, purpose, and audience.

RLA.O.8.3.5

perform a variety of roles in group discussions:

• collaboration
• facilitation
• persuasion

How does this address multimodal learning?

This is the perfect example of multimodal.  Students are collaborating, using new technologies, and creating an authentic project.  Students would need to learn how to format the videos, work the cameras, edit the clips through editing software, broadcast the news across the school, have effective sound, report efficiently, research ethically, etc.  Students would develop new and authentic literacies.  

Week 8, Activity 1

After reading my peers' case studies, I made the following generalizations about how young people who live in the Appalachian region use of digital technologies outside of school and the implications for educators:

1. Technology is used and accessed.  I know some still think that majority of young people in the Appalachian do not have access to technologies outside of school.  This is obviously not the case.
2. Social media is at the heart of digital technologies outside of school.  Students enjoy sites like Twitter and Facebook.  They interact with their friends through these sites.  Students are comfortable with the applications within these sites.  
3. Social media is not used in the classroom.  Although social media is the most popular technology outside of school, social media is not present in the classroom.  It seems as though students are not excited by technology in school. 
4. Gaming is more social that solo.  Students are involved with gaming, but it is not the anti-social, sit in the room and play Mario by yourself gaming.  Students can interact with other students through gaming, even if that other person is not in the same room.