Digital Stories in the Classroom

I think that there are many ways that a teacher can incorporate the use of digital stories in a classroom. I actually have some experience with creating a digital story since I has to create one for my Methods teaching class with Kelly Chandler-Olcott. Instead of posting my rough cut of a story, I decided to post this one, which I found on YouTube. I chose this because it is a student telling her family's history through a digital story format. She has music, smooth transitions, and also a real sense of voice throughout the entire video. I spent a good 3 or 4 hours on my digital story - it's a complicated process trying to fit the pictures with the script, reading the script, adding music, and then timing everything so the recording flows over just the right image at the right time. It can be tiresome, but by the time I was done with my video, I was extremely proud of myself - and that feeling only intensified when I showed it to my classmates. Having a personal experience with crafting and sharing a digital story, I can support Richardson (2010) when he quotes Marco Torres by saying that "these videos 'should have wings' and be created for real audiences outside the classroom" (p. 123). The digital story I created required me to reflect on my thinking and learning through my experiences student teaching, and because I knew that it would be viewed by many people, I put a lot of effort into it. I think that this will hold true in a K-12 classroom as well - students don't want to put in a ton of effort if they know that their work is not going to be recognized in any way. Digital stories changes that, because it can be posted and viewed by a huge audience. Incorporating a digital story as a part of the year-long portfolio assignment that many schools enforce is just one way to get students involved. When I was student teaching last semester, I wanted my students to create digital stories at the end of our Outsiders unit, detailing how they were perceived by the world vs. who they really were inside, since it follows one of the many themes in the novel. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to work on this with my students, as I had to leave before we were able to finish the novel. This is just one way to incorporate digital stories into the teaching of literary devices like theme - but it could be used to discuss setting, mood, irony - practically anything!
Like this video does, another way to use digitial stories in the classroom is to introduce and recognize the multiple cultures that may be represented in the classrooms. This girl talks about the history of her family while linking it to Iraq's culture and the country's history. Students could easily do this as well, whether it is used as a community building process within the first couple weeks of school, or as a side project that can be worked on in conjunction with other units. Figg & McCartney (2010) assert that developing 21st-century skills is a function of individuals expressing their own voice using written and oral language, as well as many other electronic formats and media" (pg. 43). Digital stories allow students to have a voice - a voice that someone will be listening to long after the project is finished. Teachers who incorporate opportunities like this for students to work with technology for classroom projects is a way for students to practice their 21st centruy skills in a controlled and purposeful way. It seems that technology and learning can be seamlessly linked.

Podcasts!

I must admit that the idea of podcasts is somewhat foreign to me. I've heard of them, sure, but I've never listened to one, or searched the internet to find information on them. After doing the readings for this week's class, I was very interested in the potential they may have in the classroom, but also in my everyday life. The thought of downloading news to my ipod and listening to it at the gym (even if that does sound dull) has a certain level of appeal. I was raised in a family that watched the news every night on TV, while also reading the newspaper during commercials. The fact that I barely have time to check news updates on the internet during my hectic life makes me feel extremely guilty, but also inspired after hearing of the potential podcasts hold. After perusing around the Internet to find some podcasts that I would actually enjoy listening too, I found that searching them through iTunes was much more helpful. The first one that I found, Literacy 2.0: The New Frontier of Literacy in the Digital Age is hosted by The International Reading Association and Bam Radio, which have partnered to bring the latest insights from the new frontier of literacy in the Digital Age. This podcast discusses the role literacy as it has been affected by the new technological advances. This particular podcast incorporates the role of music as an introduction, and it composed in an interview format. Listening to it, I felt as though I was listening to a regular radio program, similar to NPR. Richardson (2010) warned that some podcasts will be a rough cut of material - with "ums" and "ahs" and pauses that may make the podcast seem less than smooth. This podcast however, incorporates seamless transitions between the interviewer and interviewee, quite possible because it is a very formal publication, as it is backed by the IRA.
In the classroom, one example that I was thinking about is if a student is absent for a few days. If teachers create podcasts of their lessons, or even podcasts of instructions and directions for a lesson or a unit, think of the time that could be saved when that student returned. In my own experience student teaching, I would have at least one student absent from every class, and the extra time and stress it took out to catch that student back up just put me even further behind with everything else. I know that it seems like a lot of work for a teacher at first, to record every single lesson or unit overview, but the days when 5 or 6 kids are absent because of band, or a field trip, it will be a great resource to use. In the same vein, if some students are working faster than others, creating podcasts of material can allow for a teacher to split the class and work with the lower level kids individually, while the more advances students listen to podcasts and work ahead. This follows the advice of Putman & Kingsley (2009), who believe "it is natural that educators, including those who focus on literacy, increasingly seek ways to intergrate various technological innovations, including digital media, into their instruction to reach this new generation of learners" (100-1).  Brilliant!
In addition to this idea, I think that podcasts (this one including) can work as a bridge between teachers and parents. Whether it is the students who are creating the material and talking about important topics, or if it is the teachers who are creating podcasts with the goal of communicating to parents and administrators the year long goals of the classroom, I think that this form of communication has the power to help change education for the better, mostly because everyone will be on the same "page" in terms of what is going on the classroom.

Wiki

The Wiki that I decided to follow for this weeks topic is a Recipes Wiki and it is one of the most comprehensive sites I've ever seen.
On this wiki, I could see evidence of the many characteristics that Richardson (2010) discusses in his chapter. At the top of the screen there is an "Edit" button, so if I felt like there weren't enough vegetarian recipes on here, I could easily add some of my own. There were 4 drop down menus that allowed for browsing the wiki for recipes (by ingredient, by course, or alphabetically), top 10 recipes, other recipe pages, and finally popular pages. There were also quite a few advertisements for shopping and other related businesses that flashed along the side and the bottom of the wiki, which I felt kind of took away from the wiki itself. There is also an option to leave comments on the recipes, and at the bottom of whatever recipe I click on, there is a section titled "categories" so if I want to find other recipes that include cinnamon or vanilla extract, those categories will pop up automatically. Overall, I felt like this was a very comprehensive resource for searching and finding recipes.

In terms of wikis in the classroom, I really enjoyed the Hunt & Hunt (2006) article and its explanation of the dried out research project. I can distinctly remember writing my sources and my quotations on notecards and thinking that this was heartless drudgery in its finest. The authors make a good point when they introduce the multigenre paper being more appealing because it allows for imagination and experience, not just stuffy facts from dusty books and shelves. The benefits of using the Internet as a source for information are outlined, but they also ask a good question - "As literacies expand and change, we have to reevaluate who the experts are. Can we be our own experts, if we get enough help from the outside world?" The assignment that was accidentally created for the students by one of the authors, was very innovative and unconventional. As a student, I would have loved to be an expert and work collaboratively to publish some of my own knowledge on a site like Wikipedia.  Wikis are great for this reason - they allow for anyone with (or sometimes without) knowledge on the topic to post their ideas and information.

One example that really emphasized this idea comes from the chapter in Richardson (2010), where news was posted on Wikipedia amazingly fast after the Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004. I thought to myself that the people posting may actually have more reliable information than a news station that was broadcasting the event. In a fairly short amount of time, the entry on the earthquake was edited a ridiculously high number of times, and the information was in fact accurate. Thousands of people worked together to create an accurate account of the event, each editing and posting until they entry reached a desired level of accuracy. This example proves that "everyone together is smarter than anyone alone" (Richardson, 2010, p. 57). At the same time, I think that students would most definitely be more invested in their work because they would know that it was going to be published, and also read by a large audience. If I could incorporate this kind of "writing for the real world" in my classroom, I would.

Despite these potential benefits and uses I could understand some of the frustrations that were voiced in the Wheeler, Yeomens & Wheeler (2008) article. If I did have my students perform research in the vein of potentially posting it to a wiki, I can anticipate that some students will resist because they will want to keep ownership of the material. Making the decision to post their hard work on the web is, at the same time agreeing to let it be edited by others, deleted, added to, and altered in a many other ways. It will also be a nameless entry, which some students may not agree with. I think that in this case however, the benefits definitely outweigh the pitfalls.

Taylor Mali, teacher and slam poet, gives his mind on what teachers make. It's great, I watch it sometimes to cheer me up when I'm feeling super stressed about school. Enjoy!

Social Scholarship

Drawing from all of the readings for this week's topic, I learned quite a bit. It is easy to believe what Alverman asserts when stating, "adolescent literacy is linked to social practices that involve reading and writing as well as other modes of communication in which young people engage" (8). In other words, adolescent literature is a lot more than it ever used to be. What students are exposed to growing up, and the technology they have access to is vastly different from what I grew up with. As a result, educators may find it difficult to harness these technologies and use them in their classroom and yet if we want our students to succeed, it is imperative to solve this problem. Furthermore, many teachers don't realize the potential for incorporating these technologies, which is unfortunate in that technology is here to stay, and it is only going to become more advanced as time goes on. Part of this resistance stems from the prejudice that students who seem incapable in the classroom are hopeless cases. However, based on the findings in both the articles and the chapters, many students are exhibiting that they care literate in other ways - specifically while using technology. They are "remixing" content they locate on the Internet via blogs, social networking sites, and affinity spaces. The skills needed to do this successfully aren't necessarily ones learned in the classroom, however students are using writing in the "literal sense"as part of the design process for any number of things they create on the Internet.
 Another point made is that the literacies found in school vary greatly from the ones that can be found outside of school. I think of this as "old school"  vs. "new school" however if a teacher can find ways to effectively link the two, students may actually begin to appreciate the "old school" literacies more. As I mentioned before, many teachers do not want to embrace this change in the way a lesson will be run, they do not want to deviate from the standard pencil, paper, and book. To a certain extent, I understand and appreciate this, but the research speaks for itself and if teachers refuse to make positive changes, students will fall further and further behind. The linking of social (new literacy) and scholarship (old literacy) is a perfect example of how this can happen in the classroom. Greenhow outlines a couple of brilliant technologies, such as Diigo and Delicious and explains how they incorporate both literacies. Diigo is very interesting to me because I think that it would be a wonderful service for students to use when writing a research paper. Every high school student needs to know how to write a research paper before they reach college and Diigo makes it a lot easier to find scholarly resources without necessarily using a library. The characteristic that makes Diigo a combination of both literacies, is the potential for collaboration. Students can be linked up with other students from the other side of the country who may also have bookmarked some sources on the same subject. I feel like this is a truly wonderful feature, and one that students would appreciate as well.
Richardson takes the idea of social bookmarking and expands in a bit more in chapter 6 when he says that by using social bookmarking sites to tag content and make annotations, we (the whole world) is slowly working towards fitting the vast content of the web together. In other words, by using sites like Flickr, Diigo, and Weblogs, we are making it easier to locate and find specific content, therfore making Google look just as bad as the commercials for Bing portray it as. Typing any phrase into Google is pretty much hit or miss - either Google understood what you were looking for or it didn't. However, with bookmarking sites, locating the specific information we want can be as easy as hitting the keyboard. I think that this is wicked smart, and can also hold a lot of use in the classroom. Students need to learn how to sift through appropriate information on the web, and this is a good way of showing them how it can be done. Furthermore, as a teacher, the possibility to be able to share content and lesson plans via a site like Diigo, is amazing. Being able to search specific content and link up with other teachers who may have more experience than I do, or may have some great ideas to share, will not only make me a better teacher, but it will also get me online experiencing the kinds of technologies that my students are. Who knows, maybe then we will have something in common.

Social Media

I thought that this was an interesting take on the way social media is affecting our lives.

Blog Response

Based on the readings about blogs for this week, and my own research after exploring on the Internet, I feel that they have great potential in an educational setting. There were a variety of points made across the research, and one that I view extremely promising is the room for collaboration that is built into the format and main purpose of a blog. As Richardson points out, “Weblogs truly expand the walls of the classroom. the internet has always provided the possibility of connection students with others outside the classroom via e-mail and chat groups. But now that collaboration can be much more accessible and much more diverse…and learning to work with far-flung collaboratos is becoming an important literacy” (27).  In my own classroom, peer editing would no longer have to be in pairs, or in groups, or even be done IN class – students could post and comment on their peers’ writing. In addition, classmates can easily contribute their own ideas, thinking, and critiques with their classmates and their teacher. This way, students will help build each other’s education while learning how to effectively collaborate, a tool that will serve them well long after they leave my classroom. The great part about learning to collaborate using the blog, is that most students will be in familiar territory – on the Internet typing away. I think Blogs can create a viable way to bridge the gap between out-of-school literacies and in-school ones.

This bridge can be seen in one blog that I came across in my exploring. The blog is called “Write Out Loud” (http://writeoutloud.edublogs.org/) and serves as a host for a 7^th grade ELA classroom. The class has just begun reading The Outsiders and the teacher has posted a video of Stevie Wonder singing “Stay Gold” as well as several prompts for multiple writing assignments the students need to answer via post. Upon further investigation of the posts that students left, I found that students left very thoughtful, honest, and somewhat lengthy responses to the questions posed by the teacher. In addition to these assignments there are also comments of support to one another from student to student either in response to a post, or just in general. I found this to be interesting, that students would mix some of their school work collaboration with their personal lives. Overall, I found this to be a great example of a successful blog.

Another great point about blogs, made by Johnson (2010) discusses the role of blogs in introducing students to authors, perhaps at the beginning of a novel unit. My personal experience with students at the beginning of a novel unit is that they could care less about the person who wrote the book they are about to read. Many students come in with misconceptions that no matter who wrote it, the book will be boring, terrible, heartless drudgery, etc. However, as Johnson points out, blogs can help bring the authors into the classroom in a way that grabs students and forces them (quite pleasantly) to understand that authors have personalities and ideas and rationales for writing what they did, when they did. In this respect I could easily see a blog being useful in my classroom. Posting links to podcasts that the author has created, incorporating a back and forth correspondence with the author (if possible), utilizing videos and graphics are all great ways to get students engaged and interested. As a teacher, I will be attempting to “speak their language” while also staying true to my own lesson plans and my own piece of mind.