Week 13- Supporting your own learning

Readings:
Johnson Chapter 10: What about literacy 3.0? Continuing Professional Development
BARB Chapter 12: Professional Development for Teachers

and we don't have to post anything about it!!!

Designing Multimodal Texts

Ladies, I hope this doesn’t overwhelm you but BARB had lots to discuss this week. Happy reading J

In the BARB reading this week, chapter 8, we all had the chance to read different ways of understanding and creating multimodal digital texts, which were elaborated on using three major components, namely images, audio and video. However, I will elaborate only on the “images” section which talked about a variety of digital tools that students and teachers alike can use to access, create, display and analyze images.  For accessing images students can use image repository sites like Yahoo Flicker can locate different images using “folksonomy,” which is the tagging of a photo online so it can be easily found. I bet you didn’t know that was the word for “tagging pictures?” I sure didn’tJ.

What are some teacher folksonomies that you know about and on what sites do you use them?  Maybe we can all get some ideas for our classrooms or lessons. For example I like #teachersofthegram on Instagram and the tag “teacherstuff on Pinterest.

Also discussed was the use of different image creation tools like Adobe PhotoExpress as well as different ways for students to share their photos. For example, through photologs like Fotolog, Photoblogs and TextAmerica. Uploading photos to these kinds of sites is known as “moblogging.” Who knew?! It also mentioned that students could compose multimodal texts through images using Instagram, Snapchat, which are two photo sharing tools. Also, Voice Thread and Marqueed which allows users to add voice comments to pictures. ThingLink for adding links within images and Glogster, which allows students to collect and comb visual images to create Glogs. In addition to Haiku Desk, Comics Creation Tools like Comic Life for Man and Windows http://plasq.com/education/take-comic-life-to-school/ , and Drawing and painting images with apps like Sketchbook and Doddle Buddy are great resources for students to use when composing multimedia texts through images. It was also noted that students should respond to images using the critical response protocol as well as the importance of copyrighted images. BARB noted that “students need to be aware of “fair use” provisions of the copyright law that allows for uses of copyrighted images for educational purposes associated with transforming an image for purpose of critical analysis, parody, or remix. To learn more about this you all can check out the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use For Media Literacy Education.

Chapter nine of BARB focused more on understanding and creating digital texts for an audience. It noted that students should first “consider how use of different formats or designs serves to communicate different meaning to audiences.”  I think this is very important because all images, covey a certain message and it is important for students to first analyze and understand what they mean. Students should also have the opportunity to analyze the design of documents to learn how to design and edit their own digital texts. When presenting their digital texts students can use presentation tools like Power Point, which I love, Keynote, Google Slides and Prezi. Students who know how to create effective presentations can utilize print, images, charts, graphs, images, audio or video clips and websites. I think it is important for teachers to teach students how to create effective presentations as it helps to

I think that all students can engage in creating effective presentations. Have you ever engaged your students in creating group or individual presentations? What did it entail?

Bridget Dalton in her article DIY E-Books Designing Enhanced E-Texts along with BARB (9), discussed the creating of E-books. Dalton noted that “The 21st century teacher is a DIYer who takes advantage of digital tools and social media,” Which is a statement I totally agree with as she went on to discuss the free DIY e- book–making tool, the UDL Book Builder. She noted that the book making tool allows the user/author “to embed multimedia supports for fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension within the digital text.” After reading this article I think it would be a great, fun and easy way for students to create their own multimodal texts. This tool can be used by all types of students as there are many features that can be used to support their individual needs. For example, the read aloud tool, Text-to-Speech (TTS) which can be used to support reading online or the Audio-Recorded Narration which gives students the opportunity to record their own voices on each text screen. With this e-book builder they can also create multimedia glossaries to build vocabulary and language where they can use hyperlinks or the mouse over technique. This book builder allows students to create their own e-books, as it supports students’ interest and allows them to be super engaged with the many options it provides.

BARB notes that e-books allows students to add links, images, videos and or presentations and they too can self-publish (to sell) them through Amazon Kindle, the Apple Store, or Smash Books. If students were interested in sharing their writings online through another means, BARB mentioned the use of FanFiction.net, Figment, and Wattpad. They could also use Joomag, Scoop-it, UniFlip, OpenZine, Calameo and Themeeefy to create magazines or create online newspapers or newsletters by using word processing tools, blogs or Printing Press.

 BARB also indicated that students should learn to code, create apps, and ensure that their digital designs have readability. In addition, students should engage in using digital tools that help with the editing, of which include grammar and spell-checkers like Word and AbiWord. Word Clouds, like Wordle (Tabitha made one of these for our group-which was really nice) and Tegxedo can also be used to identify the repetition of certain words. Students should also know how to cite or reference the work they may use that belong to someone else, they should know how to use the different types of reference styles like APA and MLA and they should also know how to use citation software such as Bibme, Easybib, Write-and-cit and Citation Machine which give students the upper hand on easily creating and saving their own references for future use. Last, the one thing that all students must remember when designing and editing digital texts for an audience is plagiarism. If work is taken from another source students should do the right thing and cite its origin.

Do you use any of these sites in your classroom? If you do, which ones and why? If you do not, would you consider using any in your classroom and why?

Moving on to Dalton’s second article, Level Up With Multimodal Composition In Social Studies, defined the phrase “level up” as the “means to improve, or more precisely, to increase one’s stature in life or performance at a particular task.” While reading this article felt as if the author was giving us the inside scoop on what we should do or what should occur when our students begin to create their own e-books, and in this case it was during a social studies lesson. However, I do believe these steps can be adopted for all subjects.

Consequently, this is what I gathered from the article. Before students begin creating their books, teachers should engage the entire class in creating one multimodal text. As Dalton says, “This was [is] important to developing students’ identities as multimodal composers and to begin conversations about design.” When this is done it is easier for students to then work in groups. During this time students can be shown different designs, and other tools for example the audio narration tool, to enhance their projects. After students have had the opportunity to view modeled behavior they can be placed in guided multimodal composition groups. When students work with teachers and peers they learn from each other. In addition, when students get the hang of what they are to do they can also assist their classmates and this was referred to as the Cascading Expert Model and/or Jus-in-Time Help. Creating multimodal texts encourages students to be creative, work collaboratively and gives them the chance to use many apps and tools thus increasing their digital literacy skills.

In what subjects do you implement multimodal activities in your classroom? How do you (or how would you) implement them and what are some examples?

Here's the Wordly that Tabitha made for us. 

 

Multimodal Texts- Part 2

The reading Multimodal Scaffolding in the Secondary English Classroom Curriculum focused on ways to use multimodal presentations of information to support and scaffold concepts that are being taught to students. Using multimodal text is an excellent way to help students develop a deeper understanding as displayed and explained in Bloom’s taxonomy design.

Reflecting on what you know about multimodal text at this point in the course where do you think you are with it on Blooms chart?

I think I am still floundering between analyzing and evaluating… Better get prepared to create soon though!

I have been researching critical literacy for the iBook and found this article to have a

lot of great examples of how to link multimodal learning into critical literacy. I especially like the example of making connections between the character they were learning about in the Life of PI to a current event in the news by using a media clip and then using an online graphic organizer to compare and contrast the characters.

What are some examples of ways you would use scaffolding and multimodal texts to create a lesson for your class?

Multimodal Texts

This week we will be doing something a little different in terms of how our upload will be. As a result of having only three of us in the group now, the leader schedule had to change. Tabitha and I have both decided to be co-leaders with this week’s post. Consequently, I will be uploading my thoughts and questions on the Blinded manuscript and Tabitha will be uploading her thoughts and questions on the Boche document. Next week, I will be the leader as was decided in the first schedule.

Moving on, this week we will be discussing multimodal texts and multimodal texts as it pertains to literacy and video gaming. IRA The Reading Teacher , Reading Games: Close Playing with Multimodal Texts discussed how “literacy strategies can be adapted for “reading” and playing video games—games that embed disciplinary content in multimedia texts.”  I found myself thinking about video game usage in the classroom and thought about how I never really used video games in the classroom as a form of learning but have incorporated multimodal texts. Through the use of the computer I showed videos that had great sound and some had captions and clickable words. Students were really engaged and enjoyed viewing them.

Do you use multimodal texts with your students? If so what have you used and how has it helped your students?

In this article different forms virtual and digital games were mentioned. The different categories these games could fall in could be fantasy, role-play, and simulation environment games and they can be played with numerous players at a time. As the article says, “Within these “synthetic” worlds, children engage in a variety of economic, social, and cultural activities relevant to the physical world.” As a result of games having different aspects or features like sound, words, pictures, and moving parts they can then be considered multimodal texts and I think can be very beneficial if they are used correctly.

Have you or do you use games in your classroom? If so, what do you use them for and how have your students responded to them?

Another thing to consider is that a game can be made up of a number of features and can engage students in online participatory culture. However, when playing these games students may not always want to learn the game by reading the instructions thus demising their learning opportunities as IRA pointed out. Do you agree?

Have you or your students ever done this? Why do you think we “jump the gun” when learning new games?

I have discovered through this reading that it is important that the games used in the classroom have matching goals and curricular concepts as well. With this done literacy content can be taught using games and then they cannot be considered “non-academic.” In addition, students can engage in close reading as these games can be seen a “texts” and close viewing through a screen walk done by the teacher, which is the equivalent of a book walk, just in a digital form.

What are your thoughts on implementing games in the classroom setting?

Assessments

This week we read about assessments, in light of the digital age in which we live.  Assessments is a topic that has fueled many debates in the United States.  There are a variety of opinions on how, what, and when to assess students.  As far as I have seen, there has been very little common ground that allows different perspectives a place to be heard.  Perhaps the use of formative and summative response is a place where people can find some commonality in this technology driven age.

I think it is important to note that formative response and summative response, though different, aren’t mutually exclusive.  Both have a proper time and place in education.  After reading about formative response, it is assessment for learning that utilizes the social practices and is metacognitive by design.  I enjoyed the “Think, Write, Share” strategy the authors shared to help students through this process.  Do you have any ideas that could aid students in metacognition concerning written response?

Formative response assessments can also be used to promote self-assessment by students.  This is similar to what Dr. Beach had us do when responding to her blog this week.  We evaluated how we felt we were doing in the implementation of the six social practices. We had to vocalize our thinking. Here is an example of a group of assignments one teacher made involving the social practices.  Check it out: http://youthvoices.net/grid .  This website is full of templates to help guide these types of assessments. I also thought figure 10.1 was quite helpful to explain A Taxonomy of Reflection.

BABR talked about two kids of formative responses: static and dynamic.  Static electronic feedback include intertextual commentary.  When I began working on my masters program, I had a professor that used this type of formative response.  The professor looked line-by-line making edits to texts of rough drafts.  This was done in MS Word. Then there were marginal and end commentary.  I found this type of response to be a bit more helpful than line-by-line.  The professor could comment about wording or the point being made.  Some of these responses are predetermined and just a quick fill in for a specific type of error.   Have you ever been a part of this type of assessment? Do you think this could be an effective assessment?  Why or why not?

Dynamic formative response involves more interaction between the writer and reader.  One example of this is oral response.  There are many tools available to make this possible.  VoiceThread, Kaizena, Pirate Pad, etc.  Screencasting is an interesting tool that is fairly new to me.  This is a method of annotating, but it can be done with recorded video comments.  I teach second grade and haven’t had the opportunity to explore this tool.  Have you all explored screencasting?  What do you think? How do you think we should go about teaching students the appropriate ways to respond to peers in this setting?

Another thing mentioned regarding assessments was the use of rubrics.  Most teachers or soon to be teachers have used this tool or participated in its use.  Rubrics usually lead up to a summative assessment.  It can be based off of specific skills specified by standards or those agreed upon by students and teachers in collaboration.  What do you think the difference is between holistic rubrics and analytic rubrics? Rubistar is a great tool for teachers to create rubrics.  Have you all used this before?

Rubrics can have both positives and negatives.  Another type of summative assessment is dynamic criteria mapping.  This is assessment that is based off of student work (inductive) not broad dictated goals.  I view this as a type of individualized education plan.  The assessment is specific to the student and the opportunities or challenges that a particular student may face.   I could see this as a very complex process that requires a bunch of time.  It also seems a bit subjective to me.  Do you think this type of summative assessment has a place in the primary classroom?

The chapters and articles were full of information about assessments.  What were your favorite?  How do you see yourself applying them in the future as an educator?

Week 9- Writing in Digital Spaces

This week's readings:

Johnson: Chapter 7- Writing Online pages 99-118
BABR: Chapter 7- Co-constructing Knowledge Through Collaborative Writing pages 135-161
Yim: Cloud-Based Collaborative Writing and the Common Core Standards
Guzetti: "Nomadic Knowledge" Men Writing Zines for Content Learning
ILA: Sharing Student Writing With the World

So rather than review each of the readings I have decided that I would define some of the key words Dr. Beach discussed on her blog and make connections to digital writing.. I knew of some of these but not many. The readings this week were full of applications to be used in digital writing. All of the terms she asked about relate back to digital writing in one-way or another.

Zine- it is a small self-published form of writing. I remember learning about these when I was younger through the exploration of penny dreadfuls! Many of our students are into this kind of literacy because it is known for being fan fiction. An example of this would be pottermore online where people post digital writings of alternative Harry Potter stories or extensions. I read these myself; I’m a zine reader! Who knew!

Do you guys read fan fiction or use it in your classrooms?

I would think it would be a great way especially in older grades to get students excited about literacy.

Vlog- I was happy that I figured this one out on my own. It is a video log or journal of the happenings in one’s life. I myself only have one connection to make with it and it is from the show TrueBlood. After each episode you could get online and watch a vlog of one of the characters. It was a way of keeping it going. I could see this being fun for students during a book study or author study. The teacher or students could take turn doing a vlog of each chapter reflecting on what happened.

Digital story- I think we all know what a digital story is and I believe Cathy has commented before that she has made them with her students. I just really wanted to point out a tool they discussed in johnsons reading about ZooBurst (www.zooburst.com). You can get an account for free and create 3D pop-up books that are interactive! You can use it on the iPad too.

Digital anchor charts-

Cathy- you have mentioned before that you use Evernote, a digital anchor chart. Do your students prefer this to traditional anchor charts?

Mentor texts- The readings discussed that you should always model and use good mentor texts in both traditional and digital writing. Ralph Fletcher stated: “I think mentor texts are any texts that you can learn from. And every writer, no matter how skilled you are or how beginning you are, encounters and reads something that can lift and inform and infuse their own writing.”

What are your typical mentor text go-to examples that you use? Can you think of a way to convert them into digital formats?

Cloud computing- Is just a storage device of digital texts or anything else you keep on the computer. I use icloud for my personal things, but prefer DROPBOX for my professional things so that I can easily share with others.

What do you guys use for professional storage?

Purpose- While we all know what purpose is in relation to any form of writing I think it is important to remember to be mindful in sharing this idea with our students.

For what kind of activity do you think it would be better to have students collaborate on a wiki and for what kind should they collaborate on a blog?  Why?

Which of these ideas that you read about would you like to try with students? which have your tried?

I think that whether or not to use a blog or wiki depends on the goal you are trying to achieve and the class of students you have. Here is a table that explains how they differ.

Wiki vs. Blog

Wiki	Blog
Multiple Authors	Usually a single author. Sometimes can have multiple contributors
Pages ·       Edited ·       Changed ·       Added	Chronological Content ·       Posts/Entries ·       Comments on Posts ·       Responses to Comments
Edited by a group or team	Author posts, user comments
Knowledge Sharing	Opinion Sharing
Links to other Wiki pages	Links to outside
Grows rapidly, at all hours of the day	Grows slowly, one post at a time
Articles constantly change and are continuously updated	Each post becomes stale over time
Discussions can take place on pages or in the discussion forum	Discussions take place in the comments of a post, typically approved by blogger.
Many-to-many communication	One-to-many content

New Literacies- creativity 

I couldn't find much on creativity because it is so intertwined into all the domains of new literacies. let me know if you find any else in wiki about it!

Look up your topic or look up New Literacies on Wikipedia.  What did you find?  How accurate was it? How  do you know?