My Project

Writing down all of the things I learned during this project could take a whole book. In the spirit of brevity, I'll summarize:

1. Technology is a great way to engage students. Considering that kids choose to spend @6 hours on line in their free time, the Internet hold obvious relevance to them, and therefore unlimited potential for ELA classrooms.
2. If kids are engaged in learning - and they were with this project! - their behavior, interest, and focus improve. The kids I worked with were typically self-professed low academic performers who said that ELA teachers talk too much and that writing is boring. Interestingly, they were able to focus for long periods of time during our small group sessions and asked me to stay past the 1-2 hours I spent at the club. They also want to continue working on the website (which isn't finished yet) and have created a bunch of potential projects using the video cam, blogs, etc.
3. Creating a website is text-dense; there is a lot of writing involved. Just making captions for a slide show on the site took 2 hours! If you want to get kids excited about writing, this is the project for you.
4. It's better to create websites with their own URL, even if it takes more time to figure out. I had 2 versions of the site, the first done in free webs, the second with its own domain name. I found the construction of the second a little intimidating, but it gave me more options, and using office live (Microsoft's website editing package) was relatively easy once I got the hang of it. I wish I would have done this to begin with.
5. Small groups work! Instead of lecturing, I gave some tasks, talked with kids about how they wanted to achieve them, and then basically stood back and watched. The decentralization of authority (I was no longer the knowledge giver) had a profound effect on our relationship - we developed a great mutual respect for one another.
6. I learned all about video editing on the PC, USB streaming,editing URL websites, creating Cd's and uploading videos, (I burned my first DVD and CD!) and much, much more. Finally I know how to make videos from my video cam, and plan to make one of a family celebration I just attended in Indiana as Christmas presents to family; my cousin came back after a 3 year stint in Africa, and it will be a great memoir for all of us after he goes back). These are invaluable skills, both professionally and personally.

In the future, I would love to have a professional teacher critique what I did in the small groups and comment on the management style. I'd love to try it out in a classroom. I would definitely make an effort to make a quieter environment; the kids really couldn't focus with all of the noise in the lab I worked in. I would consider age appropriate tasks; the text editing group work was way over the heads of the 8th grade girls I worked with. I also would have spent less time taking videos/pictures for the site and more time creating/editing text. Overall, I needed more time to do this right - that is, to make it more of the kids' project and less my own.

The kids and I will continue to work on this project and our little technology group has been a vortex of student interest; practically all of the club members want to get involved because it is FUN. All I can say is that I need a few more of me to do this, but I'm excited to work with these wonderful young people. Kudos to Prof's Reid and Stearns for generating a true learning experience in 506!

Why do we need to teach books?

I spent a lot of time reading Alex's thoughts on "why teach literature per books?" Sure, digital technology is a literacy, but it is only ONE kind of literacy in a broad world of many, including classic works of literature.

What's wrong with embracing the literary antiquity of books? Books are a connection to our ancestors; they give us a perspective of where we are and where we've come from. Openning a book may be irrelevant but it is a ritual, (much like body piercing) through which we get in touch with our archeypal roots. I'd like to thinks that history and heritage of printed text is important, even if it may not occupy the dominate place in ELA classrooms.

Plus, absorbing information digitally makes one's eyes bloodshot.

Digital Girls Site

Enjoyed this quote from the Digital Girls Site:

"....Conversely, girls’ computer play, on and off the Internet, is often seen as reproducing established gender stereotypes of fashion doll play, shopping, chatting and providing girls with knowledge of no apparent value"

If we're advocating for a new literacy, perhaps we should take these interests and use them in the ELA classroom? I wonder what that'd look like...

Virtual Learning

Michigan leads the charge in state initiatives to increase virtual learning. Since Michigan is one of my favorite states in the world (our family has a cabin on lake superior!), I was interested to read that Michigan now REQUIRES high school students to take at least 1 online course in order to graduate. Alex's prophecy is coming to pass (see his video commentary alternative learning formats at Cortland's iTunes University.)

Teaching writer's Craft

One of our cohorts in English 504/505 had a knockout presentation on teaching writer's craft which is summed up on a blog. It's an excellent example of how blogs can be used to share teaching techniques with collegues in an engaging way, and gives alot of excellent online resources for poetry. Definitely worth the visit.
http://steven-writerscraft.blogspot.com

Student "Multitasking" in the 3.0 Classroom

For those of you who work in computer labs with internet access, you may notice the phenomena of students using class time to surf the web for items of personal interest or games (linerider and solitare are both popular). This can be pretty annoying if they don't seem to be getting work done.

If digital natives are multitaskers who do many things at the same time, maybe some learning is still taking place even though they don't appear to be paying attention. When I was in High School, I was always drawing during math class. It helped me think. In the middle of a particularily elaborate design, the teacher would try to ambush my artistic endeavors by asking me a question about some pesky algebraeic formula thinking he'd stump me. I always had the answer.

In my project, I'm finding that kids who play online music or surfing while we discuss the web project are still tuned in and seem more relaxed about contributing. I found it to be true in my observation as well,for example: A student visiting a guitar site was simultaneously getting some interesting writing done on a project about urban legends.

Maybe I need to learn to relax a little and let them doodle.

Too Late to Ask Profound Questions

I have a lot of pressing questions. What is the meaning of life? Why is the sky blue? And perhaps the most pressing question of the day: how in the name of Macintosh do you post images to the wikki from AOL? Having asked wiki questions before, I know (now that google isn't answering )I may never resolve these critical issues.

I broke my 6 year news fast this week by subscribing to the illustrius Press and Sun Bulletin. Just in time to get this earth shattering news: Google created a fee for service business venture called "Google Answers" that answered important questions for a fee, and then shut it down. Google Answers "charged a fee from $2 - $200 to chase down the answers to minutiae like 'How many tyrannosaurs are in a gallon of gasoline?'" Wow. Now THAT's profound.

Guess I'll have to come up with better questions. Like if this tornado carries me into the bizarre land of flat world business ventures, how do I ever get out? Because somehow, "real time" businesses seem so much more inviting. Businesses you can put your hands on, like the rubber chicken industry...